The Definitive Country Almanac: The Homeworld Assembly — Part 2#

Kethra Almanac • Approved 19 September 2026 • drafted 18 September 2026 • Sections 5–8 (Sections 1–4 are in Part 1)

Status: approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision). Where this file calls something a proposal, read it as approved, except the open points that decision lists.

Status before approval: proposal throughout, except what Part 1 lists as established in earlier files.

Section 5: Government, Law & Politics#

Constitutional Framework#

The Charter of Aletheia (2150)#

What the Charter does not say. It has no article against war between members, no article on requisition, and no definition of a state. Every crisis of the Assembly's history has fallen into one of those silences.

The three Assembly Accords#

The Organs#

The Floor#

• One delegation per member (Chapter II): fifteen desks in the Round. The two associates sit at the rim and vote on space affairs; the Rovessa observer sits by the door and does not vote.
• Weighted majority (Chapter II): the weights are in Part 1. The Imperium and the Crown hold a quarter each, and half between them.
• Unanimity for the Accords (Chapter II). No Accord has been amended since 2163, because unanimity means the Imperium, the Crown and Ilyr all agreeing, and they have not.
• Deferral. A motion the Floor will not pass and will not reject is deferred to the next sitting. The Coalition's request for a full seat has been deferred 163 times.

The Accord Council#

The Council "guards the three Assembly Accords" (Chapter II): it directs the Inspectorate, hears the Tribunals' appeals, and may act between sittings. It is the only Assembly body the Imperium takes seriously, because it sits there permanently.

The Speaker#

"Elected for six years. Presides, represents the planet, and has no army." (Chapter II.) The small-state convention (2156) keeps the chair out of the great powers' hands. Reva Galbraith of Merrin was elected in 2312 by the Seven, the coast, the Line and the Holds against a Crown-backed Arvennese candidate; the Imperium abstained, as it has in every Speaker's election since 2292.

The Accord Inspectorate#

"Inspects frame factories, heavy broadcasters and gene clinics. It is the Assembly's most hated and most necessary body." (Chapter II.) About 2,600 inspectors in three arms, under Chief Inspector Bettina Okonkwo. Its Register holds every licensed link-socket on Kethra by its Accord registration number (Chapter II). Its inspectors "check any cargo that might contain frame parts, sockets or broadcasting gear" (Chapter VI). It answers to the Council, and it has entered Imperial factories, Crown yards and Ilyr clinics without leave since 2154, and been refused twice.

The Requisition Bill and the Assembly's split#

The register gives the Assembly's split as "survival advocates accept costly foreign help; constitutionalists fear the price", and its fear as "occupation or emergency powers becoming permanent military government". In 2314 both are one question.

The arithmetic. The Crown holds 25%. With Arvenne, Cordale and Hastholm it has 34%. It needs the Imperium, or the Holds together with the coast, and the Holds will not give it. The Assembly's emergency powers therefore depend on the vote of the power the Assembly was built to inspect. The Bill has been deferred twice, and will come back in Blaze, with a new Warden-General to argue it.

The Judiciary#

• The Accord Tribunals: "Assembly courts for breaches of the Accords. They sit in Aletheia and are staffed from member states." (Chapter II.) Three courts, one for each Accord; appeal to the Accord Council.
• The Assembly convicts; the member punishes. The Assembly has no prisons. A convicted Accord criminal is handed to the member state where the crime was done, which punishes under its own law: the Imperium executes "for treason and Accord crimes" (the Vardane almanac); the Crown, which has no execution, imprisons for life. Under Chapter V, the builders of autonomous weapons "are shunned for life, even after punishment", in every member state.
• Notable cases: the Sethe drones (2171): armed mining drones are frames without a hand, and so is a turret. The Marrach broadcaster (2205): the Quiet Sky's power limit applies to a transmitter's aim, not only its power. The Serell socket ring (2262): 214 convictions for black sockets, the largest Tribunal ever sat. The Corridor War cases (2279–2291): both sides' frames inspected at the front, and no conviction, "the war was fought within the Accords", which is the Assembly's only boast about it.
• What the Tribunals cannot hear: anything that is not an Accord. Not the Taking of Hearthport, not the Bond, not Ingle, not the Arrears. The League's Lamp Letter is tabled every year because there is no court in the Precinct with the power to open it.

Foreign Relations & Defence#

Standing#

The Assembly has no foreign relations; it has members, associates, an observer, and the people it will not seat.

Relations#

The Homeguard and Coalition rows follow the relationship register, in both directions.

Defence: Homeguard Command#

Homeguard has its own almanac: the Homeguard Command almanac.

Homeguard's budget: about Cr 14 billion a year from the Assembly, plus what the members spend on the contingents they lend.

Doctrine. The Accords first, the members second, the Assembly never. Homeguard's mandate is "planetary defence and enforcing the Accords" (Chapter II); it guards the Precinct, escorts the Monitors and the Commission, and watches the sky. It does not fight the members' wars: it stood aside in the Corridor War and did nothing at Hearthport, and its Warden-Generals have argued ever since about whether that was the Charter's wisdom or its shame. "Planetary defence" has meant, for 164 years, the Quiet Sky and the debris; the Warden-General's standing order for anything else is a single sealed page in the Charter Hall, opened by no one.

Section 6: Economy, Infrastructure & Industry#

Macroeconomics#

The Assembly has no economy. It has a budget, a clearing house and a fund.

Working. 14 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 0.5 + 5.5 = 38. The Imperium and the Crown pay Cr 9.5 billion each; the Seven Cr 6.3 billion between them; the Holds Cr 6.0 billion, a third of it in grain to the rescue fund's granaries; the coast Cr 3 billion; Ilyr Cr 2 billion; the Line Cr 1.7 billion.

The Assembly Clearing House#

"The Assembly Clearing House settles trade between the member states" (Chapter VI), in crowns (the Crown almanac). It clears about Cr 3.1 trillion a year of trade between members and associates, for a fee of a twentieth of one per cent, which pays for it. The Imperium is "a reluctant member" and quotes its marks against phosphate as well as crowns (the Vardane almanac). The Clearing House keeps the text of the fuel clauses and the Armistice (the Kronos and Vardane almanacs), because it is the only Assembly body every member trusts with a number.

The Fuel Monitors#

About 400 monitors and inspectors at Demeter, Hearthport and Saltline. They certify about 45 tonnes of helium-3 a year (the Kronos colony almanac), watch the phosphate deliveries and the corridors under the Armistice Commission (the Line almanac), and ride Vesper's tenders (the Vesper almanac). They have "no mandate over people" (the Kronos colony almanac). Every Fuel Monitor's certificate carries the Assembly seal, and the Crown's lights depend on the paper.

Infrastructure#

Communications#

• The Assembly Record: every word said on the Floor, published the next morning. The dullest document on Kethra, and the most quoted.
• Seven hours. The Coalition votes by string (Chapter VI): a belt vote cast at Cinder Hollow reaches the Round the next day, and the Round has learned to wait.
• The Unmapping (3 Thaw): the one day the Assembly channel carries nothing (Chapter V).

Section 7: Culture, Arts & Daily Life#

Holidays & Celebrations#

Culinary Traditions#

The Precinct has fifteen kitchens on Legation Row, and the clerks eat their way round them in rotation. The Charter Dinner on Assembly Day serves one dish from every member, in order of accession, and ends with Holds grain-bread, which was not on the table until 2290.

Arts & Literature#

• The Round's dome is painted with the night sky as seen from Landfall on the first night: every star, and no Earth among them.
• The Record (daily), and the Floor's rhetoric, which is Hallspeech at its most careful (Chapter IV).
• Literature:
  • The Sentinel Field (2160): Ansel Harrow's account of the Iron Winter's end;
  • The Assembly Accords with Commentary, the Accord Inspectorate's edition (the Crown almanac), in its ninth;
  • Eleven Attempts (2288): Speaker Matteo Ibsen's memoir of the war;
  • The Long Knock (2291): the Holds' account of 140 years of asking;
  • The Empty Chairs (2303): a play about the war years, performed on the Floor itself in 2310, with the Imperial delegation present and not applauding.

Sports & Recreation#

The Assembly Games, every four years since 2152, hosted in turn by the members (the Crown almanac). The Crown has topped the medal table 9 times out of 41 and the Imperium is second all-time (the Crown and Vardane almanacs); competing separately, the Seven together outscore the Crown (the Lesser Crowns almanac); Ilyr wins in swimming and the mind sports (the Ilyr almanac); Upwellers win the long jump and are accused of gravity-cheating (the Vesper almanac). The Imperium boycotted the Games of 2280–2288 (the Vardane almanac). The Coalition has asked for low-gravity events in orbit since 2152 and been refused every time (the Coalition almanac): the Games' one standing grievance.

Social Norms & Etiquette#

• Defer, don't refuse. On the Floor nothing is rejected; it is deferred. To force a vote is an act of hostility.
• The Door ends the argument. "That's the Door" means the Quiet Sky is touched, and the subject is closed.
• Precedence by accession. Legation Row, the Charter Dinner and the anthems all run in the order of 2150, with the Holds last. The Holds mind, and say so.
• Never quote a song at a Reckoner, and never quote the Record at a delegate.
• The Knock is answered, never granted. Every petition from outside the Round is received, minuted and tabled.
• The Speaker's opening: "The Door is closed. The Floor is open."

Section 8: Appendices & Reference Materials#

Statistical Tables#

Working. Games: the first in 2152, then every four years, so 2312 was the 41st, matching the Crown almanac's "9 times out of 41".

Gazetteer#

Every place below is on the interactive Atlas. The generated Register of the Homeworld Assembly lists them.

Bibliography#

In-world sources#

• The Charter of Aletheia (2150) and The Assembly Accords with Commentary (the Accord Inspectorate; the Crown almanac)
• The Sentinel Field (2160), Eleven Attempts (2288), The Long Knock (2291), The Empty Chairs (2303)
• The Assembly Record (daily)
• Reports of the Armistice Commission (the Line almanac) and The Fuel Clauses of the Armistice of Saltline (the Kronos colony almanac)
• The Brightening Report (2311)

Development sources#

• 00 - Spine and Status · Chapter II · Chapter III · Chapter IV · Chapter V · Chapter VI
• 10 - Who's Who and 11 - Kronos and the Cinderbelt
• The members' and associates' almanacs: the Crown, the Imperium, the Ilyr Sanctum, the Lesser Crowns, the coast states, the Line free ports, the Southern Holds, the Rovessa, the Coalition, the League, Vesper and the Kronos colony
• The faction roster and the relationship register: the Assembly's objective, fear, leverage and split, and its positions towards Homeguard Command and the Cinderbelt Coalition, and theirs towards it. The register's entries about the Zhorak (removed from canon), the Orravan Empire and the Varkhesh (later eras) are not used.
• Almanac structure supplied by Briana.

Guidance for AI actors#

• The Assembly is not a government, and cannot be made to act like one in a scene. It defers. The Floor's power is the vote, the Council's is the Accords, and the Speaker "has no army" (Chapter II).
• The three Accords are the only planetary law, and the Inspectorate really can walk into any factory. Everything else is a member's own affair.
• Half the Floor is two states. The Crown and the Imperium hold a quarter each; nothing passes without one of them.
• Homeguard is lent, not owned. A Homeguard officer is still a Crown, Imperial or Cordalese officer, and everyone in the room knows which.
• The Requisition Bill is the live question of 2314, and the register's split is its fault line. Do not settle it in a scene.
• "True unification comes later" (the Who's Who). Nothing in 2314 is a world government, and no character should speak as if it were.
• This almanac is approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision).