Firefly

Polities

In the 26th century, humanity inhabits a star cluster called the 'Verse, having fled Earth-That-Was aboard generation ships centuries ago. Five main sequence stars and seven helioformed protostars warm over two hundred terraformed worlds. The wealthy Core planets of the White Sun system have little in common with the frontier settlements out on the Rim.

The Union of Allied Planets, commonly called the Alliance, governs the Verse. It won the Unification War in 2511 and has held unchallenged political authority since. Life in the Core is comfortable; the Border and Rim worlds deal with poverty, thin infrastructure, and Reaver raids.

Travel between worlds relies on sublight pulse drives that manipulate gravity and inertia. There is no faster-than-light travel. A Class 10 drive can cross the entire Verse in about twenty-five days. The Cortex links the civilized worlds into a single communication network, though Alliance surveillance monitors most of the traffic.

Chinese and Western culture blend throughout the Verse, a legacy of the two superpowers that merged during the exodus from Earth. Most inhabitants speak both English and Mandarin.