Focus

After the exodus of humanity from the increasingly unpopular constraints of life on Culmai - the first world to be populated after the Earth exodus - life was very difficult for the diaspora trying to settle new worlds. Though the pioneer spirit helped, many were sorely lacking in the skill and knowledge required to build new worlds, as the ever stricter rules of de-industrialised life imposed by those governing Culmai meant many useful skills, technologies and industries were forgotten.

In the midst of starvation, hardship, horrific and desperate acts of piracy and brigandry, humanity itself was in a critical crisis. After decades of descent into chaos the planet of Focus was discovered. It had vast open plains, temperate, rich in fertile land, minerals, gentle herd windles which were biddable and breedable for livestock.

It was rapidly settled and, without thought for profit, it became the breadbasket and farm for the nearest worlds, and as soon as production could be scaled up it spread its bounty far and wide.

Some of the more established brigands and marauders turned their eyes to Focus as a rich target, but its benevolence and value meant the response against any threats from all the worlds benefitting from it were ferocious and committed. Focus was something people were prepared to fight and die for.

A city grew quickly, and a young and enterprising genius named Buck Bradford set about founding a government, and a central bank, half narcissistically and half jokingly naming the bank's currency after himself. "Bucks" soon became the currency of all worlds trading with and supporting the new Focus government, and Focus itself became a de-facto capital of the settled worlds within its sphere of influence and trade.

Eventually the nascent government reached out to Culmai, wanting to reconnect the civilised colonies to better protect themselves against some of the brigand colonies still operating beyond the reach of the informal fleet of protector craft. The PPB government of Culmai were deeply reluctant, their near puritanical attitude being the cause of the diaspora in the first place. In a placatory move, Focus decided to name its city "Culmai" to honour the PPB founders, Hardy Cullum and Solomon Maier, who discovered anti-photonic projection. This moved the PPB government a little, but not much.

As a major threat in the form of Barnaby Shostalitz and his proto-empire began to encroach on the space of the Focus affiliated worlds it became clear a more organised protector fleet would be needed to prevent Shostalitz' ambitions bringing him all the way to Focus, an incredibly rich prize that would make him unstoppable.

Buck Bradford bankrolled the design and construction of a small fleet of Protector Class destroyers and fighters, with affiliated worlds pressed to contribute to expanding the fleet as quickly as possible. Arguments ensued about - of all things - the colour of the ships of the fleet, with many wanting them to be bright white to show they were the good guys. Those with experience in space combat insisted the craft should be black, as it made them harder to see, evade, and target by hostile craft.

The military minds won the day, and Black Fleet was born. The next issue was the command structure, with many favouring the strategies of naval combat, with each section subordinate to the next step up the chain of command, meaning the same order would need to be given multiple times before it was actualised. Again, the military minds had other ideas less fixed on nostalgia and more on effective and rapid combat.

Once in battle, highly trained and adaptable personnel would act according to established protocol and their own initiative, making for rapid and agile combat. Officers would intervene if an approach was wrong, not dictate which approach was right, with the ensuing delays between decision and outcome.

To make sure this system was understood, it was decided vessel would not be called "ships" but "craft," the journey to be called a "flight" not a "voyage", and the commanding officer being named "Commander" not "Captain," with the second in command known as the Flight Executive, or "Flex."

When the threat posed by Barnaby Shostalitz was understood by the PPB government on Culmai they agreed to join in the fight, but would not join Black Fleet, having assembled their own, impressive, defensive force which had been used to protect Culmai from "polluting outside influences."

The defeat of Shostalitz in a devastating battle at the Grarna Cluster was a defining moment, unifying many more distant worlds under the protective banner of Focus and Black Fleet. Even the Culmai government decided it would be better to be a part of the burgeoning Protectorate than to exist without it, but they had many demands to make before they agreed to join, including reaffirming the ban on any organised religion, any research or experimentation in genetic engineering, and any attempt to develop artificial or machine intelligence along human cognitive lines.

With the PPB agreeing to join a joint security agreement, Focus became the capital world of the Focus Protectorate, home to the major instruments of interstellar government, in the planet's one and only city, the vast Culmai City. Once stablished there was a move to establish a new rationalised calendar based on Focus time, with many suggesting the official founding of the Protectorate should be Year 1 or Year Zero.

To end the arguments it was decided that the year Focus was first discovered would be Year Zero, and the rest of the calendar was able to be simplified vastly due to Focus having a 360 day year. Each month was 30 days long, which took some to adjust to, especially having a 30th of February. Not as curious as adjusting to having a 13 midnight, as Focus days were precisely 25 hours long, which it was beginning to emerge was surprisingly common on many colonised worlds. These worlds quickly established their population centres within the timezone matching that of Focus so they could trade in tandem with the same working day. This was established as "Business Time," and worlds able to operate on business time experienced much more rapid growth than other worlds.

Some of the major interstellar agencies and organisations located on Focus are the Chamber of Governors (CoG), The CoG Select-Board, the Navigation Council, the Navigation Control Centre, The Focus Central Bank, The Financiers Alliance, The Mining Alliance, The Freight Alliance, and many other central offices.

The city is constrained by the bounds of the single timezone that constitutes Business Time, the central timezone for the entire Protectorate. Being the effective capital of humanity itself, and over a thousand worlds, it is hugely populated, and therefore, huge, so the city has grown along the North-South axis in a single stripe, making it a spectacular sight as evening draws in and the twinkle of its lights spreads from East to West.

Orbiting the planet are six geostationary satellites that are the centre of the Protectorate's vast network of interstellar beacons, by which all craft are guided as safely as they can be while traveling immense interstellar distances at many multiples of light-speed. The satellite network also provides the hubs for the shunt-network, allowing near instantaneous communication across the Protectorate via quantum-entangled shunt-transmitters.

Beacon 1 is located above the planet's North pole, Beacon 2 above the South, Beacons 4 to 6 are at cardinal points around the globe, with Beacon 3 taking pride of place, permanently orbiting above the city of Culmai.

After several assassination attempts, Sovereign Edgar Phipps made the Sovereign's office suite aboard Beacon 3 his permanent home, the highly armoured Security Ring making it effectively the safest place in the Protectorate.