First Terrestrial Civil Conference

The First Terrestrial Civil Conference was the first ever continent-wide deliberative meeting of governance in Illuminatia. The Conference was the predecessor of the current government of Illuminatia. The goal of the First Terrestrial Civil Conference was to agree upon a basic structure for establishing further governing structures for a unitary national government in Illuminatia.

The Conference was called in early AI 8 shortly after comprehensive expedition efforts initiated by the continent's first settlers established contact between the third of the three multiversal duplications of Lucidus mission survivors during the prior Annual Unit. The Conference took place in Adamopolis, which was chosen as the most central location available of the existing settlements.

The First Terrestrial Civil Conference met several times periodically over the following annual units, alternating between Adamopolis, Rhapsody, Serenade, and other cities. Transcontinental governmental operations under the structure that the Conference developed began in AI15.

Background and responsibility

The ascertaining of knowledge regarding the nature of the true number of human inhabitants of the Illuminatian continent as well as the full geographic dispersion of those populations established the need for a wider form of governance to coordinate and unify Illuminatia's populations. It was understood that with the magnitude of human development on the new world being three times the mission's original plans of approximately 10,000, there would be a need for a wider form of governance than the most immediate rules of civil order put in place regionally upon humanity's arrival on Neonisi.

The First Terrestrial Civil Conference established the basic shape of representative democracy that would be used to guide further governmental proceedings that would eventually establish a formal governmental structure in Illuminatia. Delegates from the various settlements across Illuminatia traveled to the Conference in Adamopolis to agree upon rudimentary rules of order and put forth instructions for further administrative and deliberative conferences, conventions, assemblies.

The First Terrestrial Civil Conference largely codified the basic parameters of contingency plans put forth in the Lucidus mission's instructions directing human settlement upon a new habitable world, but with certain alterations taking into account the existence of three times the number of original settlers than the mission anticipated. The Conference made a formal agreement among the representative present as to which contingency plan to follow and which variation of that plan to carry forward. This affected the type of representative and direct democracy, the level of meritocracy to use in governmental planning and subsequent bureaucracy, and the priorities for matters that governance would address.

Delegates to the First Terrestrial Civil Conference were designated by local settlement commands and administrative entities, which were individually and independently in charge of each settlement. These local administrative bodies eventually evolved into the governmental entities now known as tertiary assemblies. These local governing bodies were variously known as settlement commissions, councils of elders, town councils, civic committees, and other names which ranged depending on local tastes. The Conference established that existing local administrative bodies would remain in place, with their jurisdiction limited to their locality and subordinate to the national governmental structure. Some of these governing bodies remain in place as tertiary assemblies today with names unchanged.

Establishing seats of government

Among the first matters the delegates forming the First Terrestrial Civil Conference addressed was the question of where to locate and establish a national seat of government. The taskforce to which the Conference delegated this decision eventually decided that a new city, Voston, would be constructed as an administrative capital, while in addition, other cities in diverse geographic locations would serve each as legislative, judiciary, and contemplative seats of government, respectively, providing a sub-capital for four separate branches, or ultrabureaus, of national government.

This decision was reached as a mechanism by which to avoid a geographic concentration of power and to distribute control and influence across the continent. Voston, as the executive capital, was specifically chosen in its location because it would straddle the boundary between regions settled to be by two different multiversal duplications of Lucidus survivors from two different Lucidus spacecraft. This would help to ensure the administrative nerve center of Illuminatian government could operate without any undue real or suspected control or influence by any single tribe of Illuminatians.

Voston was built near the Timmons Range in east-central Illuminatia, equidistant from Adamopolis—where the First Terrestrial Civil Conference was held—and the city of Harmony, which was settled by a population separate in lineage from that of Adamopolis. Voston was founded in AI16 and construction of the administrative capital commenced.

Representative legislative considerations

It was understood that legislative matters would become the first body of affairs needing extensive attention in a new continental government. As a result of further deliberation regarding governance structures, in consultation with Lucidus mission plans, it was decided that the legislative branch of the new government would be composed of an intricate tricameral arrangement of legislative bodies.

This legislature would be balance geographic elements of representative democracy with absolute democracy by combining geographically-based representation with other forms of representative delegation and voting. Eventually, advanced electronic voting systems would evolve into the Polling and Balloting Network, providing wide-ranging access to direct democracy to the Illuminatian people.

Other matters

Another task delegated by the First Terrestrial Civil Conference was the matter of place names. It was known that some level of duplication and some lack of uniformity in naming of settlements and geographic features existed between Illuminatia's multiversal duplications, which was understandable considering that duplications of the same people were making decisions in three different distant geographic locations. A separate deliberative body was deemed necessary to address this issue due to the duplicative and informal nature of the place names presently in use across Illuminatia.

The Conference, as a result, established the Continental Convention, which was tasked with establishing a process by which to analyze, suggest, and agree upon place names. The Continental Convention, through a series of meetings and surveying, established official names for all of Illuminatia's cities, a process by which to name newly-established cities, and similar processes for naming geographic features like rivers, lakes, assorted bodies of water, mountain ranges, islands, and any other yet-to-be-discovered land features. The Continental Convention was given no limit to the type of geography it could address.