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All races have differing tolerance levels to the amount of Gs they can be subjected to during long-term travel, with the Mikaeans and Elysians capable to withstanding a 1 G of thrust, while the Damar and Sikatrians can withstand up to 2.5-3 Gs of thrust. Other races such as the Hilam are primarily aquatic and lack reinforced bone structure, meaning that anymore more than 1/3 G during prolong space travel is physically oppressive, and for some individuals, even lethal. All races, however, are capable of resisting three times the normal thrust they are exposed to. This is only ever performed for combat maneuvers and swift interplanetary travel, but never for long-term, system-by-system travel. Because of this, most crews within the Unified League Space Forces are often sorted by species or grouped into species of similar endurance rating, and given specialized roles to prevent potential fatalities should a vessel need to move faster or perform high-G maneuvers in the midst of battle. Civilian space vessels have no qualms mixing crews, as they rarely need to travel at speeds more than 2 G at a time for commercial purposes.
Regardless, passenger travel between worlds and even solar systems is relatively inexpensive as a portion of the passenger's annual income. Much like flying between locations on a planet, interplanetary travel is subject to price hikes and class division in terms of seating arrangements and provisions provided by flight staff. Passenger voidships come in a wide variety of sizes to cater to the different needs of the corporations which own them, and the planets they are servicing. The companies responsible for providing interplanetary travel are known as "voidlines", and provide passenger and freight services to planets, moons, and stations all throughout the League. The average mid-sized civilian transit voidship carries between 4,000-6,000 passengers for a
Many voidlines operating within interplanetary space typically forego the use of a larger mothership, often times to cut back on maintenance fees and focus existing funds into building and sustaining existing interplanetary transport vessels. In some instances, larger voidlines will keep a few of these vessels on hand as search and rescue ships, often times to avoid bringing in government resources and therefore scrutiny, as well as the simple fact that the company will know when and where a dropship was last located and its heading, and is therefore better placed to dispatch a rescue team to its location. For some voidlines, it isn't uncommon for them to make use of the smaller dropship vessels to move between neighboring star systems individually, especially if the system voidgates are deeper within the star's gravity well. Regardless, the costs associated with the upkeep of these smaller vessels means that it travel between planets, moons, asteroid bases and stations is frequent and relatively affordable for most League citizens.
===Interstellar travel===
Interstellar travel throughout the League is frequent, though significantly more expensive than interplanetary travel within a singular star system. This is mostly due to the various regulations that are in place to ensure the safety of passengers, as well as the security of equipment and crewmen belonging to the voidlines themselves. Compared to the 500 to 2,500 credit fares one might expect when traveling between two celestial bodies within the same system, one can easily find themselves paying at minimum 1,500 credits to move across two or three star systems. Much of the cost of interstellar travel comes from the mandatory federal voidgate transit fee each passenger must pay to move between star systems. The tax is a flat 100 cr fee charged per person aboard any civilian vessel per gate transited during travel, though this only applies to gate pairings rather than each individual gate itself. For a passenger traveling from the League capital world of Tau Ceti f (Federal Center) to Sol III (Earth), they would need to cross a total of four gate pairings. This would amount to an overall fee of 400 cr charged directly by the federal government during the booking phase of the trip. It goes without saying that the League federal government derives a great deal of revenue from interstellar travel within its space, and while there is significant pressure at the passenger-level to lower gate fees, there is little in the way of political will to do anything about this so long as the government stands to gain from the tax.
Within statistical parlance, interstellar travel itself is generally regarded as any voyage involving passage across more than two voidgate pairings away from the voidship's point of departure. Anything less than this is considered "local transit", and is typically exempt from federal taxation on movement across the League to limit interference in the local economy. To minimize the risk of loss of life during interstellar travel, the federal government requires that smaller dropship vessels attach themselves to larger motherships that will provide life support and supplies for the crew and passengers of the smaller passenger vessels during long journeys. These larger vessels will have artificial gravity decks consisting of an internal rotating sections capable of accommodating hundreds of passengers at once, as well as strengthened hulls to protect against stellar radiation and micrometeorites. Consequently, maintenance for such vessels is substantial and fares involving the use of the facilities aboard the ship itself are steep. As such, prolonged voyages across the full extent of League space is generally regarded as the domain of the upper-middle class and wealthy elites of League society. However, as with all aspects of the economy, there exist much "cheaper" alternatives to such vessels, those which strip out many of the accommodations that would normally be found on a fully-equipped mothership. These vessels will usually have less capable oxygen recyclers (resulting in stale-tasting air and water), cramped bunk spaces, limited recreational facilities if any, and strict policies on what may and may not be brought aboard; all of this with the goal of costing costs as much as possible.
A voyage from the Mikaean homeworld of Family Pride to the Elysian homeworld of Fyllaren costs at minimum 900 cr in federal gate fees alone. On average, one can expect to spend at least 5,000 cr on a one-way trip to the Elysian homeworld, making travel in some instances prohibitively expensive for the average citizen. Because of these expenses, many private businesses and government agencies will subsidize travel across the League for some state employees and corporate executives, though this is typically limited to a certain number of systems depending upon the rank and status of the individual involved. For most citizens of the League, interstellar travel is not something one will perform as frequently as interplanetary travel, and those who do travel between star systems frequently are either traders, government officials, businessmen, and military personnel and industrial workers transferring between posts within League space. The one time someone will likely find themselves performing a major voyage across the League will usually be the result of a move from their homeworld to another star system, and from that point, it may be years before they travel the same distance again, usually if they are returning to their homeworld to visit their family.
*'''Percentage of population performing:'''
**'''Interstellar travel''' – 10%
**'''Interplanetary travel''' – 30%
===Wormhole gates===
All League systems are connected to one another via a network of wormhole gates, or voidgates. All gates within the League were developed initially by the Mikaeans, and later improved upon by the Hilam and ''TBD'' during the early League era. Each gate is constructed by a self-sustaining pod of drones launched from a neighboring system occupied by the League of Civilized Worlds. These pods are launched at near-light speed, moving approximately 99% the speed of light for the bulk of the journey. So as to maximize the number of habitable worlds available to the League at any given time, and to cut back on the exorbitant cost of producing these gates, the federal government launches these pods in timed periods of expansion, usually lasting for a period of fifty years before the next period of expansion begins. The last such expansion phase was approximately thirty-seven years prior to the modern day. Travel through the gates is instantaneous, as the same technology used for the utilization of TPNs in the League
According to federal law, all member systems of the League of Civilized Worlds are required to place their wormhole gates in regions of local space accessible to all major population centers within that system. Normally, in systems where most of the celestial bodies have been colonized, the wormhole gate will be located near the "center" of the system's primary population centers. For instance, in the TBD system, wormhole gates are located between TBD and TBD, each of which has more than five billion permanent inhabitants. Alternatively, all wormhole gates will be placed in a location deemed to be sufficiently distant enough from the system's stellar bodies to ensure no harm to the traffic entering and exiting the gate, as well as ensuring the physical integrity of the gate itself. This is not to mention avoiding any potential danger to upsetting the gravitational orbits of celestial bodies in the system while the gate itself is active. Depending on the star in question, the gate may be located at the edge of a system's habitable zone, or a particular number of astronomical units (AU) from the star itself. This setup is the most common one within the League, as it ensures all colonies have equal access to the gates, as well as placing them within a reasonable enough distance from the star that it doesn't take more than a week to travel from the inhabited world to the gate. Overall, transit times of more than a week to and from a gate to a populated world are rare, and usually avoided as a state policy.
The voidgates themselves are not "gates" in the traditional sense of a circular opening into the throat of the wormhole itself. Rather, these gates are man-made constructs surrounding a spherical wormhole at its center. The laws of physics surrounding the operation of wormholes also means that the system on the other side of the gate is visible to all close enough to view the interior of the wormhole, and while transiting the gate itself no time appears to pass to the viewers both within the voidship entering or the viewers at the gate stations on either side. Rather, the voidship passes seamlessly through the gate, with passengers watching as the throat of the wormhole passes around them as they cross over into the other system. The superstructure surrounding the wormhole itself is built to maintain a gravitational constant at the center where the throat of the wormhole is formed and forced to open to a radius of approximately 5 kilometers, allowing a high level of mass to enter and exit the wormhole without "blocking" it and forcing a violent closure. The energy supplies demanded to maintain the wormhole are high, and to ensure that the wormhole does not collapse due to a lack of sufficient power, the superstructure of the gate is divided into four parts, each of which has two power stations capable of picking up with one of the others has failed, ensuring a total of four redundancies in the gate system. The collapse of a wormhole gate would be disastrous, though to date, no such event has occurred in the history of interstellar travel within League space or that of its neighbors. Of the few interstellar treaties to exist between the great powers, the deliberate destruction of a voidgate is legally-regarded as an unpardonable war crime.
===Black-water navy===
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===Voidship classes===
The League maintains a radically different set of classifications for its fleet of voidships, helping to distinguish them from their terrestrial cousins and their differing roles in the military. Typically, the classification of a military voidship is based more upon the role it plays within a battle-sphere rather than its characteristics as was the case with terrestrial warships. For example, among the smallest voidships of the League interstellar navy are
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|-
! colspan="3" | Military voidships by size and role
|-
! Classification
! Main battle fleet
! Independent patrol
|-
! Large-sized ships
| Fathership<br>{{small|''(Battleship)''}}
| Dominator<br>{{small|''(Battlecruiser)''}}
|-
! Medium-sized ships
| Interdictor<br>{{small|''(Heavy Cruiser)''}}
| Lancer<br>{{small|''(Cruiser)''}}
|-
! Small-sized ships
| Skimmer<br>{{small|''(Destroyer)''}}
| Hunter-killer<br>{{small|''(Frigate)''}}
|}
====Main battle fleet====
=====Dominators=====
''TBD''
=====Lancers=====
Lancers are medium-sized voidships designed to operate in a set-piece battle during confrontations with an enemy fleet. They are heavily-armed with the goal of registering a first strike upon enemy vessels with long-range particle beams, and usually have two or more onboard, with a single medium or large fusion beam cannon within the hull itself. Compared to their interdictor cousins, lancers while capable of independent patrol tend to stick close to the fleet they are attached too, only splitting off to take part in long-range patrol missions with a flotilla of smaller escort vessels in tow. They have large vacuum infantry detachments for onboard security, as well as to take part in boarding actions during combat in the event that an enemy vessel strays too close during a pass-by of the two engaged fleets. Lancers further differ from interdictors in that they have a far larger array of weapons and countermeasures designed to deal with all manner of enemy combat capabilities, such as signal jammers, scramblers for torpedo attacks, and advanced electromagnetic screens far and above those equipped on an interdictor. Lancers can range anywhere from 200 meters in length to more than 500 meters in length, with more recent classes with full anti-gravity capabilities nearing 750 meters in length.
=====Skimmers=====
Skimmers are military voidships designed to operate within a constellation of warships as the primary screen defense for the larger interdictors and fatherships, and comprise the smallest military vessels designed to take part directly in attacks on enemy fleet formations. While they are not designed to take on larger voidships on their own outside of battle, they are expected to operate in wolf-packs that surround and attack the hardpoints and weapon systems of a enemy vessel. Skimmers are somewhat larger than their hunter-killer counterparts, and have much more potent weaponry for their size due to their role in combat. Similarly, vacuum infantry serve a far more defensive role aboard skimmers compared to hunter-killers, defending the skimmer and its crew from boarding attempts during battle rather than proactively attempting to board the enemy vessel. Because of their role in forming the defensive screen for the large ships of the constellation, not all skimmers are expected to have vacuum infantry aboard, or if they do, these attachments are limited in size. A typical skimmer will be approximately 80-120 meters in length, and have a single light or medium fusion beam cannon as their primary anti-ship weapon, alongside the standard outfit of laser pulse/beam emitters.
====Independent patrol====
=====Interdictors=====
''TBD''
=====Hunter-killers=====
Hunter-killers, or HuKs, are lightly-armed voidships employed by the League for internal patrol duties and customs enforcement. Whereas their skimmer counterparts are equipped with heavy weapons such as fusion and particle beam cannons, the hunter-killers are mostly limited to most modest yet potent weapons, such as laser emitters and ordinance launchers to fulfill the limited combat roles they might encounter. The hunter-killers are typically crewed by fresh recruits and newly-minted naval officers before they are reassigned to more prestigious postings on larger voidships. Hunter-killers operate almost entirely within the colonial and frontier systems of the League, where the presence of larger and more potent military vessels is deemed as either being too expensive or unnecessary for the needs of maintaining law and order in the system. As a rule, hunter-killers operate in groups of two or four, and only ever break off from their groups individually if deemed absolutely necessary, as the threat of an ambush by pirate flotillas or being marooned in space without immediate support are constant threats for the hunter-killers and its crew. Hunter-killers are the smallest military vessels in use with the League capable of independent patrol duties, with scales ranging between 50-80 meters in length, and usually run with a complement of 30 to 50 personnel and 10 to 20 marines depending upon the areas of patrol assigned to the vessel.
====Transport====
=====Troopships=====
=====Dropships=====
Dropships are designed to facilitate the rapid ascent and descent of passengers, troops, equipment, and cargo to a planet and orbital facilities. There are various sizes and classes of dropship in use with the League of Civilized Worlds, with the primary division being between civilian and military dropship classes. Civilian dropships classes are made up of passenger dropships, cargo/tanker dropships, and industrial dropships, with the latter designed to transfer mining and manufacturing equipment to the surface of a celestial body that are utilized in non-urban/colonial projects. Tankers carrying liquefied chemicals, petroleum, or natural gas, are built with specially-designed condensers which are resistant to changes in pressure inside and outside of the dropship itself. Finally, passenger dropships which are among the most common dropships in general use, are designed to ferry hundreds or even thousands of passengers from one planet or moon to another, either independently if in-system, or to a mothership if moving between star systems.
Military dropships are similar to civilian dropships to some extent in terms of the general roles they fulfill in their function as ferries. However, these vessels are typically larger in size, and have the benefit of being equipped with high-powered lasers and missiles which allow them to deal with interceptors and potential threats to the vessel and its passengers and cargo. Other classes in use are those which transport aerospace vehicles such as fighters, helicopters, and drones, as well as specialized military cargo dropships which utilize as much of their internal space as possible to deliver armored vehicles, combat exosuits, and artillery pieces among others to the surface. As a standard, all major military dropships designed for the deployment of troops to a planet, will have troop dropships, aerospace dropships, and cargo dropships, with the troop dropships designed to carry a single battalion top the surface along with all of their light equipment.
Upon landing on a terrestrial body, the dropship will function as both a temporary barracks as well as a forward operating base and headquarters for the troops released from its hold. Likewise, with the extensive weapons system built into the dropship, the vessel is capable of also providing a protective field of fire for the troops in the area attached to it, much like the firebases of the United States during the Vietnam War. So effective are these interlocking fields of fire provided by the dropships, that most opposing forces generally avoid assaulting the landing zones of the League dropships for fear of attracting laser, railgun, and missile attacks from the dropship crews. All military dropships in service with the League have the capacity of functioning as sources of power for the military bases which are constructed nearby, as the troops they deliver will have no access to the local power grid until progress has been made to secure them during the coming battle.
===Troop megaships===
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*If using Sun's entire energy output at 100% lifting efficiency, a single Earth's worth of mass could be removed every century, dismantling the Sun within about 30 million years
*10% lifting efficiency would be extremely impressive due to the vast levels of energy required to remove mass from the Sun within optimal levels; entire process would be slow regardless of efficiency
==Culture==
===Art===
===Sports===
*'''Anti-gravity racing''' – With the advent of anti-gravity technology within the last century, there have been several successful attempts to miniaturize and commercialize the technology for civilian use within a terrestrial environment. Though still extraordinarily expensive for the average citizen, many wealthy financiers pooled their resources together to sponsor the development of anti-gravity racing teams that would compete for a number of prizes, chief among these being a substantial monetary prize of several million credits.
*'''Monobike racing''' – Similar to anti-gravity racing, monobike racing was the direct predecessor to the anti-gravity racing circuits that ultimately surpassed them in terms of popularity. Now more of a regional sport than a national one, monobike racing is considered the "safer" alternative to the anti-grav tracks that dominate the media. Still considered high stakes and incredibly dangerous, monobike racers still achieve a high level of fame on their homeworlds where local tracks are tailored to take advantage of unique geographical features on the planet where the races are hosted.
===Music===
==Economy==
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Of course, this means that only the upper classes of the population seeking to flaunt their social status are drawn to the procurement of such materials for their own wear. The wealthy and affluent tend to lean toward clothing styles which set them apart from their middle-class counterparts, with clothing possessing all-natural fibers and vibrant colors universally popular among the League's elite circles. Leather is also an expensive product, as the majority of League worlds tend to be heavily-urbanized, meaning that land that would be used for pasturing livestock is instead converted into housing, industrial centers, commercial spaces, or greenhouse complexes, limiting the number of livestock available on a given planet. As with cash crops used for the production of luxury goods and clothing, livestock not being used for food production will often been sourced from less developed worlds in the League, meaning that the cost of shipping items procured from livestock such as leather, are extraordinarily expensive to purchase within the League.
====Income distribution====
The income levels within the League vary wildly depending upon where and which planet a citizen resides upon, and their income dictated by the industry they work in and where within their region of space that industry supports or is supported. For example, a government worker on the planet of Family Pride will be very well by League standards, as they are employed by the League itself and reside upon the safest and most developed planet in League space. However, a miner from Brass will generally exist on the lower-end of the economic ladder as they hail from a frontier world best known for supplying cheap mineral goods to worlds which cannot or will not mine for those minerals themselves. And in yet another instance, a station worker above Brass loading and unloading said mineral products aboard a cargo vessel will be very well compensated by their employer as they will generally work for one of the larger transport corporations in the League tasked with ensuring those goods are moved to their respective destinations in a timely manner. On the flip-end, a factory worker on Family Pride will find themselves scrapping by as their market is generally oversaturated by unskilled laborers who failed to make it into one of the better-paying and highly-competitive government jobs of the League's capital planet.
Indeed, in spite of the Leagues great advancements in industry and technology, income inequality plagues the nation from one end to the other. This is due to the simple fact that sapient greed remains strong regardless of the high-minded idealism of philosophers and activists that flood the League's halls of academia. To ensure economic stability and unification of all worlds and systems under a singular federal government, the League instituted a series of trade restrictions at the interstellar level, controlling who may produce what goods and services for sell to other systems, and ensuring that specific worlds are locked out of specific industries, such as so-called "trouble planets" like Galvan and Skuria, which remain incredibly poor and polluted to the influence of lobbyists and government planners over these planets are permitted to produce and sell at the interstellar level. Planets such as Kordan and Marza have historically dominated the shipbuilding industry as their lobbyists have lined the pockets of federal politicians to keep it that way for centuries, all the while preventing mineral-rich worlds such as Brass from developing such industries they would naturally have an advantage in.
Such prohibitions have long been a sore-point within interplanetary relations, as most citizens of the League are fully-aware of the hypocrisies spouted by the self-sufficient and diversified economies of the core worlds. Resource-poor worlds such as Ix have languished under these prohibitions, and must really heavily upon federal aid and intersystem travel taxation to support their residents. Worlds at the edge of League space are barred from importing certain goods that could allow them to develop industries that would compete with the core worlds, and have protested these restrictions for decades. Many are the worlds that have taken up arms against federal authorities for the endemic poverty they encourage because of trade restrictions, though none have succeeded in their quest for economic prosperity. Only those worlds which have proven capable of buying the right politicians in the right positions of power have been able to escape this cycle of institutionally-enforced poverty, and even then with great difficulty as their efforts were undermined by the wealthier worlds at the League's center.
Because of these inequalities across League space, a movement known as equalism has existed for as long as the trade policies enforced by the League have been around. The equalist movement is not directly equivalent to the socialist movements of Earth, though many sympathies in that direction have been expressed by its many leaders and members, such as the Elysians who have long dealt with endemic poverty and corruption on their home planet. The movement itself promotes the equalization of economic trade and opportunities between worlds and systems by removing the restrictive trade acts enforced by the League. Naturally, Ix, Brass, Elysia, Skuria, and others are havens for equalism, and have long presented long-term political challenges to the state. Several of the political parties within the League have taken on the cause of equalism both as a means of reducing poverty and gaining political influence at the federal level, leading to an overabundance of competing interests as worlds and populations which may agree on trade policy ultimately compete on a myriad of issues unrelated to the cause of equalism.
On a security level, equalists have present a direct challenge to the state by attempting to push for economic equality under the law via armed insurgence. Hundreds of armed equalist organizations with and without access to interstellar transportation have taken to the mission of combatting the League for the opportunity to see life on their homeworlds improved by any means. The largest such organization, the Radical Equalist Alliance, was established with this intent in mind by presenting such a threat to the federal government it would be forced to change tact and answer their demands. Likewise, it seeks to appeal to the wider public by exposing the deep levels of corruption within the League and the billions of credits spent by the wealthiest planets in the union to maintain their economic stranglehold over the rest of the League. However, in spite of their noble intentions, many of these insurgent groups have turned to terrorism to pursue their aims, and have attacked innocents of all income levels, races, and homeworlds, and have only given the federal government the excuse it needs to crack down on them across its holdings. In the last poll conducted on the subject, approximately 23% of the population across the League said they supported the equalist cause, while another 54% said the supported the government's efforts to crack down on equalist movements.
===Technology===
====Cybernetics====
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As of '''TBD''' LC, there were an estimated 0.0 billion androids within the League, constituting nearly 0.0% of the total population. The baseline cost for a default android unit of the '''TBD''' model was 5,000 credits, with more advanced models increasing in price based on the complexity of the android's programming and AGI capabilities.
All androids are divided into model groups, each of which is further subdivided into classes
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="3" |Models
|-
! Designation
! Meaning
! Description
|-
! A
| Academic
| Models programmed with high degree of expertise in all fields of academia designed to provide sapient individuals with everything from a kindergarten to post-secondary education.
|-
! C
| Commercial
| Models designed of utilization in commercial institutions such as banks, malls, restaurants, and service roles among others as low-level clerks, janitors, and menial work laborers.
|-
! E
| Entertainment
| Models designed to fulfill roles as musicians, dancers, and entertainers, providing a wide range of services to patrons at clubs and festivals.
|-
! F
| Fornication
| Models designed with fully-functional sex organs and programmed with a vast repository of sexual activities to fulfill prostitution roles within the League.
|-
! H
| Healthcare
| Models programmed with extensive medical knowledge to fulfill roles as healthcare personnel, alleviating any shortage of doctors within League space.
|-
! I
| Industrial
| Heavy-duty models designed for industrial roles where extreme climates and hostile work spaces are expected in factories and mining.
|-
! M
| Military
| Models designed for application in combat operations as both front-line and support personnel to supplement organic personnel in the League military forces.
|-
! P
| Private
| Versatile models markets to the general public for use in a wide variety of roles around the house, small businesses, and private functions.
|-
! S
| Security
| Militarized models programmed with advanced conflict resolution capabilities and deployed to urban centers to supplement law enforcement personnel.
|}
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="3" |Classes
|}
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="3" |Variants
|}
====Virtual reality====
Virtual reality sessions are very popular throughout the League, and tens of billions of League citizens utilize the technology recreationally as a part of the nation's arts and media culture. While personal VR headsets and accessories are readily-available throughout stores across the League, more specialized systems that can provide a completely immersive experience are generally out of reach for most people, and they must visit a VR center to utilize the technology. To that end, many worlds are home to established franchises that specialize in catering to specific VR hobbies and settings that customers may wish to experience. Like most goods and services, the cost of a VR session varies greatly based on the equipment, services, and experiences offered. Though generally, most companies will utilize VR stations produced by TBD and TBD, the two largest virtual reality equipment producers in the League. Most of the mainstream VR stations sell for anywhere between 12,000 cr and 25,000 cr, while high-end full-fidelity stations can cost as much as 300,000 cr, and are generally found in the most expensive and exclusive entertainment centers in League space.
A single VR session on the low-end stations can cost as little as 5 cr/hour for children and 20 cr/hour for adults, while the higher end stations can cost as little as 100 cr/hour to as much as 1,000 cr/hour. The higher end systems generally provide a complete experience that can be difficult to distinguish from reality, and provide full touch, taste, and smell experiences for their users. Naturally, these permits more intimate experiences for those who can afford to use them, though more and more of the lower-end models are providing system experiences with more limited capabilities. VR booths designed for more "adult" recreation generally have a going rate of about 50 cr/hour, and provide exclusive access for groups or escorts with white-glove service and security. Overall, most planets will have a range of VR systems available for the population of all ages to enjoy, while the most popular and high-end of systems will generally be located in the major cities where such facilities can be afforded and made available for the equipment necessary to support them.
One of the long-standing cultural and societal issues ready-access to high-fidelity simulations raises is addiction to VR gaming and the escapism it provides, with many League citizens overutilizing the services offered by these VR stations and requiring medical or even psychological intervention by local authorities. At least 22% of all League citizens who have used a VR station at least once a week have reported dealing with personal addiction issues that nearly resulted in an intervention by authorities, while 7% admit to visiting the VR booths more than eight hours a day on their days off. To that end, most locations which cater to VR recreation have an upper-limit on the amount of time any of their customers may use a VR booth. However, there exist many locations that have no such limitations or moral compunction toward those willing to pay for their services. Many high-income worlds are notorious for their overuse of VR systems, typically due to their abundance of free time and disposable income, as well as the high-density of ultra high-end VR stations. This has resulted in some segments of League society to view these systems as a moral sin and cultural crisis, though their calls to ban or regulate the industry have largely fallen on deaf ears. Most League citizens have paid for at least one VR session in their lives, either as children or adults, and upwards of half of the population visit the VR booths once or twice a month with friends or family.
===Trade and logistics===
The League of Civilized Worlds is a vast collection of some one thousand celestial bodies with colonies, outposts, and military installations, and a population of nearly half a trillion sentient beings spread across a total of sixty star systems. Logistically speaking, the survival of the League is tethered to its ability to maintain the vast trade routes which make the sustainability of some worlds viable. Arid and barren worlds with little to no accessible water on the surface or in the system, major starports home to hundreds of thousands of residents reliant on imports, ecumenopolises lacking any remaining arable land to provide food for the population, vast mineral resources needing to be move to refineries in other systems for processing, and vast military campaigns requiring a steady supply of advanced weapons and equipment not available in the system due to a lack of factory vessels,
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====Antimatter guns====
Antimatter guns, commonly known as starburst weapons, are extremely destructive weapons which utilize antimatter-catalyzed fusion to produce large detonations from small shell projectiles. While designed for handheld usage on the battle, due to the explosive potential and radiation hazard they pose to the user, the use of antimatter weapons in close quarters combat are prohibited by the military, and civilians are banned from purchasing or using them by the government. Larger antimatter weapons designed for use in space, operate in a similar manner as the small starburst weapons, but utilize annihilation reactions directly to achieve more powerful explosions in combat. The man-portable weapons are expressly designed for use with exosuit units and combat engineers, the former for assault operations and the latter for clearing operations and urban combat scenarios. Antimatter weapons
====
Kinetic weapons remain in heavy use within the League, though with numerous modifications that make use of the many technologies available within League space. Most kinetic weapons fire grain-sized slugs shaved off of a solid block of metal, and launched through a miniaturized mass driver to supersonic speeds. This process means that most weapons never need to be concerned with ammunition supplies, as a single block of metal designed for the weapons in question will have thousands of potential slugs waiting to be shaved off by the weapon and fired through the built-in mass driver. A consequence of this development is that firefights are shaped by those capable of balancing high rates of fire with management of waste heat generated by the weapons.
Heat management is the primary concern with kinetic weapons platforms, as the laws of physics still apply to the functionality of the weapon in question. This is generally handled through the use of heat sinks known as thermal clips, which can be inserted into a slot on the weapon where heat from the firing mechanism is cycled for storage. These thermal clips can then be removed and replaced by the weapon operator and attached to an insulated clip belt where the heat can be safely dissipated. Most soldiers will carry at least three to five of these clips if issued with a kinetic weapon, as the number of thermal clips dictates the potential fire rate of the weapon rather that ammunition.
Alternative methods of heat management include built-in venting mechanisms, which force the gun to vent large amounts of waste heat from built-in heat sinks to ensure functionality of the weapon isn't compromised. These venting systems are common on larger kinetic weapons such as tanks, armored vehicles, and exosuits, which cannot make use of the swappable thermal clips available to infantry. Most such systems will typically vent waste heat after each shot, though the crew manning the weapon can block this to ensure sustained fire rates until necessity forces a pause in firing to allow the weapon to vent the heat.
Coolant systems are another way in which waste heat can be managed in a kinetic weapon. Utilizing the same method of heat management from directed energy weapons, some kinetic weapons can be connected to a coolant capable which will either pump the outside of a firing chamber with coolant to minimize waste heat, or connect the weapon to a coolant pack typically carried on the back by the soldier and leech heat from the weapon during operation. Both systems remain in use, as the former will allow for coolant to be cycled in and out of the weapon with relative ease, while the latter reduces the weight of the coolant by simply drawing heat up the cable and into the coolant pack for dissipation.
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===Voidship types===
There are two categories of voidships within the League's sphere of influence; civilian voidships and military voidships.
*'''Lancer:''' Lancers are the smallest voidships employed by the military, having tiny crew complements, and few if any marines aboard for customs duties and boarding actions. They almost always operate in pairs or groups of four during picket duty, and generally only operate independently during patrols in the immediate proximity of the nearest established colony or station in the system. All lancers are, by size and design, capable of landing on any planet with a gravity well. It is thus common practice for a larger warship to have a pair of lancers docked within their structures, both to act as support craft as well as backup shuttles for crew heading to a planetary surface. Within the League's systems, lancers often perform a role similar to that of the larger interdictors, though they serve in areas where the size and cost of an interdictor would either be unnecessary or unjustifiable, as well as in an intelligence gathering role where the presence of an interdictor would be counterproductive. The smaller heat signature of the lancer would allow it to creep pass the observation of the opposing party, and remain within orbit of a target without raising suspicion. During larger military operations, lancers serve as a screen to the larger warships of a constellation, laying down a wall of fire from point-defense cannons or lasers for those with large enough power supplies, as well as harassing enemy vessels and using their superior speed to keep up with and destroy enemy lancers.
*'''Skimmer:'''
*'''Interdictor:''' Interdictors are mid-sized military voidships which are specifically designed to patrol the space between planets and space stations, and render support to civilian vessels in distress. They follow a simple policy of tracking a target, interdicting that target, scanning or destroying the object in question, and repeating the process along their designated quadrant of space. Interdictors are functionally similar to cruisers, albeit with a more localized role in mind. Whereas cruisers are designed to operate far from friendly ports for months at a time and across multiple star systems, interdictors only operate within the system they are assigned to, and only possess enough firepower to deal with the medium and low-level threats they might encounter during patrols. Much as is the case on Earth, interdictors function more as an interplanetary "coast guard", while cruisers serve in a capacity akin to a more "proper" terrestrial navy vessel. It is standard practice for a system to have a full constellation of interdictors on hand to patrol the routes between celestial bodies, provide aid to civilians in the system, track down and eliminate unauthorized operations, and serve as the first line of defense in an emergency.
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The war is notable in that it was the first time that the League fought a near-peer rival of equivalent technology level and military power. It is likewise notable for the mass riots and protests throughout the League by the Mikaeans who protested the League's use of their people as military personnel, with the common belief throughout the nation being that due to the fact Mikaeans reproduce rapidly and without the same social structures that would make their dying in battle a tragedy for a family or social unit, that the Mikaeans were disposable and easily-replaced. This shock to the culture and military of the League nearly robbed them of their primary pool of recruits, leading to the wide use of androids in the military for combat operations, which ultimately turned the tide of the war in favor of the much larger economy of the League. Today, most Ayulen are still outraged by their defeat, and the remnant of the Ayulen Empire still provides clandestine support to Ayulen nationalist groups within the League would regularly attack League forces on their own homeworlds, forcing the League to maintain a permanent military presence in the region.
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