The Solar Supremacy
The Solar Supremacy was the old de facto government of humanity. For centuries it ruled Earth and most of the solar system, until the nations rose against it in the Solar War. A century on, its fleet has not entirely vanished.
Rise
After a few centuries of space expansion, humanity came under the de facto rule of the Solar Supremacy: a government made up of the first companies and nations to create a strong presence in space and begin to mine the asteroid belt. Soon after it formed, a brief war imposed supremacy on Earth's governments, with objects dropped on cities from orbit to prove who held the high ground. Panic, economic collapse and instability followed on Earth. All the old nations of Earth became protectorates of the Supremacy, which then spread its influence slowly across the solar system, encouraging compliance through aid and the standing threat of attack from above.
Solar and Terran citizens
Under Supremacy law, every human living beyond Earth was a Solar citizen and fell under Solar authority. Those who stayed on Earth were Terran citizens, subjects of the old nations, which were themselves protectorates of the Supremacy. In practice the claim was never complete, and the Supremacy used the law as much to justify its conquests as to govern. See Solar and Terran citizens.
The Supremacy and the nations
Despite the Supremacy's strong grip, people still managed to build fledgling colonies of their own on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and deep in the Kuiper belt. These small nations grew and began to resent the great power.
- The Kingdom of Saturn: The young Supremacy chafed at the thought that someone else had claimed Titan first, but within a century it had all but left the Kingdom alone, writing it off as a joke to deal with later. Later never came, and the Kingdom was a thorn in its side ever after. See The Kingdom of Saturn.
- Mars: In 2525 the Solar government occupied Mars in the name of its Solar citizens, landing forces across the Martian deserts. The clans answered with the Mars Insurgency. Phobos Station was built as the beach-head for the occupation. See The Martian Confederacy and "Mars Is Ours!".
- The Plutocracy: Founded by criminals and fugitives who fled as far from the Supremacy as they could. See The Plutocracy.
- The Ceres Cooperative: Paid the Solar government only what it needed to. See The Ceres Cooperative.
- The Ring and NOVA: The Ring kept order through a small council, with the Solar government holding the deciding word but rarely meddling. NOVA was sometimes used by the Solar government for police actions. See NOVA.
The waystations
The Supremacy hid the alien waystations from the nations. At the end of the Solar War its defeated Navy retreated through them, and the nations found the Sol Waystation only by tracking it. See The Web.
Fall
At Rhea, Solar emissaries pressed the Queen of Saturn to accept taxes and subservience. She declared war on the spot, and the emissaries and their ships were massacred. Phobos, the Plutocracy, Ce-Co and others followed, armed and guided by Sovereign. The war lasted many years and was bitterly fought, with atrocities on both sides. See History.
The Solar Navy today
A century after its defeat, the Solar Navy is still out there. Explorers who have pushed deepest into the void, many of them among the first to leave the Sol system in Sovereign class ships, have run into its vessels. Traces of it remain across the Web, but none of the solar nations know what it is doing or where it finally fled. Encounters are openly aggressive. Many believe the remnants are fractured in some way, or that they are rebuilding their strength somewhere deep in the Web.
Captured Solar Supremacy ships show upgrades that put them on a par with Sovereign-class vessels, and cybernetic enhancement has clearly become central to their culture: almost everyone aboard seems to carry some kind of upgrade. No prisoners have ever been taken. They refuse to be taken alive.