Dodonan Tribunal

Sophisticated and superior, the people of the Dodonan Tribunal are taught to idealize safe, steady innovation and disregard rash action or superstition. “Each of us is garden and gardener alike’ goes the old Dodonan saying; everyone must contribute to the state and be shaped for it alike. At its best, the Tribunal is a culture of philosophers and scientists, but this noble face hides a rotten interior. Dodonan worlds exist to contribute to the whole of the Tribunal (an empire in all but name), society shaped by the inscrutable edicts and investments of the Dikastes, an order of secretive monk-judges who seek to find the most efficient and auspicious shape of the state. A ban on religion and a general belief in aloof cultural superiority have combined to lead Dodonans to suppress and assimilate local populations, and can easily lead the Tribunal stumbling down the road towards outright fascism.

Worlds closer to the core of Dodonan territory are glittering paradises, gracefully terraformed to be perfect living spaces; innovation and creativity are praised as the most noble of ideals, and populations of citizen-philosophers live comfortably, finding the work that best suits and satisfies them. Here people know that the Tribunal cares deeply for them, and in turn their purpose is to help it be the best it can be. Some worlds even have relaxed the ban on superstition somewhat, Chorist belief common among the scientific elite and Satellist aesthetics praised even if true dogma must be kept silent. There's a degree of democracy, in that citizens have votes on investments for the state to make into particular fields or projects, though every such decision is ultimately reviewed and approved by that world's council of Dikastes.

The further from the center one travels, the more the perfection splinters. Many worlds are seen as colonies whose resources are best spent enriching the heart of Tribunal space; Dodonan culture is exported and impressed upon these populations, seen as needing of "smoothing out" and domesticating in order to better match the Dodonan ideal. Social welfare is still ever-present, but these programs often pair with a degree of education and assimilation, military enlistment, or some other form of service to the state. Anti-superstition efforts tend to ramp up, whether through propaganda or secret police, and practitioners can expect imprisonment, re-education, or sometimes even being implanted with emotional suppressors.

Dodonan relations with other societies tend to be somewhat chilly; the Tribunal was one of the loudest voices for cooperation in the dead Coalition, and so many still feel betrayed by its dissolution; things are not helped by the general belief in Dodonan cultural superiority, their self-declared rational pragmatism often interpreted (justly) as arrogance. The Terrenon Dynasty is on an outright war footing, though the intensity of this conflict varies considerably, from tense negotiations and hidden espionage to open battle. The ban on superstition has, of course, soured things with the Thousand Moons' Creed and the Universal Choir, though some among the later faith have engaged in cautious trade of both commerce and research. Nadezhdans are broadly thought to be worthy of suspicion (to say nothing of cruder stereotypes surrounding hygiene), and Nadezhdans respond in turn by calling the Tribunal snooty assholes. The Banner Post is seen as a necessary evil, and are held at some distance thanks to their reputation for fomenting dissent and revolution. Perhaps the only ally the Dodonan Tribunal can say it has is the Peacock Conglomerate, who they are all too happy to freely trade with - and who share their hatred of the Terrenons.

Hierarchy and structure
Any world considered Dodonan territory has a council of Dikastes assigned to it, who decide what projects receive what resources in order to best feed the great work. A single group is elevated to the position of Canopy, to direct the broad shape of Tribunal policy on the world; Canopies can be dismissed and replaced, but this is a rare event. Other divisions then exist, pursuing specific focuses and assignments at the Canopy’s direction; these are broken up into Branches, who operate publicly, and Roots, whose activities are classified to the public. Competition for grants between Branches and Roots is fierce, leading to a sort of false meritocracy where those with the support to succeed are then given larger and larger budgets. The model is best imagined as a great tree, with the Dikastes as life-giving sun and rain, the Canopy at the pinnacle, the Branches and Roots all feeding into it, and Tribunal civilization as a whole the trunk. Occasionally on contested worlds, outsiders are contracted on as units referred to as Grafts; these are held at a distance from ‘proper’ Dodonan society, and treated with some measure of discomfort.

Culture and aesthetics
Dodonans have a deep love and respect for science of all sorts, but their true passion is biology; most Dodonans are a recognizable gene-engineered template, with symmetrical features and lanky limbs somewhat uncanny to a baseline human, but in the full variety of phenotypes, including a number of slightly unnatural skin tones and hair colors (commonly shades of blue or green). Many Dodonans are subtly modified for purpose; researchers often have their senses and cognition improved, those inhabiting more extreme environs are adapted for factors like climate and gravity, and those who voyage through space are capable of hibernation. More drastically-visible modifications are seen as somewhat distasteful, with things like the horns spouted by some rebellious types or the plant-inspired anatomy the natives of Faraway exhibit seen as inferior to the Dodonan standard. Likewise somewhat stigmatized are "wildtype" humans, those not fitting the stretched figure of most Dodonan bodies, who are assumed by some bigots to be weaker or less intelligent.

Most Dodonan names sound Greek, with a tendency towards plant or color themes; Kelp Idrotas and Stem Tromara are both in the employ of Narkissos Root, where they built clone test pilot Kaleidos Green. While 'superstition’ is banned in Tribunal territory - here meaning any religious or spiritual beliefs - but some elements of ancien Dodonan practices linger, primarily in the painting or tattooing of various meaningful geometric glyphs on the body, particularly the face, now understood to be symbols of focus on noble philosophical ideals of service, devotion, and endurance.

Dodonan construction typically shows a large degree of exposed steel and glass, permitting sunlight to flood Tribunal living spaces. Green, white, and gold are the favored colors, and carefully-cultivated nature is seen as the height of beauty; sprawling green spaces and public parks are a constant in Dodonan cities, painstakingly maintained and starkly contrasted with artificial construction. Climate controlled domes are common, as are largely-automated farms. Statuary and representative art are discouraged, seen as frivolous and hollow, but abstract art and the written word are prized, with many Dodonan poets and philosophers cherished down the ages.

Common across Dodonan space are a distinct ethnoreligious minority known as the Taimu; they are largely wildtype humans, and have a rich oral history that carries more of their old religious beliefs than the anti-superstition zealots prefer. They worship a dizzying number of small gods in secret, patrons of everything from millet to electronic mail, and retell their ancestral myths in epic operatic performances.

On Aureate
Aureate’s Dikastes lurk on a hidden, hardened platform in orbit; their identities are a secret, and none have met any of their number in person for close to sixty years. Rumors swirl as to how they yet live, but somehow their decrees continue to steadily come. For many generations, the August Canopy led the Tribunal's holdings on Aureate, following a plan of soft power diplomacy abroad and a focus on research within their territory. Many reactionaries within Dodonan Aureate grew frustrated with this stance, offended that they had to play nice with who they saw to be the inferior and criminal Nadezhdans and the brutish invaders of the Terrenon Dynasty. Some of the loudest voices behind this sentiment were the military engineers of Narkissos Branch (focused on building from scratch the ideal pilots for a number of experimental Kyklops Root automata designs) and the secret police of The Iris (who lead Tribunal efforts to persecute and suppress 'superstition,' especially among the planet's Taimu minority), who formed a political coalition in secret. The two sent missives to the orbital Dikastes, making the argument that the August Canopy's policy was a failure - and their argument was persuasive.

The defining issue for Dodonan Aureate is resource scarcity; both the ore-rich highlands and the source of the Maengse River (the main source of drinkable water on Aureate's primary continent) are comfortably held by the Terrenon Dynasty, leaving the Tribunal perpetually starved. The hawkish diplomats made the case that subtle influence and delicate maneuvering had not tangibly enriched them materially over many decades of effort, so a more aggressive stance was needed. Word came from the Dikastes came as a surprise to many as the August Canopy was demoted to merely being Khrusos Branch, a minor military diplomatic corps, while Narkissos Root was elevated to become the Argent Canopy, given a nearly-uncapped budget to pursue automata production and research. Propagandists have worked hard to endear the public to open war with the Terrenons, with a draft swelling the military ranks - and the secret police working overtime to quash dissent. The Iris is broadly understood to be the power behind the throne, their agents agitating for escalating conflict and further reprisals against religious practitioners.

Dodonan Aureate's capital is the grand oasis-city of Kleidos, located in the eastern Plains of Artopoios, a scrubby region in the south that forms the Tribunal's breadbasket; the Plains are dotted with countless villages that center on the largely-automated solar farms, whose existence feeds the masses of the oasis-cities. The minor city of Bydos, recently fell to Terrenon forces of the Samara Templar, a Satellist crusade that was the initial outbreak of the current Dodonan-Terrenon War. Nestled in the west, in the Valley of Whispers, is the city of Qaibo, which holds the greatest population of Taimu on Aureate; Qaibo's independence is being threatened by both Iris zealots eager to stamp out Taimu culture and military efforts to seize access to the river's water as the war heats up.