P Reps

P Rep

common semi official term for a person who is the Planetary Society Representative of his community. This person may be the only one or part of of a group that represents a planet.

Originally it was simply meant to differenciate from a Member Representative (Mem Rep ).

During the foundation period of the United Stars. Not only large groups like the Ult civilization joined but many United Earth independent but Terran Human founded colonies joined. Almost entirely consisting of one planet communities.

To differentiate them from (Member Species) Member Representativs they were called Planet Reps.

As the institution of the Assembly developed and the roles of Member and Planet Representation became more defined and codified, P Rep was a distinctive separate institution.

The term was and is maintained, even though Community representation is not limited to planets.

(The term community representative has been proposed but has so far not managed to gain enough momentum to be voted on.)]

The current definition of a P Rep is : An institution of one or several individuals, chosen by a community united under a common governed locality with a minimum of 1 million Union Citizens.[1]

Planet Rep is not exclusivley for Planets, but stands as common denominator for all local Union communities. Including Moons, Asteroids, large space stations with civilian populations exceeding one million.

In general local means anthing that can be reached or connected without the need for FTL travel. That could mean Asteroid fields, Suns (Bright Light) or combination of several locations within one star system.

However the term local also describes the entire Bridge.

The Station Connection to LMC known as the Magellan Highway is stretches over several thousand light years but is represented by the P Rep for the Magellan Highway

P Reps do not partake in Union issues.

[1] 1 million citizens was chosen as a threshold figure mainly for simple practical reasons: A community of one million individuals will prevent small groups from seeking Assembly representation and exhasting the resources of the assembly quickly.While Alcoves, operating costs, food and everything associated with the task is free. The society is resposible for salaries, housing and whatever else their representation could cost. Representation is a right but not mandated. Smaller societies are not prevented fom seeking representation (via the OOP) but are disencouraged (and by the 1 million treshold unable to send a  P Rep to the Assembly)

Many smaller communities have thus formed a community with other local societies to match or exceed the Million Citizen threshold.

Example: the Maxwell System:Neither Green Hell nor Desolate reach the minimum. Green Hell doesn't really have anyone willing to go anyway, Desolate also has not enough but by making Harper's Junction part of it they do exceed the minimum. This is why there is no Green Hell, no Desolate or even Harper's Junction P Rep but instead a Maxwell System P Rep who is elected every 5 years by the System population

Example: Planet Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune do not meet the minimum requirements despite being very big planets. But together they make it and are represented by the Sol Jovian P Rep.

Example: Mars. The red planet of the SOL system is one of the most populated planets in the Sol system with over 6 Billion Martians yet Mars is not represented. The Martian government does not see the need. The Citizens are represented and in the last 3000 years there wasn't a single issue they felt needed to be represented from a Martian perspective and all local issues they did have they also shared with Earth or Venus and thus do the work for them (Martians have always been a pragmatic and very practical).