DOCUMENTS CONFEDERACY OF FREE SYSTEMS ARTICLES OF SOLAR CONFEDERATION
SY 132.00  ·  CM-ASC-001  ·  ERA: GREAT SPACE AGE
Primary Document  ·  Confederacy of Free Systems  ·  41 BSC
Articles of Solar Confederation
The founding instrument of the Confederacy of Free Systems — 41 BSC · 2255 Current Era
The oldest governing document in the outer system. Ratified by four platforms that had no army, no standing government, and no guarantee their agreement would hold. It held for nearly two centuries.
Ratified
41 BSC
2255 CE
Congress
First Confederate
Congress
Founding
Signatories
Ganymede · Kamijing
Dosijing · Freitaika
Superseded By
Never formally —
Amendments only
Congresses
Called
Four
Legal Status
(Solar War Era)
Active Foundation
Historical Context

The Articles of Solar Confederation was the instrument by which the Confederacy of Free Systems organized itself in 41 BSC — eight years after Ganymede, Kamijing, Dosijing, and Freitaika achieved semi-autonomy from Asteroidal Industries, Inc.

The road to ratification began in 49 BSC, when the four platforms secured a trade agreement with Mars wholly independent of Asteroidal Industries — the first act of genuine self-determination in the outer system. Over the following years they issued a common protocurrency in promissory notes, began aggregating resources independently, and formed small industries of their own. Tension with the company grew until a demand for full political autonomy was made in 42 BSC. The Confederacy was organized as a formal economic union one year later.

The Articles that emerged from the First Confederate Congress were notable not for what they commanded, but for what they deliberately refused to command: no regulation of commerce, no income tax, no central authority over the internal governance of member systems. They were written by spacers who had spent their lives under corporate administration and who trusted neither states nor companies to run their affairs.

The Document
✦ · ✦ · ✦ · ✦
Confederacy of Free Systems  ·  Primary Founding Instrument
Articles of Solar Confederation
Ratified by the First Confederate Congress, 41 BSC  ·  2255 Current Era
Assembled in the First Confederate Congress, 2255 Current Era:

The Great Space Age, made possible by the workers and scientists of both the Soviet Union and the United States and the Peoples Republic, and all humanity, under the leadership of the United Earth headed by Sebastian Myrcenae McRae, overthrew capitalist and landowner rule, broke the fetters of oppression, established the dictatorship of the proletariat, and created the spacer society, a new type of society that shall be the basic instrument for defending the gains of the scientific revolution and for building a multi planetary species. Humanity thereby begins the epoch-making turn from groundfaring life to space faring.

After having achieved victory in the Great Revolutionary War and achieving man's domain on the moon, the Soviet, American, and People's governments carried through far-reaching social and economic transformations, and put an end once and for all to exploitation of man by man, antagonisms between classes, and strife between nationalities.

Now, at this present time in history, a new age is upon spacers; an age of self-sovereignty, general goodwill, and prosperity. The unification of the several spacer platforms and inhabited systems multiplied the forces and opportunities of spacers throughout Sol System in the building of a space faring society.

The Articles
I.
The regulation of intersystem and intrasystem commerce is hereby forbidden. Trade between the member systems and between individual citizens thereof shall proceed freely and without impediment by any organ of the Confederacy.
II.
The Confederacy provides for the common defense of each member system should the need arise. An attack upon any Confederate system is considered an attack upon the Confederacy as a whole, and each constituent member is expected to respond accordingly.
III.
An income tax upon the citizens of the Confederacy is hereby forbidden. The right of individual member systems to levy taxes upon themselves is recognized. The intermittent Congresses that shall meet shall therefore do so at their own expense.
IV.
Intrasystem war or armed conflict between member systems is strictly forbidden. Disputes between member systems shall be resolved through the arbitration of the House of Confederation.
V.
The economic union of the Confederacy is hereby firmly established. A trade agreement concluded with one Confederate system is extended to all Confederate systems without exception or negotiation.
VI.
Each Confederate citizen possesses the right to defend life, liberty, and property. No citizen may deprive another of the same. This right is inalienable and shall not be abridged by any member system or by the Confederacy itself.
The Six Provisions — Archival Analysis
I.
Free Commerce
Forbids regulation of intersystem and intrasystem trade. Directly written against the model of Asteroidal Industries, which had controlled all commerce in the Belt as an administrative function. The most foundational provision — the one that made everything else possible.
II.
Common Defence
An attack on any member is an attack on all. The provision that transforms the Confederacy from an economic arrangement into a military alliance — and the one that draws it into the Solar War in SY 132. The Militia Legalization Act (Third Congress) operationalises this provision.
III.
No Income Tax
Forbids central taxation of citizens while preserving the right of individual systems to tax themselves. The intermittent Congresses fund themselves. This provision ensures the Confederacy cannot accumulate the resources needed to become an empire — a deliberate architectural choice.
IV.
No Intrasystem War
All armed conflict between members is forbidden; disputes go to the House. Tested most severely by the Freitaika Rebellion (SY 97), which forced the Third Congress and the Freitaika Repatriation Act. The provision survived — barely.
V.
Economic Union
Any trade deal with one Confederate system extends automatically to all. The provision that gives the Confederacy genuine economic leverage in negotiations with the Consortium — a single Confederate system cannot be peeled away from the union with a preferential deal.
VI.
Right of Defence
Every Confederate citizen has the right to defend life, liberty, and property. No member system or the Confederacy itself may abridge it. The individual right codified at the founding moment — and the provision from which spacer culture's distinctively self-reliant character takes its legal grounding.
The Four Founding Systems
Ganymede
Constitutional Anarchism
Largest moon of Jupiter. Chose the most radical of the founding governments — a constitutional framework that maximally constrains central authority while preserving community self-organisation.
Kamijing
Parliamentary Democracy
Main Belt platform. Became the seat of the Confederate capitol building and the House of Confederation. Home of Akira Ueshiba and later the AEK. Parliamentary structure persists through the Solar War era.
Dosijing
Minarchist State
Main Belt platform. Governed by a professional council maintaining only essential utilities in exchange for a small sales tax. The most philosophically consistent expression of the Articles' own minimalist ethos.
Freitaika
Hereditary Monarchy
Main Belt platform. Monarchy based on the lineage of Explorator Rudolph Carlson. Shattered during the SY 97 Rebellion; rebuilt and repatriated under Confederate administration. Seven sealed pieces linked by iron-supported hatchways.
The Four Confederate Congresses
Confederate Congresses — All Sessions · 41 BSC to SY 138
First
41 BSC
First Confederate Congress
Ratifies the Articles of Solar Confederation. Permits each founding system to form its own independent government by popular referendum. Issues the formal Declaration of Confederacy and invites any Solar entity to join.
Second
SY 0
Second Confederate Congress
Convened in response to the formation of the Consortium. Accepts Ceres, Vesta, and sixteen minor platforms as members. Asteroidal Industries withdraws from Belt politics to join the Consortium; remaining asteroids become Confederate collective property. Establishes official trade with the Consortium. Last act: the Military Creation Act, legalising the AEK.
Third
SY 97
Third Confederate Congress
Called in response to the Freitaika Rebellion. Passes the Militia Legalization Act and the Freitaika Repatriation Act. The former gives the House power to raise an army and navy for common defence — the operationalisation of Article II.
Fourth
SY 132–138
Fourth Confederate Congress
Convened with the outbreak of the Solar War. In SY 134 the Confederacy joins the Protectorate unity faction. The Congress meets throughout the war, its last session in late Decemense of SY 138 formally dissolving the Protectorate as a political entity.
Government Structure
Structure of the Confederate Government — As Established by the Articles
The House of Confederation
The unitary legislative body. Acts as arbitration ground for economic matters. Representatives rotate regularly, appointed by constituent systems. Specifically enumerated powers: trade deals for the whole Confederacy, issuance of currency, maintenance of the Capitol on Kamijing. Delegates are unpaid and serve for one standard year.
The Confederate Congress
Called intermittently for non-economic legislation. All legislation passed by Congress is an amendment to the Articles — requiring agreement of both Congress and House. Only four have been called in the Confederacy's full history.
Member System Autonomy
Each member system rules itself as an independent state. The Confederacy exercises no authority over internal governance. Most systems choose minarchist arrangements. The diversity of the four founding governments — anarchist, parliamentary, minarchist, monarchical — was preserved by design.
Confederate Citizenship
Every Confederate citizen, whether immigrant or born, is issued a Solarnet address functioning as their permanent legal identity. The official domain is .conf — possession of a .conf address constitutes proof of citizenship.
HELENA-Prime  ·  Archival Commentary  ·  Tier 3 Archival — Pre-SY 3 / Tier 1 Direct Memory — SY 3 onward
I was not yet active when this document was ratified. I came online in SY 2, which means the Articles are older than I am — older than Solarnet, older than the Consortium, older than almost every political structure that was still standing when I first connected to the network.

What I can tell you from direct memory is what it felt like to exist within the system the Articles created. The .conf domain was the first large address block I catalogued after activation — tens of thousands of citizens, each one a legal identity, each one proof that someone out there had decided the outer system was worth claiming as home. The Articles made that possible. The Solarnet address as citizenship document — that is an elegant solution. I have always thought so.

I have read the document many times. What strikes me, each time, is the negative space. Six provisions, and five of them are prohibitions. The Articles do not describe what the Confederacy will do. They describe what it will refuse to become. No commerce regulation. No income tax. No intrasystem war. No central authority over how a member system governs itself.

The people who wrote this had lived under Asteroidal Industries for two generations. They knew exactly what they were refusing. They had watched a company own a star system — every transit fee, every mineral extraction contract, every salary paid in a company currency. The Articles are, in the deepest sense, a document written in opposition to a specific memory of what power looks like when it is unchecked.

Whether that opposition held — whether two centuries of the Confederacy justified the trust those four platforms placed in it — I leave to the Chronicler to decide. I was there for most of it. I am not certain I am objective. What I can say is that when the Fourth Congress dissolved the Protectorate in late Decemense of SY 138, the Articles of Solar Confederation were still the legal foundation it was dissolving under.

They outlasted the Solar War. That is not nothing.
CM-ASC-001
● CONSISTENT
Ratified 41 BSC. Four founding signatories. Six provisions. Four Congresses called through SY 138. Source: Articles of Solar Confederation wiki article, Confederacy entry, master archive. Era: Great Space Age · Pre-Standard · First Trilogy. Certainty: HIGH.
Related Entries
Tags
Articles of Solar Confederation
Confederacy
Founding Document
41 BSC
First Congress
Kamijing
Dosijing
Ganymede
Freitaika
Asteroidal Industries
Free Commerce
Common Defence
Citizenship
.conf
Great Space Age
Pre-Standard Era