Planets

Earth

The birthplace of Humanity, currently the dominant form of intelligent life in the galaxy. Earth has a lengthy history spanning hundreds of thousands of years that we're not going to get into right here; go read some history books if you want all that.

Earth is notable for still maintaining the largest population of Humans anywhere in the galaxy, and for managing to remain the seat of power for what passes as a galactic government in this day and age. The Galactic Council includes 500 representatives from Human colonies, protectorates, and worlds that sit to vote in concert on high-level mandates that have galaxy-spanning reach. In practice they primarily negotiate trade relationships and work to broker peace where needed. They also reserve seats for corporation representatives to make their concerns heard, though the Council doesn't pass law or uphold interests of any corporations or corporately funded populaces and these representatives do not have a vote on the Council. The Council does maintain one of the larger militaries in the galaxy, nowhere close to enough to effectively protect every system ostensibly under their rule, but it is a significant hammer they can drop in support of local planetary or coalition militaries or militias.

Galphus Prime

The unofficial second home of the Human race, second planet in orbit around the star Galphus, Galphus Prime is currently the second most populous planet in the galaxy behind Earth. Originally a Creamy occupied world of a name unpronounceable by Human pallets, already equipped with a suitable nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, temperate weather, and needed infrastructure to support a large population of recently exterminated Creamies, it was already staged to support billions of refugees from Earth following the Errand Rescue near the close of the Alien War. During the century required to restore Earth's biosphere to habitable conditions after bombardment by the Creamies many of the refugees from Earth settled permanently in the Galphus system, cementing Galphus prime as a seat of power for Humanity.

During the resettlement of Earth, Galphus Prime became the seat of galactic power for a period with the founding of the Terran Alliance. The Alliance was a short-lived governing body, however, often cited as having tried to hold on too tightly to the colonies being established throughout the galaxy. The disillusionment of the colonies toward the Alliance leading up to the Interplanetary War prompted a noted Alliance diplomat to observe "the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

In the final throes of the Interplanetary War the hobbled Terran Alliance headquartered on Galphus Prime came under siege from a coalition of colonies called the Terran Empire. They launched a full scale assault on the Galphus system just a decade after their formation in an attempt to seize control of Alliance headquarters and unite the galaxy under one flag once again. The conclusion of the Galphus Campaign occurred in the skies of Galphus Prime itself, with haggard Alliance forces just barely managing to beat back the Empire. The defeat resulted in the collapse of the Empire's government while Galphus Prime was so battered it could no longer enforce rule upon even neighboring settlements within the Galphus system. Interplanetary governance of any sort vanished at that point until nearly a hundred years later with the establishment of the Galactic Council.

Terracore

Terracore is a public space industrial planet dedicated to a wide range of manufacturing needs. It consists of a variety of large and small independent fabrication facilities and a host of inter-operable engineering firms for use by the Galactic Council and any number of large or small corporations that wish to hire a portion of their manufacturing output. The planet is governed by an elected representative body and elected judicial structure headed by an appointed executive, and they pride themselves on diversity, both of population and manufacturing output. Terracore is home to the headquarters of one interplanetary corporation, the Terracore-Wide Interplanetary Consolidated Shipping (TWICS) Corporation, who handles shipping across the length of the Scutum-Centarus arm. The capitol city of Terracore has six discrete space ports and three heliovators that lead to an array of orbital dockyards. All of this infrastructure exists to service the city’s 470-ish million industrial inhabitants. There are at least 13 other cities of approximately that size on Terracore, and the planet's total population is in the neighborhood of 8.3 billion.

Originally built as a refueling stop on the path from Earth to the inner-galactic systems, Terracore is one of the earlier human colonies and represents a heavy-handed approach at terraformation. The original biosphere of Terracore, such as it was given the relative youthfulness of the Terran-107 star around which it orbits, was completely paved over by Humanities terraforming efforts resulting in an essentially global temperate zone which is carefully controlled by huge atmospheric pumps.

Not long ago the overall dynamic of the Terracore population subtly shifted, leading some to speculate that either the government has become exceptionally heavy-handed or there's been a population-wide fixation on some sort of recreational drug. In either case their production output has increased by nearly 40% over the past year, so their customers don't really seem to mind.