History Main / UngovernableGalaxy

** 40K has another example with the Tau Empire, which consists of well-regulated, disciplined and highly organized planet systems where every citizen does his part without hesitation. This is possible for two reasons: the Tau operate on HappinessInSlavery where no citizen will ever try to do less than their rigidly-defined part for the Greater Good (possibly via pheromonal mind control of their ruling class), and their empire is very restrained (their form of FTL travel is something like five times slower than Warp travel, which can often take months of real-time).

* ''BattleTech'' the Terran Hegemony and the Star League had tough times in their glory days, not only do they have to govern thousands of worlds, but they also have to hunt down pirates, and stamp out rebellion hundreds of light years away from each other. And the Successor States following the fall of the Star League have been unable to form a unified government for the past 400 years.

** the Centauri Republic once controlled more than half of local space, but after the PyrrhicVictory in the Centauri-Orieni War they started emhorraging worlds, [[VestigialEmpire and now are reduced to twelve systems]], with many worlds of their former empire being now half of the [[TheAlliance League of Non-Aligned Worlds]] or belonging to the Narn Regime (itself former Centauri subjects);

* In Creator/AndreyLivadny's ''TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' books, the [[TheFederation Confederacy of Suns]] is created in the aftermath of the [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression First Galactic War]] to provide mutual defense and trade of the victorious [[LaResistance Free Colonies]]. From the beginning, the set-up is not equal, as the five Core worlds have more power than the worlds making up the far larger Periphery. While the Confederacy lasts for a surprisingly long time, after about 1000 years, the internal strife and the desire for self-control of many worlds (not to mention corruption) results in the break-up of the Confederacy. Only a crippling attack by a previously-unknown alien race decades later bands the now-separate worlds together, re-forming the Confederacy on new terms (i.e. equality for all worlds, including a few alien ones).

* In MikhailAkhmanov and Christopher Nicholas Gilmore's novel ''Literature/CaptainFrenchOrTheQuestForParadise'', the same trope applies but with AbsentAliens and lack CasualInterstellarTravel. Over 20,000 years of space exploration, humanity has colonized thousands of worlds, but the lack of FTL travel means that only a hundred or so ships regularly travel between them. The only way to travel between stars is to use a near-light STL drive that instantaneously accelerates to relativistic speeds, meaning the journey takes only a second to the traveler but can take decades or even centuries for the rest of the universe. Under these conditions, and with no SubspaceAnsible to facilitate communication between worlds, each world is on its own. The authors explain that no interstellar government is possible, as a rebellion on one world could not be put down by a SpaceNavy because it would take years for the ships to arrive. Even sending signals across interstellar space is a costly venture without any benefit. The only real means of spreading news between worlds is via the space traders.

* In MikhailAkhmanov and Christopher Nicholas Gilmore's novel ''Literature/CaptainFrenchOrTheQuestForParadise'', the same trope applies but with AbsentAliens and lack CasualInterstellarTravel. Over 20,000 years of space exploration, humanity has colonized dozens of worlds, but the lack of FTL travel means that only a hundred or so ships regularly travel between them. The only way to travel between stars is to use a near-light STL drive that instantaneously accelerates to relativistic speeds, meaning the journey takes only a second to the traveler but can take decades or even centuries for the rest of the universe. Under these conditions, and with no SubspaceAnsible to facilitate communication between worlds, each world is on its own. The authors explain that no interstellar government is possible, as a rebellion on one world could not be put down by a SpaceNavy because it would take years for the ships to arrive. Even sending signals across interstellar space is a costly venture without any benefit. The only real means of spreading news between worlds is via the space traders.

** the Earth Alliance is apparently unified, but the ExpandedUniverse makes clear that there still are independent nations ''on Earth itself'' (the Vatican for the same reasons they are still independent from Italy, and Israel with their own colony world and the Republic of Korea because they never joined the Alliance for their own reasons), even if they strongly feel Alliance pressure (Israel's independence is mostly nominal), and as Earth Alliance expanded in space two different sets of separatists slipped out and formed their own states, the Sh'lassen Triumvirate (two worlds, they join Earth Alliance during the series when the government loses control of one of the worlds and calls Earth for help) and the Free Human Union (three worlds, still independent).

* ''BattleTech'' the Terran Hegemony and the Star League had tough times in their glory days, not only do they have to govern thousands of worlds, but they also have to hunt down pirates, and stamp out rebellion hundreds of light years away from each other.

The larger a government gets, the more bureaucracy it accretes, the easier for things to slip between the cracks, the harder for things to get done.

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* In AndreyLivadny's ''TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' books, the [[TheFederation Confederacy of Suns]] is created in the aftermath of the [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression First Galactic War]] to provide mutual defense and trade of the victorious [[LaResistance Free Colonies]]. From the beginning, the set-up is not equal, as the five Core worlds have more power than the worlds making up the far larger Periphery. While the Confederacy lasts for a surprisingly long time, after about 1000 years, the internal strife and the desire for self-control of many worlds (not to mention corruption) results in the break-up of the Confederacy. Only a crippling attack by a previously-unknown alien race decades later bands the now-separate worlds together, re-forming the Confederacy on new terms (i.e. equality for all worlds, including a few alien ones).

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* In MikhailAkhmanov and Christopher Nicholas Gilmore's novel ''Captain French, or the Quest for Paradise'', the same trope applies but with AbsentAliens and lack CasualInterstellarTravel. Over 20,000 years of space exploration, humanity has colonized dozens of worlds, but the lack of FTL travel means that only a hundred or so ships regularly travel between them. The only way to travel between stars is to use a near-light STL drive that instantaneously accelerates to relativistic speeds, meaning the journey takes only a second to the traveler but can take decades or even centuries for the rest of the universe. Under these conditions, and with no SubspaceAnsible to facilitate communication between worlds, each world is on its own. The authors explain that no interstellar government is possible, as a rebellion on one world could not be put down by a SpaceNavy because it would take years for the ships to arrive. Even sending signals across interstellar space is a costly venture without any benefit. The only real means of spreading news between worlds is via the space traders.

* Despite having much more reasonable ambitions than an entire galaxy, the United Earth Directorate of ''Franchise/{{Starcraft}}'' fame finds the Koprulu Sector untameable; their fleet manages to take over the sector in a matter of weeks, but loses it just as quickly. Short reigns characterized the other Koprulu governments, with both the Confederacy of Man (less than a generation after moving from TheAlliance to TheEmpire) and Emperor Arcturus's Dominion (roughly 4 years) falling just in the span of the games. Worse, it's ''contagious'': neither the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens protoss]] nor the [[BugWar zerg]] had any significant change in leadership for ''centuries'' before coming to Koprulu, and neither has managed to make a leader last more than a few years since. It must be something in the space-water...

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': The galaxy is, [[AllThereInTheManual according to the Codex]], barely 1% explored, let alone governed. Even among the settled worlds, there are territories that the Citadel Council has no authority over, such as the terminus systems, and others where there is no law at all.

* ''BattleTech'' the Terran Hegemony and the Star League had tough times in their glory days, not only do they have to govern thousands of worlds, but they also have to hunt down pirates, and stamp out rebellion millions of light years away from each other.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect'': The galaxy is, [[AllThereInTheManual according to the Codex]], barely 1% explored, let alone governed. Even among the settled worlds, there are territories that the Citadel Council has no authority over, such as the terminus systems, and others where there is no law at all.

And that's on earth. Imagine a galaxy full of inhabited planets, with billions of people on each one, and [[MulticulturalAlienPlanet probably not]] a PlanetOfHats. Even an FTL drive and [[SubspaceAnsible form of communication]] would not decrease the disadvantages of scale. Without the communication, difficulties would be increased -- massively so if only STL travel is possible.

-> ''Starve the center and you reap anarchy.''
-> ''Feed the center and you breed tyranny.''
-> ''The problem is obvious to every man.''
-> ''A solution has been revealed to no man.''
-->-- [[MagnificentBastard Uueg Tching]], ''[[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse The Star Wars Atlas]]''

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* ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}: As humanity expanded, insurgents began to spring up on colony worlds away from the central government, prompting the UNSC to take action and eventually lead to the creation of the [=SPARTANs. =]

And that's on earth. Imagine a galaxy full of inhabited planets, with billions of people on each one, and [MulticulturalAlienPlanet probably not]] a PlanetOfHats. Even an FTL drive and [[SubspaceAnsible form of communication]] would not decrease the disadvantages of scale. Without the communication, difficulties would be increased -- massively so if only STL travel is possible.

And that's on earth. Imagine a galaxy full of inhabited planets, with billions of people on each one, and probably not a PlanetOfHats. Even an FTL drive and [[SubspaceAnsible form of communication]] would not decrease the disadvantages of scale. Without the communication, difficulties would be increased -- massively so if only STL travel is possible.