Hochiken People's Assembly

The Hochiken People's Assembly (HPA) is an interstellar, multi-system government.

Goals

No information yet available.

History & Background (Dossier)

One of the largest of the Gateway Sector multisystem governments, the Assembly sprawls across much of both the Atoon and Denkard Subsectors and extends beyond the sector boundaries coreward into the Stars End Sector. The capital is located on Granth (Gateway 1601).

Concord (Gateway 1410), a formerly independent world on the Atoon-Windfleet border, was annexed outright a year ago, and there is a continuing struggle for political control of several of the metal-rich systems of the Heptad within the Plavian League. Recent raids on several of the Heptad worlds, notably the water world of Vosrin (Gateway 1512), have brought the HPA to the brink of war with the neighboring Plavian League. The HPA accuses the League of interfering with its internal affairs and waging "economic warfare" in the form of trade sanctions and embargo's against Assembly trade goods.

Privately, it is likely that the Assembly would welcome a war with the Plavian League, which the HPA military views as weak and divided. The worlds of the HPA are poor in natural resources and minerals, especially heavy elements. Control of the Heptad, especially metal-rich Windfleet and Tash, would solve many of the HPA's problems in this area.

The HPA suffers from an accident of astrography. By chance, fourteen of the HPA's twenty-nine systems are separated from the rest by a three parsec gulf, meaning that only ships capable of Jump-3 or better can make the crossing between the Assembly's two halves. The Assembly government is keenly interested in acquiring a Jump-2 route, which would be possible if two independent systems, Orcana (Gateway 2105) and Tarkaan (Gateway 2107) could be brought into the empire. The Granth (Gateway 1601) government has been putting intense political pressure on Orcana recently in a bid to force them to join the Assembly. The HPA has declared Orcana a blockade interdiction zone, and vessels may be subject to boarding and search by HPA warships.

Another threat to the region's stability is the recent Treaty of Granth, which makes the HPA and the Viyard Concourse nominal allies. This is viewed as a clever move on the part of Kalen, who with this single move has ensured that the Plavian League's Galian allies will be tied up in any future sector war fighting the Concourse and will be unable to substantially help the Plavians.

Most observers feel that a sector wide war with the HPA as the principal belligerent is inevitable, especially now that the Treaty of Granth has been ratified by both parties.

Government & Politics (Leadership)

The Hochiken People's Assembly government is characterized as having an average degree of centralization, which gives local/regional/planetary governments more power than most governments, but sacrifices uniformity on many issues. The Hochiken People's Assembly government is usually classified as a Assembly, a form of a Federation with strong autocratic trends and a head of state, who is a charismatic dictator.