For the next 100 years, the Sovereign experienced its Golden Age. Stability in Arcturus required robust, complex trade routes that connected every planet, moon and space station. The Sovereign regulated all trade to ensure food, commodities, and other tradeable goods spread from resource-rich territories to resource-poor territories. The wide net of the Sovereign (and the Kepler heirs at its helm) was positioned in the middle of this dynamic flow, collecting tariffs.
But cracks eventually began to form. Goshen was a thriving mining planet, that boasted, among other resources, a rich supply of kinetic Farsei Crystals useful in synaptic energy manipulation, the properties and uses of which were discovered by the Farsei family generations before. The Farsei Family originally marketed their crystals as the principle input for Penfield batteries. Given that not all planets or moons in Arcturus had the resources required to generate adequate energy, efficient energy storage and transportation were critical for Arcturus; hence, Goshen was required by the Sovereign to trade Farsei Crystals well below market prices. The residents of Goshen felt as though they were overcontributing to the Sovereign without getting anything in return. These feelings strengthened as the versatility and power of Farsei Crystals became more apparent, and their use became ubiquitous in nearly every advanced technology—including weaponry.
At the first centennial celebration of the Sovereign Accord on Kepler, an heir to the Farsei family, Ulysses Farsei IV, witnessed firsthand the opulence on Kepler bankrolled by tariffs and trade regulations imposed upon the citizens of Goshen. After returning to Goshen, Ulysses shifted his focus to politics with a goal of normalizing these trade inequities. He and a core group of supporters founded a grassroots party known as the Terran Coalition. This political party quickly grew in influence on Goshen and took majority control of the local Goshen government.
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