Honestly, I would expect it to mean much in universe.
It's basically the equivalent of the UN, except the number of voting members are based on each "sovereign entity's" population.
However, the UN's decisions are only meaningful if it takes military action. See the lack of any meaningful response when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
Also, I would expect that each sovereign state would send representatives of their choice (maybe chosen by internal elections) but that there would be a number of seats based on relative population of each state.
Thus none of this is based on race specifically, but since most planets (and thus planetary governments) are primarily composed of one major race you would expect the representative of that government to be of that race.
Honestly, I could see population being thrown out completely and each government sending a single representative.
Again, what the UN does/says isn't really binding. If the other states don't get together and say "We're going to start killing you and taking your stuff if you don't comply" then it doesn't mean anything. Exactly how the UN did nothing about Russia, because none of the countries wanted to get involved with a escalating war in Russia in which there would be no winner.
Of course, countries did independently institute sanctions against Russia which....have been kind of effective. But Crimea is still in Russian control so...
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For those who are really curious, Devastation Arc has all canonical members of Directorate appear.
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I dunno if population factors into it all that strongly. Because it's so hard to count in an unbiased way;
- Castrovel probably has billions and billions of formian drones that are if not entirely mindless, still going to do exactly as their hive queens say.
- Barathu merge and split into bigger entities. How do you count the number of barathu?
- Elves live very long but long lifespan tends to be correlated with low fertility and population size. They're not going to be happy with voting weight based on raw population numbers.
- The lashunta and formians on Castrovel probably want to cast their votes separately.
You can impose a standard but it's always going to be biased to someone's (dis)advantage. So what you probably got is some kind of murky political compromise, rather than a clear simple rule.
I was a bit surprised that Aballon isn't on the Directorate all that much because it should be a powerhouse. But it could very well be that the anacites find Directorate politics hard to comprehend and altogether, trying to exert their influence in that arena just isn't very efficient for them. Instead they could have an understanding with one of the second-tier powers to consistently back them in elections, and in return that director will also protect Aballonian interests.
Valid questions.
But the description of the council directly says that the number of delegates each planet gets is proportional to its sentient population.
Right, and what we're saying is that's dumb and doesn't make sense.
Only the entities with the largest populations would push for that, and wouldn't get support from the rest.
I wouldn't expect that to ever work.
It would be like suggesting China and India get to control anything they can agree on because they represent such a large portion of the population. Either alone is about 4 times the population the United States, the 3rd largest population country. Together China and India represent about 35% of the worlds population. That's really hard to outvote.
And doesn't reflect the command role the United State used to play in world prior to the current presidency.
Honestly, I would imagine every sovereign state would be allowed to send a single representative, with maybe something like the Stewards being represented but only allowed to vote if there is a tie. Keep in mind that even if you have an odd number of sovereign states they could choose to abstain and might still require some entity to break a deadlock.
And each representative would be appointed by their respective government, in whatever manner that government chose.
The big question would be who is admitted, how big/important a sovereign entity would need to be before it's permitted a representative. Places like the Diaspora probably have non-voting representatives that can contribute their input on the floor but aren't recognized as a cohesive sovereign state.
Who is admitted is probably done by a vote of currently participating member.
That sounds equally silly as it would give the Idari the same kind of influence as Bretheda or Verces.Honestly, I would imagine every sovereign state would be allowed to send a single representative, with maybe something like the Stewards being represented but only allowed to vote if there is a tie. Keep in mind that even if you have an odd number of sovereign states they could choose to abstain and might still require some entity to break a deadlock.
And each representative would be appointed by their respective government, in whatever manner that government chose.
The big question would be who is admitted, how big/important a sovereign entity would need to be before it's permitted a representative. Places like the Diaspora probably have non-voting representatives that can contribute their input on the floor but aren't recognized as a cohesive sovereign state.
Who is admitted is probably done by a vote of currently participating member.
Why is that silly? That's exactly how the UN works.
And it's the only one the different nations of Earth could agree to.
All sovereign states being equal in importance to the unified body they're coming to regardless of population, size, military power, economy, etc is about the only fair way to run things.
If it's important to you, remember that the UN(and the Starfinder directorate) is basically just a farce. If the sovereign states that compose it don't decide to back up decision with force they don't mean anything.
Just like how the UN passed a resolution condemning Russia's actions against Crimea, but couldn't do anything militarily because none of the countries with the firepower to do so wanted to start a war with Russia.
The Pact World Council/Directorate can issue rulings all the want, but they don't mean anything if it's members don't enforce them with military power.
I mean, honestly I don't view the UN as working, or at least not being effective.
Though I will grant you being permanent members of the security council do confer some privileges. Regardless, I think population is bad.
Valid questions.
But the description of the council directly says that the number of delegates each planet gets is proportional to its sentient population.Right, and what we're saying is that's dumb and doesn't make sense.
Only the entities with the largest populations would push for that, and wouldn't get support from the rest.
I wouldn't expect that to ever work.
It would be like suggesting China and India get to control anything they can agree on because they represent such a large portion of the population. Either alone is about 4 times the population the United States, the 3rd largest population country. Together China and India represent about 35% of the worlds population. That's really hard to outvote.
And doesn't reflect the command role the United State used to play in world prior to the current presidency.
It's mostly a military alliance, not a real government, with everyone having similar levels of tech and industrial base the military contributions should be pretty similar to population and . This is the US dominating NATO policy, not China dominating medical regulations in Italy.
Since every member state can just remove their military forces from the collective defense if they want, it probably makes the most sense for overall policy to be set by a weighting of the most populous and powerful worlds. If a small entity doesn't like it they can pull a France and defend themselves, except without as much geographical free riding.
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I mean, honestly I don't view the UN as working, or at least not being effective.
Though I will grant you being permanent members of the security council do confer some privileges. Regardless, I think population is bad.
We haven't had a world war since the UN was set up. I think it does the most important thing it's supposed to do. It just doesn't do much more than that.
IMO the whole concept of "permanent members of the security council with a veto" is basically, you give a veto to any of the great powers that might otherwise go to war over a UN security council decision that they couldn't live with.
It's a rather low-bar view of what the UN is for maybe, but seen that way, it works reasonably well.
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We haven't had a world war since the UN was set up.I mean, honestly I don't view the UN as working, or at least not being effective.
Though I will grant you being permanent members of the security council do confer some privileges. Regardless, I think population is bad.
Talk about correlation not equaling causation! Nukes and nothing but nukes.
It's mostly a military alliance, not a real government
Much how I view the Pact World Council. None of the members that make up the council would believably cede their governing autonomy to the Pact Worlds Council.
It's basically just for mutual protection and to try and make up some laws regarding how different sovereign entities should interact with each other, but lacks much in the way to enforce that.
You might be on to something, although I would expect that (if ran intelligently) it would require you to donate the specified resources (let's assume they're after equipment, ships, materials, etc) and not personnel. Perhaps they even offer "payment plans" where your sovereign state says "I have xyz manufacturing capacity and IU promise to give you abc number of widgets each quarter of a standard year". And as long as they produce that much they get a certain number of votes.
That could be how the stewards are equipped.
Valid questions.
But the description of the council directly says that the number of delegates each planet gets is proportional to its sentient population.Right, and what we're saying is that's dumb and doesn't make sense.
I mean, that's politics for you.
Maybe, but unless the Stewards have a bizarrely large "innate" size, any serious military activity is going to require people, as well as equipment. All the ships and guns in space won't help if you don't have enough people to use them, after all. Now, yes, Starfinder technology logic does mean that you could take the same total planetary GDP, and spend it supplying the same number of Stewards with better quality equipment. However:
1. I'm not sure everyone would want to play in a setting where even the lowest level Steward deployment has Level 20+ gear.
2. There are ultimately many problems that simply can't be solved without having *more* people and ships, rather than just better ones.
True, but getting people you actually trust and who aren't just agents of their government would be incredibly hard.
Besides, it seems like you could attract plenty of personnel if you offer them high pay by selling off some of those military assets you find you don't need.
In any event, we could discuss a lot on the topic, but I think what effectively amounts to governments conscripting people wont work out well.