CONCORD Assembly

CONCORD Assembly is an independent organization founded a century ago to facilitate negotiations between the races to improve relations, as well as to foster inter-stellar trade through policing and regulations. CONCORD stands for Consolidated Cooperation and Relations Command.

Organization

The main purposes of CONCORD Assembly was to ease the fragile tension and create a foundation for the empires to work their differences out in a peaceful manner. Today, CONCORD is an independent organization which purpose is to maintain law and order and peace among the empires. CONCORD is branched into numerous divisions, each of which handles a certain aspect of the empire relationship. Most space farers will only ever deal with these two departments on any regular basis and to many those two, and maybe mainly DED are the actual face of CONCORD.

The inner workings of CONCORD are democratic in nature, today each of the five empires have an equal saying in all matters. Early on the Amarrians were adamant that the Minmatar Republic would not get an admission into CONCORD, but later reluctantly agreed, even if they still refuse to accept the legitimacy of the Republic. CONCORD tries to maintain neutral towards slave owning states like the Amarr Empire and Khanid Kingdom.

The empires haven’t been bothered to interfere with this development as, on the whole, CONCORD is doing its job very well and there have been no major cases of abused power. But many fear that this may change one day

Inner Circle

Inner Circle is the top level department of CONCORD. The policies of CONCORD are discussed and decided by Inner Circle meetings, which are normally closed to the public. At first the members of the Inner Circle were nominated by the empires, but now they come from the CONCORD employees. Thus, their loyalty is no longer bound to the empire they came from, but to CONCORD itself.

Divisions

CONCORD maintains numerous divisions to maintain the law and fund the continue existance of CONCORD.

CAD

Commerce Assessment Department (CAD) oversees interstellar trade agreements and regulations.

DED

Directive Enforcement Department (DED) is the police enforcement arm of CONCORD. DED has the responsibility of tracking down known criminals and attacking criminal facilities. They frequently operate outside empire space, wanting criminals to understand that there is nowhere safe from the long arm of the law.

SCC

Secure Commerce Commission (SCC) is responsible for regulating and monitoring all trade transactions that take place on space stations. It acts under strict codes of neutrality. These codes ensure the SCC keeps all dealings secure and secret, so there is no chance for government interference.

History

CONCORD was founded in AD 23233, not long after the five empires had established contact with each other. Relationships between the five empires were strained right from the start. In this regard, the workings of CONCORD can be said to have been successful, since the empires have kept the peace over the last century. On numerous occasions relationships deteriorated to within an inch of all out war, but through the efforts of CONCORD a compromise solution has always been found.

For the first few decades of its existence CONCORD wielded very limited power and started as a fledgling meeting ground for diplomats. CONCORD has in the decades since it was founded slowly increased its power and influence. The growing power of CONCORD has caused some concern within the empires and many are becoming alarmed by CONCORD’s attempts to insert its autonomy in troubling areas regarded as internal affairs within the empires. The root for this development lies in the evolution of CONCORD itself. It has become an independent entity from the empires, as it is able to largely fund its own operation through customs, confiscation of contraband goods, and other means.

It’s no longer a neutral ground for the empires to hold diplomatic agreements, but has become an independent institution setting its own rules and regulations. The ever-expanding bureaucracy of CONCORD has become a-empirical. They have forsworn loyalty to any race. The only hold the empires have on CONCORD is that of financial support as the revenues gathered by customs, confiscation of illegal goods, selling licenses, and among other things.