Jun 04, 2025
To:TheLeanna_M
You're absolutely right - abandoning his role as a Special Agent is a huge step, and in fact, in the future, he’ll become famous as the first Special Agent ever to have defected (as referenced in my short story "Conscience of Steel").
As for a "Prime Directive", the Terran Federation doesn’t have a single codified law that governs first contact scenarios. Instead, such decisions are shaped by constantly evolving policy.
The Federation actually has very few formal rules, at least in the legal sense. It’s a direct executive democracy, meaning policy is heavily shaped by continuous public votes for positions within the Solar Council, which shares legislative power with the Special Agents. As a result, decisions - including those surrounding first contact - are typically made on a case-by-case basis.
Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. That’s how things functioned during Pax Lupi, the golden age of the Federation you saw in "Twilight Duty." But now, half a millennium later, democracy is eroding under the pressure of the looming threat of Nova Solaris. At the time of this story, policy tends to mean whatever best serves the interests of the Second Expansion, even if it means trampling a few democratic ideals, or a few alien species, along the way.
