Markup View

Author: ArcadesSabboth

Jun 15th 2013 at 1:08:44 PM

The one I'm thinking of is Galactic civilization in the ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series. Each clan (multiple species) is its own political unit. The unifying institutions are a shared culture/civilization, shared languages, and the Galactic Institutes. The Institute rules amount to inter-clan laws, but they can only be enforced if the Institute can get a clan to lend a military to punish the offending species (and the big militaries can pretty much do anything they want), convince the offending species to submit willingly to the laws (through intimidation or actual reverence for law), or if an Institute is internally punishing one of its own people and that person's species doesn't intervene politically to protect them.

The books are also set during an era when the laws are especially unenforced, and all remaining sense of law largely evaporates.

On the other hand, most clans do ''mostly'' obey the law even then, and the books do have instances of some species and clans successfully punished for infractions against the laws. For three books, the majority of characters are criminals who live in fear of the law, and belive it could impact them.

The main law that does get enforced fairly regularly is "don't intrude on space inhabited by non-oxygen-breathers" because they kill intruders.