Central planets

The central planets are a wonderland of peace and technology. All citizens have enough to eat. They work in glistening skyscrapers and live in high-rise apartment buildings. The grass is green and the skies are clear and no one wants for anything. That's if you believe the Alliance propaganda.

To be fair, the propaganda is mostly true. Even the poor who live on the Core worlds rarely want for shelter or food. Still, contrary to what the Alliance might want everyone to think, not everyone on the Core worlds is well-to-do. Those who aren't wealthy don't find life much better than those living out on the Rim. They may be better schooled, and their work might not involve dirt collecting under their fingernails, but there are plenty of people who don't much like their lot in life.

Trapped in repetitive, unimaginative jobs, viewing nothing but the four low walls of a cube all day, they have the watchful eye of the Alliance on them at every turn. There is so much surveillance on a Core world 'to prevent crime and ensure the safety of citizens' that almost everything a person does is recorded on a monitor somewhere.

The authorities will tell you that crime is almost non-existent on the Central Planets, since their scanners are almost everywhere. Still, there are some who manage to find a way to poke the Alliance in its electronic eye now and then.

Most people on the Core worlds are content. They lead comfortable lives, with time and leisure to spend with their families. Their children all have access to the best quality education and health care. They have found the peaceful, prosperous existence that mankind has been seeking since he left the Garden of Eden. If they have to trade away some of their freedom to get this, they would tell you it was worth it.

These are the same people who can't understand why other people on the outer worlds fought so hard against it.