The Federacy was an interstellar political entity composed of several thousand planets settled by Earth humans. The Federacy was a parliamentary democracy, with delegates being regularly elected from all member planets to the Assembly, the majority then electing the Prime Minister and approving the annual government budgets. In practice, powerful bureaucrats of such governmental agencies as the Survey Service tended to become entrenched in power and only imperfectly controlled by the elected officials - and sometimes grossly abused their power, as in the notorious case of Paulina Koch.