User blog comment:GrandMethuselah67/Lore-Sheet: The Technocratic Coalition of Humankind/@comment-4867780-20161104101038/@comment-26322734-20161104113959

"What is the Technocracy exactly ? Where does it find the resources to finance something as costy as mass production of self-healing combat automatons, since tax money seems out of the question ?"

Automation. Manufacturing jobs have effectively all been taken by machines and 3D printers, so it cuts the cost of actually making things to a fraction of what it was. Especially since self-healing combat machines are made out of nanotech which can just replicate itself. So there you have the cost of actually building an army severely diminished from what it would be today. And since manufacturing robots don't need money, no need to pay them. The energy cost is severely diminished also, since the T.C.H's overall available energy is extremely high due to star factories and fusion battery cells. That'd leave paying the technical experts to program them, and half of their job is taken by artificial intelligence anyways, and considering Crown Industries is a multi-billion dollar company, the cost of software programming isn't that high.

Also, the Technocracy is a judicial house that unites the Republics within the civilization (since the T.C.H. is a Coalition, it's actually a confederacy of different nations all bought together via various contracts) by mediating relations between the republics, providing a military, managing foreign affairs, and providing courts where they review different policies in different republics to ensure they don't become too authoritarian.

The Technocracy has a very small and limited role, but isn't democratic in the sense that officials aren't elected into the Technocracy. Malcolm himself appoints technical experts, though nations and citizens can vote to recall any member of the Technocracy if they feel one of the heads of the departments is abusing their power. Furthermore, the Technocracy can also be subject to judicial review in privately owned courts.

So whereas the governments in the individual nation-states enforce contracts within their nations, the Technocracy enforces contracts between the nations and with the society and extraterrestrial societies.

"Finally, how does the Coalition get along with the Eapaln Federation ? They have virtually opposite societal values ("all hail the omniscient AI shapping everyone's destiny for the greater good !" - this one must give the Coalition a physical allergy ^ ^;) but seeing the picture I suppose that's just the kind of moments where Realpolitik applies in full force."

Basically like relations between the U.S. and China -- Realpolitik, as you said. The Eapaln Federation is in this weird place where they have a completely authoritarian government (after all, it is a super-intelligent A.I.) that has a sort of personality cult surrounding it, but they're very liberal economically, basically as much as the T.C.H, so their society has actually been transitioning from something that looked like a less incredibly violent Imperium of Man to the Coalition's objectivist society.