“Political historian Barouth Regorab had likened the difference between a planetary government and the Galactic Senate to that between a rural community and a metropolis: “When a person depends upon their neighbor for assistance during the harvest—when strangers are few and familial ties bind the farmer to the freighter captain—the greatest danger is shunning or exile. Mollifying your peers becomes a matter of survival. You have an incentive to iron out differences, or if necessary to bury any radical beliefs that would put you at odds with your community.
“In a city of millions, however, a person may build a tailor-made community inside the larger organism. Anger your neighbor and you may move in with a friend. Become an outcast among your co-workers and you may take a job with a competitor. Diverse arts and philosophies may flourish without the flattening effect of more tight-knit communities, and differences may be celebrated. Yet a lack of common ties can also cause neighbors to see one another as rivals. Ideological opponents can be dismissed without need for engagement. And good people may slip through the cracks, lost in the chaos and written off as someone else’s problem.”