Editing Free Worlds League (section)

== House Marik ==
On paper (and to a large degree in practice) the Free Worlds League is run by a Parliament whose members are mostly elected democratically as each world sees fit, though there are a few non-democratic planets. Each FWL affiliated world has a lot of autonomy in that framework. Less formally, power in the League has fallen into the office of Captain-General, the supreme commander of the Free Worlds League military. People are technically appointed as Captain-Generals by parliament. In practice, the office is the exclusive domain of House Marik and parliamentary approval is just a rubber stamp on succession.

While most Mariks are generally considered less of a major pain in the ass than other major noble houses, there is specifically one, the real Thomas Marik, that stands out as obviously the worst one as he was the head of the [[Word of Blake]]. Once he got killed, all the cadet branches of House Marik and the regional nobles began fighting amongst themselves in what was basically a “mini-Succession Wars” in League space until Jessica Marik reunified the bulk of the provinces together again with help from the Sea Fox and Spirit Cat clanners (who were seeking safe shores once Grey Monday wrecked the Republic and HPG network).