Fraternity

The fraternities are organizations of like-minded individuals on Nuclearth which wield considerable political power. Like their preapocalyptic collegiate namesakes (with which they otherwise have little in common), fraternities are often called "frats" for short. Fraternities originated in North America, and remain most prevalent there, where they form a significant power base comparable in influence to, if not greater than, the mayors and other official government leaders. While they have made some inroads into other areas, almost nowhere else do they have anything like the status they have in North America. The exception is Japan, where a very similar system to the North American fraternities has arisen apparently independently. The Japanese analogues to the fraternities are called touha, though the rōmaji "furato" is becoming increasingly popular.

In relatively few areas do any fraternities have official leadership positions; most cities have political structures set up in which the fraternities officially play no part—though matters may unofficially be altogether different. Exactly how powerful the fraternities are varies widely from place to place, and a fraternity which practically runs one city may be virtually powerless in another. One factor affecting a fraternity's power, of course, is which fraternity the city's leaders belong to, but this isn't always in close correlation; there are cases when community leaders belong to a fraternity that is otherwise of little influence there, though this may lead to tension. Even in North America, there are even some scattered cities that have kept out the influence of the fraternities, most or all of whose inhabitants have no fraternity memberships or sympathies, but they are in the minority; while they are more powerful in some areas than others, the fraternities are a force to be reckoned with in that continent, even though they haven't attained comparable influence elsewhere.

Joining

A few fraternities have restrictions on their membership—the Alembics will not (knowingly) allow mutants among their ranks, and a would-be Blueblood has to have some way of proving his ancestry. Aside from exceptions such as these, however, membership in a fraternity is open to anyone willing to commit to its cause. Fraternity leaders may turn away applicants who are known troublemakers or deadbeats, but other than that they generally accept anyone who requests membership.

Joining a fraternity may involve some sort of initiation ceremony. This may be purely a formality, or may involve some danger or humiliation to the new member. For most fraternities, the nature of the initiation ceremony is not fixed; a fraternity in one town may have a very different initiation procedure from the same fraternity in another community. (However, once one has joined a fraternity in one place, one is a member of that fraternity everywhere... so if a person is interested in joining a fraternity that has a very onerous initiation ceremony in his home community, it may be to his benefit to travel elsewhere to a place where its initiation procedure is less arduous and join it there.)

There is no set rule against belonging to more than one fraternity, but it is rarely practical to do so. Though the positions of some fraternities are irreconcilably contradictory—one obviously cannot agree with both the Alembics and the Transcendents, and it would be hard to harmonize the worldviews of the Feudals and the Golden Agers—this is usually not the case, and is not the main factor militating against multiple membership. Rather, it's a simple matter of commitment. Fraternities expect their members to support them and to give them a certain amount of their time and other resources; while no fraternity would last long asking too much of its members, keeping up with the demands of more than one fraternity may be a very difficult task. Thus, while someone trying to join multiple fraternities may not necessarily be turned away, he is likely to be unable to meet enough of his obligations to remain a member in good standing of each of them. This is not to say it never happens; there are some industrious individuals who do manage to remain active in two or even three fraternities, but they are very much the exceptions to the rule. (A few people claim membership in even more fraternities than that, but they are very powerful individuals whose "membership" in most of those fraternities is little more than a sinecure.)

Leaving

Officially, ending one's membership in a fraternity is usually even easier than joining; if one informs the fraternity leaders that one no longer wishes to be considered a member, then the matter is settled. In practice, however, there are good reasons why this action should only be taken after careful consideration. For one, there may be those in the fraternity—including perhaps the local leaders themselves—that take exception to the idea of someone now not a member being in possession of the organization's secrets, and who may not be averse to taking drastic and fatal steps to make sure those secrets aren't spread. For another, even if the abandoned fraternity doesn't go so far as to try to silence the departing member, they're certainly not likely to welcome him back if he changes his mind—and nor are other fraternities likely to trust him enough to embrace him into their own folds.

The deserting frat member may find his road eased a little if his reason for leaving his old fraternity is because he has embraced the philosophies of a second fraternity, to which he intends immediately to commit himself. Assuming they can be satisfied that his intentions are genuine and he's not spying for his old fraternity, the new fraternity may be glad to have a member with experience in another frat, especially one that it happens to be on especially competitive terms with, and may even go so far as to protect its new member from any attempted retribution from the fraternity he left. However, even then, this isn't likely to work more than once; someone who changes fraternities once may be seen as a valued convert; one who tries it again may be seen as fickle, indecisive, and untrustworthy.

Relations

While the Alembics and the Transcendentals are nearly always enemies due to their opposite philosophies, aside from that affinities and rivalries between fraternities vary from community to community; two fraternities that are close allies in one place may be bitter foes in another. Even between fraternities that seem to be on very friendly terms, however, there generally remains a certain level of distrust. The most powerful fraternities in an area, in particular, tend to like to keep tabs on one another's plans and activities, and go so far as to plant spies in other fraternities the better to monitor their doings.

The one fraternity that seems to play the least part in the political games is that of the Librarians. All the fraternities find the Librarians' knowledge useful, and in most case the Librarians manage to remain neutral and keep apart from the conflicts and contentions that envelop the others. Even this, however, is far from a universal rule, and there are locations where the Librarians are as deeply embroiled in the interfraternity competition as any other fraternity.

Leadership

Most of the fraternities do not have overall leaders, at least not formally. Locally, there may be leaders of the fraternity within particular communities, though even on that scale the fraternities may govern themselves by vote or by council. Of course, that isn't to say that all members of a fraternity are equal. Those members of a fraternity who have a lot of political power or social influence may become de facto leaders even if officially they hold no such position.

Some of the smaller fraternities, on the other hand, especially those that have power only over a relatively small area, do in fact have a formal leadership structure. If the fraternity gains influence over a larger territory, this may change and the hierarchy grow more diffuse, until the organization becomes more of a distributed phenomenon like the other major fraternities.

Fake memberships

It has not been unheard of for people to claim to belong to a fraternity in which they have no actual membership—most of the time in order to curry favor with local members of that fraternity. There are some safeguards in place to prevent this; each fraternity does have its own watchwords, secret signs, and other shibboleths, and in some cases they even issue documents to certify membership. However, secret words can be discovered, and documents can be forged, and none of these safeguards has proven foolproof.

Still, such fake memberships can be identified, most often by communication with the fraternity where the person claims to have come from. And when someone is found out to be falsely claiming membership in a fraternity, the consequences can be dire. While in very few places are there any actual laws forbidding false claims to fraternity membership, in these cases the fraternities are quite willing to take the law into their own hands... and whatever local legal structure exists, while it may not explicitly condone the fraternity's actions, is very unlikely to raise any objections. Those who falsely claim membership in a fraternity are, if unmasked, likely to face banishment at best, and more likely maiming or execution.

Alternate Names

Objections are periodically raised to the fact that a fraternity is, etymologically, a brotherhood, and therefore an inappropriate name for organizations which include both genders among their membership. The gender-neutral word "sodality" (pronounced /sɵˈdælɪti/) —or "sod" (/sɒd/) for short—has been proposed as a replacement. Opponents point out that "fraternity", its ultimate etymology aside, has been used to apply to mixed-gender organizations before, and that "sodality", as an obscure word with little prior use, is unlikely to catch on; proponents argue that "sodality"'s very obscurity is an advantage, because it lacks the baggage that comes with "fraternity" and can be used unambiguously with little possibility of confusion with other uses. In any case, while "sod" is gaining ground in most of the continent, in most areas it remains a relatively little-used term, except in the Pacific North and in New England, and the Lakes, where within the last couple of decades it has finally surpassed "fraternity". The South Atlantic, on the other hand, is particularly recalcitrant in this regard; not only do very few people there ever use the word "sodality", but many deride those who do.

List

Fraternities with significant influence over most of North America include:

• The Alembics, centered around the belief that human mutants are an abomination.
• The Bluebloods, who take pride in their descent from preapocalyptic government officials.
• The Experiencers, who believe their leaders have been inspired by alien beings.
• The Feudals, who hope to bring back the Renaissance, and pattern their lives accordingly.
• The Golden Agers, who live their lives according to the ways of ancient Greece, or their perception of them.
• The Hedonists, who believe in taking pleasure where they can find it.
• The Librarians, who focus on knowledge and learning, especially of preapocalyptic matters.
• The Rileys, whose philosophy is to make the best of what they have and not worry about what used to be.
• The Transcendents, who believe that mutants are the future of humanity and should be honored and respected.

There are also many fraternities which exist all over the continent in small numbers, but have few or no areas where they're really influential; or which have significant local influence, but are not as important as players on the continental scale. Of the latter, the most powerful is the Union, which has effectively created a self-contained nation in the Mountain State area, with their highly fortified capital in Yellowstone Park.