Governance in Alien Worlds via Syndicates

Alien Worlds introduces Syndicates to Alien Worlds — basically, a DAO-based governance system for each of their six planets. With player elected Councils, this update ushers in a new era for Alien Worlds.

We’ve been waiting for this feature for a long time. Alien Worlds introduced Trilium staking for planets, and even encouraged players to begin candidacy for Council positions well over a year ago. But since then, we’ve seen no signs of development in this area. But finally, after teasing it for several days earlier this week, Alien Worlds unveils their DAO-based, planetary governance system known as Syndicates.

The first election period opens on October 20th and will run for two weeks.

And to help get things started, Alien Worlds introduces a limited time contest. This contest includes rewards for the Syndicate with the most collective voting power on November 3rd. Council members for the winning Syndicate each receive a special, Mythic level rarity Avatar NFT. In addition, all members of the winning Syndicate will receive a Character and a Weapon NFT particular to their planet.

Syndicates, Custodians, and Councils

Each planet elects Custodians who are expected to be responsible for honoring and implementing the decisions made by the voters. To keep a poor Custodian from affecting a Planet too much, elections occur every seven days.

The Custodian council for each planet includes those with the top 5 number of votes. Interested candidates must stake at least 5,000 tokens on a planet to run for Council there and fill out a candidate form on the Alien Worlds site. Players can campaign for Council seats on multiple planets.

Each account’s voting weight is determined by the number of tokens staked to the planet and the length of time those tokens have been locked up. Players may use their full vote power to vote for up to two candidates. They may change their vote at any time. Vote power decreases over time if not used. Everyone with active voting power is considered a member of the appropriate Syndicate.

Acquiring voting power requires signing a rather lengthy terms of service agreement, and staking TLM tokens to the planet. Players can stake tokens to as many planets as they like.

The Syndicate Councils will be responsible for guiding, managing, and leading their planet. They will have access to the TLM in the planet’s treasury, but to avoid bad actors from draining a Syndicate’s treasury, the tokens will unlock at a rate of 2% per week.

This is a big event for Alien Worlds. And it will be interesting to see what happens next. This system is going to rely on engagement and content creation by the players. And though Alien Worlds does still boast a large number of daily users, we’ll have to see if the player generated content can draw and maintain long-term player interest.