Administration of the Local Universe

33:6.1Ga­briel is the chief ex­ec­u­tive and ac­tual ad­min­is­tra­tor of Neb­a­don. Mi­chael’s ab­sence from Sal­ving­ton in no way in­ter­feres with the or­derly con­duct of uni­verse af­fairs. Dur­ing the ab­sence of Mi­chael, as re­cently on the mis­sion of re­union of Or­von­ton Mas­ter Sons on Par­a­dise, Ga­briel is the re­gent of the uni­verse. At such times Ga­briel al­ways seeks the coun­sel of Im­manuel of Sal­ving­ton re­gard­ing all ma­jor prob­lems.

33:6.2The Fa­ther Mel­chiz­e­dek is Ga­briel’s first as­sis­tant. When the Bright and Morn­ing Star is ab­sent from Sal­ving­ton, his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties are as­sumed by this orig­i­nal Mel­chiz­e­dek Son.

33:6.3The var­i­ous sub­ad­min­is­tra­tions of the uni­verse have as­signed to them cer­tain spe­cial do­mains of re­spon­si­bil­ity. While, in gen­eral, a sys­tem gov­ern­ment looks af­ter the wel­fare of its plan­ets, it is more par­tic­u­larly con­cerned with the phys­i­cal sta­tus of liv­ing be­ings, with bi­o­logic prob­lems. In turn, the con­stel­la­tion rulers pay es­pe­cial at­ten­tion to the so­cial and gov­ern­men­tal con­di­tions pre­vail­ing on the dif­fer­ent plan­ets and sys­tems. A con­stel­la­tion gov­ern­ment is chiefly ex­er­cised over uni­fi­ca­tion and sta­bi­liza­tion. Still higher up, the uni­verse rulers are more oc­cu­pied with the spir­i­tual sta­tus of the realms.

33:6.4Am­bas­sadors are ap­pointed by ju­di­cial de­cree and rep­re­sent uni­verses to other uni­verses. Con­suls are rep­re­sen­ta­tives of con­stel­la­tions to one an­other and to the uni­verse head­quar­ters; they are ap­pointed by leg­isla­tive de­cree and func­tion only within the con­fines of the lo­cal uni­verse. Ob­servers are com­mis­sioned by ex­ec­u­tive de­cree of a Sys­tem Sov­er­eign to rep­re­sent that sys­tem to other sys­tems and at the con­stel­la­tion cap­i­tal, and they, too, func­tion only within the con­fines of the lo­cal uni­verse.

33:6.5From Sal­ving­ton, broad­casts are si­mul­ta­ne­ously di­rected to the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters, the sys­tem head­quar­ters, and to in­di­vid­ual plan­ets. All higher or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings are able to uti­lize this ser­vice for com­mu­ni­ca­tion with their fel­lows scat­tered through­out the uni­verse. The uni­verse broad­cast is ex­tended to all in­hab­ited worlds re­gard­less of their spir­i­tual sta­tus. Plan­e­tary in­ter­com­mu­ni­ca­tion is de­nied only those worlds un­der spir­i­tual quar­an­tine.

33:6.6Con­stel­la­tion broad­casts are pe­ri­od­i­cally sent out from the head­quar­ters of the con­stel­la­tion by the chief of the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers.

33:6.7Chronol­ogy is reck­oned, com­puted, and rec­ti­fied by a spe­cial group of be­ings on Sal­ving­ton. The stan­dard day of Neb­a­don is equal to eigh­teen days and six hours of Uran­tia time, plus two and one-half min­utes. The Neb­a­don year con­sists of a seg­ment of the time of uni­verse swing in re­la­tion to the Uversa cir­cuit and is equal to one hun­dred days of stan­dard uni­verse time, about five years of Uran­tia time.

33:6.8Neb­a­don time, broad­cast from Sal­ving­ton, is the stan­dard for all con­stel­la­tions and sys­tems in this lo­cal uni­verse. Each con­stel­la­tion con­ducts its af­fairs by Neb­a­don time, but the sys­tems main­tain their own chronol­ogy, as do the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets.

33:6.9The day in Sa­ta­nia, as reck­oned on Je­ru­sem, is a lit­tle less (1 hour, 4 min­utes, 15 sec­onds) than three days of Uran­tia time. These times are gen­er­ally known as Sal­ving­ton or uni­verse time, and Sa­ta­nia or sys­tem time. Stan­dard time is uni­verse time.