Society for Humane Standards

The Society for Humane Standards was a non-profit organization based on Telacia in the. It was dedicated to advocating for an end to government-sanctioned torture, including forms of execution involving unnecessary pain. While many members were opposed to capital punishment altogether, the Society never formally adopted an anti-execution policy.

Under the rule of the Tetrarchy of Mezlagob, the Society experienced periods of both tolerance and suppression. It was openly critical of some Tetrarchy policies allowing torture of convicts and suspects, but was also based on one of the four founding worlds of the Tetrarchy. Some leaders of the group were arrested, but the Society was never formally disbanded. When the Golden Empire supplanted the Tetrarchy, Queen Rin Sakaros allowed the Society to protest some of the Empire's decisions, including its notoriously brutal executions of slavers in the Hunt for Red Eclipse. However, the Empire rarely commented on the Society's advocacy and declined to adopt any of its policies.

Membership in and support for the Society was modest throughout its history. During the Tetrarchy's rule, many citizens were afraid to join the organization and risk the Tetrarchs' wrath. Under the Empire's rule, torture was usually forbidden and the most brutal forms of execution were usually reserved for slavers, which many citizens found appropriate, or at least justifiable. In 141 ABY, the Society drew widespread condemnation by publicly calling for “civilized conduct” in the nascent Vagaari War only days after the fall of was publicized and blamed on the.