Christian privilege
The concept of hegemony describes the ways in which a dominant group, in this case mainly U.S. Protestant Christians, disseminate their "dominant" social constructions as common sense, normative, or even universal, even though most of the world's inhabitants are not Christian. Christian hegemony also accepts Christianity as part of the natural order, even at times by those who are marginalized, disempowered, or rendered invisible by it. Thus, Christian hegemony helps to maintain the marginality of other religions and beliefs. According to Beaman, "the binary opposition of sameness/difference is reflected in Protestant/minority religion in which mainstream Protestantism is representative of the 'normal'".
The Fall of Hyperion (novel)
The government of the Hegemony is described in detail during the course of the novel, and its role in the fictional universe forms several portions of the plot. Planets with full membership status in the Hegemony select senators to serve in the upper house of the legislature, while the lower house consists of the All Thing, a forum accessible to all citizens through "implants" that connect humans to the "datumplane", one of the computerized realities resembling the World Wide Web. The executive branch consists of a chief executive officer elected by the Senate. At the time of the novel's events, Meina Gladstone serves as the Hegemony's chief executive officer. Despite the democratic tendencies of this parliamentary form of government, the Hegemony has at times taken actions viewed as tyrannous, using its small but elite military, known as FORCE, to invade the sea planet Maui Covenant, which had resisted integration into the Hegemony as a protectorate. Planets not incorporated into the Hegemony are nonetheless affected by it, and its ambassadors effectively administer some planetary governments. Still, some worlds, thought of as the "Outback", are sparsely settled. The planet Hyperion is viewed as part of the Outback, but is viewed with special regard due to the succession of strange events that have occurred on it since the formation of the Hegemony. These events include colonization efforts that have failed due to the menace of mysterious forces, correctly believed by many to have been the work of the Shrike.