The World of Stardust

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Federation lacks an official lore document so here is stuff cobbled together from Discord
The Terran Federation is the successor of the UN. In 223X, it is one of the largest nations in the Western Oval. Though at times inefficient and still reeling from the scars of the Human Civil War, it is an economic, cultural, and military powerhouse. Most Stardust stories are set in it.

Summary

The Terran Federation is partially what one expects the stereotypical oldschool sci-fi united human star republic to be. Terrans live in a quite individualistic manner and self-expression through art and identity is quite valued. On most planets in the Federation, daily life is quite comparable to life in a 21st-century first-world nation-- though in some areas it is more regulated and in others less.

Earth itself (called Terra in official documents, but language refuses to change) is divided into many superstates that cover geographic regions. Most countries from today are still extant, mostly handling their own affairs on Earth while the superstates represent them to the colony worlds and alien civilizations.

The 2000 stars of the Federation vary wildly in culture and governance, especially away from the core. The central government has a relatively low influence on the affairs of the colonies. Before the Civil War, the superstates of Earth had much tighter control over the extrasolar settlements, but in 223X their control is limited to economic privileges.

Lifestyle

An unifying feature of Federation culture is a respect for individual liberty and tolerance. The unifying moral of Terran society is 'do as you please as long as you do not harm yourself or others'. Terrans are encouraged by society to take up hobbies and personal projects to promote intellectual growth and awareness of the world.

Automation is prevalent though many jobs are not feasible to automate via pseudosapient AI and thus are in the hands of humans or sapient AI. Nevertheless, UBI (universal basic income) has been implemented for centuries because automation is still too prevalent to employ most of the population. Somewhere around half the population is employed.

Artificial wombs are used en masse thanks to the advent of biotech (see below).

Terran genemodding

To call the Federation a human state is something of a misnomer. Genemodding tech is more advanced and widely adopted here than in the vast majority of the Oval's civilizations, and so over 35% of Terran citizens are no longer baseline Homo sapiens durabilis. Durabilis is the name for the subspecies that all human populations in 223X belong to, with the exception of isolated peoples and some emigre communities in alien civilizations. It is a genemodding treatment that primarily staves away the effects of aging and various chronic diseases-- without making any external physiological or psychological alterations to the body or mind. Durabilis humans look human, act human, and call themselves human-- thus they are humans.

Most other genemods, that 35%, fall under the categories of Augments (humans with various features not present in baseliners) or Anthros (animal-people). They are a fully integrated part of mundane society and have existed in some form since the 2090s. While some governments under the UN have repressed their rights, the post-2184 Terran government is species-blind and they are treated the same as Durabilis.

There are weirder kinds of genemods and transhumans such as Laterals, these tend to be somewhat apart from wider society (by their own choice).

The Septants

The Terran Federation is, in addition to being split into sectors, is split into seven septants. All except the Core Septant are shaped roughly like inverted pyramids with four sides, pointing at Earth. Sector boundaries make them not exactly even.

• Core: also known as the inner core. Earth, Proxima, Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, and so on. Around less than 10 light years radius. This is the capital, and has most of the heavy industry and the longest history. Most political power is here, but only narrowly; unlike under the UN the colonies have much more of a say. Capital: Terra (Earth)
• Up: due to a dearth of habitable worlds in this septant, it is widely seen as a barren wasteland. That is true for the space that would be the outer core in other septants, but its frontier is very rich in monopoles, has the high-gravity garden world of Anvil, and borders a prosperous region of the Relmai Commonwealth. Capital: Anvil
• Down: the inner parts of this septant house important industrial systems like Tau Ceti (with its Hephaestus and Ares) and Lesser Hades, as well as the one-of-a-kind radioactive planet Golgotha. The outer parts are mostly StarNavy bases and the border is tagged even by space standards, because the kjee and the AEONs both border it. Capital: Hephaestus-Ares
• North: most early human expansion was to this area in a thin "snake" between habitable worlds. These colonies, such as Thrive (with its green deserts) and Nuevo Alicante, are as old as those of the core. It has seen low-level unrest during the Civil War, but is otherwise peaceful, aside from the latter planet mentioned that was ravaged the most out of any world. It is marked by relmai cultural influence that increases the closer one goes to the border with Koumanlan; many relmai syndicates have expanded trade rights here. Capital: Thrive
  - South: there is an unusual concentration of easily terraformable worlds in this region: Nyu-Chukotka, New Guangdong, Yggdrasil. The best explanation is some long-forgotten and decayed terraformation efforts by precursors, millions of years ago. Many genemods live here, and many sectors have humans firmly in the minority. The BFR holds some influence here. Capital: Hope
• East: this septant has the most neighbors. The 2D map cannot do it justice. Thus there is a massive presence of the StarNavy around here, and in general a lot of attention is pointed at it for another reason: the worst of the Civil War was fought here. By now the situation has long since stabilized, and worlds like Kamohoalii, Alacrity, Novaya Sibir, are shining jewels of the Federation, which still keeps a firmer grip over them than worlds in other septants. Capital: Kamohoalii
• West: the largest septant, yet the sparsest one. Resources in a large swath of it seem to be exhausted by layers of precursors, there are few terraformables and fewer gardens, and there are no real neighbors. The exception, of course, is TRAPPIST, functionally a secondary capital of Terra that exerts massive legal and cultural pull. Overall, the central government has a light hand here, and many colonies have very varied government forms: from constitutional monarchy to anarchist communes. Yig has a certain amount of cultural influence over the southwest. Capital: TRAPPIST

Politics

The Federation is a representative democracy, but the ideology of Prometheanism is baked into its constitution. Prometheanism is a sort of cynical, pragmatic transhumanist progressivism under a heavily statist social democratic framework. A key component of its economic policy is that the government is to hold large amounts of shares in all major corporations, increasing with the size of the corporation. With every decade, the percentage of the shares grows. This is not pleasing to the CEOs of said corporations. Its social policy is Post-Species Theory, which posits that all of sapience is universal and species must play no role in government.

Terran organization:

• Each "metropolis" (i.e system with at least one planet that is easy to colonize and/or terraform for any reason, has good infrastructure and a high population and is stable) is the capital of a sector. Sectors self-govern colony worlds and outposts within their borders-- defined by "flood-filling" from each metropolis until the (3D) border hits another sector's expanding border. The result is a 3D Voronoi diagram.
• Sectors are akin to US states. Each has its own name, flag, and code of laws.
• Candidates for any office have to pass through the Electoral Vetting Consortium, a group of impartial psychologists and philosophers that is chosen by lottery and changes every year. They are extremely hard to bribe; a Consortium member reporting a bribe with proof gets the promised bribe paid by the government, tripled, while the briber is hauled off for a mandatory 15 year sentence (in a nation with rehabilitative justice where most sentences have far less mandatory time).
• The parliament is split into two houses. The High Administration handles budgeting, military affairs, and broad laws, various production quotas. Represented are sectors; each sector gets a different amount of seats depending on its Federal Importance Rating, which is weighted by population but also by industrial value and strategic position; it is determined by a different Consortium with similar methods. The People's Administration handles everything else, and represented is population, where x tens of millions of people get you a seat; it also has a separate sub-parliament for residents of enclaves of major alien species that are interest groups.
• There are checks and balances against laws that disproportionately favor the core. For example, a septant government can have a given bill not apply to it if 75% of its constituent sectors vote to veto.
• Ranked choice voting is used in all elections.

Economy

Relmai Commonwealth (Relmai)

This is well developed because it was a straight up lore doc, and then a wiki page

The Relmai Commonwealth (rarely RelComm) is one of the largest states in the Western Oval. It is one of the leaders of the Alliance and relatively close to humanity in terms of outlook on life and astrographic position. In 223X, it's an economic powerhouse larger than even Terra.

Species

The relmai are humanoids covered in sparse fur ranging from white to magenta to black. They have long triangular snouts with black dog-like 4-nostriled noses. Their double-pupiled eyes are large, extremely reflective and have brightly colored sclerae that can change color from intense emotion. Their feet are digitigrade and clawed, and they have 4 digits per limb. Their ears are narrow, have internal fluff, and are splayed out to the sides. But most noticeably, they have very fluffy squirrel-like tails that constantly swish as they walk.

They are always very thin, with lanky builds meant for Tayma's low gravity. However their bodies are not as frail as they appear; many have very toned muscles, and their bones are stronger than human bones.

They have 1.5x higher reaction times compared to humans, finer manual dexterity, and a robust nervous system, but are physically quite weak and have lower endurance than humans (but so do most other species). Their brains are resilient to extreme sensory stimulation as well as "messy" patterns, so they cannot really be visually or auditorily overwhelmed. There is no equivalent of epilepsy or the like.

Relmai are technically hermaphrodites, but only one sex is active at a time, and it can change during adulthood due to hormonal imbalances. They remain fertile in such a scenario. It is an evolutionary adaptation seen in a lot of Tama’s lifeforms, as a means to keep a reproductive population viable in the harsh environment.

Their senses are processed in an entirely different way than those of humans or most other species. They can hear better than humans and are very resistant to hearing loss, can pick up tiny differences in hue or brightness, and the palms of their hands (not furred) are sensitive to the slightest bumps. However, due to a few neural shortcuts, these senses are merged. The relmai essentially have synesthesia; they hear color and taste sound.

Historical summary

Since the emergence of the relmai as sapient beings, their main enemy was their planet’s insanely hostile environment. The tribes had to cooperate both within and without in order to not get devoured alive by swarms of death-worms, melted by flesh-eating fungus, or massacred by butcher-lizards. This created a selection pressure towards friendliness and cooperation, as more warlike groups were weeded out. The bleak and hostile environment also encouraged extreme hedonism as a way to cope with frequent death and mayhem.

Their civilizations were loose coalitions of city-states, whose allegiances shifted from year to year. Gradually, these coalitions crystallized into confederations, where one city-state ended up being top dog and de-facto the leader of an empire. Wars happened, but they were noticeably rarer than those of humanity. Instead, there was a tangled web of intrigue and subterfuge that the confederations tugged on to cause each others’ city-states to change their loyalty. It was insanely confusing to navigate, and a consequence of such manipulations was an utterly byzantine law code that still exists in the present.

In the late 27900s (counting by their calendar, our equivalent would be the 1600s), the Yellow Confederation, led by the Biulmouwai State, separated from its former hegemon. It was, at first, weak and small, yet a series of skillful leaders and strokes of luck led to it covering most of Tayma’s largest continent by the 28200s (1900s). This Continental Confederation continued to expand its control over Tayma, until gradually its now-pathetic rivals were absorbed.

Come the late 28300s (2000s), the Relmai Commonwealth made its first stumbling steps out of the Ryamwotama-ma system, with the invention of their equivalent of the Ugolnikov Drive. It ended up being one of the Alliance founders, alongside humanity.

Tayma's environment and its influence upon the relmai

As alluded to before, much the relmai homeworld of Tayma is best described as a green hell, but also a purple hell and a yellow hell and an opalescent hell. A jungle of many colorful plants that support a vibrant ecosystem of equally colorful animals, the colorfulness of which seems directly proportional to the sharpness of their claws or the concentration of their venom. The plants and animals eat each other. Some of the most infamous examples are the tuebouwal, carnivorous vines that lay concealed in the underbrush and then coil and crush their prey when it trips over them; the zangsuobqo, a kind of aquatic creature that resembles a bright blue otter with extremely long arms that can spring out, and which lives near watering holes; and the dreaded vonou-se, tiny needle-like worms that burrow through the damp soil in huge swarms, and which track prey by vibrations-- when the prey stops to rest, unassuming, they surround it and burrow into its flesh, and soon only bones and bloodied scraps of skin are left amid many egg-sacs. Meanwhile thunderstorms and volcanic eruptions are frequent.

To survive in a place like this, the relmai absolutely had to cooperate both within and outside their tribes to survive. Groups and individuals that did not share, or acted in their own interests instead of the whole's, were selected away. Meanwhile, their minds have been made resistant to any sort of overstimulation or distraction by loud noises or bright lights. Meanwhile their nervous systems are also naturally rather resistant to the effects of substance addiction. Thus, psychoactive drugs are seen as completely mundane and harmless in their culture, instead of something daring-- and they do not really inhibit their functioning.

Also, due to their environment's animal life being a source of civilizational trauma more than inspiration, they are not keen to use symbolism involving animals, opting for abstract designs.

Culture

The vast majority (85%) of relmai are magenta relmai, of the ethnicities such as Liamuju and Ksaukuju. Their homeland is in the fertile lowlands and jungles. White relmai are from the deserts and black relmai are from the mountains and tundras.

Organization

• The main cornerstone of relmai society is a deep sense of mutual respect and empathy for each other. While such feelings are naturally present to some extent or another in all spacefaring civilizations, they are stronger for relmai. Thus their society, while it does have its issues and injustices, is overall a more compassionate place than most. This is codified in a concept called jyakuesuu, best translated as "interdependence". Everyone relies on everyone in their social group. At the same time they are both individuals and mere parts of a whole.
• Relmai society is seemingly contradictory in its stance on individualism. On one hand, doing something by oneself without help is highly frowned upon. On the other, everyone is encouraged to express and present oneself in unique ways. Thus they have a clear distinction between individualism of actions and individualism of identity.
• quote from Discord So, direct democracy is so entrenched in relmai culture that they never developed "true" monarchical rule as we know it. And their very, ahem, loose family-rearing prevents dynasties from being meaningful. Nevertheless, the rich history of their democratic institutions, many tracing back thousands of years (though of course merged and reorganized many times) built an aura of tradition and ceremony that's not seen in human republics. Instead of parties, or dynasties, there are tejuu-nwal, or simply tejuu. Roughly translating as "group-folk-councils". In short, they are the best orators of a community (and their definition of community is loose, can be a single large residential building) that frequently come together to make decisions, usually chosen by heavily-randomized election. The criteria are made in such a way that basically everyone can participate at some point. The thing is, it's customary for each tejuu to have a concrete platform, or else something to differentiate itself from its neighbors. This is less an institution and more how things were done for gods know how many millennia-- the fact that it is present in most magenta, white, and black relmai cultures, even fairly isolated ones, suggests that tejuus were first founded before the species spread out of its origin region. Each tejuu has a leader. Leaders are oftentimes "hereditary", in a much looser manner than humans. It can be a lover's cousin's friend. In recent times that restriction is less and less present altogether. The leader does not have absolute veto power, but does have more of a vote. They also wear a fancy hat. While tejuus can be of any size, there is no system that involves city-tejuu members being chosen from neighborhood-tejuu members and so on. There is just a higher "floor" to being one. The Grand Council of the Relmai Commonwealth can be said to be the largest tejuu of all.
• They have somewhat more of an R-strategy than humans. Their environment necessitated frequent reproduction and discouraged monogamy. Thus, relmai families are arranged differently from human families: most of their children are raised by the community in special creches, but any adults can choose and are encouraged to adopt any of these children, preferably but not necessarily of their own bloodline. Anyone has the right to renounce their family ties once they are an adult, and the local tejuu has the right to take children back to the creche if the parents end up abusive. Marriage is similarly loose, and kue-ju is only translated as that by convention; it signals preference rather than exclusivity, and one is always free to seek out more mates.
• Their attitudes towards love are a lot more open than of humans, and more closely resemble those of bonobos; everyone is expected to have as many partners as they can physically handle, and sex is not in the slightest bit taboo. This is because the same part of the psyche responsible for seeking enjoyment at all times is responsible for seeking intercourse. Thus there is no concept of sexual orientation in relmai society, only doing what feels good with whoever is willing. Homoerotic behavior is ubiquitous, and actually much more common than heterosexuality; by our standards all relmai are pansexual leaning gay (except dseyrel, see below).
• A fraction of a percent of relmai are unable to feel enjoyment, and thus lack the inherent hedonism of other relmai. Until around two centuries ago, they were oppressed and stigmatized by their society. However a liberation movement appeared, and gradually the dseyrel (joyless), as they are called, achieved equal rights in society.
• The relmai have no gender roles whatsoever, and can in fact be said to be genderless but not sexless. It is simply not in any of their cultures to have females dress differently, behave differently, or have different opportunities from males. This is because relmai, in the same way as some Earth amphibians, can naturally transition and thus there is much less dimorphism than in most other species, and gestation times are short (due to the compromises required), so there is no social pressure that would result in gender roles. To humans both sexes appear highly androgynous; meanwhile from the relmai perspective none of them think of themself as a man or woman. Due to said short gestation times, their children are even more helpless than human babies. Both male and female relmai have pouches on their chests (smaller than Earth marsupials') where up to three infants can mature.

Visuals and material culture

• They are unable to perceive differences in color saturation beyond the extremes, as a result of their eye structure. Thus everything they design is eye-searing, with clashing oversaturated colors. Meanwhile, their senses are resilient enough to overstimulation that they need flashing lights and loud sounds just to feel somewhat different from their default. What is normal to a relmai, feels to a human like a nonstop rave. While this might seem counterproductive in an environment as hostile as Tayma, many of its most dangerous predators are actually scared of grating noises. Stealth did not help, as while relmai senses are keen, the senses of their enemies are keener.
• Their clothes vary, and usually have various intricate patterns on them that are unique for each bit of attire. The most common attire is a sort of very deep-V-neck tunic of thin fabric that exposes the chest, or a form-fitting jumpsuit, or what can be called a miniskirt. The only difference between casual and formal clothing is the presence of more glitter, tassels, and reflective paint on the latter. They also always wear lots of jewelry in the form of bangles and earrings, tail-rings, collars, girdles, and so on. Quite often various designs are bleached into their fur as tattoos. The more adorned a relmai is, the more likely they are to attract a mate.
• They obsess a lot about their appearance, often spending hours selecting clothes and neatly combing fur. Well-kemptness is one of the Great Virtues in their society. Often dozens of them sit together brushing each other's fluff.
• Dseyrel, by contrast, dress in drab colors and do not adorn themselves much. Their clothing is very modest and does not expose much fur, especially not around the chest or thighs.
• Many natural pigments on Tayma have fluorescent and bioluminescent properties-- including those found in vegetation. So, this obsession with bright and clashing colors actually served as a means of camouflage during early relmai history. In addition, relmai fur discolors quickly after death, this makes them associate muted colors with death.
• Music is a key part of their culture. There are many genres, though they are all harsher and faster than mainstream human music. Rhythms are irregular and syncopated, and percussion is usually extremely distorted. It is very upbeat, the closest equivalent to the most popular relmai music genres is hyperpop or speedcore. Sounds more high pitched than humans can hear are often used. Electronic instruments were invented early in their history.

Economy

• The closest analog to the relmai economic model is syndicalism-- the hseyjuu-kue (group profit teams, roughly) system. Arranged parallel to the tejuus but with a similar structure, however with two levels. Every worker in a hseyjuu has their say in policy and can propose anything. The higher level has no say in what policy to implement, but has a much larger say in how to implement it. The higher levels consist mostly of educated professionals who also spent years in the hseyjuu, and they can be dismissed by the lower level at any time.
• Tejuus have limited influence over hseyjuus besides asking nicely. Thus the relmai economic system is laizzes-faire with very few regulations. Unlike human laizzes-faire models, this one does a good job at regulating itself, as executives are fully dependent on what the workers want, and in general relmai are not prone to exploitative behavior.
• Individual relmai do not have currency. Their tejuu and hseyjuu has currency. There are limits set every month for how much an individual can withdraw and spend from it.
• The largest hseyjuus have their influence in neighboring civilizations and membership is open to non-relmai. These are some of the largest multicivilizational companies in the Oval.

Entertainment

• They are the most fun-loving species. This is essentially wired into their brains. All relmai live solely for pleasure and gratification. It need not be instant gratification, of course, but no motivation beyond pleasure can exist. This is where they differ the most from humans. In this way their minds are less flexible than those of humans. While the question of the meaning of life pursued and continues to pursue humans since their origin of sapience, for relmai the answer is entwined in their psyche.
• However, their inherent hedonism is tempered by their inherent altruism. Pleasure for others is as or more important than pleasure for oneself.
• As mentioned before, they use a lot of recreational drugs. The average relmai is constantly high on a cocktail of psychedelics, euphorics, and aphrodisiacs. These have been tailored for centuries now to have no withdrawal effects or addictive potential. Generally the psychedelic effects are mild and just make everything feel even more colorful and enhance the sense of touch, though those relmai who have jobs that require concentration forego them. They're not only taken as pills or mixed into drinks, but every day there is a psychoactive haze over every relmai city.
• Over thousands of years of persistent and intermixing cultures (in their civilization, there aren't strong national or ethnic identities and so they kind of gradually blend together), they have learned ways to maximize satisfaction and got that down to a science. The relmai mind does grow tired of the formulaic or repetitive quicker than the human mind, however, so a key part of these techniques is varying things in a strategic way.
• Much of their art is created by committee, again via the tejuu model. It's not to the point of ty-uc-kch art, though; it often follows individuals and the size of the committee is usually very small. After this, the work is considered to be owned by the species as a whole. While it may be sold, modifying it in any way is deemed okay, though doing so in a disrespectful manner is very frowned upon.

- A certain massive Tayma insect has a naturally holographic carapace. Since ancient times there was a tradition in magenta relmai nations, of using this chitin, carefully painted, to product shifting paintings.

Religion

• Relmai religion worships many ephemeral deities that have always been taken as metaphorical personifications of concepts. They have no names beyond the word for said concept suffixed with "-dshei" (divine) or "-rshon" (demonic). They occupy no space and perform no actions besides allowing their concept to occur or be enjoyable or unpleasant.
• They believe that through a kind of shamanic process involving lengthy focus, taking on an appearance similar to the canonical depiction of the being, and lots of special dissociative drugs, one may channel a divine being. This doesn't last very long.
• Generally these beliefs aren't very strong. They don't have a strong atheist tradition in their usual school of thought but for most relmai this sort of ritual is consciously performed in the interests of bonding. The question of whether the divine exist or not is moot to a relmai, what matters is the act of worship bringing pleasure.
• Relmai faith is thus more civic than spiritual.

Dal-Ghar Iron Empire

NOTE: The dal-ghar are critically underdeveloped, for being the main villain faction... I will rectify that soon

Physiology

The dal-ghar are non-humanoid snakes about two meters long, with fairly muscular but thin tails. Red or brown scales, with size and shape depending on phenotype, cover their bodies, shinier than those of most Earth reptiles. Their torsos are somewhat humanoid and possess two arms with three long fingers. On their snouted heads are four eyes located in a roughly Λ pattern (two close ones near the forehead and two far-apart ones on the cheeks). These eyes are less like Earth reptile eyes and more like feline eyes, except even more reflective.

They have a very developed vocal system, and are regarded by many species as the best singers in the Oval.

Psychology

They have one bias, but it's a strong one: paranoia and fear of the unknown. There is also something of a stronger traditionalist instinct than humans have, on par with Chimeras. These two combine into something sinister, amplified by their history…

Early history

The backstory behind the dal-ghar is very unique as far as most species go, and explains their downfall into the biggest threat to the free world's safety.

The dal-ghar and the saacxit-jxuumzu were two species that evolved from a single common ancestor dating back less than two million years ago. Thanks to a climatic shift early in their evolutionary histories, the two species were split on two sides of an inhospitable desert (one that makes the Sahara look like the European plains). Keep in mind that Bhoz-tlu-xba is a semi-desert world where water is rather rare. The saacxit-jxuumzu, thanks to the lower lushness of their "continent", here defined as essentially an area of habitable land around a large cluster of lakes and oases, were physically somewhat weaker but more intelligent. Their birth rate and thus population were lower than those of dal-ghar, but that didn't matter much: while the dal-ghar had just entered the stage of pastoral iron-age tribal societies, the saacxit-jxuumzu had a flourishing late-medieval society. Their kingdoms reached a point where they had the resources to send caravans of land-ships across the vast desert… and that they did.

They found out they were not alone. And not only that, but the populous natives of this vast place were gullible and easily goaded into work, specifically the kind of work they were suitable for: mines, farms, and heavy construction. Slave caravans soon began ferrying full loads of dal-ghar across the desert en masse, and their former lands began to be colonized, eventually forming separate kingdoms where a minority of saacxit-jxuumzu ruled over an oppressed yet seemingly content minority of dal-ghar. Over time, the abuses intensified and intensified as the saacxit-jxuumzu grew complacent. This was at a level of development roughly equivalent to the 1650s-1700s. Unrest began mounting, but was not too organized…

The dal-ghar situation was mostly under saacxit-jxuumzu control, following several harsh treatments of rebel cities, bordering on genocide. While this was happening, a renowned scientist/early archeologist named Gxuapi-jkuga found a strange vault of an unknown gray stony material while digging through the remnants of an abandoned mine near the capital of a large saacxit-jxuumzu kingdom. He had his team of dal-ghar serfs pickaxe through the wall, at a great effort that involved two serfs dying of exhaustion. Inside were a lot of translucent canisters, in a dilapidated room. Most were empty or simply contained some unpleasant-looking slurry, but one had a bright green liquid. Gxuapi took it to his laboratory, and as any good pre-scientific-method scientist, cracked it open to see what was inside. Oh, and earlier that week, a massive comet was passing by Bhoz-tlu-xba, with its tail taking up most of the night sky. And there were rumors of a would-be dal-ghar warlordess covertly rallying escaped serfs, off in the wilderness. Nothing to worry about, just another rebel…?

As soon as the sledgehammer cracked the canister (it took around ten hits), the liquid evaporated into a foul cloud. It flooded the laboratory and began wafting out of the open window. It was a windy day, with a crowded festival right outside.

The unbelievably contagious plague, centuries later strongly hypothesized to be a precursor bioweapon or some kind of waste, had the following effects, all setting in quickly: full-body scale-degloving; structural failure of the eyes; extreme swelling of the stomach to the point of abdominal rupture; multi-organ necrosis; persistent cough. The infrastructure of the saacxit-jxuumzu kingdoms was unable to contain mundane pandemics, much less one engineered by sufficiently advanced aliens. Fortunately (for the dal-ghar), dal-ghar had a mutation that seemed to, by evolutionary chance, trigger some kind of local killswitch, causing the symptoms to only manifest as nausea and vertigo. Thus, the slaves rampaged through the pestilence-wreathed husks of their former masters' cities, pillaging all riches and killing indiscriminately, often deliberately exposing saacxit-jxuumzu to the infection. They united and united, the roving warbands merging into greater wholes, all eventually coming under the control of the warlord mentioned before. Her name was Pqaa-mul-ghor, and she soon became the first dal-ghar Empress, uniting the two "continents" under a vast and cruel empire. The species-based caste system was flipped on its head, with the surviving saacxit-jxuumzu becoming serfs, but for "intellectual" labor such as accounting. The plague eventually died off, with all those exposed to it seemingly melting away into gore and not being able to spread it. However, it quickly became apparent that the effects were not uniform: roughly 5% of infected saacxit-jxuumzu became saa-zu. Vampires. Crazed cannibals who fled to the vast caves underneath Bhoz-tlu-xba's surface, living in pre-Neolithic tribal societies in and around the tunnels. A taste for dal-ghar (and saacxit-jxuumzu) meat was implanted into them, which combined with their (shared with the dal-ghar) vocal abilities, led them to develop strategies to lure travelers into ambushes. Despite their overall lack of intelligence, this cunning is facilitated by an expanded speech center of the brain. By the present day, the dal-ghar government claims to have exterminated the saa-zu via incendiary shelling of near-cave thorn-forests and the flooding of the upper levels of the caverns with sarin gas. Despite this, reports still sometimes surface, of singing eerily reminiscent of pre-collapse saacxit-jxuumzu hymns, emanating from untouched forests…

Aadalu

aadalu are really underdeveloped yet. The infobox is up to date, the doc itself is Olddust. Treat it with a grain of salt

Biological notes

• While in terms of their body plan, the aadalu might be the most humanoid sapient species, proportionally they are very different from humans: very tall (averaging 2.2 meters), thin, with long limbs and three digits per hand and foot. They are amphibian-like, able to hold their breath for several minutes, and have short, mostly-vestigial fins on their head and upper limbs, the size and shape of which varies by ethnicity. Their mouth is very wide and full of long teeth, like that of an anglerfish, however there are also flat teeth since they are partially omnivorous. Aadalu have three large eyes and excellent night vision. Their skin ranges from completely white to dark gray.
• Their blood is solidly green due to using something similar to chlorocruonin for oxygen transport.
• Aadalu are hairless but have adapted to their cold environment with a fat equivalent that is denser and more insulating, that underlays every inch of their skin.

Cultural notes

• Psychologically, they have one of the most closed minds of all known sapient species. They have a compulsion to fanatically follow one or more ideas, and do not easily change once that is entrenched. New ideas, especially in terms of politics, are seen as something shameful without a very good re
• Thus, since more than a thousand-and-a-half years ago, their cultural continuum has been absolutely dominated by a single religion: Iiwlee, or the Path. It is monotheistic and dogmatic. Its core tenet is that the Creator, Eessiuuu, had embodied its creation, the Universe, and has been subtly guiding all life, not just the aadalu or even just sapient life, towards greatness. It preaches harmony first and foremost, while at the same time excluding all other faiths emphatically, not as blasphemy, but as folly. It permeates every aspect of aadalu culture, and secular media is long extinct... but that is not to say their religious media is not as vibrant as any other civilization's.
• They tend to live and work communally, with several families usually sharing a dwelling, though of course not to the same extent as the kseldani. They are strictly monogamous and form strong connections to family.
• Aadalu clothing usually consists of religiously-mandated robes called iiyek that are usually monochromatic. There's some amount of creativity in iiyek design, from ornate designs to different head veil shapes, but overall it all looks similar.
• Since the Shameful Incident of 2131, it is strongly socially encouraged for them to wear a veil covering their mouth when around other species.

Astropolitical notes

• The Eternal Sacred Republic is ruled under the principle of Uukaeia Voolaee, which can best be translated as "divine democracy". It would not be a democracy at all if Iiwlee did not teach that divine power comes from the people and thus priests have to be elected in some way. In practice it is a highly illiberal and conformist form of democracy where the laity do not have a direct say in the rulership: they first elect the low priesthood, which then elects the middle priesthood, which then elects the high priesthood, part of which is selected to be in the Holy Assembly which elects the High Priest.
• Contact with other civilizations has brought uncomformity or the more deviant sections of their population. In response, those who convert to alien religions or dig up old banned faiths get ostracized or exiled, and foreign missionaries get barred entry or fined and deported immediately upon being found out.
• The High Priest has the ability to declare a Oooiwkaa, a term best translated as "holy war". It is a mobilization of the whole Eternal Sacred Republic to attack a threat possibly not just to Iiwlee, but to harmony as a concept. One has not yet been declared in space-age history. Overall, they are not particularly warlike, and unlike most/all human examples of theocracies, actually take their religion's teachings to heart.

Kseldani look like scale-less and claw-less humanoid lizards with large black eyes, long and narrow tails, two large, floppy antennae, bulbous fingers and toes, and rounded snouts. Otherwise, they are quite featureless.

The uniform teal tissue that comprises kseldani bodies is composed of what amounts to permanent stem cells. They can heal organ damage or even lost limbs with ease, though brain damage heals only partially, and enough will still instantly kill one. Their translucent "blood" is diffused through their bodies via microscopic capillaries that can very quickly seal themselves if severed, with no large blood vessels. This makes blood loss from injuries a non-issue for the most part. Kseldani flesh, while opaque, has a consistency between jelly and ballistic gel. It is not slimy, but is very smooth and quite shiny (when it isn’t caked in ash and grime).

Kseldani need electricity to maintain their metabolism and the functionality of their organs, and their physiology lacks any way to generate it. If a kseldani runs out of power, they melt in a very painful manner. Thus, they absolutely cannot survive in the wilderness. Said requirement for electrical charge is lowered by breathing in CO2, while no oxygen is required, thus they thrive in atmospheres that other races would need to wear respirators in. But they can survive just fine in a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere.

Kseldani emotions and their pain response are dulled. They are not emotionless, but they inherently need far less to be content with life. They also have little drive to creativity besides what is "useful", and generally appear nearly mindless in their actions. This shaped their society massively.

Using a combination of special drugs and simple clamps and molds, a kseldani's body can be gradually reshaped into almost any form. This process is painful even for them and potentially takes days, but is very useful for their society and has no long-lasting ill effects.

These traits were engineered into them by their Creators, and they differ massively from the wildlife on their homeworld, Nei'ksu. Upon awakening, which is very much shrouded in history, they had to build their society around the scant few power sources that did not decay into uselessness. Good thing the Creators built all of their technology to be rugged and long-lasting...

Kseldani have no biological sex and reproduce by budding, as stated in their description, though it is only initiated after mating to prevent it from happening at an inopportune time. They don't form familial bonds, however, and their children are quickly abandoned and raised communally.

The Collective

The Kseldani Collective is the most populous state in the Oval, and serves as the Alliance's industrial bulwark. However, it is held back by a very dull and wasteful society, and cracks are beginning to manifest...

Collective summary

The Kseldani Collective acts as something in-between an anarchist commune and an insect hive. There is no concept of property, leadership, or competition between individuals, and everyone works towards the common good. Globally-important decisions are made by online consensus, local ones by just talking it out. Though all kseldani are 100% equal in social standing, there are still many castes, dictated by the aforementioned body shaping and cybernetic implants. Described at the bottom of this article. A kseldani is technically free to leave their caste, but very few do, and doing so means going through the reshaping process again.

The Collective, despite not having any kind of leadership whatsoever, manages to be orderly and organized. Many times a day, groups of kseldani gather (either in-person or via their internet equivalent) to discuss what the most productive course of action would be for the local community. Not participating in these discussions or not weighing in enough is unthinkable, and the only way anyone has a greater voice, regardless of caste, is if they have relevant expertise. There is very little to no dissent against the consensus, even if the proposed action requires the risk or certainty of death. They place no value upon their own lives if sacrificing oneself would lead to more productivity, and follow such courses of action mindlessly and unflinchingly.

Law enforcement is rarely necessary due to the extremely conformist and selfless nature of the average kseldani. The few outliers who do commit murder, for example, are dealt with by mob justice (and then thrown into the food paste production vats, possibly while alive). There is a Starguard to fight alien piracy and smuggling in their space, but no formal policing institutions otherwise.

Kseldani culture

There is essentially no entertainment media in kseldani culture, such as it is. They all find hard work in and of itself to be intensely satisfying. This is, doubtlessly and horrifyingly, another trait engineered into them by their Creators, so their slaves don't rebel. When a mood boost is really needed, they use euphoric drugs.

They don't really have a religion, organized or unorganized, though superstition is a thing in a subtle form, mostly regarding complicated engineering or programming tasks. Those living in the Collective, barring the scientist caste, are nearly unable to think of anything not relevant to the current task or their occupation, aside from the simplest instincts. As such, the vast majority of them are pretty much completely dull and barely self-aware. The population of the more dedicated hives essentially acts like animals.

During their early days, before inventing electrical power production necessary for their bodies to live, the ancient, thousands-years-old power grids of the Creators were kept operating by teams of robots called Servitors, controlled by a pseudosapient AI. Said AI’s core was accidentally destroyed during an attempt to figure out its inner workings, but by that point the kseldani already knew how to build their own power plants.

Kseldani "culture" being the blank slate it is, they are very quick to adopt other civilizations' cultures when emigrating compared to other species. Some even adopt human/relmai names. The advent of the interstellar internet has caused a lot of kseldani to be swayed by human and relmai culture into either leaving en masse or having whole colonies secede. Those incidents are sparked by "hey check out this stuff humans have" being spread like wildfire at their usual daily gatherings. As those loyal to the Collective resent the very concept of authority, they have no interest in stopping them... not that it matters. What’s ten million kseldani leaving when there are tens of billions more and growing?

Lacking a musical tradition of their own, their music sounds like music from one of those two societies, but quite dissonant and with an unusual rhythm and time signature. Not understanding property, they tend to steal melodies outright. As said music is made by self-aware kseldani rather than those of the mindless masses, it often features gloomy lyrics. It is usually made electronically as getting a proper instrument is hard as none are manufactured and good luck cobbling something out of scrap (and wasting community resources on entertainment when you could just stare at a wall for hours during your off time). It is usually played at very loud volumes in their meeting rooms or in hallways using repurposed announcement speakers. Some colonies right next to the Federation and Commonwealth started constructing proper nightclubs in abandoned sections of their hives.

They are less affected by environmental maladies and thus tend to ruin their planets’ biospheres. Not totally, but forests fade and skies and seas darken thanks to pollution, and wildlife is unseen within their hives, aside from vermin.

They do not wear clothing or any other decorations, but do usually wear vests, harnesses, and belts with lots of pockets and clips for their tools.

Kseldani food is solely nutrient paste. They have no sense of taste so they do not understand how horrible it tastes– human-compatible samples with genemodded similar ingredients send even the most open-minded gourmands into fits of nausea.

Their rugged biology means they are immune to basically all of their biosphere’s diseases so they have no need for hygiene as we know it. Almost every adult kseldani is essentially permanently coated in a foul-smelling layer of dust, motor oil, ash, and sloppily-eaten nutrient paste. There are exceptions, however, e.g the artisan caste, who work in precision manufacturing that requires clean rooms and no dust, frequently shower.

Hives

Their cities are layered, with residential buildings often stacked on top of factories and vice versa. These layers tend to get narrower towards the top, for stability, resulting in kseldani colonies looking like gigantic anthills made of concrete cubes. The insides of these anthills are dark, lit only by dim, bare lamps, and have crowded streets with smooth ramps connecting the modular buildings.

Their dwellings are just large chambers within the residential buildings. Not even beds, but instead with a soft floor. These function both as places to socialize during breaks during the day (when not at the factory floor) and as places to sleep during the night. At the latter time they tend to get extremely packed, with teal bodies often piling up on top of each other. Kseldani have no attachment to a specific room and just sleep in the closest one they can find when they feel drowsy.

Meanwhile, their factories tend to be noisy labyrinths of heavy machinery connected by narrow, rickety walkways with thin guardrails. The only reason they don’t die in droves in accidents is because the average kseldani is more methodical and less careless than the average human. Said machinery has very little automation as for kseldani, life’s purpose is to work for work’s sake. For heavy tasks they use brutes and mules. This, of course, is highly inefficient and throws away lives that could be spent on creativity or research for nothing.

Many worker, brute, and mule kseldani don't know how to read their own language, beyond important words that go on signs. They don't need it, really.

They do not have families of any sort and their eggs (which look like large caviar) are transported to special buildings where they are tended to by caretakers, and if there is currently an overpopulation issue they are eaten by the community to recycle the calories spent. Basically no kseldani know who their parent (just the one, they reproduce by parthenogenesis even though stimulation is needed to initiate egg laying) is, nor do they care.

Their own names tend to be given after childhood, as their approach to childrearing is very impersonal and thus their hatchlings don't need to be referred to by a name and are usually simply tagged with a number by the caretaker caste. They are basically descriptive nicknames that are two or three ideograms long, e.g "Tliu'lsaa" meaning "Large Eyes" and so on. This does mean names often repeat but considering that there are no database records it doesn’t really matter. Being unique is bad, after all.

They're still capable of having friends… and very close friends at that. Bonded kseldani walk together, work together, and sleep together, both out of closeness and as to not lose each other in a sea of millions cloned beings. Perhaps surprisingly, hugs and cuddles are indeed a thing in their culture.

In general they spend their whole childhood locked in a room with dozens more hatchlings, only being taught what is needed to survive in a kseldani hive, with nothing like math (why do you need it, if you want to join the scientist caste you can just download the needed info) or especially humanities (what are humanities?). This does kneecap their technological development, and the civilization is one of the most primitive ones in 2230, even with their gestalt-minded scientist caste trying their best to catch up and Alliance-wide tech sharing agreements. That's how bad it is.

Speaking of overpopulation, workers, which comprise the bulk of the population and thus are the most mouths to feed, voluntarily submit to euthanization and recycling in entire crowds in such a scenario if it gets bad enough (usually via just jumping into a food vat, sometimes being crushed or decapitated beforehand). Many feel happy about being recycled, seeing it as their duty to the Collective. However such mass suicides may cause those who already have individualist sympathies to fully "awaken" and leave the Collective.

Emigrant kseldani ships are extremely crowded even by passenger ship standards, and the safety is piss-poor, with many having their life support systems fail and the passengers resorting to cannibalism to survive. And they keep flooding into relmai and human colonies, those vessels that don’t fall apart mid-spaceflight at least.

The Collective’s approach to warfare is simple: drown the enemy under a mountain of corpses. Their transport ships are often literally filled to the brim with levies that are little more than random workers and brutes who have been taken from the hallways of one of the hives, given a rifle, and sent to fight. Sometimes they use dedicated optimized soldiers. Overall they are peaceful however. When a hive is attacked, the defense tends to be even more massed and dismal: there is little distinction between civilian and combatant as defenders are quickly rallied to defend their home, sometimes with tools like sledgehammers, crowbars, and blowtorches instead of actual weapons.

Physiology

The chohjozra are a non-humanoid pseudo-reptilian race that evolved in the swamps of Akeruh. Their forms, like their minds, were informed by their environment. They have lengthy bodies, like those of alligators, with eight relatively short limbs, the front four of which end in hands, and very flexible spines that smoothly transition to a tail with an underdeveloped hand. Firm cords of extremely strong muscle bulge from under their scaly, thick greenish hides. They are bigger than humans and most other sapients, with the average individual being around 2.3m long and 1.7m tall (when in a centauroid pose, though they often run on all eights). Instead of snouts, they have huge yellow beaks like those of toucans but serrated, and instead of ears they have large pointy fins that can flare out, and shimmer in rainbow colors. Their eyes can be either narrow or round, but always have W-shaped pupils (for polarized light). The talons on their fingers and toes have inclusions of copper, and so do their bones, due to the metal-rich soil on their planet.

Females tend to have somewhat more tapered beaks, and are even bulkier than males. They lay small clutches of eggs, one to three, and offspring are healthier when two males impregnate the female in quick succession.

The spinal column of a chohjozra is extremely flexible, this allows them to swim through muck by slithering like a snake, or to function easily in a taur pose.

Overall they're as strong as grizzly bears, and can stay underwater for many minutes, but lack manual dexterity and have inflexible minds.

There are two subspecies of chohjozra. There are the freshwater chohjozra, who are somewhat thinner and more agile due to their origins in the thicket swamps of inland Akeruh; and the saltwater chohjozra, who are much bulkier and more adapted to prolonged swimming with their webbed hands and feet. The former have more saturated and smaller green scales, the latter have grayish large scales. The two can interbreed and are culturally very similar.

Psychology

Most chohjozra are born with several personalities, usually four. One is calculating, another is emotional, one is outgoing and another is shy (though of course each chohjozra has their own equilibrium). They blend together depending on factors and stimuli, and combinations of them are given personal names and treated somewhat as people, though it's different from human plurality, and unlike human headmates these splits do not have their own ego; a chohjozra's mind is composed of them like an image is composed of color channels. Some are born with only one, "neutral" personality, and are somewhat shunned by society.

But as a whole they're insanely patient, both in the 'able to sit motionlessly for hours, waiting' and the 'take a lot of stress' senses. However, anger does slowly build up, and boils out all at once.

In addition, spirituality is fully entwined in the chohjozra psyche, as the same brain processes that happen to produce sapience happen to be inseparable from the ones that result in magical thinking and belief in the supernatural. A chohjozra can thus never be a non-believer, even if they are raised entirely by outsiders who have no religion, one will invent a faith. To those residing within their society, it is quite literally unthinkable. Their ancient and complex pagan religion originates from this.

Description of chohjozra society

Fundamentals

• As implied before, one of the cornerstones of chohjozra culture is Kmiihnzay Mrrkyihzra, their religion. It grew to encompass the many different chohjozra faiths, and of course still has regional variations. It has a literal million deities, which are divided into many spheres that they rule over, some overlapping. They are worshiped through rituals, some of which are to be performed eight times a day at strict times. In general, layers upon layers of ritual is how they organize their lives, thanks to their good memory it is possible to remember it all. The priesthood is the most esteemed part of chohjozra society. However, there is not much in the way of hierarchy aside from two levels. Priests are priests, shamans are shamans. The former are responsible for 'high' faith, which is what we would call theological discussion and church administration, while the latter are responsible for 'low' faith, which is more folk wisdom and the specifics of rituals.
• Another cornerstone are the triples, their family unit. Traditionally, a triple consists of a large male, a small male, and a female that they reproduce with. They share all property and make decisions together; neither the males nor the female hold any superior position, though their roles differ somewhat: the large male takes care of preparing food, the small male takes care of the young, and the female does everything else around the house, and in old times the female was usually a hunter. But these roles are highly flexible. Triples don't have to have that exact arrangement: triples of two large males and a female, two females with a small male, and so on, have always been present, and not considered remarkable, but are uncommon.
• The third cornerstone is their dietary habits. The chohjozra love food. Food that, to humans, often looks crude or downright barbaric. First of all, while they of course cook their meat, live food holds a cultural and religious significance. Critters such as mragez or ekzhiik-- both tiny and fluffy herbivores, are devoured alive as part of rituals or on holy days. Those who refuse to eat them are considered weak; there is no actual opposition to such practices in chohjozra society. Cannibalism is similarly ubiquitous; the dead are usually eaten by their relatives and friends, if the body is not contaminated due to the manner of death. When a prominent chohjozra dies, a priest cuts their flesh and organs to very fine chunks that may be eaten by thousands of people. They believe that souls are diffused in muscle: animal souls nourish their consumer while sapient souls are permitted to reincarnate that way as the offspring of whoever eats them. A corpse that goes uneaten has its soul stuck wandering the world as a ghost. Both of these traditions are permitted by the fact that their stomachs are very good at digesting things that are normally harmful; parasites and prions simply dissolve.
• They normally never wear clothes, due to a combination of being cold-blooded, their scales being tough enough to provide good protection, their homeworld's environment not really having seasonal temperature swings, and their body plan just not being conducive to convenient dressing. When a chohjozra has to spend a long time in a cold environment, they put on coats with heating elements. However, they always wear lots of jewelry, usually made of colored alloys of copper, always polished to a sheen and inset with gems or at least glass. Under the Monarchy, only the ruling caste could decorate themselves, after they were killed off it was mandated that everyone should dress as they did to show that everyone was a king and that they were the masters of their own fate now. It is also required that an eight-pointed star is tattooed somewhere on the body; in general tattoos are much more restricted than jewelry and are reserved for certain officially recognized deeds, because they consider the scales to be sacred and are uncomfortable with coloring them.
• As mentioned before, the chohjozra have very good memory. Thus it is feasible for them to memorize not only their rituals but also perfectly recall tens of thousands of words with some training. This memory is fully photographic and never fully decays on reasonable timeframes. This means that oral tradition is alive and well in chohjozra society. Stories and such still get written down as memorization aids, but it is always seen as more prestigious to listen to an actual living person reciting or performing something-- though they recognize that that is not always possible or practical. This means they never forget grudges, and it takes a lot to be forgiven.
• They see themselves as not any different from wild animals. Since ancient times they had the concept of the food web, and their place in it. Even the Monarchy recognized that. They are predators, yes, and are proud of it, but they do not damage their environment. Many chohjozra cultures prefer to integrate their ways of life with nature as much as possible. Genemodding is viewed in a complicated manner; the priests of natural deities determine what alterations are acceptable.
• There are a lot of things that no chohjozra are interested in. They have no feeling of instant gratification, no concept of seeing themselves as anything outside nature, and are always disgusted by all manner of fast living. This hinders diplomatic efforts and cultural exchange, especially with relmai.

Politics

• Chohjozra society is united under the Nrukhrizchaa, a sort of decentralized theocratic socialist federation. Each bioregion on Akeruh has its own administration council composed of priests who perfectly memorized hundreds of texts about history, religion, and politics, as well as important poetry and literature, perfectly, word-to-word. Every eight years, they all come to be judged by the people by reciting those texts and making their interpretation of their meaning. The people then judge who was the wiser of them, and who was more foolish. The wiser one leaves the bioregion's council to take their seat in the to the Nrukhrizchaa's central council, while the fool is dismissed and becomes a normal priest. Two applicants who passed the exam beforehand then take their place. The central council, in old times, used to meet in a deserted spot on Akeruh, but now they discuss matters 64/8 via an internet connection-- while they love doing things in person, this is seen as an acceptable tradeoff. There are hundreds of them, and they deliberate on every decision. The colonies each have their own shard of the council system, though the council of Akeruh has the legal right to order them around.
• In times of crisis (active war or ongoing diplomatic incident or economic crash), the council appoints a temporary coordinator from amongst themselves. They temporarily gain authority to make what orders they need. Once the crisis passes, they not only have to step down as a councilor, but are stripped of their priesthood and can never regain it-- because the Nrukhrizchaa is the word of the gods, and thus the coordinator was temporarily above the gods, which is dangerous. Overall though, there is no single leader. Civilizational trauma made chohjozra culture allergic to one person holding unchecked or subvertable power. This system is close to what the chohjozra had before the Monarchy, and before the pre-Monarchy nations. It is, essentially, the natural rest state of their society, the global maximum that they returned to after the temporary local maximum of hierarchical rule.
• There are no political parties. No ideologies. No petty debates over policy. Yet the people have power. Not just in the eight-year elections, but even in local decision-making. The eighth day of every week is set aside in temples as a day when the priest must hear out anyone who comes to their office. This has to happen in person if possible, but a call is allowed if one cannot come for whatever reason. The priest is required by law and peer pressure to give genuine answers, and when the day ends they must write a log of everyone who came to them from memory, their requests, and what they want to do about any complaints or suggestions. This log is reviewed every few months.
• The chohjozra criminal justice system is quite harsh, but prison sentences are short and serve as temporary measures to contain criminals while it is figured out what to do with them. The court process is insanely long and involves a lot of hand-writing on parchment, speeches that last the better part of a day, and deliberation that lasts for hours. The actual sentences almost always consist of community service, harsh manual labor, or forced consigning to a monastery for life. They do not really do death penalty per se; crimes like serial killing or treason get one worked to death.

Kmiihnzay Mrrkyihzra

The name roughly means "sacred path of eternal predation and the thing that answers all questions in the world".

• There is no separation between the material world and the spiritual one for them. The gods reside within the universe instead of outside it, and are formless forces fully dedicated to some concept or another. There are exactly a million, no more and no less, responsible for the most mundane of things. The overlapping spheres that the deities are divided into are as varied, and very often the gods within them represent different facets of the sphere; for example within the sphere of Knowledge, Tikhzzhik is the goddess of text while Ghmihzirecha is the god of video (one of the youngest deities; he cannibalized Bhzighe, the god of some now-obsolete photographing method). They frequently metaphysically hunt and devour each other, but being divine they are usually unhurt by it-- with the exception, as implied before, of the case where a new concept emerges that needs to be made room for.
• These deities are essentially anthropomorphized and codified versions of how they inherently think about the world. That is why their religion is the same all over Akeruh; gods had different names in different cultures and slightly differently overlapping spheres, but there is and was much less variation than in human faiths. Whereas for humans faith is an extrinsic way of thinking about natural phenomena, for chohjozra it is merely putting to words the way their whole mental framework is structured. This works well for the unchanging environment of Akeruh.
• A priest or shaman (cleric) represents one deity. They decorate themselves in ways that call to mind their patron, and live a lifestyle that best reflects them. To be a chohjozra cleric is perhaps the most arduous religious occupation of all civilizations in the Oval. An individual of any other species would snap under the pressure.
• They believe the soul has several parts. There are the various personalities a chohjozra has, there is the part responsible for creativity, there is the part responsible for hunger and desire, and there is the part that is the ego-- the perspective. It is the ego that is diffused through the flesh, and while the other parts are devoured by the gods upon the death of the individual, that part is only eaten by mortals as part of ritual cannibalism. The ghost that is left behind when a corpse rots away is solely the ego: devoid of personality, creativity, or nourishment. Only able to perceive and think, not interact or create.
• One universal attribute considered sacred is the morningstar (as in, a spiked mace). In general, the ceremonial weapon most valued in chohjozra society is not the sword but the mace. Slashing weapons never caught on in their pre-gunpowder warfare, because chohjozra hides are very tough. Every cleric carries a golden morningstar that they add one decoration to at the start of their service. They then pass it on to a successor, who in turn adds their alteration.
• Non-chohjozra can convert, though due to the nature of Kmiihnzay Mrrkyihzra it is debatable how authentic it would be if followed by a human brain... unless their brain was to be genemodded or chipped to be locked into the chohjozra mindset. There is a small community of humans and relmai who fully live that way.

Infrastructure and architecture

• Chohjozra buildings generally resemble mounds of varying pointiness, from nearly flat like rolling hills to tall like spires. Most are somewhere in-between. Always engraved with intricate patterns and partially overgrown by moss and vines. From the distance a chohjozra city might look abandoned and left to the ravages of nature, but really they just can't stand not being surrounded by greenery as they consider themselves a part of nature. Passages are low, wide, and dark, rooms are irregular but vaguely circular with small oval or slit-like windows, and there are even more plants inside than outside. They like shade. Often, the lower floors are deliberately half-flooded. Furniture is rounded and low. In each residential room there live three generations: a triple; the triple that was the parents of one of them; and the triple that contains a child of one of them. There do exist smaller dwellings for one triple or an un-mated individual.
• Highways are near impossible to build in most of Akeruh. The most common method of long-distance travel is by airship (planes are too loud and chohjozra are fine with waiting) or submarine. These submarines are made for traversing swamp water and have very sharp wedges on their fronts.

Technology

• Artificial intelligence that can communicate in language is prohibited due to religious restrictions. Thinking machines are frequently despised and entry for them is prohibited. However, due to the fact that true AI is fundamentally different from pseudosapient AI and functions essentially like an organic brain, a faction of intellectuals, scientists, and reform clerics have begun challenging this, arguing that the scriptures describe pseudosapient AI. Chohjozra are slow to change their minds, so reform is likely to take decades, but it is inevitable. AIs are not prohibited if they do not communicate like people.

Entertainment and art

• As stated before, the chohjozra have no feeling of instant gratification. They can only comprehend slow media. Books have very detailed and verbose descriptions, and oftentimes there is no plot per se. There is a variety of genres based on describing nature in various ways.
• A very common form of art for them is what humans would call bonsai. Trees and moss are grown in small pots in various intricate shapes, that are often worn on the body as adornment. Some wear vines as jewelry.

Language

The most prominent chohjozra language is Dhahrkyhzchaab (DHKY), translating to something like "common folk new era equal language". It is a modernized version of the language of the highest-population area of Akeruh that was relatively unscathed in the revolution. It assimilated features from many other languages; said languages still persist and are under strict preservation programs. There is also Mbahrzahchaab (MBZA), a simplified and less ambiguous version of it, and Zhehrkmiichaab (ZHKM), an even more complex and metaphorical and archaic version. DHKY is the language of pop culture and official and interciv communication, while MBZA is the language of science and of commerce, just like Common Terran English and Techspeak are for humans. ZHKM is the language of religion and doesn't really have a Space Age Terran equivalent, though there are present-day analogues like Old Church Slavonic. All three are mutually intelligible.

Some notes about all 3 languages:

• phonetics are very limited. Phonemes that require flexible lips are not used, instead there are subtle nuances in the clicks and growls and purrs. Transcription is, accordingly, very loose and at times arbitrary. To a human it just sounds like a bunch of growls that only a trained ear can discern. They can make vague approximation of these phonemes, and thus speak human languages, but have one of the thickest accents. They speak surprisingly quickly for an usually slow and relaxed species.
• there is no s sound. This is because it comes off as an uncontrolled hiss that is hard to work into language (for the same reason no human languages use a raspberry phoneme), and is reserved for emotional expression.
• very agglutinative structure, but where barely-perceptible swaps of sounds, or subtle changes, carry valuable information that modify the word-components too. Phonemes themselves have meaning, if vague (like hh usually meaning belonging to). Words must follow a somewhat rhythmic structure, one cannot mash together these phonemes at will. Suffixes are also more standardized.
• intonation is barely present, if at all. It comes across as extremely stoic. Such things are communicated by body language too subtle for most humans to pick up, or phrasing. There are also tone markers just baked into language. jha is a phoneme that means "I am currently feeling upset", for example. zzi means a word is sarcastic.
• all 3 are prescriptive, with an academy having to approve each new word (and, as even DHKY is considered sacred, neologisms are reserved for absolutely necessary cases, and slang is considered obscene). The difference is that the DHKY academy is a lot less restrictive and is a lot more pragmatic.
• pauses serve an important role, and are much more frequent and longer-lasting than English. There are around 7 types of what would, to human ears, be a comma.
• personal pronouns are not related to gender, instead referring to other qualities. "animate, predator" aazh. "animate, prey" eezh, "inanimate, mobile" aatkh and "inanimate, immobile" eetkh. Generic variants that can also be used as nouns for "animal" and "thing" are oozh and ootkh.
• any noun or adjective can be turned to a verb by adding a glottal stop before it.
• Generally, a whole sentence in the chohjozra languages is written as one massive block of intermingled radicals that represent phonemes that compose the words. These blocks can be in any shape, but the standardized one used in print is of course rectangular. The writing itself is composed of many curved, scratch-like strokes; to an outsider it vaguely resembles Arabic calligraphy but with thinner and more parallel lines and fewer dots.

A small dictionary and phrasebook (DHKY):

• ``

This snippet is extremely ancient, from 2022. There has been some lore about them since but I will have to dig it up.

The hhw!xey are a sapient species from the cold planet of Yihhtyh!hhx. They are very small (at most 40cm tall), stubby-limbed semi-humanoids (often going on all fours) covered in very thick and fluffy white fur, with small but sharp black claws, large reflective eyes, and short noseless muzzles full of small grinding teeth surrounded by two serrated grasping mandibles. They lack visible ears or tails, but two very sensitive tendril-like organs can extend from their heads at will. Their bones are thin and their muscle-equivalent is semi-liquid, goopy, and purple, yet surprisingly strong.

Hhw!xey evolved from cunning scavengers and omnivores in the tundra expanses of their planet, burrowing in the snow to get at roots and tiny mouse-like creatures. They were constantly under threat from quadrupedal semi-sapient predators called ki!yhy!rhy, and had to rely on their wits and resourcefulness to avoid and kill said predators. Soon, tribes emerged that turned into city-states and kingdoms, and technology progressed fast. Spaceflight was an issue, as the heights involved were even more daunting for knee-height creatures, however their small size meant that life support could be reduced in size compared to larger sapients.

Their cultures have one shared "bias": trickery. It does not have to be lying, per se, but zany and overcomplicated schemes that nevertheless succeed are seen as the greatest possible pastime. Their sports tend to be intellectual rather than physical and involve such deception and scheming. Their media has incomprehensible and tangled (by human, or most other species' standards) plots. Currently, the hhw!xey are united under a confederation of kingdoms and principalities, even looser than the Terran Federation, the leadership of which rotates frequently according to a set of arcane rules. They are an Alliance member with few systems, but have many outposts within other races' space, including Terran.

Physiology

The sy'yvl are a partially-humanoid species. Though possessing two legs and two arms, they stand even more upright than humans or relmai. Their limbs, though of normal length, are notably perfectly cylindrical, lacking the narrowing of those of humans. Sy!yvl have 4 fingers per limb end, with triangular nails, while their knees bend backwards. Very smooth skin, usually of a purple or crimson tone, is stretched over sy'yvl bodies. They have two long, light-colored tails that don't taper until the very end, which are very strong and are used to assist in walking (can't walk efficiently without the tails, hence only partially humanoid) or as secondary hands. Their faces consist of round but long snouts (think velociraptor snout but with much softer features), with omnivore mixed teeth inside. Slightly, but not quite, off to the sides are two large almond-shaped eyes where the iris is always white and the sclera varies in color and pattern between individuals. But most noticeably, squishy ear fins, resembling a mix between the horns of a deer and the gills of an axolotl, but strictly decorative, extend from the sides of their heads. These fins are semi-translucent and shimmer in different colors.

Their physiques vary a lot, more than other species: some are thin, tall, and sinuous; others are stocky, short, and muscled; and everything in between. This diversity does not affect their psychology much, and is less drastic than, for example, the ty-uc-kch castes, and is caused by the environment a sy!yvl spends their early childhood in: hotter environments lead to thin bodies, colder ones lead to stocky bodies. This can be manipulated fairly easily.

Sy!yvl are somewhat mammal-like, but there is less dimorphism than in humans (though they're still less androgynous than relmai for example). They have a method of reproduction between egg-laying and live birth: females effectively always give premature birth, and the fetuses are born encased in mucuous cocoons, which can absorb nutrients, specifically milk. Both sexes lactate (though females do it a bit more)-- which resulted in far less prevalent gender roles in their society.

Psychology

The sy!yvl are hardwired to accept their place in society unflinchingly and not question authority or how things are, and do not have much capability for abstract thinking. All are extremely social and can't stand being alone, though unlike the bquaa these effects are possible to mitigate and are not hardwired. A small proportion of them are more skeptical, but the rest are perpetually zoned-out. To outsiders, they appear near-mindless, perhaps even akin to animals. But that is a mistake; they are still people with names, personalities, interests, and hopes.
Most of them are very afraid of leaving their "comfort zone" in even small ways, or of anything that contradicts their hierarchy. It's a fear that's possible to conquer with enough exposure, however.

One more quirk of the sy!yvl psyche is that they have a very good intuition for what their fellows are doing even if they cannot see them.

Background

They have been highly social animals since millions of years ago. There was never a transition from bands of hunter-gatherers to settlements, because the latter were always present. The sy!yvl achieved sapience via very incremental growth that essentially optimized the growth and sustainability of said settlements. They even had simple agriculture for those millions of years (like certain ant species on Earth), which gradually was improved upon.
The reason they were able to have population centers numbering in the high thousands since time immemorial is semi-symbiosis with a coral-esque plant-animal they use to build their mounds, called Gxxy-lsa. These mounds look like the above-ground part of an anthill, only much flatter, formed of various buildings stacked on top of each other. As the city grows, more structures are added.

Hierarchical organization

Sy!yvl society has a deeply-ingrained system of hierarchy, implanted into their minds on an instinctual level.
There are arbitrarily many layers with arbitrarily many but ever-decreasing amounts of individuals in them.
Layer 0 is the 'monarch' of a sy!yvl hierarchy, these days there is only one hierarchy and thus one monarch. Below is Layer 1, which has around ten individuals who serve as the equivalent of ministers and consorts for the monarch. Layer 2 consists of rulers of planets and habitats, there are hundreds of them due to the huge amount of habitats. Layer 3 (over 10000) is the equivalent of governors of regions or massive cities, Layer 4 (million) cities or fractions of cities. Layer 5 (tens of millions), Layer 6 (hundreds of millions), and Layer 7 (3 billion) fulfill a role of directly managing decreasing sizes of groups of sy!yvl alongside each other. The majority is on Layer 8. There is little social mobility, but everyone is wired to be satisfied this way.

Belonging to a layer is communicated by minute social cues and slight differences in appearance that only sy!yvl can really pick up.

Culture and society

• Their culture is very simple, considering its age. Stories are extremely straightforward and monotonous, with amounts of repetition that would put any human to sleep. Art is well-drawn but usually only uses a few colors. Little of it has any deeper meaning or even message. They usually rewatch, reread, or replay things dozens or hundreds or thousands of times.
• They are highly spiritual and superstitious, but have absolutely zero codification of their beliefs, which cannot really be called a religion. If they can be said to believe anything about the "immaterial world", is that it exists and has a tangible impact, but inherently cannot be even comprehended or described. Thus there are no myths and no rituals. They also don't even have the concept of an afterlife, much less believe in one.
• Every sy!yvl, besides the monarch, follows the same life framework: do what you have been assigned to do until further orders, and in the meantime reproduce. Nobody is in any way independent, and in fact find the concept of independence to be deeply horrifying in an eldritch manner. Sy!yvl with neurodivergences that give them better capacity for abstract thought get appointed to research duty.
• Their only clothing is very loose, mass-produced, extremely baggy and thin robes. These robes actually vary in design according to social layer, determined by rigidly-defined rules. They are colorful, though, and embellished with dyed chunks of Gxxy-lsa woven or clipped onto the fabric; also common are bangles, necklaces, and earrings. Also frequent are chains as chokers, to symbolize submission to the monarch. Those sy!yvl who work in professions where loose clothing might result in injury or death instead wear form-fitting jumpsuits. While their clothes may look primitive, they are actually mandated to be made of self-cleaning nanofabric, and are so comfortable that many other humanoid species try to get their hands on refit versions.
• They have no concept of material property. Even the monarch lives in relative austerity. Absolutely everything is shared, without as much as personal lockers. But unlike the kseldani and bquaa, they do recognize land and people as property.
• Sy!yvl place almost zero value on their own lives. If they are ordered to do something extremely dangerous they will do it without a second thought. However, their simplicity also means that crazy dictators who only want to see their underlings suffer don't exist in sy!yvl society; nobles are ambivalent at worst.
• The way sy!yvl cities develop is important to understanding their society.
  • Gxxy-lsa exists naturally, but does not take the same form that the sy!yvl use for architecture. It is something resembling a land-dwelling coral, growing in mostly flat or gently hill-like, circular patches around ten meters in diameter, present in all land-based non-desertic environments of Lsyng!jyl!yysa. The material is hard as concrete, but porous, very craggy, and colored any shade from red to pink to white. It extends tendrils into the soil to leech nutrients, but its main form of sustenance is leeching from above, i.e from plants that sprout over it. These natural colonies do not grow much due to this drain on their surrounding environment, and die out after they drain the soil, at which point they discolor into gray and are eventually simply buried by dirt. However, in their late stages, they form seed-globules: translucent spheres the size of soccer balls, filled with hydrogen. Once a globule is filled, it floats off, very slowly leaking hydrogen until it deflates and thus gently lands tens or hundreds of kilometers away. If the soil is fertile, the globule hardens and takes root, slowly growing into a patch over decades or centuries, and the process begins anew.
  • However, the sy!yvl know since time immemorial how to induce rapid growth of this coral. This method has survived intact for thousands of years, and even in exoplanetary colonization it is used with minimal modifications.
    • First, a globule is harvested and carefully transported to a fertile, defensible and resource-full spot by a team of sy!yvl. This group is fairly large, as such spots are few and far between, requiring lengthy hikes over dangerous terrain (in the modern age, they use airlifts or orbital drops for exocolonization). Then, the Gxxy-lsa seed is even more carefully drained of hydrogen by stabbing it with a special awl, and buried shallowly. The expedition team then stays near it as it sprouts, setting up a camp nearby. They harvest as much biomass as possible nearby and compost it, to supplement the regular shipments of fertilizers that get brought in from the home city and poured onto the sprout, then onto the sides of the patch, to grow it sideways. Pests and nearby herbivores are eliminated with extreme prejudice.
    • While the camp lasts years, becoming a temporary village of tents and log cabins, it is meant to be abandoned once the Gxxy-lsa patch matures enough to support grown buildings. When that happens (just over its 'natural' size of ten meters diameter), specially-made nutrients are dropped onto the surface of the patch, causing bulges to appear. The bulge is then drilled and a poisonous concoction injected into it, killing the inner layer of Gxxy-lsa within it while letting the outer layers grow. Thus results in it becoming a bubble, which is then grown until it becomes large enough to house sy!yvl or store things in. At this moment, the city is considered founded, and the village surrounding it is abandoned.
    • The administration of the planet, region, or nearby city then resettles more sy!yvl, as the patch continues to grow, fed by convoys. To become sustainable, fields are sown in a broad circle around it, gradually expanding out as land is subsumed by the growing Gxxy-lsa. As the settlement itself grows upwards and access becomes difficult, these fields become specialized towards Gxxy-lsa-feed rather than food production. All sorts of buildings are stacked on top of each other via bubbles. Sloped corridors are left in between rows of them, and ladders and ramps are drilled inside to allow easy passage. Sy!yvl cities are, thus, 3D. The core of each city, i.e the lower layers, are actually populated by nobles, for better defensibility. Slightly outside the core are various light industries not harmful in such a confined space. Meanwhile the bulk of the city, i.e the mantle, is occupied by vast numbers of storage areas, services, and residences for the common folk. Air shafts, powered by strong fans, thread through the entire volume of the mound, allowing ventilation, though there is sparse plant life growing on the walls, both for aeration and aesthetic reasons.
    • Electric lights are used sparingly in their cities; bioluminescent mushrooms are more common as lamps, and have been selectively bred for millennia to be very bright... and bitter-tasting, to discourage using infrastructure as quick snacks.
• Sy!yvl 'nobles' and commoners actually live rather similarly. Residential rooms are rather small and circular, and have one plan: circular or square beds stacked into bunks, surrounding a single pile of various shared tools and supplies. They don't spend much time here. Most of their spare time is spent in large open rooms that consist of concentric circles, which consist of 8 rings, each corresponding to a social layer. Inside such rooms, placed in intricate patterns within each ring, are various decorations as well as entertainment stations. Of course, the inner few rings are empty as often someone from the first few layers isn't even on the planet; they are built regardless and meticulously maintained as indoor gardens.
• Personal possessions are strictly banned by royal decree, as implied before, besides that which may be worn. Instead of datapads, they usually wear pendants, bracelets, or half-visors (covering one eye) which fill that role with a small curved screen. The UI design in these devices is very simple, with usually two or three colors and symbols instead of text, as most sy!yvl are illiterate. There is an internet, though there are very few sites compared to other civilizations.
• One trait they share with Chimeras is an obsession with cleanliness and hygiene. For a similar reason: they live in dense communal halls and are very sociable. Thus disease would easily spread if everyone wasn't squeaky clean. If someone skips the daily shower, the next day they're tied down and hosed with cold water and soap. They spend hours cleaning themselves and each other. In ancient times they used special oils rubbed into their skin to ward away dirt and parasites, now even the commoners use a thin coating of nanite paste.
• Something vaguely resembling marriage exists, though it more resembles animals' courtship rituals. Overseen by an individual of a higher layer, the prospective spouses do a brief but elaborate dance meant to show that they are physically fit, graceful, and attractive. After consummating the new bond, they have to wear identical clothes and adornments, and make their names identical. Marriages between layers happen, in which case the partner of lower layer is elevated while the partner of higher layer descends. The monarch is an exception, of course. Sex outside of courtship is literally unthinkable. Homosexuality is very rare but not at all stigmatized.
• Most of their free time is spent talking. They are the most gregarious species in the Oval and are widely known to never shut up about the most trivial of subjects. A sy!yvl can spend hours and hours making small talk, about everything from the nice weather they saw from the hive's balcony to how the grubs they ate today tasted weird to how they saw a layer 3 visit and hit their own head while bowing.
• There is essentially zero crime in sy!yvl society. Almost all sy!yvl are incapable of acting in self-interest or going against social contract.
• They used to be extremely afraid of genemodding, until a royal decree and education campaign established specialization initiatives. Now sy!yvl are routinely modified by their overseers to fit their task in society. However they still dislike cosmetic genemodding. In addition, they always adapt themselves to fit the various planets they colonize. Very stocky and muscular on high-gravity worlds, extremely thin with graceful limbs on low-gravity worlds, possessing gills and fins on oceanic worlds, and so on.
• Their population is quite evenly spread across their empire. This is because of mass resettlement programs where entire cities were relocated to other planets to more efficiently use space. Every planet is densely populated. The borders of the Kingdom are very small, and the sy!yvl see it as their imperative to use them to the full extent of their abilities, filling the void and the untamed lands.
• Habitats floating in space are very common. Grown just like the cities, using a comet as the core that ends up providing water and carbon for the growth of the structure. Habitat-dweller sy!yvl are very agile and adapted to microgravity. The species' close-knit mentality and love for sustainability makes them uniquely suited for deep-space colonization.

The bquaa (actual name longer and not transcribable) are a sapient alien race that is part of the Alliance. 

Physiology

Bquaa have slimy, rubbery bodies that resemble those of slugs, but longer (a bit like snakes). They can slither quite fast due to being covered in a thick layer of slippery sludge at all times. At the front quarter of their bodies are two pairs of thick tentacles that can be used as manipulators. Their heads smoothly blend into their necks, and have tapered wedge-shaped, small-toothed snouts with no nostrils, and two large black almond-shaped eyes. Bquaa have cartilage instead of bones, and said cartilage is very sparse, rendering them a little fragile. They breathe through their skin, which is possible despite their large size due to the high oxygen content in their planet's atmosphere. In addition, their skin can be any color of the rainbow, and has black patterns (if light) or white patterns (if dark) that can be consciously shifted for communication purposes.

Though some individuals can be extremely muscular and bulky, most bquaa are very scrawny.

They are fully hermaphroditic, in the same manner as most gastropods, and are oviparous. After mating, both partners lay translucent, spindle-like eggs, ranging from 5 to 15, though only one in five actually end up hatching.

Background and psyche

Their planet, Auua, is distinct from other humid planets by the fact that it is very flat. It has only three major biomes: shallow ocean, overgrown fetid swamp, and forested hills. There are some very rare mountains and a bit of tundra at the very poles, but it is overall much warmer than Earth, and has 100% or near-100% humidity in nearly all regions. The "temperate" regions are like the Amazon rainforest and the tropical and equatorial ones are almost like a sauna. It is in those areas that the bquaa evolved: amid the fog, steam, and muddy hills of the largest continent. They lived in cramped hillside burrows or mounds in the plains, hunting and gathering for food. After they discovered agriculture, they formed hundreds of densely-populated clusters of cities. What happened next requires some explanation of their psychology.

Bquaa constantly emit pheromones that reflect their emotional state, which are picked up by their powerful olfactory sense. This is impossible to control or suppress without genemodding. Due to a quirk, those emotions are also reflected equally by those who smell them, resulting in feel-sharing. Meanwhile, their slime can transmit more complex information if it comes into contact with another's (not between species!), including aspects of personality and even vague experiences. This led to them not having any individuality-- while even the kseldani and akyzh-cci have individual cognition and can imagine themselves being separate, the bquaa do not and cannot. They also have essentially perfect empathy thanks to this, and are some of the nicest and most accepting people one can meet.

Naturally, this feature led to the bquaa being very communal and peaceful. They do not need coercion of any sort, and the thought of causing deliberate harm to another of their species is abhorrent– after all, you would feel their anguish yourself. Thus, their society developed in a very different path from many other civilizations: nascent polities quickly merged together into one harmonious collective, where there is no leadership, and peace and order are upheld purely on goodwill. It is partially eusocial, though there are no designated breeders it is expected that absolutely everyone do their part to grow the species at all times.

Culture and politics

The self

Probably the most important thing to bquaa culture is the nonexistence of the individual as a concept. Even the sy!yvl and the kseldani recognize the existence of separate people, even if their influence is to be minimized. The bquaa do not. Bodies are separate, of course, and brains alongside them, but given how intensely emotions and personalities are merged in their society, people aren't.

Thus, their names only refer to the bodies. They are used solely in the third person (there are no pronouns in the bquaa language, but words are short and dense). When a bquaa alters their body in any manner, they also alter their name.

Their brains are not compatible with individuality by default. A bquaa who is separated from others for long goes irreversibly catatonic. This is fixable with cybernetics.

Society

While Yig, the Red Kseldani, and the Seven Colony Worlds in the western reaches of the Terran Federation are all examples of anarchy, both of those still have some measure of governing institutions besides ad-hoc decisions: the Consensus for the first, and local councils for the latter two. The bquaa have no such thing. Any sort of governance they have is entirely natural, in the same way an anthill has no institutions. What they do have in terms of managing their society is a set of very flexible guidelines.

Bquaa live in very dense cities of mound-like buildings with lots of twisty passages. Their buildings resemble chohjozra and dal-ghar architecture a bit due to their physiology. Similar to the kseldani, there are no separate dwellings, and everyone sleeps in large chambers. Unlike the kseldani, their cities are quite well-decorated, with colorful designs on the external and internal walls. Naturally, it all has to be built out of moisture-resistant materials: anything that can rust or get easily eroded is right out as due to the weather it would become a pile of rubble within a few years at most.

Their culture is very strange and incomprehensible to most other sapients, not in the least because it relies, in large part, on smell. They also have no tradition of “alone” entertainment: even for passive entertainment like books and films it is unthinkable to not have someone to discuss it with while watching… and preferably a whole crowd. Naturally, there are no puzzles or singleplayer games of any kind. They have no mass produced pop culture, rather all their works are produced on a very sentimental level and do not reach a wide audience. Contrary to the popular belief that they only live to eat, sleep, and reproduce, bquaa have a very deep cultural landscape.

They don’t normally wear anything, but put on heated sleeves over their body and tentacles when in cold climates, such as when visiting another civilization. They never adorn themselves in any manner.

Nothing recognizable as pair-bonds or indeed romantic relationships exists. When a bquaa is ready to reproduce, they do it with no ceremony, deliberation, or attachment. Sex is solely reproductive.

They have a few religions, but one constant in them is that the Universe itself is God/the gods. The thought of them being separate agents is just not a thing.

They are, unlike many other species, incapable of speaking understandable English or most other languages in any capacity. The number of sounds they can make is very limited, mostly coming across as gurgling, and so they rely on text-to-speech translators. Naturally, text communication works fine, though they do not have any sort of personal identification in their internet equivalent.

Interciv relations

The Bquaa Collective is a peaceful hive mind and thus was eligible for joining the Alliance, which they hastily did after previously refusing since they were skirmished by the Abyssals over a diplomatic insult and had millions of their citizens massacred or abducted, never to be seen again. This proved to be useful as they still refuse to have a proper astromilitary, being more pacifist than even Chimeras (who at least have a Starguard that can be levied if shit hits the fan).

Naturally, many of their systems became pirate havens and the Alliance is failing to do much due to the Collective's insistence on dealing peacefully with the pirates. Some Terran, aadalu, and relmai citizens think they are a resource sink, political dead weight, and source of embarrassment, and so should be kicked out. Instead, a compromise was enacted: the Alliance sends frequent pirate-hunting expeditions to bquaa space.

The Black Fang Republic (BFR) is the separatist state ruled by the Canids. Once fiercely anti-human, it has been brought back into the fold while retaining sovereignty. The BFR's people are fiercely individualistic and patriotic... and are much more focused on physical strength than humans are. Augmentation of all kinds is encouraged as long as the Canid form is preserved, thus most of its citizens are seven-foot-tall, werewolf-like cyborgs. It serves as "Terra's attack dog" on the astropolitical arena.

History

In the 2160s-early 2180s, the Canids faced societal discrimination within the Terran Federation due to complicated factors, chiefly skewed perception of them by humans. At the same time, they held some important positions in the army and navy, as well as parts of the colonial administration in the north-up-east part of the Terran (then UN) frontier. In the wake of the Human Civil War of 2181-2184, they took their opportunity...

A large swath of colonies in the southeastern military district were overthrown in a series of coups known as the Greater Arcadia Putsch, after the grassland world it started on. They were sparsely populated, and the Terran Navy was too busy fighting rebels to intervene, so the warships in the immediate area mutinied to form the BFR's Navy. They made a pact with the True-Human Organization, but it was a ruse; the Canids did not help the supremacists' war effort and in fact covertly sabotaged it, secretly giving aid to the partisans that made the THO's Human Republic a failed state. They could not directly stop the supremacists' genocide, as a war on two fronts would have sunk the BFR. Instead, they paid their due by backstabbing and mercilessly slaughtering much of the THO's army in mid-2183. The Provisional Government of the Black Fang Republic, led by Sieng Redclaw, then accepted a massive exodus of Canids from the UN proper, bolstering their population numbers to borderline core-world levels.

Sieng's faction, immediately after the war's end, had to contend with Deris Ashpelt's quasi-fascist faction. Sieng dueled and beheaded Deris, causing the latter's clique to collapse, but saw that a major restructuring of society had to be done, and a new and equal culture created, to satisfy the will to power while diffusing it to avoid the lure of supremacy. Meanwhile he reapproached Terra, negotiating to keep the BFR's independence in exchange for close economic and military ties to its former enemy. Then he decentralized the government, established the Clan and Pack system, with himself as the Elder of the Council. But he noticed that too many in the Council followed his wishes, even when he wanted honest debate, so he stepped down as soon as he could, and lived out his life in a cabin on Niflheim until he died two decades later in a skiing accident.

Governmental structure

The BFR's government is much more clique-y and unstructured yet much more fraternal and grassroots than Terra's government. The clans (extended family, friend, and interest groups) freely arrange into packs-- which serve double duty as low-level organizational structures and political proto-parties (usually single-issue or regional-interests), and frequently merge and dissolve as needed. Clan heads are appointed by the members until they are deemed unfit or for any other reason. Pack heads are elected for 6 local months (adjusted for planets with slow days, tidally locked planets or habitats use Niflheim Standard Time) each from one of the clan heads. This is at the supermunicipal and regional level, or sometimes at the planetary level in younger colonies.

Packs have to unite into proper parties with proper platforms at the planetary level in most places. These present candidates in the form of constituent pack heads every year for planetary or superregional governor elections. The federal-level election is different. Anyone can run, they don't even have to be a clan head, much less a pack head. But in practice only those with some recognition as governors or those who have shown themselves to be heroes of the Republic have won. Generally, strength of spirit and of body is valued more than actual policies.

Campaigns are much less formal than the rather stuffy Terran ones. Lots of fiery speeches in front of roaring and howling crowds. Over-the-top ads bordering on propaganda. And with the Republic's very high social and economic equality, a very low barrier for running. The presidential term limit is 2 years, and the president is kept in check by a parliament, elected separately from former pack heads (not only governors). Kept in check both legally, and by the fact that the president has to be present in front of the whole parliament in order to enact any changes, and considering this is the BFR, the parliamentaries have enough firepower to turn any wannabe dictator into target practice.

However, the culture means that those deemed "weak" have a snowball's chance in Hell of getting any notable percentage of votes... see below.

Culture

The technobarbarian cultural ideology

By the 2230s, their whole nature has changed: thanks to a relatively low population in a similarly-resourceful area resulting in a high GDP per capita, as well as a culture that values personal strength, most BFR citizens are enhanced far beyond simple anthro-genemodding: they are now 7-foot-tall cyborgs who are 30% man, 30% wolf, and 40% machine, with huge muscles and packed full of both external and internal bionics. Their material aesthetic styles itself after a modernized version of stereotypical "barbarian" cultures. Rough, harsh, and unyielding. Yet they embrace technology to exert power in more efficient and potent ways. Power is what all Canids care for above all else; not the oppressive kind of power but rather the passion and strength kind of power, the kind that can be shared by all.

Anthro-Canids, as well as a minority of taurs, are the only Canids in the BFR. Uplifts stayed loyal to the Federation, and the inherent issues of feral morphs present issues to living a happy life in the BFR's society, due to the lack of hands. By the standards of transhuman separatists, the BFR is very homogenous, culturally and physically. Part of it is because the Canids have zero interest in anything but raw physical force, and they have very little in the way of what we would call culture. What culture they do have is defined by one word: visceral. There is always a focus on action. On thrill. On acting on one's instinct. When thinking is celebrated, it is the tactician's kind of thinking rather than the philosopher's.

Science is not really disrespected: after all, it is the scientists' work that the engineers use to make all the cool toys... but few pay much attention to it, seeing it as far beyond their interests. Those who do, have a different approach compared to the increasingly esoteric Terran science. They care not for abstract math or theoretical astrophysics or the like; much of their research is concentrated towards "things that actually exist", with more niche and abstract subjects seen as useless and effete. Only things that can be used for industry or war or cybernetics are seen as being worthy of research. But again, the average Canid does not give a damn.

They have a concept of honor. It is not the Western chivalric concept of honor but rather the honor that was present in many actual "barbarian" cultures like the Celts, Huns, and Mongols. It is linked directly to martial prowess, to loyalty to one's clan and to the Republic, and to keeping one's oaths. It is not linked to fair play or to being nice.

Clans

The Canids do not really have humanlike families. The whole human structure of the traditional family (whether the truly traditional multiple generations under the same roof, or the not-actually-traditional nuclear family) is untenable. This is due to the high-intensity lifestyles of nearly all Canids leading to nobody really having the time to serve as a child-rearer, as well as the culture's focus on kinship rather than origin making such values alien to them. In fact, over 70% of Canid women are functionally sterile (and 100% wouldn't want to waste valuable months being pregnant anyways) due to either consequences of genemodding or bionics, or hormonal imbalances in the citizen-factories.

Thus they have clans instead, as their replacement for the family. While a clan does, by default, include blood relatives, anyone can be invited into one-- usually friends are, as well as those people left over from adjacent clans that dissolved. A clan's leader can be determined in various ways, up to its people: it can be the strongest member, or one determined by election, or there can be no leader and a head be appointed ad-hoc when needed. Clans serve a lot more purpose than households do in Terra: while individual Canids have personal property (such as weapons, clothes, any sort of gadgets, etc), private property (including small businesses, vehicles, etc) can only be owned by a clan as a whole. Transferring people between them can only be done by agreement from both heads.

Marriage exists but is very informal, and not legally binding. Social expectations are that Canids should marry outside their clan and instead into neighboring clans, as this prevents rivalries, inbreeding, and isolation. It is fully decoupled from gender, not just legally but socially, and considering the females' sterility, straight couples have the same way to raise children as gays do-- that is, the local citizen factory. Due to the power of newly-forged tradition as well as resource and gene pool considerations, these factories do not work full-auto and require genetic material from two or more Canids to produce a new pup. Canid children are grown much quicker than a pregnancy would, and are implanted with cybernetics prenatally. Born Canids tend to act in a less human way than turned Canids.

Once the child is "born", they are raised by both of their clans, with babysitters taking turns. Due to a deep-rooted value of social equality, nobody has the role of taking full-time care of them. Generally everyone in both clans gets attached to some extent, and though they still recognize their parents, the clans are more like found family to them.

Once the cub turns 13, they have to pick one clan to be in, between their parents'. Usually they are sat down with the elders of both clans who try to convince the young one that theirs is better. Sometimes the dispute goes to a duel for who gets to claim them.

Language

Their language is partially intelligible as English... However, there are a lot of words from all sorts of random languages-- all mixed together and with their meanings and pronunciations drastically changed. It is rapidly diverging into a new language, with former boundaries being meshed together as former cultural identities get abandoned. Sentences are usually very short and grammar is simplified even compared to Common Terran English. In addition, body language and ear and tail movement are vital to much of its grammar, such as it is. In writing these are signified by a symbol prefixed to some words, in the form of an inverted triangle of 3 dots or crosses that correspond to the ears or tail being raised or lowered.

In addition, the amount of specific slang is staggering even compared to the Federation, and swearing is accepted even in certain contexts the Federation would still consider taboo. It can feel like every fourth word is a strong profanity, and it is strange if during a friendly conversation a Canid does not call you a cunt or worse at least once.

Entertainment

The main form of entertainment in the BFR is sports. Their sports are extreme beyond all human reason, for example:

• rocket skiing, where the racers have thrusters attached to their skis. Points are multiplied by the amount of fuel spent, this means one cannot play it safe. Variants are same as normal skiing: slalom. jumping, freestyle, etc.
• motorball. Like American handegg, but on a much larger field with hard ground. Players (two teams of 9) are on motorcycles, and wield different types of nets to manipulate the ball or knock each other off bikes.
• hill conquest. In the middle of a small court with rubbery ground is a narrow plateau accessible by climbing walls. A free for all for 16 competitors. The winner is the one who can stay for 3 minutes on top

Plain old combat sports, including MMA, are also popular; basically everyone knows how to wrestle and throw precise punches and kicks. Of course, they cannot compete with humans or even normal lupine genemods– the opponent literally wouldn't survive the first few strikes, or being crushed under a huge, tense pile of muscles and metal. Their extreme endurance often leads to matches or fights lasting for many hours.

Somewhat different, but still related and as popular, are gladiator fights. In special arenas, Canid fighters get pitted against genetically modified, hyper-aggressive animals from bears to T.rexes. Every gladiator has to have a distinct persona and appearance and weapon of choice-- this weapon always gets a name and is famed as much as its wielder. There are many types and formats of gladiator fights-- there are swarm fights against dozens of weak critters, there are one-on-ones against true genetic monstrosities, there are fights against prisoners condemned to death, there are "who can slay more" competitions between two gladiators, and so on. For more intense gladiatorial fights they wear customized armor, designed to accentuate every muscle while covering every millimeter in superalloy.

Outside of sports, Canids basically go out and socialize with their kin, often in bars. There are plenty of local happenings to gossip about over a drink. Canid alcohol is invariably extremely strong compared to anything humans drink for fun. This is because it needs to inebriate an at least 7-foot-tall, broad body with a likely cybernetically enhanced liver. It has fomepizole in it, meaning it gets one drunk far faster than it should, and for the most part removes the hangover.

Lifestyle

They technically can live for two centuries on average or more, but life expectancy is much less (about 50 to 70 years) thanks to the average Canid’s love of high-adrenaline situations. Rocket-skiing down the snowy slopes of Niflheim’s mountains, deep sea trench racing, and obstacle-wingsuiting, as well as many other similar activities almost all Canids get up to in their spare time (not to mention the duels), aren’t exactly useful if you want to die of old age. Of course, they don’t care: a life spent sitting at home watching TV all day, like many humans do, is to them a fully wasted life.

Being mostly carnivorous, their diets consist of meat and dairy, vat-grown of course. Due to their activity levels they need 10k or more kcal per day and thus eat a lot, requiring optimized and augmented digestive systems to fully digest that amount of food. How about a sandwich consisting of a whole steak covered completely in cheese and mayonnaise, between two slices of lard instead of bread? It is something of an issue for them as this requires a lot more infrastructure to set up than the Federation’s hydroponic farms.

Canid clothes are varied, but most often it is of sleek, form-fitting leather or tougher material, studded and spiked, and with decals symbolizing the individual's Clan or personal interests sewn on. Clothing is always made to be easy to run and fight in, though it doesn't cover much fur due to the natural toughness of their hides and a desire to show off one's muscled body. Vests, shorts, headbands are common-- though often layered with pouches and belts.

They also always wear piercings adorning their ears, lips, and/or nose. All Canids also bleach or paint their fur in tattoo-esque patterns, each clan has different markings that are unique to it.

They have somewhat less automation than most civilizations of their technological level. Unlike Terrans or relmai, Canids find manual labor to be rewarding, more rewarding than any intellectual undertaking or idle entertainment. Thus one may see them working as blacksmiths hand-forging weapons and tools and goods, as dockworkers shuffling crates in the numerous spaceports, as miners and lumberjacks, and so on.

Society and laws

Duels are an acceptable manner of dispute resolution in Canid society. If one's honor is infringed upon, an individual may challenge the offender to a duel, usually not to the death. The usual rules for duels between citizens:

• always are to be overseen by community
• on flat, hard ground in good weather with no obstacles
• weapons are allowed if both combatants agree
• the duel lasts until one combatant either concedes or is rendered incapable of conceding
• using lethal force without due reason (either agreement or the dispute being dire enough) is a crime
• you cannot resolve political office disputes via duels

Smaller disputes are resolved on the spot with fisticuffs. If an argument between two Canids has reached a stalemate, the proper way to resolve it is to attempt to wrestle down one's opponent. If one manages to pin them to the ground, they are considered to be right by their peers and the loser is considered to be wrong, no matter who was factually right or wrong.

Unlike Terra, the BFR has a common and frequently used death penalty. Treason against the Republic (this includes Hegemony sympathization), murder, rape, and oath-breaking gets one condemned to the gladiatorial arenas as prey.

The Republic’s cities are organized like Terran cities, but the buildings are somewhat more monumental, stout, and angular, and generally not as shiny as Terran towers, resembling Brutalist architecture. Interiors of public spaces are clean but generally look much "harsher", with bare metal and granite. The flags of the Republic are everywhere, and spaces owned by a clan often have said clan's emblem similarly spammed. People rarely live alone, generally sharing a room with their clan. Keeping with their high attitudes towards personal freedom, the Republic allows them to decorate their dwellings as they see fit. These decorations vary, but weapons of all sorts hanging on walls are a common element, from swords to revolvers to blaster rifles. On a more peaceful note, their furniture has to be sturdier than human furniture, as Canids are much heavier and denser than humans.

Technology itself similarly looks very... solid. Everything is blocky, rugged, often with bare metal or simple matte paint, with labels being stenciled on. Screens are not very big as enhanced eyes allow scanning from smaller sizes, allowing more protection for the screen. Furred hands make touchscreens annoying, so there are knobs and physical buttons for control unless absolutely necessary. Datapads resemble Motorola phones from the 80s while still having modern functionality. Computers look like 80s microcomputers, except with steel casings, and with CRT-esque monitors. Vehicles look like Soviet cars and buses (with more spikes and flame decals of course). Guns look like welded-together cuboids with holes in them. Radio, oddly enough, is also a common form of entertainment. After all, it is easy to listen to while doing some physically intensive activity without being too distracted. It's surprisingly mundane in its content and probably doesn't merit description. Generally it's consumed via integrated BCI-receiver. There is an export market for BFR-Canid tech, as it uses many of the same data and power standards as Terran tech and is a lot more durable and long-lasting, thus it appeals to paranoid humans. The downside is that your tank-datapad looks like and weighs like a brick, and would likely crack the floor if dropped. God help you if you drop it on your puny human foot.

They have quantum AI like the Federation does, and actually produce them more than Terra does. They are generally embodied into robotic Canid forms and patterned at creation to think as an ideal Canid would, i.e a rowdy space barbarian, in contrast to the generally peaceful and calm Federation AIs. Canid AIs live to fight, whether physically or virtually, free from fleshy Canids' human heritage.

Religion is rare, since Canid culture cares not for that which cannot exert force or be exerted upon by force. Most are atheists or semi-pagan agnostics. The thought of religion mostly does not cross the minds of the younger generations, who do not have much contact with mainstream Terran society.

There is a robust inter-city and interplanetary transport system but within cities, Canids prefer to just run whenever they want to go. It's about as fast for them and is good exercise. Some own trucks for transporting goods and so on, or cars for going fast for going fast's sake.

That said, not all Canids are violent blood-knights. What matters is flair, passion, and desire to always become better and better at something. It just so happens that most choose directly visceral entertainment. There are Canids who instead strive to become, for example: a cook making the tastiest food, a musician creating the most emotional melodies, or a game developer making the most immersive experiences. There is a niche for all kinds of hobbies, and they are begrudgingly accepted as long as they are not completely "nerd shit".

But most have zero interest in any of that. The overwhelming majority of Canids, especially younger ones, do not care for culture or anything other than the raw strength of themself and their packmates. For them, the only recreation is fighting, and all free time is spent on training, exercise, and sparring.

• 2020 - Age of Protests starts. The AoP is a period of societal, economic, and political upheaval spanning over 15 years. Historians dispute the event that kicked it off, but the COVID-19 lockdown or the George Floyd protests are two popular points.
• 2023 - Prigozhin's coup in Russia succeeds, kicking off the Second Russian Civil War, against Putin's government as well as liberals, communists, and [DATA EXPUNGED].
• 2025 - President Trump does not relent on tariffs. Economic situation gets even worse. Unemployment rate and inflation rising faster than ever in America.
• 2026 - Ultranationalist government takes power in India and attacks China. War quickly grinds to a stalemate in mountains.
• 2027 - Russian Civil War-inspired unrest spills over to China. Xi dies of [DATA EXPUNGED]. CCP enacts panic reforms into a "secure democracy" where only socialist and communist parties can run. In the chaos, Tibet and East Turkestan go free.
• 2028 - Black Friday Nuclear Exchange between India and Pakistan. Millions dead. Worldwide panic and unrest. President Trump cancels elections, citing a 'global total crisis'.
• 2029 - Second American Revolution, led by a coalition of non-spineless Democrats, anarchists, and communists, overthrow Trump's government. Low-level and stochastic fighting continues for years. Cities burn.
• 203X - The situation in the world continues to deteriorate. As sea levels rise to [DATA EXPUNGED] and global temperatures continue to soar, millions die to climate crisis or suicide. Kiribati and other Pacific island countries sink, forever.
• 2032 - [DATA EXPUNGED] in [DATA EXPUNGED] results in [DATA EXPUNGED]. [DATA EXPUNGED] confirmed casualties.
• 2036 - Viktor Ugolnikov from Novosibirsk in Russia proves that there exists a relatively easy method of faster-than-light travel, accessible via infusing [DATA EXPUNGED] with [DATA EXPUNGED], which creates a kind of pseudodisplacement that allows a space vehicle to glide across something that's not quite a fifth dimension. World is filled with hope. Wars begin to wind down. The Age of Protests draws to a close.
• 2037 - UN forms Committee for Existential Protection (CEP), a governing body with slightly lesser powers than the Security Council but much broader participation, tasked with salvaging what can be salvaged. Age of Recovery starts.
• 2038 - Extreme measures to avert and mitigate climate change enacted. Algae-sheet farms go up in deserts, fossil fuels and internal combustion engines rapidly phased out. Billions of dollars thrown at mitigation technology. Economic degrowth.
• 204X - The first of the superstates formally federalizes in 2041-- the European Union. Over the next two decades, more superstates form, such as the North American Union, South Asian Conclave, or the Pacific Federation. Geopolitics is 'frozen', the new superstates are stable but have little cultural identity and are more focused on preparing for a new Space Race once the CEP allows.
• 2053 - UN-CEP has grown in power and supplanted the UNSC-- which was a token entity for around two decades by now. UNSC formally abolished. UN-CEP unilaterally annuls treaties regarding space colonization and exploration. The Age of Recovery begins to smoothly transition into the Age of Exploration. Note that in 2053 the superstates are not fully formed yet-- South Asia is yet to unite, for example, and likewise for the former USA.
• 205X - first Moon and Mars bases appear, roughly at the same time by various nations and superstates. They are small, and not fully self-sufficient, but would form the nuclei for extraterran cities of later centuries. At the time however they are pure resource sinks fraught by accidents and hardship.
• 2056 - China does an unprecedented move of foregoing serious attempts at space colonization, instead opting to launch the Zhú Xīng 1, a probe on a fast escape trajectory out of the Solar System, equipped with an Ugolnikov Drive, aiming to reach Proxima Centauri. Other nations quickly launch their own FTL probes, dropping colonization efforts temporarily. Age of Exploration is afoot.
• 206X - in this decade, superstates fully solidify and cover the whole world, each having seats at the UN-CEP, which has become something of a world government, though at this rate it is still not united and superstate interests dominate. Worldwide parties form and become relevant forces; the Unity Party; the Fifth Comintern; the Libertarian Alliance; the Identitarian Resistance, and so on.
• 2060 - FTL probes reach warp boundary (area where it is possible to activate the Ugolnikov drive) roughly at the same time. Only the Zhú Xīng 1 successfully activates, all others, from the Mayflower to the Yermak, turn to superheated plasma due to improperly calibrated drive crystals.
• 2061 - Zhú Xīng 1 reaches Proxima and takes long-distance photos of the star and its planets-- or would have, if not for the lens cap being left on. Still, important data is gathered and sent back home, and the whole world celebrates humanity's first step towards the stars. The probe is not recovered until decades later.

• 2122 - An UN scout ship, the Indefatigable, stumbles upon a relmai colony. Prior to this, no alien life was discovered bu humanity. They did not really expect to meet something relatively comprehensible. Protocols like verifying sapience by sending streams of prime numbers were rendered redundant by the fact that cities and satellites were visible. This was first contact from the relmai side too. In retrospect, this was a very lucky pairing. The Indefatigable spent a few months decoding the relmai language and exchanging cultural information, though neither side revealed the location of their homeworlds or other sensitive information.
• 2123 - The ship returns and the discovery is revealed. WHAT FOLLOWS IS A COPY AND PASTE FROM DISCORD Basically after first contact with the relmai, the fascist groups within humanity that have been quietly regaining ground after the Age of Protests finally came out of the woodwork. They started riots, demonstrations, etc. The UN and its constituent states ignored them for the most part... Until, at the first hint of a relmai delegation being planned to be sent, a part of the army and StarNavy influenced by the "Human Silver League" mutinied and tried to invade the UN headquarters in New York in order to stage a fascist coup with the intent to invade the Relmai Commonwealth. The coup was soundly defeated by both HQ security and the Orbit Guard in its two theaters, but the battles were fierce. The UN went into panic mode and... executed Operation 58. Mass arrests of those in support of the coup, mass online shutdowns, raids upon HSL members' homes, etc. The HSL and its allies were thus essentially fully routed, and with the full details of the coup being publicized with confessions from its perpetrators, public opinion swung hard towards being pro-relmai. The HSL fractured, and went into hiding. One of its splinter factions is the True-Human Organization, which would prove to be a thorn in the UN and later Terra's backside after they got funding from the Dal-Ghar Iron Empire.