Major Races: The Humans The Rani (Humanoid Felines. Central governemnt collapsed shortly after the war, now each of their planets is an independent state, usually either a feudal rule (Which their government originally was) or a dictatorship) The Gargothans (Humanoid Insects. Hive-like government (but no collective intellect). They consider themselves superior to other races, but have been forced into tolerating and treating other races as equals (at least when communicating to the other races). Forced by a threat of coaliation war against them, they realize they're not invincible, even if they are superior as individuals. Last race to sign the Mai Lang Treaty, negotiations lasted from late 2525 to mid 2528) The Valinasi (Winged humanoid Bi-Pedals. Tribal rule, all tribes internally autonomous, but answer to the leader of the largest tribe.) The Redindes-Kali (dual-species, parasitic Redines and the host Kali(Non-sentinent). A Communist Democracy (All candidates support Socialism, but have different priorities (military expansion, trade, etc.) The Mallkeni (Silicon-based, Resemble crystals, require mechanical tools for motion, speak through resonating their bodies. They're usually mercenaries for other races, they have a corporation-like government for managing the mercenary assignments, their territories are mostly used as training camps and munitions storage and production facilities. Since the end of the war, their mercenary agency has become increasingly multi-racial. They are exellent pilots and The Jondir (Reptiles. Generally move on all fours, but can rise on hind legs and resemble a reptilian humanoid. Have a tendency to be agressive toward other species) Lesser Races (Independent) The Koleni (Dragonlike Quad-Pedals) The Echthinids (Humanlike in shape, but slightly purple-skinned and have all-white eyes. Can manufacture an extremely resilient metal-like alloy, which they can shape through their force of will.) The Logieri (Quad-Pedal, Wolf-like. Used to serve as ground assault troops to the Rani, but became independent when the Rani Government collapsed. Lack any form of government. Their career of preference is still military, as they've been only soldiers for the last 8 generations. A big portion of them work for the Mallkeni) Lesser Races (Enslaved) The Laia (Partially cybernetic race, Humanoid, Still enslaved by the Jondir) Extinct Races (And supposedly extinct races) Catilids (Amphibious. Assumed extinct since 2216 when their homeworld (All their other planets were already wiped out or evacuated onto their homeworld) was bombed to a radioactive lump by the Valinasi, who couldn't conquer it despite all their efforts) Timeline (By human time) The Ancient War and it's aftermath 2385AD - Humans discovered the technology of interstellar travel and colonized 5 other systems in the following decade 2399AD - First alien contact with an alien speices. It is found out that the rest of the galaxy has been at constant warfare for the last 500 years. That war is referred to as "The Ancient War"In The Ancient war, there were some sides for the first 60-70 years, but soon it escalated into a war between everyone, after a few centuries the war was just going on because it had always been going on. Noone really remembered why the war began by 2300. Most races just wanted to avenge their dead 2399-2401AD - Humans quickly developed crude space weapons and began participating in The Ancient War. Humans were however, only fighting to repel others from their territory, never attacking other races 2417AD - Humans began the first diplomatic efforts toward peace, but they had no effects. 2472AD - With the diplomatic effort of Humans, a universal holiday called "The Week of the Dead" was initiated (it's a week by the intergalactic time, a standard from before the ancient war, 10 days by intergalactic time, 79h by earth time) The Week of the Dead was a time for all races to remember all their dead. During that week, no hostility was to take place. It took place every year (intergalactic year is 300 ITG days, day 57-67). Miraculously, all races held to the agreement and during that time, the galaxy was completely at peace for the first time in more than 500 years. After that, a few races realized that peace is an option and started cooperating with humans in bringing peace. 13th February 2481AD (0IGT*) - The first non-agression treaty was signed, Called the "Mai Lang Treaty" (It was singed on board the Mai Lang space station in the Alpha Caeli system). Humans and three other races agreed not to fire at each others ships even if encountered in neutral or even their own space. Returning fire was of course allowed.The treaty was also the base for beginning a new intergalactic annual accounting. (That was decided later, of course). 2481-2525AD - 13 more races joined the Mai Lang Treaty, making it clear that The Ancient War is technically over 2528AD - The first multiracial corporations and serious trade relations since the ancient war began to form. - Free migration began between different planets causing multiracial societies, planets and cities to form - All independent races had signed the Mai Lang Treaty. Although many radical groups in races still continued small skirmishes against "the ancient enemies". 2541AD - Due to increasing slave riots, an interracial treaty, called the Slavery Act, was signed. -- As a direct result, 2 enslaved races achieved formal independence and conditions improved for all non-idependent slaves (they were forced to work, but the masters were obliged to meet certain standards of food, water and living space for them). Also, it became illegal to execute slaves that tried to, or succeeded in escaping. Punishments that were not meant to cause permanent physical or mental handicaps were still allowed. So if you managed to get off-world as a slave, you were pretty much a free person, as the law may have been different on another planet (i.e planets controlled by the Terran Government, did not extradite escaped slaves unless they had commited a murder or some other major crime during their escape) -- To ease further negotiation for intergalactic issues, the forming of the Galactic Parliament began. 2551AD - The Galactic Parliament was officially created to handle all international issues more easily. The Terran Expansion 2540-2590AD - The Terran Federation went through with a massive colonization and terraforming effort in the "Dead Zone" near the coreward edge of its territory, claiming most of the planets that were bombed out, some to the point of becoming glass, during the war. This effort increased the size (by the amount of planets controlled) of the Federation almost seven times, making it the largest single nation in the galaxy. 2562AD - The Mallkeni completely abandoned their governmental form and became entirely a corporate entity that had offices in most nations of the galaxy. The Mallkeni Mercenary Agency sold sold all territories they didn't use as training camps, munition depots or offices to the adjanect Terran Federation. The price for the Federation was that the Mallekni Mercenary Agency was virtually immune to the taxes and corporate regulations of the Federation. This didn't cover criminal and civil suits against the Agency. 2582-2583AD - A military coup occurred in the Federation and the name officially changed to Imperium Solaris. The foreign policy of the Imperium took a more agressive role. Lucius Kane (Born Luke Rand) was crowned Emperor of Mankind and Ruler of the Imperium Solaris. 2599-2607AD - Imperium Solaris slowly expanded even more, and due to it's size, it had 40% of the votes in the Galactic Parliament (the amount of seats was counted by planets with a population of above 1 billion). 2607-2620AD - Imperium Solaris began building up a large military, consisting exclusively of human soldiers. Meanwhile, the government's treatment of non-human races in the Imperium drastically worsened, at the same time, propaganda began among the human populace promoting the superiority of the human race. Eventually, the non-humans in the Imperium started emigrating, some even speaking of government sanctioned genocide withing the Imperium. The Parliament started an investigation, but the results were inconclusive. 2621AD - An attempted assasination occured agains Emperor Kane. The evidence pointed toward the Kani Planet-States. using their military might, the Imperium forced a treaty of subjugation on all the Kani Planet-States and began an anti-terrorism campaign, which was little more than outright genocide on the Kani population. The Parliament declared the treaty, and the anti-terrorist campaign illegal and demanded the Imperium withdraw the treaty and remove all military presence from the Kani territories. The Imperium responded by leaving the Parliament. *-Humans also pushed through making Earth time the Standard Intergalatic Time system. The Technology FTL travel There's two methods of FTL travel. FTL drives and Warp Gates. FTL Drives come in three types: G-Nullifiers, the first generation of FTL travel. The simplest of the methods, and the cheapest drive to build, but fuel-expensive and bulky. Also requires some time for precalculation of the route (But less than a Jump Drive, around 20-40 minutes). the G-Nullifier generates a field that nullifies the acceleration effects inside the ship, thus making it possible for the crew to survive the extreme acceleration required to reach light speed without accelerating for a few decades. Jump Drives, the second generation of FTL travel. Small compared to G-Nullifiers, but still large and requires long jump calculations (usually 2-3h of calculation) and has limited range: 160ly on best models. Although,that limit can be pushed higher, it's gets very risky at 200ly, as most navigation computers aren't capable of calculating all relevant effects at such range and since the drive has a self-contained battery that can't be recharged in transit, it also may not have the power for longer trips. It works by precalculating all the gravitational effects that would affect the ship in transit and then using trans-dimensional gravity effects to launch the ship into the speed of about 2ly/s Dimension Folders, The latest generation of superluminal drives, only used on the latest military vessels. It's technological data has not been released to the public for security considerations, but reports say it is capable of travelling several thousand light-years near-instantaneously with less than 5 minutes of calculations required. At this time, there are three ships using the dimension folder. The Redines-Kali Battleship "Leri Cathia", the Valinasi Cruiser "Lathe" and the Jondir Dreadnought "Jakra 2". Each race has several more ships that are still under construction. Warp Gates are a still a rare sight. Only larger planets have built them. They are basically a gigantic Jump Drive-Navigation Computer that calculates the route in a few seconds and counts for all the ships in transit, so no ships crash into each other when warping. Longest built route is 10 358ly, but the actual maximum distance is unknown because the building of the gates is extremely expensive and there's no point in building them between every backwater. Note that there has to be a warp gate on both ends of the road Communication: For short range communications (i.e, between a ship preparing to dock and a station), infrared lasers are used, for their decent security and range. For long range (i.e, two planets within the same system), there's the older, Narrow-Beam Broadcaster (NBB) standard, which is very secure, but has delays over distance (signal moves at about 2x the speed of light). There's also the newer, Neutronic Pulse Broadcast(NPB), which is always in sync, but still only has politeness locks, if someone wanted to intercept and read the message, it could easily be done even with practically no skill at code-cracking. For intersystem communication, there's only the highly unsecure ExtraDimensional Broadcast(EDB), which, like the NPB, has only politeness locks, because only short transmissions can be sent. The longer the transimission, the more of the transmission is distorted (any transmission larger than 10MB will be completely distorted in transit). Thus, large amount of data, as well as secret data, is transported on physical data storage units carried by starships.