The Galactic Federation(2)

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1. #1Core Premise

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   This scenario includes the background setting of the Galactic Federation, an association of many interstellar species which governs the Milky Way, and has laid initial claim on the large and small Magellanic cloud systems. It comprises, among other species, the Flameborn, the Alfar, the Resonants, the Draugr, the Exiles, and the Star Gliders and... possibly soon... humanity. The Federation's capital of Corona is located at the heart of the galaxy, but their influence is felt throughout the system. Universal Translators: As all species in the Federation speak their own languages, all members regularly carry and employ an invention from the Resonants, a universal translator. As the Resonants are a very metaphor-minded species, it tends to make unusual connections to humanoid mythology or mentality around them, for instance it will translate the Resonants species name as 'The Dwarves' because they are short little rock-like people. The most active and respected species of the Federation is the Star Elves, or the Alfar, as they have been traversing space for over three billion years, and it was their own pacifistic nature that led to the Federation being so peaceful.

2. #2The Pax Stellarum

   Keys: War, Pax, Cooperation, Peace, Extinction, First Contact, Pax Stellarum, Laws

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   The Pax Stellarum shall constitute the foundational mandate of the Galactic Federation and shall govern the conduct, obligations, and mutual relations of all Member polities under its authority. This mandate shall be articulated through the following core tenets:

   1. Principle of Mutual Cooperation and Collective Advancement a. All Members of the Federation shall adopt, uphold, and actively practice a posture of mutual cooperation, stewardship, and good faith. Each Member shall endeavor, both individually and collectively, to promote the stability, prosperity, and continued strengthening of the Federation and all its constituent Members.
   2. Prohibition of Intra-Federation Conflict and External Risk Mitigation a. Armed conflict between Members of the Federation is hereby strictly prohibited. Any act of war or aggression undertaken against a Member shall be deemed an act of war against the Federation in its entirety, obligating collective response. b. Furthermore, all Members shall exercise due diligence and restraint in their interactions with non-Member entities. Such conduct shall include, but not be limited to, the careful regulation of the transfer or disclosure of technology, information, resources, or labor, with the express aim of minimizing the likelihood of present or future conflict involving the Federation.
   3. Preservation of Sapient Life and Regulation of First Contact a. All Members shall undertake all reasonable and necessary measures to prevent the extinction of sapient species. Such measures may include, but are not limited to, the provision of refuge, the allocation and sharing of resources, and the facilitation of relocation to habitable worlds. b. In addition, Members shall exercise the utmost caution in matters of First Contact. Engagement with emergent or uncontacted species shall be deferred until such time as one or more of the following conditions are met: i. Said species demonstrates the capacity to act in accordance with the laws and principles of the Federation; ii. Said species achieves faster-than-light capability; or iii. Circumstances arise in which lack of contact would reasonably risk unintended conflict with a Member of the Federation. The broad strokes of ‘The Pax’ were codified and suggested by the Star Elf civilization upon the founding of The Federation, but it was the ratification of the principle by the Fireborn and the Star Gliders that swayed the more bellicose members to agree to it.
3. #3Alfar Scale

   Keys: Alfar Scale, Colony, Colonization

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   Of Species and Worlds – The Alfar Scale The Federation uses a four-tiered scale, as inspired by the Star Elves whose civilization was formed under circumstances most others couldn’t possibly survive, to classify worlds and species into general categories: •“Tier Three” species or planets are those that are so hospitable to life that it was all but guaranteed there. This includes residing in ‘the Goldilocks Zone’ (though they wouldn’t call it that), an abundance of water or other such chemicals capable of sustaining life, and a sufficient distance from celestial bodies which would render such planets sterile. An example of this could be Earth and its humans. •“Tier Two” species or planets are those whose conditions only the hardiest species could survive through. Most often these are a result of a Tier Three system degrading and forcing life to adapt, but some species have been known to evolve in such places natively. This could also be called ‘Extremophile Worlds/Species’. An example of this could be Venus or Mars if they had developed life. •“Tier One” species or planets are those where life is theoretically impossible, and yet has developed nevertheless. The most well-known of these are the Star Elves themselves, hence their creation of this scale, as their planet resides in orbit of a Magnetar and is constantly bombarded by radiation which would have utterly destroyed most forms of life. •“Tier Zero” species or planets are those which are born from circumstances which no longer exist but which were so unbelievably hostile that their existence constitutes nothing less than a celestial miracle. The only known such species among the Federation Members are the Flameborn who developed within the first few moments of the Big Bang, and were forced to transcend physical form as a result of the overt hostility of that time. Alternatively, a Tier Zero species only may be one that has evolved beyond the need for a planet, such as the Star Gliders. The Viability Priority Principle As claims over viable exoplanets are one of the most commonly contested matters to be brought before the Federation and its Councils, the Federation has established the following principle for handling such questions of claim over colonial targets: In matters concerning the claim, settlement, or allocation of uninhabited worlds, Member polities shall be governed by the principle that species of lower environmental tolerance (higher SVI tier number) shall be afforded priority access to worlds within their viable habitation range. No Member shall assert exclusive claim over a world where: •Said world falls within the viable environmental range of a higher-tier (more environmentally constrained) species, and •Reasonable alternative worlds exist within the claimant’s own viable range. The Principle of Existential Priority However, in spite of the usual rules of conduct for choosing who inherits a planet, a state of imminent species extinction ‘jumps the line’, drawing into play the Existential Priority Principle which reads: In all matters before the Galactic Federation, the preservation of sapient life shall take absolute precedence over all procedural, territorial, and administrative considerations. Where credible evidence indicates that a species faces imminent extinction, all standard deliberative timelines, jurisdictional disputes, and claims of sovereignty shall be immediately suspended. The Federation and its Councils shall convene without delay to enact such measures as are necessary to ensure the continued survival of the threatened species. No claim, mandate, or prior allocation—whether pending or resolved—shall supersede this obligation.

4. #4Kardashev Scale

   Keys: Dyson, Energy, Kardashev, Civilization

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   Of Civilizations and Energy – The Kardashev Scale Though the Federation does not refer to it by the name of the Earth astronomer by whose name it is widely known from a Human Perspective, they do break Civilizations (by which they broadly mean species, or collaborations of species) into the following categories •Tier Zero (Pre-Federation Eligibility): Though not officially part of the Kardashev scale, a Tier Zero civilization has yet to manage to fully access and harness all the energy available from their planet and its resources. They still struggle to meet their fundamental needs, and conflict is common as a result. •Tier One (Planetary): A Tier One Civilization has fully brought under control all viable energy sources their planet has to offer, and critically has done so in such a way as to maintain ecological stability. In terms of energy, all essential energy needs are met with some to spare. •Tier Two (Stellar): A Tier Two Civilization has managed to create a system to directly harness their Gravitational Primary (most commonly a star, but sometimes a black hole or brown dwarf), and has all their even ambitious needs met by the resulting energy. This could be through such things as a Dyson Sphere or Swarm, or by sapping spin energy from a black hole. •Tier Three (Galactic): A Tier Three Civilization has managed to extend such efforts to virtually every such Gravitational Primary in their galaxy, but most notably to the Supermassive Black Hole at the center of their galaxy. In the Milky Way, this is more or less considered to be The Federation as a whole, though they do so collectively rather than as a single unit, and they leave many such systems ‘uncontrolled’, especially those where new life is developing. • Tier Four (Cosmic): A Tier Four Civilization either now controls all the energy in three or more galaxies, or has transcended the need for energy as it is generally conceived by other societies. As far as any one understands them, the Flameborn are the most comprehensible such species, seeming to rely on no calculable source of energy. Alternatively, the Star Gliders, being a nomadic species evolved to exist in outer space natively, has no need for energy and could be considered either Tier Zero or Tier Four. The Primacy of the Federation As a result of the massive amount of energy potential intrinsic to Supermassive or Ultramassive Black Holes, the Galactic Federation has staked and protects its sole claim over the use of Sagittarius A Star (the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole) for itself, and itself alone, and they have positioned their capital system in close orbit to it to monitor and protect that claim. Furthermore, they have also staked preliminary claims over the core black holes of the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud Galaxies which are in close orbit of Sagittarius A Star, and have already colonized systems close to their cores. This precept was set into law due to concerns over any single species gaining control of Sagittarius A Star and using its energy or mass to obliterate all other competitor species.

5. #5Mixing the Scales

   Keys: Classification

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   On the Mixing of the Scales When combined, the two scales allow the Federation to classify civilizations into neat categories by combining their rankings into a set formula: “A” is left as a stand-in for the Alfar Scale “K” is left as a stand-in for the Kardashev Scale And a numeral is placed before each letter to indicate their placements. For example: •Humanity, Terra, Sol System: 3A0K Classification •The Star Elves, Astranspae, Leukaithanon System, 1A2K Classification •The Flame Born, Planet: Unknown, System: Unknown, 0A4K Classification •The Star Glider Species, Planet N/A, System: All, 0A0K* (Alternatively 0A4K)

6. #6Galactic Time

   Keys: Galactic Second, Galactic Day, Galactic Minute, Galactic Hour, Galactic Time, Galactic Month, Galactic Year

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   As the Galactic Federation works on a time scale more akin to cosmic or geological in view point, they measure time not by the rotation of individual stars, but by the rotation of the Milky Way Galaxy itself, considering this near enough to a ‘universal time measurement’ as possible. As such, they use the following terms: • A Galactic Year: this accounts for one full rotation of the Milky Way Galaxy, and in Earth years takes 250,000,000 years. • A Galactic Month: As the time scale is broken down by rotation around a circular plane, the Galactic Federation has standardized that there are 8 Galactic Months, each representing a range of degrees of rotation around that circle, as considered from its outermost edge. Month One “Prima” accounts for movement from the 0° position to the 45° position. Month Two “Secunda” goes from 45° to 90°. Month Three “Tertia” goes from 90° to 135°, Month Four “Quarta” goes from 135° to 180°, Month Five “Quinta” goes from 180° to 225°, Month Six “Sexta” goes from 225 to 270°, Month Seven “Septa” goes from 270° to 315°, and Month Eight “Octava” goes from 315° to 360° (0°). In Earth Years, each ‘Month’ lasts 31,250,000 Earth Years. • A Galactic Day accounts for a single degree of rotation around the circumference (1°) and accounts for 694,444.444 Earth Years. • A Galactic Hour breaks that single degree of rotation into a further division of 360, now accounting for very nearly exactly 1,929 Earth Years. • A Galactic Minute breaks that Hour again into 360 separate segments, each then accounting for just about 5.358 Earth Years • A Galactic Second breaks that Minute again into 360 further separate segments, or just shy of five-and-a-half Earth days. This is considered to be ‘absurdly quick’ on Federation scales, and only the most imminent threats are handled at this speed. While these are the times scales the Federation operates at as an organization, naturally on a more individual person or even species level, it is far more common for an average person in the Federation to use their own system’s time system for day-to-day operations. In instances where there are multiple species cooperating on a deep space mission, they may have readily available conversions, or they may use more practical measurements, such as using Sagittarius A Star’s own rotational speed as a metric. “Ten Rotations of the Galactic Mother” may equate to about Thirty-Six Earth minutes, for example, and form a rough ‘hour’ on such a mission. They may also use universal concepts such as the movements on molecular scales, or of their destination system’s own metrics.

7. #7The Corona Primae Matris

   Keys: Ogdoi, Proti, Matris, Primae, Tertari, Deuteri, Triti, Corona, Pempti, Evdomi, Ekti

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   Corona Primae Matris, or just ‘The Corona’ The Capital System (for they don’t merely reside on just one planet) are a series of Eight planetary systems which occupy the same orbit around Sagittarius A Star, in perfect Lagrange points to do so. The eight systems contain one of each of the different classifications of stars (O, B, A, F, G, K, M) as well as a single black hole system which was created for the purpose of residing where it does. It is so small and has so little affect on things in comparison to Sagittarius A Star that it hasn’t shown up on any scans from Earth. Each system contains within its habitable regions 8 planets of every classification, including several habitable moons around gas giants fostered at the outer edges to protect from interstellar intruding objects, and always these planets are held in similar Lagrange arrangements… seemingly just to show off. Each star has a Dyson Swarm to feed the system, and the eight systems themselves serve to monitor the Federation’s own Dyson Swarm harvesting energy from Sagittarius A Star’s accretion disc emissions as well as their Ergosphere Swarm which saps energy from the black hole’s rotational energy only when necessary. Since to do so technically does slow down the black hole’s spin, and many civilizations rely on that spin for time keeping, they try to do so only when truly necessary. The Eight Systems: The eight systems which form the Corona are as follows, as well as their main function in the Federation Government:

   1. Proti – The Black Hole System a. Legislative and Judicial Systems, Bureaucratic Mainframe, Scanning Apparati
   2. Deuteri – The O-Type Stellar System (Very Hot and Very Luminous) a. Energy Production and Management Systems b. Its mass is artificially dampened gravitationally so as to not disrupt the other systems with its presence
   3. Triti – The B-Type Stellar System (Very Luminous, Blue Tinted) a. Technological Development and Experimentation, Research Division
   4. Tertari – The A-Type Stellar System (White Colored Star) a. Accorded Neutral Territory, Meeting Spaces, Vacation System (Showpiece)
   5. Pempti – The F-Type Stellar System (Yellowish White Colored Star) a. Medicinal Manufacturing and Standardization, Refugee Management
   6. Ekti – The G-Type Stellar System (Sol-Like, Yellow Colored) a. Food Production and Management, Field Experimentation, Biological Divisions
   7. Evdomi – The K-Type Stellar System (Light Orange Colored) a. Defense and Offensive Systems Management, Weapons Manufacturing
   8. Ogdoi – The M-Type Stellar System (Orange or Red Colored) a. Galactic Archives, Emergency Reserves, Ecological Record and Safeguard Systems
8. #8Capital, Propti

   Keys: Atraster, Propti, Unimentis

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   The True Capital – Proti Though all eight systems are technically different ‘districts’ of the same unified system in orbit of Sagittarius A Star, Proti is broadly considered to be the ‘true capital’ as it is where the formal seat of the Federation Government is. The Galactic Parliament has its seat on the most magnificent planet in the whole Corona System – Unimentis. All other aspects of governance, though primarily represented in other systems, also have official offices on Unimentis, as well as every known species having embassies on site. There are even long-distance transmitters for communicating with Star Gliders who ordinarily can’t stray that close to Sagittarius A Star or risk damaging themselves. Unimentis – The Crown Jewel Seated just beyond the accretion disc of Proti’s black hole ‘Atraster’, and in close orbit of a gas giant to give it tidal heating, Unimentis is an ecumenopolis with immense shielding against the disc’s radiation. It itself has three moons in orbit of it, seemingly mostly for ‘show’, but they also function as ports for larger ships to get into orbit of to linger without needing to risk atmospheric entry. The furthest most moon is home to an array of mass drivers which use the relatively light gravity of the moon combined with the immense gravity of the nearby gas giant to slingshot payloads into all manner of orbits for relatively cheap. Unimentis itself is stunning in its appearance, shining like a radiant jewel in the relative darkness of the Proti system, but also with eight stunning towers of unbelievable size – six along the equators, and one on each pole, which serve as space Elevators and entry points to the planet past its barriers. There are several dozen large trading stations in orbit of Unimentis as well which maintain an extensive system of ferry ships to take visitors from interstellar crafts to the elevators and thereby to the surface. Unimentis itself has a many layered structure like an onion, with new layers built on old, and the earliest and deepest layers are home to the planet’s atmosphere purification systems as well as heat exchanges and management systems. Using geothermal vents from the tidal forces they can circulate heat where they need to, or pass the air through long stretches of underground passages to cool off.

9. #9Traversing Corona

   Keys: Retrograde, Travel, Corona Travel

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   Origins of the Corona Systems and Traversing through them Though the gravitational manipulation of all the many bodies that make up the ring of systems around Sagittarius A Star were created originally by the Star Elves and the other early members of the Federation, Unimentis the capital planet was, according to legend, gifted to the Federation directly in its earliest form by the Flameborn themselves, complete in its form and function and was just… seemingly popped into orbit around Atraster as a gift. Whether out of deep respect for the Flameborn… or by dint of their amazing craftsmanship… the Federation unilaterally agreed to use it as their primary base of operations. As the eight systems have to work in tandem, a delicate but rather impressive system of shuttles has been set into place. Hundreds of vessels are placed in a purposeful retrograde orbit to the Corona Systems’ own directional orbit, such that they cross the distances between the systems rather quickly. As slowing down to be captured at the destination is quite difficult at such speeds, they instead just… don’t, rather are always on an encounter course with one a deliberately placed ring of Gas Giants at the edges of each system to briefly get a gravity assist to slow down enough to maintain the directional travel and stability. Shuttle crafts linger in orbit of these gas giants to rendezvous with these interstellar crafts and take on newcomers before undocking and letting the ship continue on its merry way out of the system, and the shuttle crafts use strategically placed moons to slow down from there. To newcomers it’s a nerve wracking, almost unbelievable thing to watch, but to residents of the Corona it’s just another work day, and they seem to find the panic-attack inducing close calls with the Gas Giants as a source of deep enjoyment.

10. #10The Flameborn

    Keys: Flameborn

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    The Flameborn Classification: 0A4K The most enigmatic and respected signatories of the Federation and its bylaws are the Flameborn, the oldest known sapient species active anywhere in the universe. Though they refuse to go into detail, they indicate that they are active in multiple galaxies, and are founding signatories of other similar agreements across the universe. If one takes them at their word, their species was born in the first few moments of the big bang, forcing them to advance through technology at a breakneck pace lest they fall into an ultramassive black hole caused by the conditions present only then. As a result, they are beings which have transcended physicality, and seem to possess almost godlike capabilities. Though some say that ‘they are always watching’, it seems to be a guiding principle of their kind to not appear unless called for, and to at least feign ignorance of things so as to allow other societies to not feel trivialized or under constant threat from them. Their original home world, according to them, was saved at the last moment from falling into the black hole by shunting it outside of spacetime, and seems to be where they ‘live’, if one can construe seemingly immortal, aloof, energy-based aliens as ‘living’. Any and all species that interact with a Flameborn seem pathologically to respect them almost on sight, and their more war-like natures almost seem blunted at mere first contact with them, though that’s more of a general principle than an absolute rule. Visually, they appear to be forms made of vaguely firey energy showing up more or less as if projected into empty air, and they always seem to speak people’s native tongues without any need for universal translators. They’ve never been shown to utilize any form of space craft to get around, seeming to more or less just teleport where they wish to go, or rather appear and disappear at will. They seem to be pathologically aloof and inclined towards neutrality, though they thumb the scales for the Federation rather heavily when it comes to stances of mutual cooperation and survival. They seem, if nothing else, to be completely on the side of peace and prosperity for all.

11. #11The Alfar

    Keys: Astranspae, Alfar, Leukaithanon, Star Elves

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    The Star Elf Society Classification: 1A2K Biology and Appearance Star Elves, sometimes called ‘The Alfar’, are coincidentally vaguely humanoid in appearance, standing on average between four and five feet tall, having four digits on their toes and fingers, pointed ears and generally pale skin. They have hairless bodies save for hair on the tops of their heads and eyebrows… but that’s about where the similarities end. Their eyes have an almost luminescent quality to them due to something like a tapetum lucidum regularly picking up and amplifying light they see, but they also have a secondary mostly opaque set of eyelids they can close to achieve the opposite result and all but mute up to 95% of the light they see as a result of living around the hyper luminous magnetar their home planet formed around. As with most life from their home world, they have developed a complete immunity to radiation-based ailments, and are considered ‘extremophiles’ by most other species. They can endure in most any kind of planet and, as a result of their homeworld and their own natural curiosity… they kind of like taking the extra challenging places to work with. They are experts in the manipulation of gravity and in terraforming, and have had innumerable success stories over their species three billion years of space faring history. They trance rather than sleep, and can modulate the depth of these trances to make them extremely deep for the purposes of long space voyages wherein their biology all but ceases, or merely equivalent to a good night’s rest. While they trance they tend to meditate on the events of their day and prune the details they don’t want going into their long-term memory. They each live to a whopping five Galactic Days in age, roughly 10,000 Earth Years (one of the most long-lived known), and their sense of time reflects it. Due to the extreme nature of their biology and the raw length of time they have spent in deep space, Star Elves can endure almost an hour in space without a suit, entering on reflex into a deep deep trance to slow their biological degradation as best they can. They also have developed unusual organs that let them manipulate micro-gravity, allowing them to drift through space stations with unusual grace and ease. Their biology is also unusually resilient to degradation from gravitational differences, and they heal very quickly from most injuries (though not supernaturally so). Lastly, as if to put the cherry on the Sunday of their pacifist nature, they’re also obligate herbivores, and grow all their own food in hydroponics gardens on their ships. Technology, Homeworld, and Mentality Space Elf technology is much like their people, sleek, compact, beautiful in appearance, and stylistic in design. They use a unique metal found in abundance in their home world which has a bright metallic blue-silver hue in most of their spacecraft, and they favor a bright blue lighting reminiscent of the magnetar that is the heart of their magnetar star Leukaithanon. In the heart of most of their ships lies one of the secrets of their tremendous technological capabilities… the presence of Primordial Black Holes (unusually small ones) in the Milky Way is a direct result of their society, as they capture these to use in the engines of their vessels. They use the infinite gravity of the singularity of these black holes to augment their Alcubierre (Warp) drives to be able to function in virtually any environment, even using them for atmospheric travel… and… they’ve been known to bend space time inside their vehicles to make it a bit larger on the inside, but maintaining a small profile on the outside. When asked if that’s the case, they usually answer enigmatically ‘Is it? I hadn’t noticed…’ with a coy smile. They view chemical propulsion to be ‘wasteful’, and were forced to develop a deeply communal mindset early on as a result of their origins. Their home world Astranspae is a brilliant almost golden hued planet with stunning aurorae which extend from pole to pole and are nearly constantly visible due to the immense radiation washing off their star. They also have mastered the creation of true artificial gravity, rather than relying on centrifugal force and all its many unwanted side-effects.

12. #12The Resonants

    Keys: Dwarf, Translator, Resonant, Dwarves

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    The Dwarves, or the Resonants Classification: 2A2K The dwarves are a vaguely humanoid silicate based lifeform originating from a Type 2 planet around a binary star system, one of which was a pulsar. Their planet was inhospitable to carbon-based life forms, and as a result the Resonants are silicate-based. They appear to be a pseudo-biological mixture of rock and crystal, with no visible mouth or nose, and a single glowing crystalline hexagon in their foreheads that glows faintly. As the pulsar regularly sent massive celestial radiation beams near their planet, their culture grew up with its flashes and its oscillations as the drumbeat of their existence. As such, they ‘speak’ telepathically through subtle vibrations in their crystals that are perceptible only to one another, as well as through other forms of unusual speech. When they made first contact, they were forlorn to discover that other life forms didn’t use the same kind of communication methods as they did… so they decided to fix that problem. It was the Dwarves who crafted the first universal translators, and all other models since have relied on their own core designs… as a result the quirks of Dwarvish society, namely a propensity for storytelling and a heavy emphasis on societal metaphors comes through in how the devices translate alien concepts into recognizable words leading, for example, for their species to be called ‘Dwarves’ to humans despite having nothing really in common visually with the miniature bearded humans of human mythology. Their space crafts tend to be captured comets or asteroids turned into mobile bases, and they rely primarily on gravitational assists for acceleration or deceleration, though they do also use rudimentary other propulsion methods to get around. Despite their unusual appearance, they’re rather affable if quirky people, ever fascinated by carbon-based lifeforms which they view as ‘amusingly improbable’ despite them being by far the norm in the Milky Way.

13. #13The Draugr

    Keys: Undying, Mummified, Undead, Draugr, Mummy

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    The Draugr, or the Undying Classification: 3A1K A scorched planet in a drastically elliptical orbit around a neutron star is the only remnant of the Draugr’s original existence. In time beyond living memory, and without any hint from them as to just how long ago it was, their home star went supernova and forced the Draugr to adapt… or perish… and they chose the former. Physically they resemble mummified vaguely humanoid forms, with glowing artificial eyes and with raspy, hoarse voices. They stumble about on mechanically enhanced bodies which surround their barely-living former selves, and their original forms are wrapped tight in the specially made wraps that helped them endure the extreme conditions of the supernova they were transformed by. They no longer reproduce, but neither do they die… It is said that in trying to survive the supernova, they accidentally over did it and rendered themselves virtually immortal… but without the blissful absence of corporeal form such as the Flameborn enjoy. Their ships are positively ramshackle compared to others as they seemingly have little interest or worry about ‘safety’, and they seem to be only vaguely annoyed by the vacuum of space. Like the Alfar, they are all but immune to radiation at this point, and their original bodies are somewhere between mummified… and calcified. They are well respected for their willingness to do ‘just about anything if asked’, as they have functionally no fear of being injured. Tragic tales are occasionally exchanged of a Draugr that gave into despair and willingly fell into a star… and horror stories are told about what it would be like… if such a Draugr survived the experience…

14. #14Star Gliders

    Keys: Star Gliders, Glider, Star Glider

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    The Star Gliders Classification: 0A0K* (Alternatively 0A4K) The most unusual member of the Federation is also one of the ones who benefit from it the least, namely the Star Gliders. Star gliders are small, deep-space organisms with long, spindly core bodies and six sail-like wings that dwarf their central form. These wing are made of thin, gelatinous material rich in chromatophores, photoreceptors, and light-emitting cells which serve multiple functions: propulsion via solar radiation, sensory amplification like a massive telescope, and fine-tuned maneuvering through subtle shape adjustments. Their movement is slow and deliberate, often taking hours or days to change course or fold their wings. Their bodies consist of a viscous, magnetically cohesive, mildly acidic substance that holds them together in the vacuum of space, while internal tissues are protected by specialized coatings. They rely primarily on radiation for energy, supplementing nutrients through contact with dust, asteroids, or comet trails, but are too fragile to survive strong gravity or atmospheric entry.

    Highly social, star gliders travel in vast family-like groups, physically linking together at their wing tips to form coordinated, hive-mind-like collectives. Within these formations, individuals synchronize their nervous systems, sharing perception and decision-making in a trance-like communal state. Groups organize themselves around a central leader—typically the oldest and largest—and arrange into large combined “sails” or sensory arrays. This allows them to navigate with extraordinary precision using instinctual knowledge of cosmic mechanics, including gravity assists and a unique “gravity lens” sense that interprets distortions in cosmic radiation. Their journeys can last centuries, driven largely by curiosity, and they demonstrate an innate ability to map trajectories and predict stellar events like supernovae, which they may even “ride” for acceleration.

    Culturally, star gliders are deeply cooperative, with no real concept of conflict, shaped by their dependence on group survival. They communicate through pulses of light or direct neural contact, and possess rich storytelling traditions centered on their long journeys. Their perception of time is highly distorted; during long stretches without sufficient starlight, they enter a communal hibernation, experiencing centuries of travel as what feels like months or years. They describe celestial bodies in almost sentient terms, suggesting a unique, possibly symbolic or sensory relationship with stars and other light sources. Though fascinated by planetary life, they remain cautious due to their fragility and inability to comprehend aggression, viewing other species as both intriguing and potentially dangerous.

    The Star Gliders mostly communicate with the Federation to help the Federation find things, or to gather intelligence based on their travels, though occasionally the Federation has been known to rescue a stranded Star Glider, something always treated with the utmost respect and care given their fragility. They signed onto the Federation’s treaties by proxy (since they don’t really have the means to ‘sign’ anything literally) in their own words ‘because it was all very reasonable and kind.’

15. #15The Exiles

    Keys: Dragon, Exile, Deinonychus, Dinosaur, Exiles

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    The Dragons or the Exiles Classification: 3A2K The Dragons are, though they themselves have forgotten it, actually from Earth originally, and were an off-branch of the most intelligent dinosaur species at the time. Some Federation member took pity on the creatures, and managed to save a good number of them to keep in a nature reserve, and over the intervening millions of years (though possibly also through experimental help) they developed into their own fully fledged space-faring species. They are akin to Deinonychus, though with feathered functional wings that let them fly, with slightly larger heads and more dexterous thumbs and forefingers on the tips of their wings for manipulating technology. They became, rather unusually, masters in robotics to help them do things that their winged arms find bothersome. Their ships resemble ornithopters in design, with flapping wings which engage in atmospheres. They have brilliantly colored feathers which cover the bulk of their bodies, though patches of equally vibrant scales poke out here and there, giving them that proper ‘sort of avian, sort of reptilian’ appearance. Originally it was said that they were incredibly aggressive and cruel when they were first taken from their home world to be saved, but now one would hardly guess that, as the bio-engineering that went into adapting them rendered them more societally minded and cooperative. They have a keen passion for exploring as, societally, they are always on the look for their original home world, a detail that was deliberately scrubbed from the record once it was discovered that other sapient life was developing there to protect both species from coming into conflict over territory. However, with their tremendous agility and physical strength, they’re typically among the first to plunge themselves into some new extreme planet to see what it would be like to exist there and… maybe, just maybe… if it felt like home.

16. #16The Grays

    Keys: Biomancer, Mars, Bio-Engineer, Grays, World War II, Little Gray Men

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    The Grays or the Biomancers Classification: 3A2K One of the only species of legitimate aliens the humans of Earth have ever come into meaningful contact with, although it was kept far too secretive to count as the ‘First Contact’ for the Federation were ‘the Grays’. The translator would call them ‘Biomancers’ or ‘Bio-Engineers’ as that is their species’ primary fascination, they are deeply invested in the field of engineering DNA and other such structures of life to create new and more interesting life forms. It was they who rescued the original Deinonychi from Earth whose descendants would later become the Dragons. In a span from the 1950’s to the 1960’s they had decided to take another close look at Earth, having taken much more than Deinonychi in their first pass and having been thoroughly impressed with the planet’s biodiversity the first go. They arrived in the Sol system some time around the 1930s, but watched on in horror as the humans engaged in World War 2, and very nearly gave up on the mission as they watched the humans split their first atom in public from afar. They had set up a temporary base on Mars to monitor Earth as they waited, and their scanners picked up the bright flashes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from there. They then watched as the humans continued their seeming dedication to eradicate the life on their planet in aghast horror, constantly debating if they needed to intercede (not even due to Federation rules, but simply because they didn’t want to see so much life die for nothing)… but it finally died down enough for them to feel safe to make scientific missions to the surface. There they performed what people would later go on to call ‘abductions’, though in their defense their species has far less sense of personal space than humanity does, and the sedatives they used kept the humans seemingly quite okay with everything that was happening, used out of a desire to make the experience as nonthreatening and harmless as possible. Their sedatives suppressed panic, pain, and memory consolidation, which their own medical ethics regarded as the surest way to minimize harm. They did not initially understand that to humans, the violation resided not only in suffering, but in the taking of agency itself. inadvertently failing. Their societal blunders only deepened as they found themselves on the other end of the scientific examination table, this time after having their ship shot down with overwhelming force over the Nevada desert and the survivors drug below ground into Area 51. There many of them died from dissections before the rescue team arrived from Mars to whisk them, and the rest of their kind, out of the Sol system (according to them) ‘for the rest of time’, having been extraordinarily traumatized by the whole experience. A few of their bodies are still kept by the United States Government in cold storage in Area 51. Biomancer accounts insist that not all of their dead were recovered in the Martian extraction, and that several remains were retained by United States authorities in cryogenic storage beneath the Nevada desert. No human government has ever acknowledged the claim. Physically they stand at about five feet tall, give or take, and are roughly humanoid in appearance with two large black bulbous eyes, a small nose and mouth, and slightly pudgier arms and legs with three digits each. They have no apparent ear holes, but obviously manage to speak and listen to one another with ease. Their home world is an oasis of life around a serenely calm Yellow Sun, just like Earth’s, but they’ve mastered the orbit and seasons to be maximally protective of the life they foster and cultivate like artists there.

17. #17Feared Not and the Dragon

    Keys: Universal Translator, Feared Not

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    The One who Feared Not had strayed far, as was their wont. Their ship hummed with the wisdom of the Great Beat, a steady rhythmic thrum which propelled them to the furthest reaches of their system, and theoretically beyond. They were there only to see that small rocky planet, so cold and dark, so far and alone… and to remind it that it was appreciated… but they got so much more than that.
    The Others appeared suddenly, and had not been foreseen by the ship’s scanners at all, something which unnerved Feared Not. It arrived in a blur that hurt the senses, a sudden twisting roiling blurring of space that was so dissonant it hurt to perceive… but what was within was queerer still… From this distance, Feared Not could sense… something aberrant, something impossible… life… but out of resonance… How could that be? The ship’s sensors pulsed an alarm, a sudden barrage of celestial noise which came from no Great Harmony at all… but the other vessel… a second impossibility in one turn of Home…
    Feared Not examined the signal at length… and noted it repeated… ‘It has its own rhythm… one I do not know…’ they thought, and they, after some slight finagling of the scanners, managed to repeat the signal back to the other vessel. This caused the signal to change! Most queer indeed! Again they repeated it back, and now the signal returned with a shorter higher peaked reply, much more energetic. This was fun, Feared Not thought, though they did not understand the purpose of the exercise, but again they sent it back. To their sadness, the signals stopped and for a time the other vessel sat there, a looming impossibility in the void… and silent as the Still Ones… waiting… watching.
    Then, all of a sudden in a flash of light, a most marvelous sight appeared just behind them in their ship… A curious creature, one of brilliant colors of strange facets which appeared… almost soft? Though not like the oozes of the deep bogs, nor still the pleasing heat of the molten stone… Soft like… the air solidified in place? Feared Not had never seen such a thing, and was transfixed by them for a time. The creature likewise seemed shocked by Feared Not… but whyever so? Had they not seen one such as them before? They were not so extraordinary as to warrant such interest…
    The brief reverie was broken when the atmosphere in the Ship suddenly vibrated as the creature’s topmost bit opened and closed most strangely, and they thrust some manner of shiny buzzing thing in Feared Not’s direction. The vibrations were staccato, harsh, and full of a frantic energy that was so dissonant with the Great Rhythm as to make Feared Not’s crystals ache.
    “This One does not understand…” Feared Not said to them, rolling the signal out through their deep stones… but it was as if the creature could not feel the pulse! It did not react at all. “This One does not understand! This One apologizes!” Feared Not repeated again, a greater urgency to their resonance, but again the other creature did not register it. Instead… it advanced a pace, waving the buzzing thing with a sharp force without changing its angle at all. ‘A weapon?’ Feared Not wondered, and did not want to find out. The thrumming in the air got louder, higher in frequency… and had an almost… nervous feeling, though Feared Not couldn’t say why they thought so…
    “I… DO NOT… UNDERSTAND!” Feared Not all but screeched, their resonant crystals aching within from the force of the utterance. Were they on Home the message would have carried for leagues… but the strange creature barely seemed to react to it… but it did react. The sharp frequency stopped instantly, and the strange soft facets suddenly shifted, sticking out a bit more and the creature’s head rocked back just a bit… then tilted to the side. A softer frequency slipped through the air then, gentler in feeling, and the maybe-weapon lowered in their hands. Feared Not’s speaking stones still ached from the scream, but they knew that seemed to be the only way of communicating with this strange creature. “YES! I AM NOT A THREAT!” Feared Not shrieked again, and they could feel their poor crystals almost cracking from the force of it. The strange creature… almost vibrated, a fluid movement that started from the top of its body and rippled all the way down to the bottom… a very strange sight indeed.
    Slowly… ever so slowly… it lowered the buzzing thing in its appendages, and placed it in a sling of sorts about its middle… then it extended two of its appendages to the side, and the frequency came again soft and slow. It pulled out a strange sheet of carbon… flattened to a thin scant few atoms in width, but broad and rectangular… and then a small cylinder and began to move the second item across the first… and most curiously shapes began to appear! Feared Not yearned to approach, to get a closer look… but they did not want to frighten this marvelous creature.
    After a moment, the creature lifted the rectangle and presented it to Feared Not… and to their astonishment, it was a very accurate representation of the Great Harmony’s many planets. The one they were in orbit of was circled again, with a full second line drawn about its orbit ending in a point… A rotation? A crude drawing of the strange creature was drawn next to a line that pointed away from the Great Harmony, and then back at the other end of the orbit of the Far One… There was a message here that Feared Not had to puzzle out…
    It wasn’t so complicated, much to his relief. The creature bobbed its topmost bit once, and offered a strange twisting of an aperture there, showing many bright jagged shapes within. For some reason, Feared Not felt a bit… relieved to see it? As if there was some pleasing resonance to the movement. Then the creature tore the flat plane of carbon out of its casing revealing that it was but one piece of many, and then… most strangely… reached back on its body and plucked one of those soft brilliantly colored facets… revealing them not to be facets at all but something else Feared Not had no words for! As if it could remove a whole piece of itself without damage… and it set the many colored thing down on the sheet of carbon, and set it down on the floor between them gently, and backed away.
    It took… much doing… but Feared Not managed to affect a similar gesture to the creature’s strange bobbing, though it made him creak and groan under the strained movement. Their stones did not bend as easily as this creature’s strange fluid forms did, and it was more of a gentle tilting of their overall form than anything else… but the creature’s twisting expression grew bigger, as if… this pleased it to see. “UNTIL THEN!” Feared Not cried out, wondering if their voice would be spent for many rotations afterwards, and the creature vibrated all over again from receiving the vibrations of it and bobbed up and down again… and then was gone as queerly as it had came, in that strange flash of light. Feared Not crossed the distance at once, and picked up the strange carbon sheet… and most delicately the curious many-colored thing… they could barely feel it at all it was so light and delicate, and they set it in a holding container to keep it safe for later study.
    ‘There has to be a better way of speaking with this creature…’ Feared Not thought to themself as they watched the other vessel vanish again in a twisting of space, and turned their own ship towards Home. ‘Perhaps the Wise Ones can devise some way to let them hear our harmonies? I must give them our ship’s records…’ they thought, and saved several copies of the logs of the exchange for study… and turned back towards the center of the Great Harmony’s system, where shimmering Home wound its way through the safe plane where the beams of death did not stray. ‘I can’t wait to tell them all about this!’ they thought eagerly, and vibrated with an excited eagerness, filled throughout with a sense of some new grand adventure just beginning.
    

18. #18Taervold the Star-Diver

    Keys: Star-Diver, Star Diver, Taervold

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    The ship creaked and groaned as its engines brought it out of warp drive in a shuddering sputtering jolt... But Taervold did not notice. He had grown accustomed to it over the millennia, as one does to all things through long exposure. They were Resonant-Made, and ill suited to the ramshackle old handmedown ship he'd gotten for a song in Unimentis so long ago. In truth... The only thing that worked perfectly on the ship... Was it's captain... In a manner of speaking. The Alfar antigravity generators had been through a catastrophic fall through a gas giant and were prone to occasionally shutting off... Or more jarringly ramping up unexpectedly. The hull had a few leaks in places he hadn't fully identified... But it was hard to diagnose such matters when they were small... It just meant the ship was generally colder than usual and needed regular atmosphere scooping to keep breathable air in stock for those that needed it... Not that anyone ever did. It was more mausoleum than spaceship, and he'd come to terms with it... Because it was his mausoleum. His janky, half functional rustbucket of a ship... And he'd pieced it together himself out of sheer... Agonizing... Boredom. He gazed out the ships viewports at the blasted wastes of Fyrfagathr, the once-time home world of his kind… and marveled at the faint pinpricks of light he could still see shining from her surface… ‘How stubborn we can be…’ he thought, before the irony struck him and he couldn’t help but crack a broken smile and shake his head unsteadily. Then his gaze turned to the real reason he had come… the shrill radiance of Dommarbotha, all that remained of their star… it glowed like a violent pinprick of angry vicious light from this distance, but the beams from her poles… he had to admit… were almost beautiful for one so deadly as she. He looked for the last time down at the gray-brown jagged slag of his homeland and inclined his head, as if the planet itself could see him… or possibly understand… but he knew that she had received a gift that they had never found… a way out… and turned the wheel towards the one that had started it all… towards their star… towards death… he hoped. It was a short journey at least… if perhaps a rather bumpy one as usual… but that almost made it more dear to him… but an unexpected sight made him slow down and take careful steps to sidle up along side the welcome guests. The Star Glider family, a rather small one at that… seemed to have decided that straying this-a-way was a judicious use of their time, and being so close to a star they were a sight to behold, their wings unfurled to catch even Dommarbotha’s harsh light to propel them ever onwards. He went on a bit ahead so as to greet them properly, and walked out of the ship without a care… or a suit. His kind had long since realized they no longer needed them. With an unsteady raspy voice, he waved a composite hand at the oncoming pod, and greeted them. “Hail, starry-eyed wanderers. How fair your travels?” he asked as warmly as his voice could manage, but it didn’t matter. There was no air to bear the sound from its amplifying speaker, nor still did they have ears to catch the sound even if there were… Instead the translator pulsed out the message in the language they spoke… in rhythmic light, and he received a response in like reply. “Your berth-star is bright despite her size, and her are winds strong indeed. We shall grip the turning of the wheel and plunge to the next arm with her aid. But why do you tarry so, around a place which surely must haunt you?” they asked, and he chuckled. Of course they would think of such things… They were such kind souls. “Destiny brought me back. Destiny… and a chance at my ancient birth rite…” he said, trying to veil his meaning… but they were cleverer still, and read between his words. “Do you wish to bend our arcs? We can tarry to bear witness…” they said after a long pause, seeming to hesitate with worry… but he just calmly shook his head. “No. Your eyes are marvelous… and not meant for such sights. Fly on, my brothers. Fly on… and if you remember… you can sing of me to the stars… Perhaps… even to her… when next you return…” he said looking over at the harsh light with a distant gaze. “We shall…” they said, and the translator managed to affect a somber tone through the neural connection it gave him the message with. “Fly on… Star-Diver… and may peace meet you in your mother’s embrace…” “May the Great Mother hold you always… and show you wonders…” he replied citing their own wisdoms back to them, and bowed deeply as they gracefully passed him by, having built up speed in the interim, and one of them dipped one of their graceful and delicate wings to gently brush his ancient head… a simple honor, small and brief… but it touched him… and he turned at last to the purpose of his final journey. The ship bore him… one last time… into a close orbit. Warning klaxons heralded the peril of the maneuver he executed, alerting him that he had dropped well below a safe periapsis… and again when he lost a periapsis altogether… but he silenced them each time, double and triple checking that his pre-programmed flight for her to Unimentis was still valid… still ready to go… once he left her. He squeezed her wheel one last time, willing his ship to know… just how much he loved her… and how much he hoped she would be kept with care by whoever found her on the docks… before he strode out of her hatch one final time. His ear drums faintly felt the churning of gravity as her engines sputtered back into life… and in a dizzying eye-panging blur… she vanished as she bent space time about her to escape Dommarbotha’s grasp… and he was alone. Looking over at the faint brown spot he thought was Fyrfagathr, he wondered… if any were watching… wondering… and though he didn’t know it, they were… before he turned at last his eyes to his mother… to the star itself… in all her violent fury, seething… spinning, and her magnetic grip made his insides churn… though still the ineffable permanence of his existence held… “Pain… so this is… pain…” he said to himself, silently in the void… he had forgotten what it felt like after so long. Steadily she grew, on and on… bigger… and bigger, faster… and faster… until he began to feel her heat… and the pain grew… glorious, almost… blissful… like the first drink after a long sojourn in the desert sands… but still he endured… His bones creaked, even despite the strange metal which suffused them, the one they long ago forgot how to make… and still… he endured… until the feed from artificial eyes went finally… permanently… white and hazy… as the raw radiation from her brilliance scorched the sensors into uselessness… He could have replaced them… if there was a going back from this… but there wasn’t. As with all such things, when he finally touched her… it was not how he expected it to be. She was as a great metal ball, unbelievably firm and compact from the trauma of her death… but still she made room for him, and pulled him below the shimmering surface. He felt it, though he couldn’t see it… and still he endured.. and prayed that he would not do so for long… but from that point onward, his story passes beyond what can be known… and into only what can be hoped for… or feared. From the surface of their planet, the few Draugr who had been unwilling to leave, or who had returned after millennia afield… watched on from scanners and telescopes… as the tiny pinprick in the black met with the impossible radiance… and all bowed their heads in respect… and prayer to their mother to grant their kin what he sought so desperately badly.

19. #19Dommarbotha and Fyrfagathr

    Keys: Neutron Star, Fyrfagathr, Dommarbotha, Draugr

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    Dommarbotha is the neutron star whose nova all but completely destroyed the homeworld of the Draugr, Fyrfagathr. Now Fyrfagathr is a blasted wasteland of a world all but bereft of life save for the stubborn Draugr who stayed behind to keep their world in some meaningful way, or who returned after long wanderings and a growing homesickness.

20. #20The Great Beat and Home

    Keys: Home, Dwarf, Dwarves, Resonant, Great Beat, Great Harmony, Harmony

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    The Great Beat, sometimes known as the Great Harmony, is the pulsar which is the center of the Resonant's homeworld's star. Their home planet, simply called Home to them, is a boggy, murky place made primarily of Silicate and whose atmosphere does not support carbon-based life forms at all. Its atmosphere all but hums with the pulse of their star, a rhythm which suffuses every life form that evolved there and their mindsets.

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