It's more like an excuse for their spacenoid superiority propaganda than the actual reason. I thought it's obvious from the fact how Neue Menschen were not the bringers of utopia, either.
Same with the "accidental" malfunction of the jump drive rather than some crazy man *ehm* Karl von Krugstahl *ehm* deciding to create a whole new civilization on his own.

Faction Name:
Vorskel Confederacy (including any applicable initialisms).

Faction Type:
The Vorskel Confederacy is an alliance of nations created to avert a catastrophic nuclear war. Since then the Confederacy has taken center stage in administrating colonization and interstellar trade. It also still acts as an intermediary in international disputes. The Confederacy has quite a lot of influence but the nations are still sovereign and maintain their own militaries and government types. All three superpowers, Ghorak, Mesenthia, and Sonique are members as well as many other minor nations. Since its creation wars have been a rare occurence. The Confed's mission to maintain world peace and foster international cooperation has been largely successful. Whether this will last, or if this is simply temporary remains to be seen.

The Vorskel Confederacy is a non governmental organization or NGO that exists to facilitate the peaceful resolution of conflicts between nations and negotiations between said nations. It also offers financial assistance to developing nations as well as medical care and foodstuffs to particularly impoverished areas of Kesh. It is composed of several branches including the General Assembly, Security Council, International Court, and the Tripartite. The General Assembly is where all members meet to decide on budget, accepting or denying new applications, and elects bureaucrats in other branches. The security council is responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. It has representatives from the four permanent members, the superpowers of Ghorak, Spetses, Sonique, and Mesenthia. The court is where disputes are resolved and international laws are drafted. The Tripartite is the defacto leader of the Confederacy. The General Secretary, Lord Marshal, and Merchant General along with their cabinets reside here. They are responsible for social, military, and economic matters respectfully.

Species:
The Vorskel are a humanoid race with digitigrade legs. The males have an average height of "5'6-"6'2 and females have a height of "4'10-"5'8. Their legs end in four toed feet with two large toes in the middle with two smaller toes on either side. Their hands have four fingers tipped with short blunt claws. They have thin furred tails that reach down to their ankles. A small pair of wings protrude from their backs. Their whole body is covered in fur. The fur is black, grey, brown, or white. It can be a solid color, spotted, or striped. Atop their heads are a pair of perky triangular ears. They can have either short slight snouts or long fox like snouts. Their eyes can be blue, yellow, green, or violet. They have human like secondary sexual characteristics, i.e. prominent breasts on females.

Scale & Territory:
The Confederation lays claim to six star systems. Rakesh, Rorsch, Trir, Nasgarth, Daran, and Talyala. Rakesh is the home system. Rorsch is home to a developed core world. Rorsch is the international system in which everyone has territorial claims. Trir is solely owned by Sonique. Talyala belongs to Ghorak. Daran belongs to Mesenthia. Nasgarth belongs to Spetses. The most striking feature of Rakesh are five O'Neil Cylinder space colonies at the lagrange points. These are gargantuan 30km stations home to hundreds of thousands of people. They were constructed from material found in the belt, and materials launched into space with mass drivers. Hundreds of other smaller stations orbit the homeworld of Kesh too. Dozens of asteroid mining colonies dot the asteroid belt.

Culture:
Vorskel culture varies greatly depending on where one goes within their territory. But for the most part can be seen as highly militaristic and nationalistic. In the West they are collectivist and do not value individual rights and are very secular. Polygamy is not seen as a sin in the west, and marriage is a custom absent from several of their societies. They are xenophobic and not that welcoming of outside influences. In the East however, the people are known to be more spiritual and individualist. They're also open and welcoming to outsiders. There are multiple religions but the majority of the religious follow monotheist religions.

History:
Much like the League of Nations and United Nations on Earth, the Confederation was formed after a destructive world war. The inception of nuclear weapons motivated the nations of Kesh to begin working together. While the nations did oppose each other, nobody wanted to become a radioactive crater. Some didn't take the Confederation seriously at first however. The Imperium of Sonique, which had lost a lot of territory in the previous war suffered a revolution. The People's Republic of Sonique took over under the Industrialist Party. They spread outwards and started reconquering the lands they had lost. The other superpowers intervened eventually but this new war was indecisive and a ceasefire was signed. An uneasy peace began and the nations set their sights to space.

Technology:
Vorskel technology is anachronistic perhaps, but cheap and reliable. The pinnacle of their power production is still nuclear. They use fusion reactors, which lack many of the drawbacks of the older fission reactors. For artificial gravity they use a centrifuge or simply spin the entire construct. They still largely rely on ballistic weaponry but have the means to make weaponized lasers, and particle beams. They can generate anti matter but still lack the means to store vast quantities of the stuff. They also have the means to carry out cloning, genetic engineering, and have cybernetics. They lack faster-than-light communication and must rely on couriers to spread information. Though, rumor has it that the new scientific field in subspace is close to changing that.

Military Forces:
The Confederacy doesn't have a standing military technically. The closest thing is the Peacekeeper Corps which is composed of military units provided temporarily from member states to deal with a dispute that has failed to resolve itself peacefully. There is also the council chamber guard, but they're considered more law enforcement than military. But the guard aren't pushovers, they have the skill of professional soldiers. The Peacekeepers can be composed of ground and space units and are deployed off world when the need arises. But generally the nations are responsible for guarding their holdings.

The forces on Kesh are designed for large conventional conflicts and as a whole number in the millions (~40 mil personnel). They are split between atmospheric air forces, ground forces, and 'wet' naval forces. They also have a fair number of ballistic missiles and surface to orbit batteries. The threat of mutually assured destruction keeps the peace. Though proxy wars do happen from time to time. Due to the Confederacy most wars are small in scope and limited. These conventional armies can be used off world but require heavy transports and orbital and aerial superiority at the target zone.

There are also small elite forces specialized for fighting on other worlds. The Mesenthian Storm Troopers, Ghorakian Janserii, Soniquien Guard, and Spetsen Marines make up this force. They focus on surgical strikes rather than large battles. They can also board enemy spacecraft and fight within a vacuum if needed. They are all professional career soldiers. They operate a wide range of equipment including autocannons, high velocity missiles, lasers, good old fashioned guns, and in some cases railguns.

Then most importantly there are the Space Forces. Most nations use a cheap series of standardized space frames affectionately nicknamed the "Alphabet Soup Crew". However, the superpowers operate their own native designs. They're the only ones that have the resources to design their own ships. The space forces are very frugal to an extent and don't throw away much. It's not uncommon to see decades old warships or older in active duty. Many old ships are also kept around in a mothballed state.

Claims
0915, 0815, 0715, 0716, 0916, 0816

Faction Name: Saigonoseiiki Federate (the Federate, the Federation, Feds, et all)

Faction Type:
Confederation of Autonomous Governments

Species:

Humans: While your standard humans are present on Saigonoseiiki, there are several off-shoot races also present, the result of many years of genetics engineering and bioweapons running amok. Generally, all ethnicities that one would recognize from Earth are present in some shape or form-though often changed by the march of the millenia. The languages spoken by the native humans are quite alien to those familiar with the languages of earth-being polygot tongues, evolving largely from the languages present in the more “asian” regions of Earth. English, needless to say, is quite dead at this point.

Vatgrowns-Aside from normal humans, there is a sizeable (perhaps even a majority of) so-called “Vatgrowns” in the Federate. These genetically human beings are grown, as one might have guessed in vats which serve as artificial wombs for an equally artificially created fetus. These vats in effect, “grow” children. While they do not carry a child to adulthood, by the time they emerge they are physically one to two years old. From there, they must be educated as a normal child would. In effect-each and every vatgrown human is the child of the state that created them.

Once upon a time, they were regarded as a little more the labour forces and expendable soldiers-with the advent of the Federate and the end of the October War, Vatgrowns enjoy full rights and representation in all civilized regions of the Federate.

Neko: The “Nekos” or put simply, Cats, are one of the most populous of the “created” races upon Saigonoseiiki. As one might infer from the name they are born of a mixture of cat and human dna-sporting traits of both races. Their general body structure and facial features are quite human, but they sport two sets of ears-one human, one quite catlike, not to mention the fact they also have tails. Their instincts also belong more in the feline world to a degree. Appetites tends towards the carnivorous, even though they remain quite capable of digesting vegetables and related foodstuffs.

Initially grown in vats, and sold to the population of several decadent nation states, the exact reason this race of “pets” was created isn’t something decent people should think about for too long. Regardless, after a generation of abuse, dehumanization and...worse...these “pets” rose up against their masters in a brutal revolution, inspired by the discovery of many old works of literature from the old days of Earth. This action founded the first communist republic in recent history-the United Socialist Republics of Saigonoseiiki.

Angels: Created, as the Nekos were, in laboratories and serve as luxury items, status symbols and entertainment to the colonial powers that preceded the formation of the socialist and communist governments that now hold sway over the Federate, the Angels bear the all the scars of the mentality these predecessor governments held. Created to be pretty, and unique-Angels sport large sets of avian wings. And their quality of life, unmodified it quite low. The wings throw off their centers of gravity, are completely unfunctional, and the modifications to their DNA leave them open to any number of chronic conditions. As a whole, they’re stereotyped as a sickly, clumsy, fairly weak species.

After the revolution that created the United Republics, Angels found their freedom-and their niche.Their bodies were weak-made for spectacle, not practicality. So they turned to technology-the invention of the exo-skeleton came from the mind of an Angel. These exoskeletons allow the Angels to center themselves, and have some degree of strength-and this tradition of innovation continues. The budding field of cybernetics and powered armors have a disportionate amount of angelic geniuses amongst them.

Viruses: Viruses, named for their general immunity to just about any sickness or disease one might care to name, are a lithe, attractive, athletic and flexible created race. And also the last of the slave races to be created by the predecessor nations. Indeed, they intended to be the final word in that department-created as they were during the period of cold war between the predecessor nations and the rising socialist and communist nations. It was their creation, by the underwater city states that made up a sizable part of the predecessor’s technological ability, that set off the Great War, the war that saw the founding of the Federate. To the dismay of their creators, Viruses, it turned out, made for excellent assassins and guerilla fighters.

After their liberation, Viruses have found their niche in any variety of field-some as entertainers, some as lethal assassins in the employ of the nation states, and shockingly large amount have entered into service with the Federate’s security forces-to the point where they contend with humans as the most represented race. Many Virus families now sport proud histories of careers in law enforcement.

Reptilian: Big, bulky and vicious looking, the Reptilians were engineered by the predecessor powers for heavy lifting, for pit fights and for various other pursuits. Scaled, be-fanged, and sporting yellow, slitted eyes, they are perhaps the least human-looking of the created races within the Federate. The Reptilians make ideal labourers. Despite their great strength and size, they also bear the scars of being a product of the predecessor powers slaving ways-their great size and strength comes with a bevy of health problems-they weren’t intended to live long healthy lives by their creators, but to be used up and discarded.

After the revolutions, and the ascendancy of communism and socialism as the prevailing ideologies within the Federate the Reptilians found largely their niche as elite soldiers, or again, as hardy workers-though this time they were issued hazard gear. They’ve also found a special place in the navies of the various nation states-oftentimes, when one mentions marines, one means the Reptilian wing of any given armed force.

Ziani: The Ziani are, put simply, an all male, all homosexual race of super soldiers whose origin, uniquely for vatgrown, created races, is lost to time. It is suspected they might be descended from Saigonoseiiki’s original colonial garrison. Regardless of their origin, they excel at killing, they excel at soldiering, and they excel at combat in general. It would be fair to call them born soldiers-the practice being basically instinctual to them. They tend to stand apart from the rest of the Federate-having long isolated themselves in high tech, heavily fortified Facilities based around their extensive cloning infrastructure. They have, throughout the history of the planet, happily hired themselves as mercenaries. A practice that continues to this day.

After the rise of the Federate, the Ziani Facilities, some reluctantly, joined the new organization. They typically form a fairly reliable political bloc-but now and then some Facilities will break from the metaphorical herd. Notably, while many Facilities declared neutrality during the initial revolutions-a number of them secretly supported the budding revolutionary movements, and supplied them with intelligence, training and heavy armed advisers.

Scale & Territory:

The Federate controls roughly five systems, including their home system. Of these systems, three have planets could be called inhabitable. Three worlds-a largely oceanic planet known as Dagon, their atom-blasted home world, Saigonoseiiki, and an earthlike world sporting the ruins of an ancient civilization, Viet, serve as the colonized core of the Federate. The remaining systems being, for all intents and purposes, dead. This has not stopped the Federate from colonizing them however-artificial habitats on asteroids and barren, rocky planets, servicing an extensive mining industry, are downright common in these systems. Due to the nature of the Federate, very few of it’s colonies and mines are owned by the Federate itself-most being owned by member states.

Culture:

The culture of the Federate, or rather, the culture of the nations that make it up, are wildly divergent in many ways, but strikingly similar in others. In general, the nations of the Federate tend to follow some sort of doctrine related to what one might regard as the political left, with communism and socialism being the dominant ideologies. But the exact type and doctrine of socialism and communism that these nations follow varies heavily-one nation might take inspiration from the USSR, another Cuba, another might follow a bastardized hybrid of doctrines. A few nations, descended from wealthy “sin city” style city states even adhere more to what one would recognize as Roosevelt-style progressivism more than any marxist ideology.

Social mannerisms also differ wildly-the Ziani are extremely social in general, and view anything up to and including kissing as natural expressions of friendship-whereas the United Republics tend to view such actions as exclusively romantic. Meanwhile, Reptilians tend to marry for life-and to not take another spouse after their present spouse has passed away. Often “dying of a broken heart” after such an event. Nekos prefer to have large families-with even gay couples adopting a truly extraordinary number of children, vatgrown or otherwise. Angels prefer small, almost solitary family units. These are just a few of the massive differences that have developed between different species and cultures upon the planet. In general-the number of cultures and the differences are what one would expect of a planet with such a varying number of species and such a long history.

In terms of religion, the religions of Old Earth have survived-albeit in a mutated form. Under the Brotherhood, aspects of Islam, Christianity and Judaism have merged into one faith, a faith that has a great many followers in the otherwise effectively lawless wastelands-making this faith one of the only forces for order in the region, and perhaps, one of the oldest on the planet. In many ways, the Brotherhood is less a church and more a government at this point. Other religions from Old Earth have survived in more intact forms-Shintoism is popular, as is buddhism. Even the various forms of paganism have enjoyed something of a resurgence. Though it must be noted that these faiths too, have mutated, just to a lesser extent than the abrahamic faiths. Notably, the state-enforced atheism of Old Earth’s communist government has failed to surface within the Federate. Partially as a result of the Brotherhood’s invaluable aid during the first revolution.

All of these powerful, diverse and even vibrant nations, faiths and cultures have found two common outlets however-hope for a better future, through the exploration and settlement of space, and a devotion to the past, to history of Old Earth, as misunderstood as it often is due to the vast gap between it and the Federate, the role the literature of Old Earth played in the revolution, and the way it changed, effectively, the fate of the world, means it is regarded as nearly scared by the peoples of the Federate.

The Federate itself is a mixture of the old United Nations-an organization to serve as a diplomatic forum for the world, and a government in it’s own right, with it’s own forces, fleet and police force. Led by an elected Chancellor, and charged with ensuring peace and cooperation amongst the nations of the planet and it’s colonies, the Federate is slowly taking on aspects of a world government, even while the nations that make it up remain fiercely independent. As an example, the Federate, with great difficulty, launched a World Fleet program-a program that attempted to ensure the nations of the world would have one, united space force rather then many different fleets under many different flags. This program enjoyed some success-founding the Federate Cosmoforce as it is today-before the next Chancellor cancled it entirely, as a massive clamour of controversy reared its head amongst the nations of the Federate.

History:

The Federate’s homeworld, Saigonoseiiki, is of an old lineage. It harkens back to a time when the human race, from a since-lost Earth, reached for the stars and attempted to make them their own. The human race has lived upon the world Saigonoseiiki for millennia, to the point that until quite recently, even the name of their homeworld was lost to the dim haze of memory. This journey to the stars, set about so long ago, might have had many objectives-it might have been coldly imperial in nature, it might have been wildly optimistic, it might have been born of desperation and hope, or it might have been born out of that age old need to explore, to seek, and to claim. Whatever the reason. The results are easy enough to see.

Again and again, colonies on the world, and the civilizations that arose on them achieved great heights-and came crashing down in a hail of atomic fire. The planet’s plentiful uranium deposits, which had fueled the rise of these selfsame civilizations turned into their doom, again and again. The ruins of a dozen empires, a dozen civilizations, some interstellar, many not, dot the surface and the strata of the planet. The wastelands hold the skeletal ruins of ancient cities, are patrolled by robots with long-decay programs. Cities are built around ancient technology they barely understand. Again and again, technology is rediscovered, refined, and then lost. Civilization died, only to refounded, sometimes by survivors, sometimes by a long lost sleeper ships, arriving after unforeseen complications.

Only one species, the militarized and insular Ziani, dwelling with their fortified militarized-city state esque “Facilities” could be said to stand somewhat outside this cycle. And even they were not immune to the side effects of the brutal nuclear wars that so often sent the civilizations of the planet tumbling down.

This cycle has only recently been broken-and even then, it was by the edge of a knife. The civilizations that arose on Saigonoseiiki have never been free from the sins of the old world, but only in this latest cycle did it come to a head-the latest round of high tech civilization to emerge on the planet, founded by a mixture of old corporate-sponsored sleeper ship crews, and violently nationalistic and xenophobic colonists, embraced these sins, and gradually carried them to new and terrible heights. Put simply, as these civilizations matured, discovered more and more of the lost technology upon the planet, and fought with the now-savage natives, they grew more and more intolerant, more and more willing to see some people as tools-not people. Eventually, this came to it’s natural conclusion. Slavery returned, starting with captured natives, but eventually coming to include vatgrowns as well.

The only opposition these states faced came from the natives of Saigonoseiiki, themselves former colonists, who struck out of the wild wastelands, out of the mutated and fetid swamps, the skeletal ruins and the deep foreboding forests that made up so much of the planet. The wastelands are-and remain-a wild place. But an organized, religious organization served as something of a uniting influence for those settlements that resisted these new colonists-the Brotherhood, which adhered to a combination of varying Abrahamic doctrines, drawing from Judaism, Islam and Christianity in equal measure. Lacking the technology of the new colonists, the Brotherhood mostly restricted itself to guerilla warfare, with any attempts to directly stand up to the rising colonial states ending in utter disaster.

The march of technology continued. And slavery took on a new, and terrible form with the aid of perverted science, even the very genetics of the enslaved were not under their control.

Again and again, new species were created to labour for, and to provide amusement to, the descendants of original colonists. This practice had it’s origin worst of the colonial states, the ironically named Free States of Anhsángchiếu. While slavery was a fact of life in the “civilized” parts of the planet, the Free States gave birth to slaves designed to serve as pets, to be used and abused for the amusement of their owners. Nekos. Cat-human hybrids. A different species. But even as the Free States gloried in their power over the very bodies of their “pets” the seeds of their downfall were being lain. One of these “pets” stumbled upon a long-hidden, long-ignored part of the old sleeper ship’s network. An archive. Containing great works of literature and history from the Old Earth, as it is now known on Saigonoseiiki. Works that, at times, spoke of slavery and liberation. The words of Marx, Abraham, John Brown, Paine, Castro and more. This neko, who soon began to call himself Red Rosa , after one of the many voices he had discovered in that archive.

First on his own, then with the aid of the Brotherhood, Rosa spread these writings to other enslaved, spread these ideas, and most importantly, spread the knowledge that slavery-and slaving states could be beaten, and indeed, had been long ago. Secret cells were formed, weapons secreted, plans drafted. Then, five years after Red Rosa began their work, the hour came and the moment struck. The Revolution of Roses, as it came to be called, after the red rose that adorned the battle flags and uniforms of the various revolutionary units. Arsenals were seized. Colonials killed in their beds, bridges bombed, military units sabotaged. Working with the Brotherhood, the revolutionaries waged war upon the Free State-relying on sheer numbers at times, to overcome the Free State’s technological advantages. This revolution lasted for two years, and ended with overthrow of the Free State and the foundation of the United Socialist Republics of Saigonoseiiki on it’s ashes.

The other colonial powers, at the same time, were thrown into crisis by the old works circulated by the revolutionaries-reformist factions came to power in many of them, and a number of minor civil wars were fought-but the next years would hold even more instability. Encouraged by the young United Republics, full blown revolutions broke out in many colonial nations-resulting in the foundation of the Soviet Confederacies and the People’s Republic of Subarashīatarashītochi amongst others. The Ironheart Pact, a bloc of communist and socialist countries, along with some of the normally neutral Ziani Facilities, was born from these nations.

Eventually, as the revolutions died down, and lines were drawn in the sand, the world settled into a state of Cold War. While the remaining colonial nations freed their slaves-either due to the efforts of reformers, due to forceful treaty, the two brands of nation-revolutionary and colonial were destined to be at odds due to their wildly differing origins, ideologies, and the simple fact that too much bloody history existed between them. A Concordant Of Nations emerged, amongst the colonial powers, to oppose the newly formed Ironheart pact, while a few nations sought to profit from the cold war, playing both sides against each other and providing entertainment to the ever-growing armies of the Pact and the Concordant.

Something had to give, and eventually, it did. Various underwater city states, one of the few old colonial powers to be unaffected, largely, by the revolutions due to their isolation and the difficulty in reach them, had continued the slaving ways of the old Colonial powers, and had even designed a new race of slaves. When this secret got out, the Pact demanded the Concordant turn over the leaders of these city states-and the city states themselves, to Pact authority. The Concordant, believing that these high-tech, nigh-untouched city states were the only thing keeping the balance of power roughly equal, refused.

One day later, the Pact tendered their response.

In the name of the now elderly Red Rosa, artillery lit the sky on fire. And the October War began.

Pact troops swarmed over the borders of Concordant nations in numbers never before-or again-seen. With the few remaining neutral nations watching in silent horror as their worst nightmares came true, and the long cold war at last turned hot. The October War dragged on for four years-with the military might of the entire Concordant hurled against the onrushing tide of Pact troops. Limited nuclear exchanges took place, pushing the world closer and closer to the edge.

It seemed unending.

Then the Tindalos Spore was discovered in an isolated region of the planet. An alien organism, capable of producing this spore, became the secret weapon of the Ironheart Pact. First, the unique healing properties of the spore were used as a medical tool, to allow the Ironheart Pact to keep its soldiers alive longer, and gert wounded soldiers back into the field quicker, allowing them to make better use of their advantage in numbers. Turning the tide of war in the favor of the Pact, allowing them to slowly wear down, and force back the forces of the Concordant.

Then, another breakthrough was made. One with more dire applications. A modified strain of the spore was produced, in staggering numbers. Alongside it, a truly immense amount of bioweapons and strains of deadly gas were developed.

Soon, the Pact was ready.

Artillery, bombers, and missiles lit the skies of Saigonoseiiki on fire for a second time. Bioweapons and gas shells crashed upon the lines of the Concordant, killing a number of their soldiers, and spreading sickness amongst them.

But the expected attack did not come, even as the Concordant rushed reinforcements forward. Instead, an aerosol of the modified spore was spread over their lines, via high flying balloon-based distribution systems.

The Concordant’s recent dead rose. In a feral, rabies like state, attacking anything they laid eyes upon, their existence nothing but pain and rage. This rising last only for an hour, as their bodies, torn and decayed as they were, even after a few days, could not long support themselves, even with the restorative power of the spore. But the effects it had on the organization and morale of the Concordant forces proved telling.

One hour after the Rising concluded, a massive attack, all across the lines, by Pact forces began. Demoralized, disorganized and the Concordant was overwhelmed. The end was now in site, with the lines of the Concordant broken, and their forces in full flight, the nations of the Pact committed all of their reserves to the conflict.

The Concordant threatened to invoke MAD, and make full use of their nuclear arsenal-but raids by the famed Crimson Dragoons, the stealth armor equipped commando’s of the United Republics, gutted their nuclear network not a day after the announcement. The Pact then made use of it’s own arsenal-hitting the remaining strongholds of the Concordant with vicious nuclear strikes. The Concordant responded, of course, with the few nuclear weapons they could now muster-but the effects, insofar as nuclear attacks could be, were minimal.

The war ended not with a surrender, but with the effective annihilation of the Concordant nation states, with their territory and peoples being subsumed by the Pact’s nations, or simply vanishing in a haze of nuclear fire.

But still, the world-and the nations that called it home, were scarred by it. Countless were dead, countless economies had been pushed to their utter limit, countless nations had been pushed to the very precipice of disaster. From the Ironheart Pact then, the Federate emerged. First as a way to coordinate rebuilding efforts between nations-then as a forum, then to a queer mixture of government and forum. This strange transformation was aided, however, by the discovery of hyperlane technology, in one of the many ruins buried in the wasteland.

The Federate was able to harness the dream of space exploration-and colonization, the idea of journeying amongst the stars once again-into a drive to rebuild, and expand as civilization. For a time, it was at the forefront of colonization and exploration efforts-even attempting to found a global space fleet, a World Fleet. Though this attempt failed and the nation states of that make it up now sport their own colonies, in even greater number than the Federate, as an organization, has, the future of the Federate-being reduced entirely to a forum, or becoming a truly world government-remains up in the air.

Technology:

The technology behind the Saigonoseiiki Federate is wildly anachronistic by most standards. With their strongest field being the sciences of biology and its associated fields and their weakest being the computational fields. While their understanding of biology has allowed them to raise entire legions of vat-grown children to increase their population, to even create new human subspecies or to modify the existing human genome in less extreme fashions, their computers still struggle along on old punch card systems and other primitive systems. In general; their most advanced computers, those found on military ships and important installations might be able to match those of Earth in the 1980’s.

Perhaps the most impressive demonstration of their ability in the biological sciences would be the deployment of the Tindalos Spore-a spore released by an alien organism found in a large crater in an isolated region of the planet. Upon it’s discovery, was pulled apart in short order by the scientists of the Ironheart Pact. Shortly thereafter, it was deployed by the nations of the pact-as a medical tool. With some tinkering on the part of the pact, the restorative properties of the spore were magnified and enhanced to new heights-a deep gash would close and heal within a matter of hours. This spore is capable of other feats-keeping doomed soldiers alive long enough to mount terror-inducing counter attacked, likened to attacks by the living dead-to restoring the corpses (preferably those strewn across enemy lines) of the recently dead to a rabies-like, feral state for a few precious, terrible hours.

The second strongest technological field on Saigonoseiiki would be the use of atomics-much of the infrastructure powering the civilized parts of Saigonoseiiki run entirely off nuclear power. Each nation maintains a healthy stock of nuclear weapons, and perhaps, most notably, their militaries have even been known to use nuclear artillery shells. Their orbital defense stations sport nuclear weaponry, and predictably, several laser weapons making use of fission batteries as a power source have also been designed and fielded. While they have not yet mastered nuclear fusion-several nations believe they are on the cusp of a breakthrough.

In contrast, the field of telecommunications lags behind-you’ll find no smart phones or the like amongst the nation states of Saigonoseiiki, with the most advanced, widely available devices being largely comparable to the first bulky cellphones. Due to the relatively primitive nature of their communications technology, long range interstellar communications rely almost entirely on a large string of manned communications stations-which often pull double duty as depots, trade hubs and the like.

In general, the story largely remains the same for other fields of technology-for example while the United Republic sports rare, highly advanced (and resource intensive) stealth suits capable of rendering a user invisible to detection-by the naked eye and most technologies-they weapons many of their roops are equipped with would be comparable to the AK-47 and it’s contemporaries in nature. Powered armor exists, certainly-but rather than slick, modern UI’s attached to it, the visors are simple bulletproof glass, with the fanciest gadget attached being a flashlight or radio. Furthermore, as one might expect of a planet that has blasted itself to the stone age many times over-the infrastructure of the planet is widely inconsistent, much like it’s technology. One might be born in a vat, educated in a school using transistor computers, and then go on to own a farm relying on a horse hooked to a plow.

The source of this technological inconsistency springs from the nature of the Federate’s home world and it’s histories. Dozens of advanced empires have risen and fallen on this world-leaving ruins and atomic ash in their wake. Saigonoseiiki would be regarded as a treasure trove of valuable lost technology-but much it is buried in dangerous wastelands, or simply defunct. Some of it remains intact enough to research and use-and some technology was lost forever, forcing the nations of world to start from scratch.

The primary FTL technology in use by the Federate centers around the so-called “Hyperlanes” a network of routes through space that allow for the safe usage of “hyperdrives”. These drives allow Federate ships to skirt the edge of another dimension-one that allows for FTL travel. Journeys that would take an immense amount of time in realspace take mere weeks, or even days, in hyperspace. However, this dimension does interact with the primary dimension of the Federate makes use of-the one in which the galaxy is extant. Masses that exist in realspace cast a shadow in hyperspace-and hitting one of these shadows has fairly...catastrophic consequences. Thus, the Federate is forced to rely on the old, salvaged data it has on “safe” hyperlanes-or to risk the lives of explorers in an attempt to blaze new hyperlanes-a long, arduous, and dangerous process.

Military Forces:



The military forces of the Federate are quite small, on their own, consisting of a well-trained, well-drilled military designed more for quick interventions then massive campaigns, and a large security force that tends to serve more as a police force for stations and colonies under the direct control or influence of the Federate itself. Their space fleet is middling in number, being a remnant of the Federate’s failed “World Fleet” program. The nation states that make up the Federate however, rather than the organization itself, have access to far more military forces and fleets then the Federate itself.

A few generalities do emerge however, regarding the general doctrines of these nations-and to an extent, the Federate itself. Fleets tend to include a large number of escorts-often carrying small squadrons of fighter craft-making use of mass drivers, nuclear missiles and laser weaponry, but each fleet is based around a core of large ships, be it a massive carrier, a dreadnought bearing a massive railgun, or ship based around a large fission laser. The form these large ships-and their escorts-can take does vary, but the general doctrine remains the same. The escorts and fighters are to engage the enemy, and hold them down, while the massive flagships of the fleet move in to deliver the deathblow, once the escorts have worn the enemy down or otherwise tied them up.

In terms of ground armies, the general doctrine focuses a mixture of massive units equipped with practicable, mass producible technology designed to overrun the enemy with numbers, as much as anything else, and to ease the strain of logistics on the overall army and a much smaller number of elite units, equipped with more hard to produce and maintain technology-such as power armor, or in the case of the United Republics, stealth armor. The exact doctrines tend to vary from here-the armored columns and massive infantry formations of the United Republics being intended to deal a deathblow to an enemy whose command structure and logistics capability has been worn away by their stealth armor-equipped elite forces, in contrast the Soviet Confederacies power-armored elite units, and their truly formidable armored units are designed around puncturing holes in the enemy lines through sheer shock and awe-and then allowing their masses of infantry to stream through these holes and simply overwhelm the enemy.

The Ziani are an exception to many of the general rules, operating less on sheer members and more on highly mobile, highly trained, and lavishly equipped strike forces-as befits their militarized nature, and their mercenary history. The Federate itself modeled their comparatively small official forces after Ziani doctrine and tactics. Though, unlike the Ziani, the Federate’s official forces don’t tend to be for hire.

Needless to say, the idea of getting all of these various militaries to operate in concord as one force would be a logistics nightmare and a near impossibility, politically, outside of something truly immense-like a massive invasion of the Federate itself.