An enigmatic amphibianoid species first encountered by the virgonid in 2295, the ara’ are one of the few civilizations known to have independently developed FTL technology. Contacts between the Compact races and the ara’ have always been peaceful, but the ara’ have also shown little interest in deepening connections with other powers.
The ara’ possess highly advanced technology, the extent of which remains unknown. As well as a Stardrive-analogue, observation suggests they are capable of some form of FTL communication, and make extensive use of sophisticated AIs, possibly integrated with their own consciousnesses in some way. The nature of ara’ weapon and defensive technology is unclear.
For reasons unknown, the Ciphers seem never to have interfered with the ara’, at least since the Compact races became aware of them. Given that the ara’ transmitted a significant amount of data on the Ciphers to the pre-Compact Alliance in 2316, however, it seems likely that the two peoples had some form of contact in the distant past.
The Compact name for the sapient mammalianoid species native to the planet Byas. For a complex sapient species, the byasians are significantly smaller than the galactic average, rarely more than one meter in length including tail. Physically, byasians resemble a combination between a number of Earth species, sharing many traits with squirrels and raccoons. The basic unit of byasian society is the pack, a loose kin-grouping similar to an old Earth clan.
Oral histories suggest that the byasians had in general reached something akin to an Earth Bronze Age level of technological and social organization by when the Ciphers arrived, around TSY 2000. The machines took complete control of the planet, and divided the byasian packs into seemingly arbitrary geographical groupings called districts. Within these districts, the Ciphers enforced varying forms of social organization, economics, and cultural and religious practices. The Ciphers permitted low-level conflict to occur between these district groupings, but rarely within them. Alliances and enmities formed during this long period of inter-district conflict persist to this day.
The scars of Cipher occupation run deep in byasian societies. Some districts still revere the machines as gods, and pray—or even fight—to bring about their return. Others loathe their former overlords, and their fellow byasians who long for them to come back. Suspicion and distrust are endemic in almost all byasian societies, having been so frequently pitted against one another, and betrayal by Cipher-loyal informants having been a fact of daily life for centuries.
Another near-universal byasian cultural trait is a love of argumentation and debate. In addition to the pressures of manufactured conflict, byasians had to become adept at choosing their words carefully in order to survive. Now, freed from Cipher domination, educated byasians are free to let loose all the rhetorical skills they had cultivated under restriction for generations. This can be intimidating, even infuriating, for humans and others whose cultures may not place such high value on open, constant, and apparently hostile verbal sparring.
A highly advanced, fully artificial civilization, the Ciphers are one of the great mysteries of the galaxy. Though first knowingly encountered by human explorers from the Corporate Worlds in the late 23rd century, evidence suggests the Ciphers had been covertly observing the development of humans, virgonids, and other species for hundred or thousands of years previously. Compact scientists today believe that some of the reports of so-called UFOs and UAPs, endemic to Earth in the 20th and early 21st centuries, were likely these Cipher probes, and that some small number of even older reports may represent the same phenomenon.
The origin of the Ciphers is wholly unknown. Logic suggests they or their antecedents must have been created by a biological intelligence at some point in the distant past. However, no information about this species, and whether that creation was intentional or accidental, has yet been uncovered. While the Ciphers have frequently communicated with the Compact and other races, they have never shared any such information.
Similarly, the precise nature of Cipher consciousness remains unknown—for example, it is unclear whether each physical Cipher platform possesses a discrete consciousness, or a network of multiple consciousness, or if all Ciphers are animated by a single, hive consciousness. Despite great leaps in the field over the last few centuries, Compact and allied scientists have never succeeded in creating a fully conscious, sapient artificial intelligence, certainly not in the way that the Ciphers evidently posses these traits. Captured Cipher ships, drones, simulants, and combat units reveal little in their physical architecture that could answer this great question.
The true level of Cipher technological advancement is another topic of debate within the Compact. At each stage of contact and conflict with the machines, their military technology at least seems to have been roughly on par with, or slightly ahead of, their biological adversaries. Given the now two-century history of conflict between the Ciphers and the Compact races, that would suggest that Cipher technology has advanced at roughly the same rate as, for example, humans, despite beginning with a massive head start.
The great unlikelihood of this being coincidental has resulted in a number of theories. The two most commonly accepted are that, before encountering and warring with humans, the Ciphers had reached a technological plateau beyond which they saw no logical reason to advance. Since then, lacking imagination and innovation in the biological sense, Cipher advancement has been tied to that of humans and their allies, in some cases directly as a result of reverse engineering.
The other, less comforting theory, suggests that the Ciphers have either deliberately restricted their technological development, or appeared to do so, in order to keep pace with their biological adversaries. Why they would do this, and thus expose themselves to potential defeat, is unclear—but given the Ciphers’ apparent penchant for enigmatic experimentation on the populations under their control, it cannot be ruled out.
Having now spread from their homeworld to dozens of stars across thousands of light years, humans in the 26th century are more diverse and varied than they ever were on Earth—and yet, thanks to the Compact and QEC technology, they are in some ways more connected than they have been since their interstellar diaspora first began in the early 22nd century.
Many of Earth’s myriad cultures survived their journey to the stars, while others evolved and intermixed to create entirely new cultures native to the colony worlds they now inhabit. Biologically, while four hundred years is not enough time in human terms for natural evolution to make a significant course change, exposure to alien environments and long-term habitation in space has led to changes among some populations relative to their Earth-bound ancestors.
The much greater changes have come by human hands, either as a result of genetic manipulation or cybernetic augmentation. Anti-transhumanism laws and a general culture of conservatism following Earth’s Third World War led to a drastic slowing in the pace of the technologies, but as humanity spread further from the homeworld and its violent past, these restrictions began to loosen. Today, while most humans remain recognizably human, significant genetic and cybernetic modification are common across the species.
Indeed, a number cultural and national groupings have adopted such widespread and consistent forms of modification that some anthropologists suggest they should soon, if not now, be classified as human subspecies—the largest of these being the people of the Free Worlds Republic and the United Citizens’ Councils, whose median modifications can usually mark them out at a glance to members of other groups.
In fact a group of several related species, “Kyran” is simply a Compact designation for the biological/sociocultural grouping of these species. The name is derived from a transliteration of the name given by Kyrans for their origin: Kyr. It is not known if Kyr is a planet, a star, a star cluster, or even an ancestor species or concept. Cryptic explanations from Kyrans themselves have at times suggested any or all of these definitions.
The known Kyran species are thought to be members of a single clade, most analogous to the dinosaurs of prehistoric Earth, and similar species discovered in the fossil record of the melakeen homeworld Nalak. Kyran social organization seems based in large part on species, such that members of each species appear to play designated roles in their respective societies, with examples of individuals straying from these roles vanishingly rare. The Kyran names for these species and their roles are not known; Compact designations are derived from their observed social roles.
The four confirmed Kyran species are the Pterochids, Stepharchids, both a ruler/warrior caste; the Argotids, a soldier caste; and the Ischeronids, a worker caste. Three species believed to be from the same clade as the other Kyrans are the Smergonid and Sklekarid, possible additional worker castes, and the Epheuronid, which may be an engineer or scientist caste.
A mammalianoid species originating on the planet Nalak, first encountered by human explorers in TSY 2289. The melakeen are quadrupedal and, like humans, now largely hairless save for patches on their backs and inside certain joints. Melakeen are trigender, with a complex method of sexual reproduction unknown in large Earth mammals. Aside from these stark biological differences, and the effects of the three-parent family structure on melakeen cultures, their social and political development has more closely mirrored that of humanity than any other species encountered to date.
This close mirroring—after a period of initial uneasiness caused by a mutually uncanny appearance—helped foster close relations between the two species. Peaceful trade rapidly evolved into military cooperation under the threat of the Ciphers. Today, the melakeen are one of the associate member races of the Interstellar Compact, their fierce independence holding them back from full integration.
A technologically advanced arthropoid species first encountered by humans in the Sol system. The virgonid language is based on a combination of pheromones and sounds which humans cannot reproduce, and is thus not transliteratable; their human name is derived from their star system of origin, Ross 128, located in the constellation Virgo.
The virgonids are the only sapient insectoid species in the known galaxy, and possess a unique life cycle. Each virgonid is born male, in which capacity he may serve as the “contributor-parent” in sexual reproduction; later in life, he may transition to female, at which point she will be able to serve as a “bearer-parent,” carrying a number of fertilized eggs to maturity. This process results in the death of the bearer-parent, usually within hours of successfully giving birth. The individual virgonid lifespan averages only three to five Terran years.
Virgonids were able to develop and maintain a complex, technological civilization despite these extremely short lifespans only after evolving an incredible ability: near-perfect genetic memory transfer from bearer-parent to offspring. This ability, combined with renowned virgonid selflessness, allows multi-generational training for complex skills, which can then be passed down generation to generation, each one gaining new experience and knowledge. Today, virgonid genealogies, or “dynasties,” often dominate the highest ranks of science and engineering professions.
An individual bearer-parent is able to control the number of eggs she brings to maturity, which may be anywhere from one to around twenty. This allows virgonids to easily maintain sustainable populations in established colonies, on long-term space missions and the like, while also permitting “population bomb” scenarios to occur, such as when a new virgonid colony or outpost is being established. In these multiple-offspring births, each receives the full memories of the bearer-parent; however, each child soon develops his own personality during the rapid early maturation stage, resulting in a clutch of discrete, if similar, individuals.
This ability for relatively small numbers of virgonid to rapidly produce geometrically increasing numbers of offspring, combined with their high level of engineering knowledge and skill, gives the virgonids as a species military potential paralleled only by that of the self-replicating Ciphers. Historically, though, this potential has been almost entirely unrealized. The virgonids are naturally a peaceful and inquisitive people, being roused to war only by the greatest necessity. Even during the Galactic War (2477 – 2485), the virgonid contribution, while essential to the ultimate Compact victory, was largely limited to engineering and manufacturing support, with most virgonids eschewing combat roles.
Virgonids are almost universally seen as friendly, inquisitive, and quick-witted, both as individuals and as a group. They bond easily with humans, who for their part—provided they can get past the atavistic fear engendered by massive, talking insects—can find in virgonid genealogies a series of lifelong, steadfastly loyal friends. Virgonids who interact with other races regularly take human names rather than attempting to transliterate their monikers in their own unique language, so closely do they identify with humans.
A cetaceanoid species first encountered by humans in the early 24th century, the xirān are the only intelligent aquatic species in the known galaxy to have developed a technological civilization. Like the virgonids, the xirān independently developed mass manipulation technology, without which escaping the gravity well of their homeworld in heavy, water-filled spacecraft would have been impossible. However, they too fell short of discovering the graviton, restricting them to sublight interplanetary and interstellar travel until their contact with humans and virgonids.
Due to their unique evolution, xirānite technology is different compared to the varied, but similar technologies developed by air-breathing species. Xirānite social organization is also unique; each xirān is typically highly individualistic, and yet they posses a strong sense of community from small groups all the way up to the species as a whole. There seems to be little tension between these two social poles, as there tends to be in human cultures.
The xirān have shown great interest in peaceful coexistence and cooperation with other galactic species, culminating in their association status within the Interstellar Compact. However, their unique environmental and technological requirements make full, side-by-side coexistence with air-breathing species difficult. As such, it seems likely that there will always be a level of separation between the xirān and the other Compact races. The xirān, for their part, seem comfortable with this.
