Historical Overview: Galaxy Alliance

Starmap: Historical Context, Alliance of Five Powers

The Galaxy Alliance, at its heart, is a mutual defense pact between native civilizations of the Orion Spur to resist the onslaught of the Drule Supremacy, particularly the Fourth Kingdom. It was formed from the merger of two other alliances: the Alliance of Five Powers, a military alliance forged by survivors of Drule attacks, and the United Alliance, a government designed to keep its own race's warlike tendencies in check. The original six races were the Glis, the Hydrans, the Kolaliri, the Biboh, the Quasnot, and the Earthlings.

Glis*: The regal, mouselike Glis are an ancient race, whose original empire had risen and fallen before most of the other founding races had a civilization. At their height they explored vast stretches of the Orion Spur, providing the basis for the navigational charts the Alliance still uses today. But the Glis Empire became decadent and shortsighted, and collapsed into internal warfare as thousands of merchant-warlords began squabbling for power. A rump state called the Glis Remnant eventually formed, its perceived weakness forcing it to be far more militaristic than its predecessor. It was this warlike remnant that was overrun by the Fourth Kingdom, but several of the strongest enclaves were able to evacuate. From that point on Glis civilization consisted of little more than large military convoys bent on vengeance, shadowing the Drule advance; they were the driving force behind the Alliance of Five Powers.

Hydrans: A navigational error led an unsupported Drule colony ship to become stranded over an inhospitable world they named Hydros, or 'Crucible'. Forced to go back to basics to survive and build a civilization, the Hydrans developed a new humility and a very different spirituality than their ancestors. Those ancestors were not impressed when they rediscovered their lost kin. Having retained their cultural emphasis on strength and discipline, as well as great knowledge of Drule tactics, the Hydrans were able to resist conquest or destruction easily enough. They were, however, pinned down on Hydros, with no ability to break free of the endless siege until a Glis convoy arrived.

Kolaliri: The Kolaliri, pale bipedal creatures with crystalline bones, have always been somewhat reluctant allies. They held a small empire until the Fourth Kingdom arrived; believing themselves to be greater than any other race, they had no real cultural capacity for dealing with adversity, making their early setbacks unrecoverable. After losing the bulk of their territory, they learned just enough humility to accept some other races as "also superior"—a designation gifted mostly to those they find useful. First among these were the Glis and the Hydrans, who aided their last stand on their capital of Kolair and thus earned their grudging respect.

Biboh: Resembling long, flexible sticks with near-vestigial limbs, the Biboh are believed to have been genetically engineered to serve aboard spacecraft. Whatever race created them is long since lost to time. Alone among the AFP, they were not a warlike society; tribes of Biboh wandered space as merchants and entertainers. When they found more and more of their usual planetary stops conquered by a race with no interest in peaceful overtures, they retreated to their few fixed supply outposts. There the Fourth Kingdom found and routed them. The survivors regrouped and fled, soon reaching the Quasnot homeworld of Quariot.

Quasnot: The Quasnot are huge, flightless avians, technologically primitive but socially and culturally complex. Like the Biboh they lived in a tribal society, but theirs was heavily centered on ritualized intimidation and honor duels. They had no form of spaceflight when the Biboh arrived, bearing dire warnings of alien invaders and offering to evacuate their planet. The Quasnot chose instead to fight. When the Glis-Hydran-Kolaliri coalition arrived they would become, in essence, the shock troops of the AFP, with contingents of Quasnot warriors being used as boarding parties against Drule vessels. Quariot itself became the capital and primary staging point for the AFP for over a century, as the Fourth Kingdom slightly changed the direction of its main thrust and ended up missing the planet.

Earthlings**: These clever bipedal primates were less than two centuries into their starfaring when they encountered the Drule juggernaut. Had the AFP not intervened, they would have met the same fate as so many other young interstellar civilizations before them. But the Earthlings were in the right place at the right time, and quickly proved to also be the right people: as a particularly fractious race not long removed from their latest internal conflicts, they had skills in mediation and diplomacy that the often-quarrelsome AFP sorely needed. Just as importantly, they had a sprawling network of colonies, offering an established administrative structure and vast resources. The Earthling government, the United Alliance, would become the bureaucratic framework the Galaxy Alliance was built upon.

After its founding, the GA would see success against the Fourth Kingdom and gain a large new membership, ultimately becoming a worthy enough foe for the Supremacy Council to engage in diplomacy. As the foremost native power of the Orion Spur, the GA quickly evolved into a formidable force for exploration, research, and trade, moving far beyond its original desperate roots. A future report will go into more depth on these topics.

*Contemporary records from the GA's founding sometimes refer to the Glis as the Glirians, owing to early translation errors. Glirian is a Glis word for 'survivor' or 'avenger', and while they frequently use it to describe themselves it is not the name of their race.

**Earthling is the official demonym for interstellar communication, but Earthlings rarely use it among themselves; 'human' is the most common domestic term.