Summary

The Altevians are a space-faring race of rodents that resemble Earth-like rats. They do not have a place they call home in terms of a planet, and instead have massive multiple-kilometer-long colony-ships that are constantly on the move and typically keep operations outside of known populated systems to not eat the resources from others. Their heights and sizes vary greatly depending on which colony-ship they're a part of. This also includes their speech, behaviors, culture, and even their end goal for the betterment of the hegemony. They all speak in the same primary language known as Tavan which has been adopted slowly across the galaxy from other rodent faring races thanks to its ease of use. 

Colony Ships & General Data

The Altevian Hegemony consists of colony-ships surrounded by massive fleets as a “nation” that all strive for a similar large-scale goal and a grand-scale goal. The large-scale goal differs per “nation” whereas the grand-scale goal is the overall betterment of the hegemony. This means providing resources, crew power, technology, medical aid, combat support, and anything else that would align with their survival. There are currently around 40 colony-ships each with different designs, but all are of similar mass and scale. Each ship is on average around 60 Km³ with a population averaging out at 95 thousand per square kilometer and puts the average population of each ship at 42.75 million inhabitants. The current total population of the hegemony is around 3~ billion inhabitants in total.  

The Hegemony operates all their vessels under the same callsign AH-XX, or Altevian Hegemony, for all their ships up to the colony-ships. The Admiral, or ruler, of the hegemony, has the final say on operations and routing for the fleet movements, but they typically only have used this power during times of conflict. Normal fleet operations give the colony-ships full autonomy for their travel and orders with only a fleet warp back to their flagship roughly every three months to resupply and update records with everyone else. 

The Colony Ships

The list below is the current list of primary roles in the hegemony itself for each colony-ship. While each ship can in theory handle the operations and tasks of other colony-ships they might not have the advanced equipment to provide the same level of support their counterpart has. 

• Flagship (Capitol)
  • AH-CV Migrant 
• Research & Development 
  • AH-CV Ozette (Weapons)
  • AH-CV Kitsap (Medical)
  • AH-CV Golden Torch (Energy & Fuel)
  • AH-CV Jade (Mineral and Refinement)
  • AH-CV Lotus (Biology)
  • AH-CV Desolation (Housing, Production, Weapons/WMD) 
• Combat & Warfare
  • AH-CV Banner-watch (Primary Combat Fleet)
  • AH-CV Hammer-down (Assigned with Active Flagship Fleet)
  • AH-CV Blackhole (Planetary Bombardment Focused Fleet)
  • AH-CV Pulsar (Spec. Ops Fleet)
  • AH-CV Screaming Comet (Rapid Response Fleet)
  • AH-CV Crimson (Blockade and System Control Fleet)
• Mining / Salvaging / Production
  • AH-CV Goldrush (Mining Fleet)
  • AH-CV Diamondback (Mining Fleet)
  • AH-CV New Treasures (Salvage Fleet)
  • AH-CV Old Wares (Salvage Fleet)
  • AH-CV Anvil (Primary Refining Fleet)
  • AH-CV Forge (General Production Fleet)
  • AH-CV Furnace (General Production Fleet)
  • AH-CV Swarm (Ship Production Fleet)
  • AH-CV Colossus (Logistics & Repair Fleet) 
• Husbandry (Farming & Water Collection)
  • AH-CV Pasture (Animal Husbandry Fleet)
  • AH-CV Great Maw (Animal Husbandry Fleet)
  • AH-CV Park (Crops Husbandry Fleet)
  • AH-CV Gaia (Crops Husbandry Fleet)
  • AH-CV Chickpea (Crops Husbandry Fleet) 
• Administrative / Intelligence / Trade / Misc. 
  • AH-CV Despot (Admin, Legal, Espionage)
  • AH-CV Prosperity (OLD Flagship. Diplomacy & Visitation)
  • AH-CV Generations (Admin, Tourism & Proliferation)
  • AH-CV Trinkets (Admin, Trade Fleet)
  • AH-CV Mule (Trade Fleet)
  • AH-CV Kings Glory (Tourism & Trade Fleet)
  • AH-CV Galley (Tourism & Trade Fleet) 

The fleets of the hegemony consist of a few specific ships the hegemony have confidential operations aboard. This ranges from advanced and secretive research to covert operations. The hegemony does its best to keep snooping eyes from peering into too much, but the basic knowledge of what their fleets do is known to a small extent. The following ships for this are the following: 

• AH-CV Great Maw
  • Researching into specifics of improved animal husbandry to min/max feed & water to provided meat.
• AH-CV New Treasures
  • Focuses on salvaging high-value tech and ruins and does not provide details on what’s recovered.
• AH-CV Crimson
  • Elite Operations and handles the end step of takeovers of a system. The Altevian Hegemony does NOT want to use this fleet and will only send them out after all other diplomacy operations have been tried.
• AH-CV Desolation  
  • WMDs and other high-value weapons research is conducted on this vessel. Also fitted with a Planet Cracker weapon.
• AH-CV Banner-watch  
  • Does NOT play well with non altevians, and is best avoided by all visitors and non altevian crew. Non-altevian rodent crew MIGHT be okay, but best to avoid. 
• AH-CV Despot
  • Another obvious case. While they do help manage relations with other factions in terms of trade and continued trust, the Despot is also the hegemony’s intelligence-gathering organization. 
• AH-CV Screaming Comet
  • An eternal conflict is going on within this vessel that the other ships and majority of the hegemony have no idea is happening. Those in the know are sworn to an oath to never breach this NDA. The ship's AI is doing everything it can to keep this conflict going as it has been a working model for this specific fleet as they're a 100% Battle-Ready fleet the moment a distress ping is sent anywhere in the fleet itself. Visitation is restricted to even the majority of the hegemony itself. This is also the only ship that has no restrictions on procreation. Its location is also only known by the same small number of folks that are already sworn to their NDA.
• AH-CV Goldrush
  • Possession of a Planet Cracker weapon utilized for mining operations.

The star charting and routing of the ships are designed to constantly reconvene at least once every 3 Sol months in a staggered fashion with the active flagship. The staggering pattern is to prevent overwhelming a system with their fleet unless it’s for combat-related operations. This is to allow the fleets to resupply with the flagship. This also covers updates to research, exploration, combat, and other matters related to the hegemony's betterment.

Each colony-ship is designed to provide hanger services at all times for their fleet, and to visitors, in the star system, they’re currently in. The hangar bays in the colony-ship can handle destroyers and cruisers with shuttles coming from their carriers and capital ships. The exact number of ships fielded with each colony-ship varies greatly depending on their role and operational duties. The rough estimate per colony-ship would be around a fleet power of 2000 combat class vessels. This does not include their civilian and smaller craft of combat capabilities (Frigate, Corvettes, Destroyers, Small Cruisers). The Combat Class colony-ships would break this trend, and numbers aren't known or exact.

Colony Life

Life inside of a colony-ship would be similar to living in a metropolitan area of any major settlement. All colony-ships will house a primary promenade with a bio-dome of some degree but varies depending on the specific ship. If any trade occurs in the colony-ship itself it would be in the promenade which provides temporary housing for visitors dotted around all the shops and facilities for crew and guests alike. The housing itself would vary in size from a standard small unit to a modest multi-room facility for crew with families. This style of living, while fine for altevians, is documented to cause minor mental strain on species that enjoy their open space and vast housing units and is recommended for these species to restrict their time to only visiting with the provided temporary housing units in the promenade of a colony-ship. 

There is a part of the altevian colony-ships that the hegemony does its best to hide, and at times just outright refuses to even acknowledge depending on the severity of the matter. With a structure so massive there will be parts that’ll eventually fall into disrepair, and turn into what would be considered by most as a slum or derelict part of the ship. The derelict sections of the ship would have multitudes of issues ranging from faulty power, water issues, food distribution problems, or just generally poor standard of living. The derelict sections of these massive colony-ships would typically house the altevian’s rejects, downtrodden, or the general underclass would flock to this area since the standard security and operational services that keep the ship running would not dare take a step into the lower hulls. 

A few humans have caught on to this during their visits with the innate ability of curiosity, and most if not all humans have referenced that at least on the Migrant that this section of the colony-ships reminds them of an older known place on Earth that was nicknamed “The Walled City.” This would not be the same for other colony-ships that would have these dereliction sections due to certain living practices, or types of hegemony that live on them. The only documented derelict section known to the outside empires would be the Migrants, and this looked to be more of a cheap attempt of a tourist attraction to get more trade and tourism to the empire.

The colony-ships have a restricted growth rate instilled upon the population to prevent overpopulation woes and concerns. While the average altevian is able to produce between 3~10 new altevians per birth, with a speed of 30-Earth days roughly, the limit of 10 per family is enforced. There were rumors of the limit being lowered, or research into increasing the gestation period to a longer 6-month window, but due to lashback from the fleet's leadership raising concerns on potential population decline when in regards to the combat, mining, and production fleets it was advised to keep the rates unchanged. The royal’s of the fleets are not restricted to the same limit, but they are still encouraged to not overdo it.

Rankings & Work

The Altevian Hegemony operates as something humans would think of as a navy, but this extends to every single inhabitant aboard every ship owned by the hegemony. From service workers, to the Captain and Admiral, every Altevian of age would have on them somewhere an emblem with jewels embroidered onto it marking their rank. The rankings are not concrete and serve more of a primer or quick glance on what that specific altevian does in their life, or how dedicated to their work they are. The information below will go into which rank does what, normally, and also if said ranks exist or not for specific setups:

Ranks

• Civilian - Copper
  • Opal - Internship (ANY POSITION)* / Alternative Employment Methods
  • Sapphire - Maintenance (Janitorial) / Hospitality / General Service Industry
  • Ruby - Local Peacekeeping / Hospitality Senior / General Service Industry Senior
  • Emerald - Medical Responder / Emergency Response Crew
  • Diamond - Management Position (All Copper Rank Roles)
  • Black Diamond - Logistics Overseer (All Copper Rank Roles. Limited to 1 per main industry per Colony Ship)
• Operational - Silver
  • Opal - Junior Maintenance Technician / Junior Salvage Operator / Junior Miner
  • Sapphire - Maintenance Technician / Salvage Operator / Miner
  • Ruby - Junior Researcher / Junior Medical / Junior Engineer / Junior Military 
  • Emerald - Researcher / Medical / Engineer / Military
  • Diamond - Specialist (All Copper Ranks) / Celebrities & People of Renown
  • Black Diamond - Ship Captain (Frigate Class)
• Senior - Gold
  • Opal - Badge & Rank Providers (Handout for all ranks)**
  • Sapphire - Senior Researcher / Senior Medical / Senior Engineer / Senior Military
  • Ruby - Tenured Researcher / Tenured Medical / Tenured Engineer / Tenured Military
  • Emerald - Research Lead / Medical Lead / Engineering Lead / Military Lead
  • Diamond - Specialist
  • Black Diamond - Senior Specialist / Ship Captain (Corvette to Destroyer Class)
  • Red Diamond - Gem Cutter***
• Management - Platinum
  • Opal - Director (Non-Copper Ranks)
  • Sapphire - Junior Bridge Crew
  • Ruby - Bridge Crew
  • Emerald - Senior Bridge Crew
  • Diamond - Specialist Director / Ship Captain (Cruiser to Capital Class) / Assistant Ship Captain (Super Capital & Colony Ships)
  • Black Diamond - Ship Captain (Super Capital & Colony Ships)
• Admiral - Tungsten
  • Diamond - Logistics Admiral
  • Black Diamond - Fleet Admiral
  • Red Diamond - Admiral of the Hegemony (Ruler)

* - This position is the entryway for all altevians of age to take on either civilian or military work.

** - Part of the Gem cutter's guild and are usually part of this role until they are skilled enough in the trade, or the older member retires or if a member of the guild passes away.

*** - Due to the legality of ownership of precious gems the role is heavily restricted to a guild, or family, of altevians that focus solely on this job for the majority of their lives.

Biology

Over the past millennia, the hegemony’s species evolved from their focused scavenging and survival tactics to what they are today. While still skilled scavengers, they gained a focus and understanding of trade and better practices between themselves and others outside of the hegemony. The altevians today are more akin to that of the average galactic citizen across the cosmos, and less of their original brutish scavenging days when they were starting out on their journey.

Speech Patterns

Speech patterns will vary from ship to ship, but they all keep a somewhat consistent mannerism. These are a lot more obvious if they speak a language that isn’t their native Tavan. The following are from a recent census of mannerisms reported by the hegemony by classification of colony-ship: 

• Flagship: A mix of all known mannerisms. 
  • Examples would be bits and pieces of all the other patterns from the rest of the fleet. There is no specific pattern that altevians follow here.
• Research Fleets: Proper & Deliberate speech patterns. Comes off as snooty at times 
  • No use of terms of “y’all, you’re, they’re, it’s, won’t” or other short-handing other phrases. Research fleets will take their word usage literally and spell out everything
• Combat Fleets: Brash & Dismissive speech patterns 
  • The combat crew speak with heavy use of short-handing and coming off gruff in their voice. Extensive use of talking like the following: “Y’all ‘bout to deal wit’ tha pain fer gettin’ in trouble from tha brass lil’ squeak.”
• Mining & Salvage Fleets: Tired & Hostile speech patterns
  • Examples would include excessive usage of sarcasm, indifference, or flat-out insulting between others. Even those they respect or see as a friend would still insult them, but out of love and care
• Husbandry Fleets: Polite & Soft speech patterns 
  • These fleets communicate with an old-style like drawl and rural aspect. Shorthanded is key and would show kindness and respect to anyone and anything, even hostile. Though in this case, they’d be more akin to telling the person to go to hell and making them look forward to the trip.
• Admin & Intelligence Fleets: Mixed of most mannerisms 
  • Similar to the flagship, but with a heavier focus on how the research ships operate and speak. While they might shorthand their speech, there is still a heavy focus on deliberate and focused wording

Physical & Mental Traits

In terms of strength and handling themselves they are rather durable and can handle lifting heavy objects to fifty pounds with little to no effort. However, altevians that go onto planets and experience real gravity seem to report difficulties of keeping their footing and are more likely to fall over from slight bumps even with their strength. The inner biology of altevians have a few systems similar to most of the humanoid species that are out and about in space. For instance, they have a singular heart, and their bone strength is on the same level as most species. Things change a little when moving down to their midsection. An altevian possesses exceptionally strong stomachs that can process most items ingested with little to no difficulty and also have an innate high tolerance to ethanol-based liquids due to this. This is due to their older days of scavenging when they first escaped to the stars for survival, and from the state their homeworld was in up to the point of their escape. The altevians also have their bodies run at a warmer temperature than humans at a constant 105F, which causes their breaths to almost always fog up the space around them if they are not wearing a rebreather, or mask of any sort.

Another thing to note with altevian physiology is their endurance. They can handle tasks for extended periods, and also can easily traverse on foot for long distances without the need for immediate rest. This is most likely due to their old lifestyle before they became a space-faring species, but has just remained an active trait due to the shift of work and demand of keeping massive ships from falling apart.

Altevians as a whole are a mixed set of murids that could almost be classified as a different kind of species between the different colony-ships they hail from. Between all the different traits and skills between the fleet, there are a few key identifiers to note with their makeup between all the colony-ships that they all share. 

• Their teeth are sharp fangs and can pierce through the skin with ease 
• Their claws are exceptionally sharp and can easily rip through most fabric and flesh with little to no issue. The length of these claws though wouldn’t be any longer than that of other mammals around the stars with said sharps to work with
• A moderate percentage of the population can secrete a mint-flavored venom from their fangs that acts as a numbing agent. Most altevians that have this trait have a negative response and feeling towards all things mint flavored 
• Height and other sizing factors vary on which classification of colony-ship they grew up on. However, the average height around the hegemony is around a solid 7’0”. Altevians that have not been genetically modified have recorded sizes as small as 4’0” and as tall as 10’6” roughly 
• Altevians have an average life expectancy of 90 years 
• The common fur colors altevians have are red, brown, black, grey, white tan, and gold accents. However, with gene-modding, there are some reports of altevians taking on more unique color palettes.

Trade

The primary method of operations with the core systems is the simple exchange of goods and services among the hegemony and visitors. The altevian see trade as such an important role in the betterment of their fleet that they recognize this as one of their grand-scale goals. The Altevian Hegemony specifically wants to create a galactic market that they themselves are the frontrunner of. They feel they’re the best candidate due to their nomadic nature and ease to traverse the stars which might come off as a bit of an egotistical nature to other larger empires. The hegemony has developed multiple types of trade lines between each faction with a few caveats. The primary trade policies that were imposed over time are below, and this does not include common notes such as taxes, tariffs, or other commonplace trading policies. This will only cover unique rules that were either agreed upon by both parties or by the altevians directly. 

• Humans 
  • All trades are to be conducted in Human controlled space, or space-ports to show trust and openness to Xenophilic ideas 
  • Weapons trading is strictly off-limits 
  • Technology sharing is allowed to an extent but taxed heavily
  • Gem Trading is restricted and deemed contraband
• Other Species 
  • Moderate trade restrictions. Limited to only food and medicine 
  • Trade can be conducted at their system, or with select colony-ships 

Unrestricted altevian trade practices consist of the following: 

• Trade can be conducted in either the system the altevians are in, or the system of the empire they wish to trade with. This does NOT include the colony-ship that is in the system, but the assorted trade vessels assigned to the colony-ship
• The only restriction on goods would be technology, gems, salvage deemed confidential, some weapons, and certain crops and meats 
• Medicine and other medical-related goods cannot be used for swinging a trade in any direction, and will always remain at the same tax rate, or lower if providing aid to a crisis. 

Altevians are a scavenging first species and will prioritize any trade that another trade partner can provide salvage as payment for goods instead of currency. The main philosophy they would claim is the ability to re-use materials to help keep maintenance on their massive ships, and the fleet overall saves a lot of time and effort.

Contraband & Illegal Goods

The fleets have a normally pretty open policy with what can go through customs, and what members of their society are allowed to legally own. However, aside from the expected contraband of slaves, experimental weapons, dangerous & hazardous goods, the fleets also have imposed a heavy ban on jewelry and gems. Specifically, the owning of gems that are used for the ranks in the fleet itself. This also has set a precedent for gem cutting to be a very specific trade that only few members of the fleet as a whole would have access and training to do.

Leadership & Relations

Leadership aboard the colony-ships of the hegemony are operated by a primary family that filled the role of command team of their ship since it was deemed livable. The average size of the family that “owns” the colony-ship is usually around 5,000. The captain of the colony-ship and most of the bridge crew is staffed by the family itself, but there are instances where the senior staff of certain departments will have someone from outside the family assigned to a position. There are no recorded instances of a family of a colony-ship stepping down, or being forcefully removed, from the control of the colony-ships.

The captain and spouse of the captain are considered the highest level of command on the colony-ship they operate on, and this includes the flagship. However, the official “leader” of the entire hegemony is selected between a democratic vote of all the ships and their crews on who will fill the Admiral role of the hegemony from the council that sits in the flagship. The council is composed of the primary families that operate on each flagship and the pool of candidates for election of the Admiral all come from this same group. Once an Admiral is elected they typically will rule hegemony for 10 years, and after the 10-year period passes, they are up for re-election along with other potential candidates to take the seat as Admiral. The council the Admiral comes from acts as a secondary level of leadership that handles all new laws and major orders to issue out to the fleet and assist in handling most of the mundane issues that are brought up to the hegemony.

The Admiral of the hegemony can utilize a set of decrees at any point in time for the entire fleet as a whole. This goes from rallying to the flagship, to focusing operations on a specific resource, technology, or anything else of merit to the hegemony. The Admiral also has the final say on law if they feel it’s too detrimental to the hegemony if the council originally passed it. These same said decrees are immediate standing orders that are to be enacted immediately upon issuing it out to the hegemony. The Admiral is also not locked to staying only on the flagship, and has been seen traveling around the fleets for random tasks and missions. These are usually either giving out special promotions, major research launches, the handing off of Captaincy to the next in line, or other grandiose affairs. Something that isn’t official, but seen, about The Admiral is their attire. In some form, or fashion, they have always worn stuff to “mask” or hide their appearance. As for the intentions of this, most believe it’s to blend in and mingle with the crew as just another member of the fleet ensuring the never ending machine continues to function. This is backed by numerous reports of altevians sharing stories of accidentally bumping into them and asking them for either help, or general chatter before later realizing who it was they had just done that with.

Relations Between Colony-Ships

The hegemony itself has an assorted view upon each other but strives to keep aligned on the same factors to everyone’s best ability. This does not mean that there isn’t strife in the hegemony. While overall inner relations with the hegemony remain positive there are a few primary issues of note that are as such:

• AH-CV Prosperity
  • After an inner struggle between the families of the old flag-ship around 22XX the entire empire kept a cautious attitude towards the colony-ship and its crew. The Captain of the Prosperity deemed it best for them to no longer serve as the flagship for their empire until they had resolved the conflict and worries between the families and relinquished control of the empire over to the AH-CV Migrant. This has helped over time in repairing the fleets’ worries but until the incident is resolved all other colony-ships will continue to remain careful.
• AH-CV Banner-watch
  • Due to the hyper-aggressive and hostile attitude of non-altevians, the majority of the hegemony tends to not talk about the ship to others. If it is brought up it is more of a warning, and a strong advisory to avoid the ship at all costs if it ever enters warp into a populated system. The current flagship of the hegemony works with the Banner-watch command team at all times to keep their route away from populated systems unless needed.
• AH-CV Despot
  • The hegemony tends to be wary of the Despot crew due to their nature of intel gathering. The crew utilizes a strong silver-tongue tactic for their work, and reports of the Despot crew crop up about them using these same tricks on other altevians when there is no need for it. If it wasn’t for their expert handling of the logistical nightmare of the hegemony they’d most likely be disliked.
• AH-CV Migrant
  • The Migrant has always had a rather rocky history with the hegemony due to their excessively prim and proper attitude towards non-atevians and altevians alike. Before the Migrant was designated as the new flag-ship they were a diplomatic and visitation fleet. The recent change of their ship being the new flagship has been met with mixed success.

Hegemony Relations to Others

The Altevian Hegemony has opted to go with a xenophile-based approach when it comes to contact with other species, and more so much larger empires that are scattered across the stars. While the hegemony itself has been around for some time they’ve only recently entered the spotlight of the larger empires, and some still see them as little more than fancy pirates, or a potential vassal candidate. Regardless of the relation, the Altevian Hegemony might have with any of the other empires, they will always ensure that medical aid and support are available to even their enemies to an extent. 

Altevians and knowledge of their hegemony itself are kept firmly separated from conversations from the other empires out of their own beliefs and past. If someone that isn’t from the hegemony started asking more personal questions about a ship, or the life of an altevian, most will probably be greeted with a non-answer to change the topic.

Relations to MegaCorps

The Altevian Hegemony has recently focused more of its resources and attention on the numerous corporations that are scattered across the galaxy. Currently, the hegemony has only a few contracts with smaller-scale companies for rights to salvage as payment for offering system defense operations to them. There is at the moment only one trade agreement the Altevian Hegemony has made with a specific mega-corporation due to most other companies regarding the Altevian Hegemony as a small player in the grand galactic-scale still. This indifferent attitude has caused a majority of the hegemony to see MegaCorps as a leech to the smaller businesses, save for the very few that have signed a treaty, or agreement, with them.

History – Pre-Core Contact

Before the altevians were out in the stars they were similar to any other species and lived on a massive M-class planet that orbited an old G-class sequence star. However, the system in question is nothing more than a white dwarf after a catastrophic series of events that caused the lifespan of the star to shave off to a point that immediate death was imminent. The rumors from old records dictate that it was either from a rogue AI element that railroaded off to grey-goo, or a collision of a rogue stellar-mass colliding with the star. The reports and old records from their earlier days marked a rapid development of a massive life-ship, now dubbed colony-ships, that could handle interstellar and keep the citizens of the old altevian homeworld in cryo-stasis until a new home was found. Alas, the data pads dating around this period are muddled and lost to time, but the one thing everyone can agree on was that the original plan was put on the backburner for the current way of living the altevians have now. 

Much of the altevian’s early days of travel and day-to-day operations were dependent on survival and the logistics of keeping their colony-ships up and running with as few possible errors as possible. The main method of this was salvaging old battles, mining operations, and stop and go foraging on the numerous planets they could pass by for crops and other useful organic materials. As the hegemony grew, and more colony-ships were needed, the hegemony eventually developed the system they use today on designing a specific function per massive vessel to help with keeping the needs of the hegemony met.

Altevians & The First Species

About 600 years or so before Humans reached FTL the altevians had already made their contact with the first species in the galaxy. The altevians and this other species soon opened talks with the other group on working to achieve the first galactic charter and soft alliance for the two to co-exist. 

As time progressed the bond between two continued to strengthen up to the point of reaching an agreed trade and non-aggression pact signing between the two groups. This marked the start of a unique “alliance” where the two would operate on the grounds of working together when needed and otherwise keeping out of each other’s operations in systems. This was a mutual understanding with both needing such vast amounts of resources to keep their fleets running, and their inhabitants fed and healthy. The two groups routinely conduct mutual salvage operations along with trading in general.

Alas, this fleeting first finding of a friendship and alliance would soon reach a critical point with an unknown illness that quickly swept across the other empire's influence. The Altevians would put all their power into helping with their medical assets and care to save their first friends, but would ultimately see the fall of the empire as a whole. Altevians across all the Colony Ships were grief stricken as what took hundreds of years to establish and set up such a grand set alliance was taken from them in only a few years. It had left a long-lasting scar on the Altevian psyche on such great loss, but knowing they had to press on the species eventually regained their bearings and sought out to the stars once more… in the hopes of finding more life and hoping the second time's a lot better.

History – Human Contact

The Altevian Hegemony’s first foray into the galactic core of empires and corporations is still a rather recent development for their history. While the altevian’s had already known and worked with an old species in the early days of their journey into the stars it wasn’t until around the first years of Humans finally unlocking FTL capabilities that the altevians ran into them. At first, they were curious and unsure of the fears of seeing such a long-standing future friendship crumbling in mere minutes in comparison. However, they still would work to reach out to Humanity and establish a non-aggression pact and trade deal with them. Over the next few decades, the Altevian Hegemony would see rapid growth and the establishment of their newest colony-ships that would help further this growth. 

Altevians today lead a very mercantile first way of living and operate on a basis of continued growth and knowledge to share with their kind. The recent notion of altevian’s leaving their constantly moving homes is nothing unexpected of their kind. Being nomadic, an altevian still wants to explore and see what they can, some more than others, and this is where the core systems start to see applications and requests of travel to their own homes from them.

Conflict continues to remain a rather sparse issue for the Altevian Hegemony due in part to their ease of travel, and logistics of moving their entire home with just a warp. The Altevian Hegemony also ensured to provide any medical and general aid to areas in dire straits to help empires and other species not run into a similar fate the hegemony experienced back in its early days. 

OOC Etiquette

The altevians are meant to be played similar to other standard non-whitelisted species. They would operate similar to how humans would with the unique colony-ships that are essentially nations in of themselves thus allowing a wide array of playstyles to fit most players’ interests. Altevians are a somewhat prideful species happy with their empire, or at worst, neutral with their worries about the direction it could be going and would not be one seen to talk about their empire in a negative light in general. They would however have their issues about one or more of the specific colony-ships. In terms of job handling and actions on the station, altevian’s prideful nature would show here as well and they’d ensure to at least be good, or happy to learn, at the job they were hired on for. At the end of the round though, all that’s important is that you’re playing a character that you enjoy playing, and one that provides a fun story for those around you to partake in and share along with you.

Roleplay Notes

Each ship that an altevian comes from will have small differences from each other, with the major difference being from the primary classification of the vessel. Unless the previous document stated otherwise in Relations Between Colony-Ships, that all altevians see each other on at least neutral terms. If there are any concerns with how to play this species, note that if you play them in a style of just humans, but as rats, you won’t be in a bad spot! Playing an altevian from the flagship would be your easiest experience since this would allow for any general type of playstyle or behavior you’d like them to have. Having your space rat come from one of the more task-specific ships would come with a few caveats and mannerisms that’d provide a fun little challenge for folks newer to the roleplay aspect of the game. With any species, no one is without flaw, and Altevians are not exempt from that and your character easily can show one or more flaws of themselves, or the empire’s mannerisms rearing its head into the spotlight. Altevians also are secretive about their empire’s day-to-day operations, and the empire as a whole to NON-altevian crew. If people try to ask about specifics of their life personally, that can be left up to the player. That being said, some altevians might be a bit more relaxed on sharing some specifics, and more so if it’s about one of the ships they might not like.