robertsconley
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Yes, France was the only major power to survive the Twilight War (World War 3) relatively unscathed. It dominated the 21st century by forming a multi-continental alliance of former colonies and European allies. The United States was split into a three way civil war and didn't really recover until 2100. Even then Texas became independent after freeing itself from Mexico and half of California (basically Los Angeles) , Arizona, and New Mexico is remain Mexican Territory.
The same with China which also split into multiple nations. Russia just plain collapsed and reemerged into something what it looks like today.
French influence waxed and waned and waxed again and still the only thing that 24th century Earth has in the way of a superpower. Everybody else is pretty much only concerned with what in their own region. One quirky is that Germany reorganized as several separate states for much of the post Twilight era with Bavaria as a major French ally. But recently reunified and now a quasi rival with France.
Interstellar expansion has multiple nations doing their own thing or in alliance with a handful of others. The geography of near space has separated colonization into their arms each dominated by a group of allied nations. Although there are exceptions.
There are the French Arm which is dominated by French Colonies and outpost along with their allies (UK, Germany, Azania (South Africa), etc).
There the American Arm which is dominated by the United States and Australia.
Then there is the Chinese Arm which kinda of dominated by Manchuria (the most powerful of the Chinese successor states). But also has colonies from many other smaller powers like Canada, Texas, and the Inca Republic (A federation of several South America countries).
There are several alien races
From left to right they are
Xiang - a technologically primitive race "enslaved" by the Sung. Human liberated the Xiang in the middle of the 23rd century in a war with the Sung. However I put "enslaved" in quotes because like humans the Sung divided in multiple nations/factions. The dominant had a philosophy that once conquered there is a moral obligation to uplift one's enemies to the same level of the conqueror. The problem with the Xiang is that their psychology operated differently enough that by Sung standard the uplift would never be achieved thus effectively endless enslavement.
Sung - a race with technology comparable to human maybe slightly behind. They are divided into nations/factions. The dominant one practices a philosophy who believes it only moral to uplift one's enemies once conquered. Now that the humans defeated them in the Slaver War they expect to be uplifted. They are perhaps the most human-like of the race contacted so far.
The Kafers - are a race with technology at or slightly beyond human level. Biologically they are only sentient when their equivalent of adrenaline is flooding their body. Violence and aggression is woven into their cultural and social fabric.
As a side effect repeated exposure to their version of Adrenaline raises their base intelligence. For a long time Kafer civilization had trouble taking hold as the resulting security cause the population to lose intelligence over the long run. Eventually a great cultural figure (I think Striker of Stars) created a social code enshrining violence that allowed for the continued existence of the first successful Kafer civilization.
From the Kafer's perspective, in their base state they have a vague feeling that they are missing something that a little excitement will provide. After the Adrenaline kicks they regain enough of their sentience to focus. Part of their social culture is that they will strike or harm individuals before giving an order or a task in order to get them smart enough to understand what is needed to be done.
This guys are the most dangerous overt enemies humanity has faced.
The Klaxun a race with primitive technology just beyond the edge of human space in 2300AD. Noted for being plant like in that they can harvest some of their energy from the sun.
The Eber a once technologically advanced race whose society collapsed in a destructive war. Noted for having multi-part brains that have a limited bandwidth to the central hub of their nervous system. Each lobe is better suited for certain tasks and in order to switch from one lobe to another Ebers use specially designed rituals and meditations. Genius Ebers can make the switch at will. A side effect of the switching process is that the Eber come off as overly ritualistic and have a different personality depending on which lobe is dominant.
Humans - Us of course little different than what we are today.
Pentapod - a race whose culture is more technologically advanced than us but relies on more on biology rather in engineering like ours. Masters of genetic manipulation, Pentapods in a variety of forms, the one shown is the one that interacts with humans the most. Their culture is noted for groups being centered on being known as gods.
Pentapod God - The big blob behind all the aliens is a Pentapod God. They are a sentient lifeforms living within the ocean of their homeworld. The Pentapods that humans interact are actually sentient drones used by the "gods" to interact with their environment. Over the life of their civilization they learned to create biological tools of varying intelligence to manipulate their environment. Eventually this led to the exploration of land and eventually into space where contact with humanity was made.
While the Kafers are the big overt threat, the Pentapod Gods are perhaps the most insidious threat. So far relations have been friendly but as knowledge about their skill at genetic manipulation and the fact there are a number of these gods has lead many to consider the Pentapods a far more serious long term threat than the Kafers.
Ylii - not depicted are a uncontacted alien race on the far side of Kafer space.
. But I'm considering the starting set just for the manga-style T&T...
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