Notes

The Faravahari are a peaceful people and did not develop interstellar travel themselves. They belong to the Ahreemanian Galactic Empire (AGE) as an Autonomous Protected World (APW) because of the cultural and economic benefits and the fact that the AGE respects their local autonomy.

Similarly for the Draks. DragonWorld has an atmosphere richer in oxygen than most inhabited worlds and has low gravity, else the Draks would not be able to fly. The Draks did not even develop local interplanetary space travel for themselves. They are eager to travel in Space but special ships will have to be built to satisfy their higher oxygen needs and to cater for their lesser tolerance of acceleration force (gravity).

Most Draks welcome the cultural and economic contacts with Ahreemania but the Drakaan Fuckaan group is xenophobic and wants to return DragonWorld to isolation. The Drakaan Fuckaan terrorist problem is localized on DragonWorld. Ahreemania tries to help the Drak government to cope with the terrorist problem because that is its responsibility to an APW. Dealing with terrorists is difficult even if you are much more technologically advanced than they are.

Mars, Pars & Arakan are Ahreemanian colony worlds and do not have alien races. There used to be an alien civilization on Arakan but what happened to it is a mystery. Many of its ruins and artifacts still survive such as the strange glowing orbs. The energy source of these orbs is not yet understood.

The Marduki and Nabuli had star travel themselves. Both these races have telekinetic psi powers and humans do not. And the Marduki are a fierce and violent although highly civilized people. So why would they choose to join the AGE instead of compete with it? Why would they accept Ahreemanian hegemony?

Marduk is experiencing global warming which is melting its polar caps and raising the level of its oceans. This is not caused by industrial greenhouse gas pollution but by natural causes like the ice ages and interglacial periods on Earth. Coping with the problems and disruptions on their home world that this causes is taking much of the Marduki race's attention and energy. AGE is giving aid and assistance with this.

A major factor causing the Marduki and Nabuli to voluntarily belong to the AGE as Confederal Allied Worlds (CAW) is the threat posed by the insectile Zakhoondi invaders to all other races. The Zakhoondi refuse communication and contact with other races. They seek only to expand by conquering habitable worlds, exterminating their original inhabitants and life forms and populating them with Zakhoondi, their animals and their plants.

The Zakhoondi can breed very rapidly and come in different specialized forms - workers, warriors, managers, scientists, breeders, etc. They also specialize whole planets. They have food worlds, factory worlds, breeding worlds etc. Their space warfleets are particularly deadly because a sort of hive consciousness controls and coordinates the whole fleet in battle as if the individual ships are cells in the body of a higher being.

It is not known how many worlds the Zakhoondi have conquered altogether or where their original homeworld is. Zakhoondheim is one of their colony worlds that Ahreemania has managed to locate and spy on using microbot cams. Both the Marduki and the Nabuli had encountered and had problems with the Zakhoondi when Ahreemania made contact with them.

Ahreemania's belief in and observance of the basic rights of all sentient individuals and races is something new among the races that humans have contacted so far. Based on extension and elaboration of the rights first declared in the Cyrus Charter, this is a major factor that has enabled Ahreemania to become the cement that binds together many diverse races and civilizations that were previously separate. The advent of the AGE has led to cross-fertilization and enrichment of civilization throughout the Galaxy and economic booms on many worlds.

I have not yet figured out if there is an anti-Ahreemanian faction among the Marduki. Such a group would be extremely dangerous because of the interstellar mobility of the Marduki, the fact that a Marduki can so easily pass for Human by external appearances, and their deadly telekinetic psi capability.

So these are some of the ideas that I am wrestling with. More large scale background stuff than actual story material yet.