Since I last wrote about the different humanoid species of Iridium Moons, the setting has undergone a number of changes, with some peoples being gone, others added, and the remaining ones having undergone many small changes and expansions to their concepts. So I feel its a good time to do a new writeup of them instead of referring to the outdated post from three years ago. The exact number of different peoples is still not fully decided. There are a few ideas I am contemplating, but might still get discarded. So for now, I am keeping this to the seven peoples that currently have a well established presence in the Foross Sector and make up a significant portion of the population, and are relevant to the descriptions of locations and factions in the region.
Vhen
The vhen were the original inventors of hyperspace jump drives over 700 years ago. They are tall humanoids with narrowly built bodies that have blue-grey skin, large black eyes, and otherwise fairly featureless faces. Vhen tend towards being very reserved in their emotional expression as perceived by other species, rarely raising their voices and having very subtle body language. But despite outward appearances, vhen can be highly engaged and invested in subject that matter to them, and can be very tenacious and hold bitter grudges for long times.
The vhen homeworld is the center of the United Systems and seat of the Directorate, which controls foreign politics and trade, as well as the Directorate Navy, the most capable military force in Known Space. Though the vhen, mahir, and lomi all make up a comparable portion of the full population of the United Systems, most of the worlds under the Directorate are colonized by vhen, who also make up the majority of personnel of the Directorate Navy, which has the Directorate regarded as a vhen empire by outsiders.
In the Foross Sector, vhen only established a presence after Halon was mostly abandoned and the populations of enkai on Kion and Sarhat had already grown into tens of millions of people. They established the Sarantal colony on Palan in an attempt to create a primary port and trade hub for the sector that would control trade with the core worlds. A plan that has been largely successful, though the profitability of the orbital starport has decreased significantly since the Confederated Worlds discontinued any direct support to their colonies on Kion and Sarhat 80 years ago. The vhen oligarchs of Sarantal established the small Arkon colony on Kion, much to the annoyance of the old Solanika colony, but most of Arkon’s inhabitants are enkai and genya like on the rest of the planet. Vhen make up only 20% of the population of Sarantal, and 10% of the much smaller population of Arkon, which makes them a fairly small minority in the Foross Sector as a whole. But one with a very prominent role in the economy and politics of the sector.
Enkai
Enkai are very human-like in appearance with reddish-brown skin and black hair. They are very different from the vhen in demeanor and culture, tending towards big dramatic gestures and grand words to make their points. Though many other peoples see them as highly emotional people, enkai are no more honest than anyone else, and can be cunningly duplicitous and manipulative in their apparent emotional openness. However, they can be highly committed allies for any cause they genuinely care for and don’t back out easily in the face of overwhelming opposition and defeat.
The enkai were the first advanced society with a large population that the vhen encountered during the early period of interstellar space exploration. At this time, six centuries ago, the enkai had already developed and made extensive use of fusion power and space exploration within their system, but had no knowledge of hyperspace travel. The vhen shared the knowledge of hyperspace physics and the engineering principles of jump drives with all the major competing nations of the enkai homeworld, which as expected led to a massive surge in space exploration and the expansion of deep space infrastructure, as the rival powers used all their industrial capacity to get a head start in establishing new colonies and claiming valuable resources for themselves. This enabled an expansion of Known Space far beyond what the vhen were capable of on their own.
Though competition and fierce rivalry, and sometimes open war dominated the early centuries of enkai expansion into space, the numerous states of the enkai homeworld and the major colonies in the core sectors of Known Space eventually united as the Confederated Worlds, which also include the homeworlds of the tubaki and firax (and potentially some others). But despite the name, the Confederated Worlds are in many ways an enkai empire, though a fairly decentralized one given the limitations of interstellar communication. While the tubaki and firax have mostly full autonomy over the internal politics of their homeworlds and maintain their own military forces, the confederate economy is large under control of a small number of enkai companies, and the high command coordinating the fleets of confederate worlds consists almost exclusively on enkai admirals.
Chosa
The chosa are tall and typically strongly build humanoids with reptilian skin, sharp teeth, and flexible, quill-like hair. They possess great physical strength and deal well with higher gravity and heat that most other species find very exhausting, which makes them highly sought after as miners and construction workers on remote mining worlds.
The chosa homeworld is most industrially advanced and militarily capable world outside of the United Systems and the Confederated Worlds, and has resisted any attempts by the two great powers to be drawn into their spheres of influence for centuries. This has resulted in a small number of less developed worlds seeking out closer cooperation with the chosa and forming the Star League as a safeguard against ambitions by the Confederated Worlds in particular. The chosa see the Star League as a purely defensive alliance and don’t directly involved themselves in the internal politics of the various member worlds.
When enkai mining companies opened the first mines on Halon, chosa workers made up a majority of the first contingent of workers responsible for setting up the initial infrastructure and habitats on the inhospitable planet. When the mines on Halon were closed, most of the chosa descended from these original workers moved with the mining companies to Sarhat, where they make up the second largest population after the enkai. However, over the generations that have followed, they have also become common sights on Kion and Palan.
Tubaki
The homeworld of the tubaki is one of the most populated planets of the Confederated Worlds, but they have always played only a minor role in the confederate leadership and politics. They are similar in height and stature to enkai, but tend to be a good deal stronger for their stature and weight. Tubaki are entirely covered in short brown fur, but typically have thick manes that they often wear long. Like chosa, tubaki have long been recruited as workers on remote mining worlds, but don’t deal with heat as well as enkai and chosa. After the mines on Halon were closed, some of the tubaki workers moved with the rest of the operations to Sarhat, staying underground in the mines during the day and going outside mostly during the night. But a larger number of them moved to Kion, where the environment is much more forgiving to their health. Unlike chosa, who have found numerous positions of power and influence on Sarhat once the mining companies left the sector, tubaki have remained a somewhat marginalized group usually found in the lower ranks of society.
Mahir
The mahir are close relatives of the enkai, which by current genetic and archaeological evidence were taken from their homeworld by an unknown civilization and resettled on a distant world some 90,000 years ago, when enkai culture was still in the stone age. There is strong evidence that the mahir had been genetically altered to better adapted to the conditions of their new world before being released and then apparently abandoned by their captors for completely unknown reasons.
Like enkai, mahir are largely comparable to humans in body and appearance, but have bright white skin and hair that very effectively reflects sunlight and especially ultraviolet radiation. Mahir cells have a particularly high capacity to repair DNA damage from radiation, and their bodies can tolerate significantly higher levels of exposure to radiation before suffering harmful effects. Due to the long period of separation and having developed all of civilization independently, enkai and mahir have completely different cultures. They do not have the cultural tendency to big dramatic gestures and are much more subdued in their outwardly behavior, but have the same natural inclination to strong emotions. This makes it difficult for other species, particularly enkai, to estimate the limits of a mahir’s patience, and when things are pushed too far, tense situations involving mahir can escalate very quickly in difficult to predict ways.
The mahir homeworld and its largest colonies are members of the United Systems, and mahir make up about a quarter of the Directorate’s administration and forces. The main presence of mahir in the Foross Sector is the Usomi colony on Palan, located a few hundred kilometers from the larger Sarantal colony established by the vhen. Usomi is run by a consortium of several mahir companies from the core worlds and governed by the Presidium as the last company owned colony in the sector. Mahir make up about a third of the population of Usomi, but are usually encountered only as occasional individuals having set out on their own in the other colonies, and having no established communities on Sarhat, Kion, or Meruna.
Firax
Firax are a short species with features resembling monkey and rodents. They grow only to about a meter in height and have limited physical strength, but have sufficiently strong and flexible limbs and tails to easily climb up anything that has sufficient hand and foot hold. Combined with their capacity to fit and move freely in spaces too large for other species, firax are often highly sought after as electrical engineers and technicians.
The firax homeworld is part of the Confederated Worlds, but this is a status that many of its population are not very happy about. Their annexation into the confederacy had not been very popular at the time, and there is widespread support for a greater independence from the enkai who have an almost complete hold over the confederate government. One attempt in that direction was the establishment of the Keritika colony on Meruna, outside the borders of confederate space. Whose real purpose is to establish connections and relationships with other worlds and species without direct interference by the confederate government. Outside of Meruna, small communities of firax now also live on Kion and Palan.
Genya
The genya are one of the most recently discovered species on the edges of Known Space. They are a semi-aquatic species somewhat smaller in stature than enkai, with tougher but still flexible skin and large black eyes, and sharing some resemblances with otters or seals. Genya have evolved from a aquatic but fully air-breathing species whose migration back to land was seemingly primarily driven by the use of tools. Anatomically, genya are still much more nimble and agile in water than they are on land, but the developments of agriculture, food preservation, and the use of fire has led to an almost entirely land-based culture in which swimming has become a leisure and sport activity. Though one that most genya engage in almost daily if sufficient bodies of water are available.
As the genya homeworld has very little coal or petrochemicals, many advanced discoveries in chemistry and physics could not be turned into economically viable industries, and the planet remained largely agrarian when it was discovered by explorers 270 years ago. The introduction of fusion power generation allowed for a true industrialization of genya society, which quickly resulted in a massive population explosion within only a few generations. The overpopulation led to many hundreds of millions of genya seeking work as colonists on newly surveyed worlds with potential for large scale mining. Before the industrial revolution, large parts of the population had been living as semi-nomadic clans, which were often suffering the most under the new dense urban living conditions. In many cases, clan elders, who traditionally had been in charge of planning and organizing the nomadic migrations, made work contracts for their entire clans of several hundred people. This practice preserved the existing communities as they were moved to other worlds and resulted in a much stronger cultural cohesion among genya colonists, compared to settlers and workers from other species, who mingled and assimilated much more among each other in more multi-cultural societies.
Genya make up very large portions of the populations of both Palan and Meruna, and there are many large genya communities in Kion as well. Most people see them as menial workers on the lowest rank of society, who show up for work and return home at the end of their shifts, with little involvement or interest in public affairs or current events. But genya communities are much tightly connected and organized than is visible for outsiders. Genya towns and neighborhoods have their own institutions and highly influential people, but these rarely have any interactions with the official colonial governments dominated by enkai and vhen administrators.
