Star*Drive

The main far-future setting of the Alternity line. Star*Drive is set at the dawn of the 26th century, and humanity has spread out across the Orion Arm.

Stellar Nations

• Austrin-Ontis Unlimited: The south will rise again. Austrins are every stereotype of a redneck gun nut. A corporate nation, citizens are shareholders. Serious hateboner for the Nariacs. Not quite the an-cap paradise it sounds like, but dueling is legal and gun ownership rate is 99%.

• Borealis Republic: A space oligarchy except with titles based on academic achievement. About half their population consists of clones.

• Hatire Community: Space Amish. Discovered an ancient alien holy site and incorporated it into their faith. Militarily weak aside from their psykers, but they're allied with the Thuldans.

• Insight: Hacker nation; you can't stop the signal. Insight's secession from VoidCorp basically signaled the end of the second galactic war. Smallest nation by far, but their grid warriors will slice your bank account and shit up your twitter.

• Nariac Domain: Soviet Russia. Into cyborg modifications and social control. They're basically a client state of Voidcorp, which they resent but they have no other friends due to fielding lots of cyborg soldiers in the last war.

• Orion League: The United Federation of Planets. One of the larger nations, and has the highest percent of non-humans. Best pals with the Orlamu.

• Orlamu Theocracy: Worships drivespace and stardrive tech, their faith was founded by the first FTL test pilot. Discovered the Weren and protects their homeworld from cultural contamination. Builds the best stardrives.

• Rigunmor Star Consortium: An entire nation of rogue traders. They discovered the Mechalus and are filthy rich. Instead of elections they have periodic audits and whomever is richest is in charge.

• StarMech Collective: Lazy corellians. StarMechs are expert engineers with a hedonism streak. They have lots of robots to do the actual work. Another corporate nation where citizens are shareholders, although it's effectively a liberal democracy.

• Thuldan Empire: The Imperium of Man. The largest stellar nation, thinks they should rule the galaxy and has tried to. Really into genetic engineering, really not into xenos.

• Union of Sol: Terra and everything within 50 light years of Terra. Overcrowded, their main export is prisoners. Resents the Galactic Concord for usurping Earth's rightful role.

• VoidCorp: 90's era Microsoft in space. Enslaved the Sesheyans. The only corporate nation to treat citizens as employees who can't quit. Universally despised by the rest of humanity but they are one of the strongest nations.

• Galactic Concord: The New Republic. Formed to govern buffer zones after the second galactic war. Most of their territory consists of ruined battlefield systems, but they have a very powerful navy tithed from all the other nations. The T'sa cluster is in Concord space.

The Alliances

• Expansion Pentad: An agreement between Thuldan and VoidCorp to divide the galaxy between themselves, with a heavy Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact vibe. Hatire is friendly with Thuldan, and Nariac is a client state of VoidCorp. The fifth member, Dreth, didn't survive the war and most of their space is now Concord territory.

• Profit Confederation: Formed out of desperation; Rigunmor, Solar, Austrin, and StarMech teamed up in order to not get steamrolled. StarMech is on good terms with Rigunmor but otherwise it's mostly an alliance of necessity between frenimes.

• FreeSpace Alliance: Orion and Orlamu, best bros for life. They protected Borealis from being picked off.