The galaxy is a big place, and in these recently charted quarters there are factional tensions as the borders fluctuate according to cultural influence and the outcomes of war. Hot-zones can flare and extinguish at the blink of an eye in the constant political turmoil between Terran, Vossk, Nivelian, and the new Midorian territories.

Each faction administers the systems in their possession with the presence of highly fortified and defended space stations as outposts. While planets or asteroid fields are mined or harvested for their resources, valuable trade routes through the galaxy are plied and protected by their associated factions. Without jumpgate technology, these trade routes could take millennia to traverse, which is why most stations can be found adjacent to these highly valuable assets.

It is crucially important to understand inter-factional politics lest you get a nasty surprise upon making a jump to a new system. Reputation is your passport to factional territories, but you must also take care that your good standing with one group does not affect your position with another.

The Terran campaign for expansion has been the most successful in recorded galactic history. Now occupying a huge swathe of space, Terran diplomacy and ingenuity has managed to take advantage of factional divisions to insert itself between warring civilizations and act as a buffer between them. Bordering every other major faction, the Terran Federation has profited massively from sustaining this position, and has grown incredibly rich from it.

Relations with the Nivelians have been good, but strained since alleged clandestine involvement in the Mido rebellion. The relationship holds as the Nivelians do not wish to have a war on another front, and there is still the mutual threat of the Voids to counter. Since officially recognizing the Mido Confederation, the Terrans have found a faithful new ally on its borders.

A prolonged historic and occasionally repeated war with the Vossk have led to poor relations with the insular faction, and official trade or diplomatic missions are practically non-existent between the two, although vast quantities of S'kolptorr rum are brought to the Terran market under the radar.

The Nivelian hold over its quadrant has been severely rocked by its partition following a civil war, which led to the establishment of the Mido Confederation. Relations along the new Nivelian-Midorian border are tense, with frequent skirmishes.

While the Nivelian infrastructure is long established and considered one of the wealthiest civilizations in the galaxy, the loss of territories and war expenditures have greatly reduced this status. Constant tensions with the Vossk have added to these problems, although relations with the Terrans are fairly good, more so with the cooperative alliance against Voids incursions.

The newly formed Mido Confederation is still finding its footing and gathering its resources, and for this reason remains relatively poor compared to other factions. Optimism abounds in the faction's two systems, the core Mido and the newly acquired Eanya, and citizens of the new republic strive together for a better future free of Nivelian tyranny.

The Confederation has received a great boon in its official recognition by the Terran faction, a matter which has irked Nivelian elite. Suspicion remains, however, that the Mido sectors have become havens for operating pirate bands and smugglers, something the fledgling republic needs to show action on if trust is to be sustained with its neighbours.

The Vossk don't have much time for other factions, species or races, being insular and generally grumpy. Being a warrior society, they have managed to have battles with every faction in the galaxy at least once upon encounter, believing that they really don't know a faction until they have tested its strengths.

Though they don't have much interest in intergalactic trade, they do produce some of the hardest alcoholic beverages in existence, due to their unusually high tolerance, and this has become one of their few tradable assets. Since Vossk don't use currency, credit trading is factored only on the curiosity of the buyer.

 

Lingering on the edge of the charted galaxy, complex wormhole technology has allowed this mysterious race to make lightning strike attacks and raids on resources on every other faction.  Although scientists of every faction have been scrambling to interpret their language, it has proved up to now to be indecipherable, rendering diplomacy impossible. The motive for the Voids attacks, or their exact origin, are still in question.

The Valkyrie station is an anomaly in that it is an established point in space but with no particular clue to its origin or allegiance. Its super heavy fortifications have led some to suspect that it is in line with one of the larger weapons manufacturers, such as the Berger conglomeration, but this is conjecture. Whether mercenary or a clandestine outpost for one of the major factions, this is a mystery to be unravelled.

Although the mysterious stealth fighters can be encountered in almost every star system, they seem to be particularly frequent in the trouble area of the supernova, where they sabotage the evacuations by launching fatal attacks at the drop ships transporting the refugees.

A wanted criminal with hundreds of thousands of credits on his head never stays in one place for long. Hence the prestigious ships of the galaxy’s most dangerous crime lords can be spotted all across the universe. If you’re keen enough to confront them, you’d better check the Most Wanted Boards regularly to keep up to date about your target’s current whereabouts and expected destination.