While the other three powers turned inward, the CDC realised how close the human race had come to disaster and resolved to colonise other worlds (in so doing becoming rather less a capitalist organisation, and more a social democratic one.) With the benefits of automated technology and fewer mouths to feed, they managed to establish the first self sustaining base on the moon in 2037, and on Mars in 2045. Terraforming of Mars began in 2070.
No evidence for other intelligent life had been detected in two centuries of radio communication and mankind had begun to assume itself alone in the universe, little did they know it but most races considered radio an obsolete technology. It therefore came as a complete surprise when an unidentifiable craft was discovered sweeping in from outside Mars' orbit in 2082. A manned CDC probe intercepted the source, and mankind's worldview was shattered. The source was a probe ship about one metre long. The controlling computer was still operational, though many of its higher functions were non-functional, but the ships drive and communications were inoperable and of completely unknown design, its mode of action was utterly unknown. Likewise various items on the ship seemed to serve no useful purpose; even the main powersource appeared useless.
The mystery remained until 2085 when a team of linguists realised that the data was present in at least five hundred languages and managed to decifer portions of one of the most staightforward, thus allowing translation of many of the others. It turned out that the data in the ship consisted of three parts. The first was an operating system with various commands that were utterly unfathomable. The second was a users manual filled with meaningless instructions, which did not allow the non-functional systems to be brought back on line. However the third part was the most useful, it was a disclaimer and trouble-shooting guide which stated that the galaxy was divided into several zones, and that the probe was not equipped to operate below the "Low Beyond". Examination of the accompanying galactic map (a major treasure in itself) indicated that the Solar system was currently right on the Border between the "Beyond" and the "Slowness" and moving at a rate which ensured it would cross the border within ten years, before returning to the Slow Zone some one hundred years later. The researchers were unsure quite what this might mean, but the best guess was that some fundamental barrier was about to be crossed where the laws of physics themselves changed! Feverish research into the object began to try to determine those laws and considerable progress was made. At the same time the CDC began to arouse the anger of the other power blocs almost to the point of war by refusing to let them study the probe. The probe was kept on Mars to maximise CDC advantage since none of the other blocs had an interplanetary space program.
In 2088 the Border was crossed and the probe came to life. In a matter of moments its computer's higher functions came online. The scientists had been waiting for the moment, and had prepared a basic interface to allow the probe's functions to be more closely examined. Within twenty minutes, the probe had located the dictionary, grammar and thesaurus files of a word-processor on the interface computer and was communicating in fluent English. The AI's answers to questions about its systems allowed rapid progress on the four main novel technologies it possessed, namely its power source, its artificial intelligence, its drive and its communications system. Armed with all the vital information, it appeared that functional versions would be available within the year. A week later, the first crewed alien craft arrived, the probe's transmitter had been transmitting a homing signal ever since it crossed the Border!
The first aliens to arrive were the Davorkar, the original dispatcher's of the probe. Fortunately for mankind, the scientists had dissected the probe before it crossed the border. This meant that the Davorkar had been unable to tell the probe not to assist the researchers. The Davorkar demanded the return of their probe, the CDC prevaricated for several days while as much useful data as possible was downloaded from the probe, and the parts thoroughly dismantled to prevent the Davorkar realising what had occurred. Once the Davorkar had recovered the probe, they offered to sell technological expertise to the CDC. The price was incredibly high, amounting to fifty percent of the CDC's GDP, payable for the next five hundred years. The CDC declined and after several weeks of negociation and threats the Davorkar turned their attentions to the other powers, persuading the DRSA to sign a treaty on similarly punitive terms to that offered to the CDC. Despite the DRSAs low level of technology, it rapidly became apparent that it would soon be in a position to invade the other bloc's and dominate the solar system (the Davorkar's obvious intention given their treaty.) Therefore the CDC frantically worked to perfect the "ultrawave transmitter". Having done this, the CDC were able to contact several other races. Luckily they happened across two benevolent race's known as the rulucet and the Terak who arrived in time to prevent the DRSA from invading the other three states, and also provided a great deal of technology in exchange for a nominal sum and treaties of allince and cooperation with the CDC and the MK. The IF refused to deal with any alien race, proclaiming them to be ungodly though their continued existence without new technology is dependent on the benevolence of the rulucet and the Terak, the IF is currently slipping towards a medieval level of technology due to purges of its intellectuals.
The Davorkar and DRSA were extremely annoyed by the CDC's misappropriation of "ultrawave", while most of the rest of the galaxy was amused and impressed by their daring. In fact many actions of humanity either collectively or singly, since joining the galactic community have also been judged audacious (indeed in many languages the name for humanity translates either as "The Brave" or "The Foolhardy") and humans are much in demand by older more sedentary races to act as emissaries, traders, soldiers, spies and bounty-hunters a fact which means that Humans are often treated rather cautiously.
Not least of these is the decision by the vast majorities of the CDC, DRSA and the MK to leave the Solar System before it returns to the Slowness. With time so short (only decades remain before "Borderstrike", as it has become known) it is a massive undertaking which is sure to leave the three nations dispersed and massively in debt for a long time to come.
Down in the Slow Zone lightspeed and other technological limitations protect young civilisations from the predations of the more unscrupulous Beyond cultures. Far flung empires are not viable across interstellar distances and life is limited and brief. A few cultures manage to colonise nearby systems, but even this is rare. But upon realising their predicament, many civilisations are drawn by the lure of technology, and rise up from the Slow Zone into the Beyond. There they try to survive amongst far older civilisations that emerged in their turn thousands or millions of years ago. In the Beyond, life is full of possibilities but dangerous. Here, there are vast empires, interstellar wars and solarÜsystemÜsized engineering projects. And there is always the temptation for a civilisation to climb just a little higher into the Beyond to gain some extra technological edge unavailable to those lower down. Until they reach the Border beween Beyond and Transcend. In the Transcend, even greater things are possible than in the Beyond, but it is hazardous in the extreme for the unprepared. A civilisation is either consumed by a Power or evolves quickly into one, in fact most civilisations which cross the threshold change beyond recognition within a decade. Not much that is intelligible by the lower intelligences of the Beyond ever returns from the Transcend. Those Powers that do communicate with those in the Beyond are generally only present for a few years before moving beyond the comprehension and even the perceptions of those in the Beyond. Very few Powers can even survive in the Beyond, generally they send an emmissary agent down from the Transcend.
The galaxy is not a place that could be ruled by one empire, or from one capital planet. The fundamentally different zones prevent a species from dominating throughout the galaxy even if it were to gain total control of one of the zones because those adapted to one zone are unlikely to dezire a zone with less potential (it might even be fatal to them), and are unable to combat technology from the zone above. Indeed even though certain events can be of awesome size, affecting thousands of civilisations, planets, and cubic light years of space, it should always be remembered how unimportant these events are in the galactic scheme of things.
Many of the civilisations of the Beyond are connected by a "hyperwave" information network of staggering proportions, almost any information can be found either as open postings or (for a fee) from the various archives scattered about the galaxy. Some of these libraries are incredibly ancient and some have even outlived the cultures that created them; causing problems for readers and archivists alike. The galactic net has its problems with current contributors as well; apart from translation difficulties (how do you describe colour to a blind echo locator) and cost, there are the meaningless message headers, the volume of traffic, the arrogance of contributors and the sheer weight of rubbish obscuring what useful information there is in the net to be contended with.
The Davorkar have a feudal society with one Emperor nominally in charge of all Davorkar, though in practice some Barons have wrenched control of their homeworld. They have no religion. They have a large Empire, and several subjugated "clients" in the Low Beyond.
The Davorkar are approximately 3 metres long, and one metre high. They have four long legs which rise above the body spider-like at the knee. They have two arms each with four fully opposable fingers. They have six senses : infra-red, visible, sound, touch, taste and smell. Their vision is black and white. They are omnivorous, and warm-blooded. All Davorkar begin hermaphrodite, but dominant Davorkar gradually become entirely male, there are no life-bonded pairs. Davorkar are generally very tough, but if badly harmed, tend not to recover.
The Terak are made up of several races, mostly democratic and socialist in outlook. They are generally not religious. They are the local part of a large Low to Middle Beyond trade federation called "The Honorable". They are usually pacifist in outlook, though they do occasionally hire "defence consultants".
The Terak are cold-blooded (but lay live young - they have two sexes.) They stand about one and a half metres tall, with a disproportionately large body. Their arms and legs seem rather short. They only have primitive three toed hands, but have six very agile tentacles, just above the mouth, and below their ultrasound ears. They are omnivorous. They are extremely hardy, but very weak (despite high-G genetic-manipulations.) They are nearly blind, but have ultrasonic sonar. They pair for life.
They Ruculet are democratic socialists, with tendencies towards anarchy. They are not religious, but are tremendously involved with the moral dimensions of life.
The Ruculet can choose to look more or less how they wish, but generally choose to look remarkably human. about two metres tall with pale grey skin, they have six fingers and toes, and have a fine layer of grey hair all over. They have the usual five senses of humans, but more sensitive, and extending over greater ranges. They generally live in a gravity of 1.1G.
The Silirut live in Hives of up to 1,000,000. The Females are the most intelligent, but never leave the Hive; they are about two metreslong. The Males and Warriors (who are sterile) are next in intelligence and are the only classes which interact with other hives; they are completely subservient to the females; Males are one metre long; Warriors between half and three metres long, the very smallest Warriors can fly. The Workers are sterile and rather stupid, generally requiring the guidance of one of the higher classes. They fall into the subclasses Farmers, Builders and Nurses, they are about thirty centimetres long, and capable of flight. The females are regarded as Gods by all the other castes.
Silirut are insectile egg layers, they all have wings (vestigial in some castes) and communicate as part of the hive-mind by ultrasound and pheremones. They have no normal sense of hearing, but can sense ground vibrations. Workers have poor sight. They are exclusively herbivorous. Away from the hive, the Warriors and Males can act alone, but generally remain in constant communication with the hive by Ultrawave.
The spacefaring Jem form a single massive democratic co-operative, though Jem often have citizenship of other organisations as well. They are generally friendly, polite and insatiably curious. The "red-neck" Jem inhabit planets which tend to be patchworks of small democracies, dictatorships and clans, they are extremely insular. Like Humanity, the Jem have an emissary of T'zaboan'l (see below).
The Gem are usually about two to five metres long (though there are reports of Jem up to ten metres long), and shaped vaguely like caterpillars. They are mammalian egglayers with two sexes, both of which tend the eggs and young. They only ever mate for one brood season (about ten years) with a given partner, raising two to six young in that time. The young are born with six pairs of short legs, each with a three toed paw, but once maturity is attained after about ten earth years, Jem can grow one extra pair of legs approximately every seven earth months, adding a new section of body between head and frontmost paws, they have unconscious control over the process. The rearmost set of paws can also be reabsorbed over about a month (meaning that in theory a Jem can can have less than twelve legs, though there is considerable stigma attatched to being "short".) The Gem are fantastically strong and tough, with a good sense of sight; and an exceptional sense of hearing. Their senses of touch, smell and taste are poor. They are carniverous.
The Havrokine stand up to five metres tall and look rather like a purple cactus. They can sense light and touch, and have a sense of "smell" over their whole bodies. They move incredibly slowly (it would take an unaugmented Havrokine days to take the lid off a bottle), but get round the problem by communicating chemically with various pieces of equipment designed by themselves and their long since departed Uplifters. These are semi-sentient to save the Havrokine the burden of detailing everyday tasks (which would be very slow). The Havrokine communicate with each other by direct root to root contact, and with other species via complex translators. The Havrokine appear very feeble, given their slowness and limited senses, but they have several advantages - they live to an incredible age, they can transmit messages directly between one another (giving them an extensive racial memory), they can process several tasks at once and they can interface directly with appropriate computers.
Male Felid are about two metres tall, females about one and a half. They resemble huge, brown preying mantises, with the front feet adapted as five fingered hands. They are carnivorous. They lack a sense of smell, and see only in black and white. The females outnumber the males approximately three to one. The males are far more intelligent and powerful, and may live to age 60 or more. The females are not really intelligent, and rarely live beyond 30. The females lay clutches of up to eight eggs and rear the young, though the males usually take interest in their male offspring.
The Decapi are ten tentacled herbivorous octopi-like creatures. They are about fifty centimetres long, with fifty centimetre long tentacles which each branch at the end into four short manipulator pseudopods. They are hermaphroditic water spawners, who do not note parentage, but are careful to separate clan spawning grounds, so that clan membership, is readily discerned. Decapi live to about 60 years. Their senses include sonar, electric field detection, sight and chemical recognition. They can control the colouration of their skin both consciously and unconsciously.
The emissary (like all others known) has a mass of 208.57 kilograms. It has a reactionless drive and Hyperdrive which are unsurpassed within the Beyond at the current time. It appears to be able to adopt any shape it chooses, over a wide range of volumes and surface areas. Its surface is always seamless. It can also adopt whatever colour scheme it desires. However the form it most frequently adopts is that of a biped approximately three metres tall; with four arms, ending in seven razor sharp talons and a reptilian head, the whole surface finished in reflective chome save for a malleable glowing area on the front of the face. It possesses all known forms of physical sensation, and can communicate with all known species. It appears to be indestructible, and its inner workings and purpose are a mystery.
Each nanite is about a tenth of a millimetre across, and based on buckyball encapsulated rod logic. There are hundreds of different types in a colony.