United Families
| Uthya Sa Kemzit (United Kemzali Families) | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Notable Populations | Kemzali, Kobari | |
| Capital | None, each dynasty has its own central location. | |
| Ruler | 2059 Elder Kemzali | |
| Official Political System | Theocracy | |
| Evaluated Political System | Hamarchic Aristocratic Theocracy | |
A dream made manifest, a dream of perfect order, the dream of perfect peace, the golden eternity is at hand, if we only seize it.
The United Families are the most ancient living culture in Known Space, a nation of history, power and stability. Ruled by the Kemzali, a long lived species of furred, serpent like beings, natural born psions and powerful hunters, they are regarded by their people as heirs to divine power. To most outsiders, they are despotic tyrants with little regard for free will and individual thought.
A place of labyrinthine familial drama in place of politics and stratified social castes. They are totalitarian, absolutely dictatorial and with almost no social mobility. Yet, for many of the people within, they see their world as one of peace, stability, and unparalleled purpose serving living gods in service to the Kemz, the absolute order and correct state of reality.
History
The United Family's history is ancient, with thousand-year lifespans of their rulers, their retelling is extensive and details their history over the past forty-thousand years, with less firmly documented past histories going back over a hundred-thousand years. Despite this, history itself has little meaning to kemzali and events, conflicts, social growth and the like barely figure into retelling. Rather they are extensive details of lineage, territory, intro-dynastic drama and have proven difficult to parse and penetrate due to high bias and lack of overall focus. An exasperation of this issue is the lack of high-utility written language. Kemsit, their native tongue's written form only represents key cultural concepts and proper names. Forcing all history retelling to rely on the oral traditions of various families.
In the modern era, the United Family's history begins some 9500 years ago when they began settling the other planets in their system. Leading to the current three most populated worlds, Kemsin, Jemzal and Kuni. Splitting into two distinct social groups, the Kemsin and Kuni people, who regard Kemsin as the home of their people, and the Jemzal which considers their dynasty, the Jem, the true origin of the species and tell that Kemsin was populated by those cast out. The united Families, despite a high degree of technical knowledge failed to develop faster-than-light travel of their own and had only sent occasional slower-than-light explorations into nearby systems. None of which resulted in serious opportunities for growth.
This changed when the Families encountered the Ruz'kahni Directorate in 2054 as one of the first peer-powers encountered. The encounter involved the capture of the Directorate exploratory ship and its crew. Proper contact came 11 years later in 2065 when the ship and its crew were returned to the Directorate and a cultural exchange was made. The United Families were cordial, stated that their reason for the capture was a misunderstanding, and interacted with the larger Directorate presence with pleasantness and understanding.
The Directorate, cautious about giving technology to the potentially aggressive aliens, would be surprised when the United families would suddenly reveal the first kemzali made FTL system in 2088, reverse engineered from the Directorate's technology, and began a serious of minor conquests into their nearby territory, eventually the United Families clashed with the Directorate in 2133, sparking a low-intensity conflict that lasted until 2160, settling the Directorate-United Families borders of today.
Since, the United Families have made a few, slow, key captures, territorial expansions and key encroachment, wary of preying on any people that could be a serious threat, and choosing populations, if targeted, that are reasonably compatible with their highly structured way of life.
Society
The baseline of the Families structure is a concept known as Kemz translating roughly to "The Dream." The Dream is the core of the Families' understanding of life, the world, and their place in it. Within their belief, the Kemz is a founding principle of the universe, one of order, peace and structure. It is however destabilized, something Kemzali innately find displeasing. Kemzali then see themselves as the divine force that can work to fix existence. Most of their subjects similarly, are deeply entwined with the idea of maintaining this dream, whether they consciously choose so or not.
Within the United Families, you are expected to engage in your role. If you are a laborer, this is who you are. If you are a warrior, this is who you are. Each person contributes their skills, and soul to maintain and grow the dream. While the concept of individual expression is limited, it is not suppressed so long as it does not interfere with the Kemz and your role.
This is seen on every level of society, kemzali who seem to fail to lead, are forced back into this role with administrative handlers to properly coach them into it just as a worker that wishes to become a scientist will be forced back into their role. While mostly functional for kemzali and kobari, this structure can struggle to find a place for species alien to them. Often fitting them into roles that are alien to the original culture of the United Families, such as merchants, traders, historians or sociologists, or into broad administrative or "priest" roles, which are normally filled by the rarer priest-caste kobari or simply into personal attendants, confidants, pets or even friends for kemzali.
The Jemzal
There are technically two main cultural divergences within the United Families, while each of the 2059 Dynasties or families of the United Families are culturally divergent from the other in some small or great manner, the primary difference are between the Kemsin and the Jemzal. The Kemsin are those dynasties born of the planet Kemsin, usually declared homeworld of the kemzali and kobari species and is the generic culture of the nation. The Jemzal, however, hold that the history is false, Jemzal is the birthplace of the species, and Kemsin and Kuni were both outcast for "crimes against the Kemz."
The most profound difference between the Jemzal and Kemsin however is the strictness of their understanding of the Kemz. The Jemzal do not permit failure or divergence to extremes unseen. A failed kemzali can find themselves reduced to raw laborer as penance for decades. These laborious actions are not to do any real work, fundamentally kemzali are poor workers, they are simply meant to be a punishment. All non-laborers can be sentenced to such, and failure to engage in ordered labor, even if one is poor at it, is sentenced with immediate execution.
The final difference is the Jemzal are uniquely obsessed with foreign species. Possessing massive controlled biomes as environments and zoos. They believe the Jem dynasty's special role in the Kemz is protecting life itself what they call the Lifezoo. Rumors persist that they have more secretive zoos where they keep sophonts of all types, but this is strictly denied. Stating that it comes from the Jemzal families' fondness of hiring alien sophonts to serve administrative role rather than having priest-kobari bred for the task.
Eusociality
The United families' social structure is best understood in a parallel to eusocial species such as terran ants, bees, termites or molerats. The divergence is that while very much a cooperative organism with distinct castes, Kemzali and kobari are separate, if deeply related species, and the species has no difficulty incorporating other beings into its structure.
At the most baseline, kemzali are rulers, directors, and can be considered 'queens.' Naturally hermaphroditic and asocial with their own species, they avoid other kemzali outside of reproductive engagements. They naturally and through no direct effort, create a psionic link with nearby kobari and on occasion, members of other species. This link is not formed simply by proximity, but by a reaction still little understood involving the parasitic reproduction of the kemzali. After their eggs are fertilized, they will seek within a few months, to implant them into a host. The host's presence seems to later influence others of their species and kin to subconsciously adhere to a more structured society. While this is strongly observed in kobari, there are inconclusive results in controlled experiments with non-kobari species. This psionic connection seems to permit the rapid adaptive evolution exhibited by kobari, as well as their ability to rapidly learn their tasks knowledge-set.
Technology
The Families' technology is distinct from all of their neighbors, one some level, it is archaic. When the kemzali find something to rely on, they tend to maintain that technology and keep using it and adapting it, even if theoretically a better replacement could be sought out. On the other, it is incredibly well developed.
Hnad
A key substance to their technology base is a liquid known as Hnad, a highly conductive viscous liquid that is used in some manner in most of their technology. It is used to contain plasmoids that form the basis of much of their weaponry, it is a key method of regulating their nuclear fission engines, and it forms up a living circuit throughout much of their buildings, vehicles and weapons. While the substance is not well understood outside the United Families, hnad can create a bio-electric circuit that permits the neural-interfaces used in the families' technology.
Psionic Interfaces
The second key concept comes directly from this, psionic interfaces. Naturally psionic people, kemzali find it easier to mentally interface with an item than fiddle with controls, and their equipment reflects this. This is less like some form of alternate reality or seeing through another's eyes, so much as feeling an item like an extension of their body. It reacting as if it was part of the wielder's being.
Biological Technology
The third is related to that want for psionic interfacing, and its biological systems. Long ago the United Families developed a form of living material, even their hand items are partially 'living,' or were living when they were first created and grown. Armor, weapons, are formed of a unique bone-like lattice, once containing a hand-veined fleshy being inside. Technically, most kemzali technology are similar to a siphonophore, with multiple zooids in a singular organism that are tasked to specific parts, a combination of individual and colonial. Smaller usages of these living items are often permitted to die. Essentially making their equipment out of the bones and remains of these specially formed organisms. Larger are usually fed via energy-absorbing zooids around a nuclear fission reactor.
Weaknesses
While dominant in many fields, kemzali technology has difficulty working with other technology and is almost always a unique solution to an issue. and while an individual weapon can be operated by a single person, it tends to be larger and heavier than its peers. Yet the issues come more clear as technology grows in size. The United Families have nearly no concept of automation, the few that possess an artificial intelligence, or even a digital computer are joint-projects with other people.
To them, it is more efficient and easier to have 3000 kobari who were born and bred to work switchboards in the heart of a space station than to have a central computer. In larger ships, weaponry is almost always manually aimed, yes, it is based around probability from other kobari, and the entire colony inside of a vessel forms a living computer of fantastic power, the necessary resources and space to house these specialized servants is going to force larger and larger vessels and stations, and necessitate a kemzali to constantly live on the ship to guide the reproduction of the kobari.
If a Kemzali starship is grounded or dry docked for a significant duration, it cannot simply be given a fresh crew and sent back out after repairs. In most cases, a new colony needs to be established and while kobari develop very quickly, it still takes up to five or six years.
Military
The families lack a true organized military. This is not to imply they are remotely pacifistic or defenseless. Nearly every kobari is ready, no matter their breed and purpose to fight and die. While most castes are relatively ineffectual in combat, even in comparison to untrained people of most species, kobari bred to fight are exceptionally skilled. Their minds filled with ancestral memories of tactics, local and strategic understanding, adaptiveness, and despite relatively small size, their bodies are ready to burn bright and fast. A squad of kobari soldiers are as capable as any in known space.
These warrior-caste make up the personal defenses, armies and security for a dynasty. The exact numbers will fluctuate based on perceived need, and even for rapidly-developing young soldiers, a delay is necessary to breed new warriors. At minimum must be had to really create new personnel. This shortfall has led to the United Families keeping multiple private mercenary companies on hand, with fingers in the wider galaxy for rapid recruitment if need be.
The Families' navy are usually small fleets directed by senior offspring of a dynasty, with command of the support ships either managed by their own offspring or non-kobari members of the Families, such as integrated and conquered humans.
Peacebringers
More unique is the UF's only national military unit. Peacebringers are task forces contracted by gestalt decision, rather than individual families and are made up of almost every caste of society. A Kemzali given the notice they are now a peacebringer, is expected to drop their ambitions for their time. Kobari teams of devoted reverence are handed a slip, and for the divine Kemz, they abandon their mistress. A human farmer happily working on a farm, escaping tragedy will be expected to abandon their home and let it go fallow.
The exact reason for selections are secrets held by the UF's elder council, but are believed to not be random. Nonetheless, they are assigned to a specific task, given equipment, and sent. Rumor has it some remarkable psionic clairvoyance is at work, but nonetheless the peacebringers are a combination of police, special forces, and forlorn hope.
Current Relations
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