Sagittari Union
Originally an expedition lost to an anomaly involving wormhole travel, the colonies founded by the survivors became an authoritarian human-centric empire which shared the Milky Way and a handful of galaxies with the Federation. With a strong militaristic streak, they have shifted between being allies and rivals of their siblings many times over the course of history.
Structure
A highly centralized state governed by an authoritarian one-party oligarchy called the United Committee. A nominally democratic Senate represents the various population centers, but the true leader of the Sagittari is the Chief Secretary appointed by the Committee. All members of the leadership are members of the Greater Sagittari Alignment, the state-approved political faction.
There is an additional facet to Sagittari society that is explicitly designed to centralize power in the upper echelons of the state - the higher a servant of the state goes, the more upgrades and access to power (metaphorical and literal) they receive.
Culture
Compared to their cousins in the Federation, the people of the Sagittari Union are generally much more homogenous and militaristic. Notably, Sagittari culture prizes individual strength and ambition in service of the state, which has a wide-spanning reach and is highly centralized in terms of political power. These authoritarian tendencies are widely approved of by the populace, who take great pride in their relation to their community. Said citizenry can be aggressively territorial and instinctively wary of outsiders, especially in regards to hive minds and representatives of such.
Disobedience can be highly controversial, especially in regards to government/military orders, but is not (theoretically) punished if done for a legitimate reason. Being direct and honest is preferred to cloak and dagger work, and betraying someone's trust can often overlap with betraying the state's values of orderliness and security.
Ritual melee combat, while rare, is considered an acceptable method of career advancement in many situations. These situations are usually military in nature, but Sagittari society as a whole is closely related to its military and defense industry. Though the social attitudes of the average Sagittari aren't much different from those of a Federal citizen, a frequent joke is to claim that while the Sagittari do not follow any particular gods, they are still highly religious - they just worship military prowess.
Ultimately, Sagittari culture takes great pride in being part of the Sagittari Union, and to be willing to lay down one's life (or career) for a comrade and the country is a key part of their identity. If someone outside of their culture is willing to do the same, then they are equally deserving of respect even if they are the enemy.
Public Agenda
The Union's stated purpose for existence is the defense of the Sagittari state and the identities of its citizens. Compared to its neighbors, the state is very willing to utilize military means to protect its interests. Being a Kardashev III level civilization, the Sagittari are more than capable of doing so against its many rivals, and has few qualms about imposing their will on weaker polities.
History
The Sagittari Union is directly descended from the modern Federation, in the form of a major expedition intended to colonize then-distant parts of the local supercluster. First one of many numbered colonization trips, the group was selected and secretly expanded due to the onset of the Reclamation and fears that the Federation might cease to exist in a few years.
The expedition was not meant to arrive at the Sagittarius constellations; the designation was a misnomer intended to mislead enemy observers under the faulty belief that the Salyuri bothered to translate Federal communications. Regardless, the title stuck and the evacuation project planned to utilize long-range wormhole generators to throw an evacuation fleet at the farthest uninhabited supercluster within reach. Due to the urgent nature of their mission, there was little time to iron out all the kinks in the newly-developed transport system; when the enormous mass of an entire fleet overloaded the tunnel, the crews found themselves being violently catapulted far beyond their intended destination. After the disintegration of several ships, the group discovered they'd arrived in an entirely different galaxy filament before promptly being cut off from the Federation. For all intents and purposes, they were trapped in the CfA2 Great Wall.
Luckily, the region they arrived in was completely uninhabited by even the most rudimentary creatures. Unfortunately, the reason for this was an environment inimical to the development of life, with not a single habitable planet across entire galaxies. Desperate to disembark, the Sagittari resorted to terraforming worlds and building habitats with single-minded focus. Tedious and resource-intensive, the loss of key personnel, ships, and supplies in the disastrous transit turned what was supposed to be a years-long process into several decades of grueling survival. The ships that remained, while still mostly self-sufficient, were not designed to support permanent residence.
While mass casualties from starvation were avoided thanks to the ubiquity of replicators backed by immense starship reactors, the shortages and rationing were unprecedented in Federation history. Already damaged systems were pushed to their limits, and each ship that broke down inevitably raised tensions as they were cannibalized to keep the rest of the fleet operational. Tribalism and small-scale infighting threatened their future prospects as three hundred million passengers experienced severe scarcity for the first time in their lives. Drastic measures were taken to maintain order, which led to two hundred million sapients forced into cryosleep and the military and civilian leadership becoming inseparably intertwined. It was an immense relief to all when the first planets and stations were announced as completed, and a rapid exodus began.
The Sagittari spread themselves across two dozen planets and orbital habitats in less than a year, and embraced the surety of the leadership of what would become the United Committee. Under the belief that the Federation would soon cease to exist in the face of the Reclamation, and the undeniable fact that their own government and society were drastically changed, the colonies reformed into the Sagittari Union.
Eventually, after centuries of isolation, the Federation re-established contact with the Sagittari Union. Unsurprisingly, this was not well-received.
Demography and Population
As befitting the (relatively) limited number of galaxies under Sagittari control, the Union has a smaller total populace that comes around to approximately several hundred quadrillion citizens. This population is dominated by descendants of humanity, with other aliens and machines a minority in the Union. All citizens are guaranteed equal rights to participate in the political process, but it is distinctly easier for humans to immigrate to the Sagittari systems than it is for others.
Like with the Federation, the Sagittari Union is home to a number of individuals that resemble concept-based entities (often major political, technological, economic, or military leaders). However, their influential skill sets and immense power are entirely artificially induced, otherwise regular people designed and augmented to fit the ideals of the Sagittari and borne from small taxes on its citizens.
The Sagittari primarily live in high population density centers, as can be seen in the abundance of urban architecture on the planets and interstellar structures that fly their flag. This allows the Union's territories to concentrate larger populations on heavily industrialized ecumenopoli and habitats, with their basic resource needs met by the limitless output of sophisticated replicators and 3D printers.
Territories
Originally scattered across entirely separate supercluster from its founders, the Sagittari Union has since planted its flag in even the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies (the latter is mostly symbolic). Despite its name, the Union does not actually control the Sagittarius constellation beyond a star system or two.
However, it does control a small section of the local Laniakea supercluster, as well as parts of the Coma and Leo superclusters, where its capital galaxy is based. In total, the Sagittari have only a fraction of the galaxies the Federation controls, numbering in the hundreds rather than several thousand, and only controls half as many star systems as its originator.
Military
As expected of a militaristic society, the Sagittari Union has a very substantial standing army for its size, which is achieved through a combination of mobilization, high national spirit, and of course, cloning/assembly.
There are only three branches (with specialized subordinate units like Cyber Warfare, Atmospheric Aviation, or Strategic Arsenal), those being the Army, the Navy, and Patrol. These all fall under the purview of the Sagittari United Armed Forces, whose Joint Commandant has a permanent membership on the United Committee.
The Sagittari Army is extremely large given its population, yet is sufficiently equipped to where a rifleman can compete with Standard Infantry templates. These are supplemented by armored and aerial elements, and powerful yet nimble mech suits that can reach eighty meters in height. A similar level of sophistication applies to the Sagittari Navy, which relies greatly on superheavy warships to establish dominance in a war. The Patrol serves as a reserve force and organized militia, if a militia had access to antimatter weaponry and battleships. In total, an unmobilized SUAF maintains approximately a hundred trillion combatants and twenty billion warships, and just like in other post-scarcity civilizations these numbers can spike by multiples of ten or twenty during wartime.
There is a strong preference for particle lances and kinetic weapons over lasers and disintegrators, which shows in even the largest constructions of the SUAF. While the venerable sub-caliber sabot is the general-purpose round for SUAF electromagnetic accelerators, even the Army's ammunition replicator backpacks are able to quickly transition the standard bullpup assault railgun over to proxy-fused plasma grenades or subsonic slugs with the swap of a magazine. Having easy access to a variety of specialized ammo provides a degree of versatility and flexibility that SUAF soldiers greatly appreciate, whether it is in a running urban firefight or a point-blank exchange between superheavy warships.
A substantial majority of Sagittari military materiel can trace their heritage back to early-generation F-MAG systems, and the resemblance to modern Federation weapon systems can be uncanny.
Founding Date
3710
Demonym
Sagittari
Government System
Oligarchy
Power Structure
Unitary state
Economic System
Post-scarcity economy
Currency
While the Sagittari do in some ways have a post-scarcity economy, they do retain a currency (creatively named the S-Credit) and a distant relative of the capitalist free market that the Terran Federation used.
Subsidiary Organizations
Neighboring Nations
Related Species
