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Saurians: A race which was great when the earth was young. 65 million years ago they noted a planetoid on a collision course with Earth. Their technology was almost entirely organic-oriented, space exploration was very primitive, considering their other technologies, but none-the-less they made an effort to save the planet and send colony ships sublight to other systems to reestablish the race, just in case.

The planetoid was partially broken up, but still resulted in the death of all Saurian life on earth, and the destruction of all signs of their technology on the planet.

One unlucky colony ship stumbled on the natural jump point past Pluto's orbit, and the whole ship and crew died before they came out at Alpha Centauri due to the disrupting effect of hyperspace on living tissues. their ship remained in far orbit, a dead, desiccated corpse until it was discovered by Pioneer 10, which also accidentally found the jump point in 2001.

Most of the other ships faced similarly disastrous fates in the ends. However, at least 2 found habitable systems after millions of years (absolute, not ship time) in space. The surviving Saurians had troubles surviving in their new worlds, but have prevailed to the present. It has only been in the last few thousands of years that the transplanted Saurians have had time for any pursuits besides survival. So, while their medical science is unsurpassed, their other technology seems somehow primitive to the other star faring races.

Saurians have a good percentage of psychics.

Breen: A very xenophobic race to Coreward of Earth, the first race Earthers encountered in 2115. They have never been seen outside of their massive spaceships. When speaking to other races, they haven't been seen directly via video - they speak in the native tongues of the other races (they knew earth languages already when first encountered) and use VR simulations of the race they are speaking with. Little is known about them, other than they already knew about, and were known to the other major races, but neglected to share this information with Earth, letting us discover them on our own. They did intervene on their own accord in the Earth-Tigean war as a 'neutral party' to establish a peace.

Tigeans: The oldest known space faring race, who have been traveling the stars for 5000 years. An old, and technologically more advanced than the other major races, they are generally considered to be a calm, peaceful people. Encountered by earthers less than 50 years ago, after 6 years of initial coexistence, a war broke out between the two which lasted nearly 10 years, and dragged in their allies for the last 300 years, the Crystalline Empire.

The basis for the war was rooted in the religion and biology of their race. The Tigeans have 3 sexes needed for procreation, but it was discovered that an Earther could take the place of two of the three in the mating triad due to a quirk in xenobiological chemistry (though the resulting combination did not result in viable offspring without a tremendous amount of technological help). This fact, how it was discovered, and a postulate put forward by a prominent Earth scientist (that was later grudging, partially verified) that stated that Earth was the cradle for life for most of the Interstellar races, prompted the War. Eventually the Breen stepped in as the war pushed back towards Earth to bring everyone to their senses.

The Tigeans have a moderate number of Psychics.

The Crystalline Empire: The largest space faring group in Known Space, the Crystalline Empire is comprised mainly of a humanoid race that has turned out to be almost completely human, with some slight modifications to the genetic code. They were apparently created or transplanted from Earth a million or so years ago. their 'benefactors' are unknown, possibly the Forerunners whose ruins appear on several nearly destroyed planets throughout this region of space, though no such ruins exist on their 'homeworld' Zarastra.

Detailed comparisons have found that humans of Zarastra to be the product of the splicing of homo sapiens and avian DNA from Earth. They did not accept this discovery easily.

They rose to the Stars a thousand years ago, and swept through their nearby systems like birds of prey. They invaded, conquered, enslaved, moved on, outward. Then they met the Tigeans 500 years ago, who fought them to a standstill, but refrained from pushing back. The Zarastran "Crystalline Empire" slowed its expansion, and internal strife and Civil War caused some contraction and division. For the last 300 years it has been stable under the Rule of the Royal Family and have had an alliance with the Tigeans.

They joined in to the War with Earth reluctantly, though some factions were more earnest because of the idea that they were derived from human stock.

The humanoids of the Crystalline Empire have generally few occurances of psychics, with a few exceptions. One of the many insurrections many hundreds of years ago involved a revolt of psychics, which failed spectacularly. Psychics are outlawed in the Crystalline Empire, though a few exist for 'official' purposes, and an underground exists on several worlds. Survivors of the original revolt managed to seize a number of systems Spinward and have kept out intrusions. The Empire tried for a few hundred years to reintegrate them, but now leaves them mostly alone. Current imperials don't even speak of them, because psionics has become almost a terror to frighten children with.