Naaz-Rokha Alliance

The planet Naazir is home to a tiny cliff-dwelling species of technological savants. Necessity and highly developed brains led to early tool use and technological development as the Naaz ancestors carved out a life for themselves on the planet’s high mountains. As deep, narrow seas bordered the mountains, they learned to lower themselves on ropes to catch crustaceans from the waters and farm algae at the tideline.

In a mere half-million years, the Naaz progressed from stone chisels to spaceflight—whereupon they quickly discovered that the galaxy was significantly more crowded and chaotic than they had predicted, especially in the wake of the Twilight Wars. The beautiful and rich Naazir became a destination for off-worlders of all stripes, and it wasn’t long before some of them tried to steal it for themselves.

The planet’s first colonizers were a Winnu corporate collective, who set up Naazir as an industrial colony and exploited the Naaz for their nimble fingers and quick minds. When the corporate board members were arrested and charged for their crimes against sentients, the Naaz barely had time to celebrate before a battalion of Federation deserters landed and, with their superior tactics and firepower, bent the Naaz to their will.

When Naaz rebels alerted Sol authorities of this rogue army, the might of the Federation Navy came to arrest them—and continue the colonization under Federation-sponsored rule. Large portions of Naazir were claimed as Federation territory, splitting ancient Naaz lands into pieces. Sol officials were more than happy to spend a couple of decades blowing up the mineral-rich Naazir mountains and messily extracting biofuels from their oceans, with Naaz local officials given sham representations in a token planetary parliament.

This uneven arrangement continued until the Federation finally retreated after establishing a treaty with the Naalu, who immediately forced the Naaz to pay a monthly tithe for their “protection” that quickly bankrupted their nascent economy. Events continued in this manner for centuries until, in the midst of being plundered by an alliance of Letnev merchant-princes, the Naaz came up with a new plan.

Sick of laboring under a colonial yoke, the Naaz nevertheless found themselves unable to fight a prolonged war due to their physical stature. To level the scales, they hired several companies of Rokha mercenaries who had long made a living raiding the edges of the colonial plunder. The Rokha were dark-furred ancestral cousins of the Hacan who had left the worlds of the Kenara system in the earliest recorded history of the three worlds. Without the prestige and riches of their cousins, the Rokha roamed the galaxy using their skills as hunters and warriors to eke out a living as guns for hire. The Naaz armed their new Rokha comrades with incredible new tech, and after a brief but decisive war, routed the invaders from their home.

Instead of being just another in a long list of clients, the Naaz shocked the Rokha with an offer: the chance to build a life on Naazir, with equal standing in Naaz society and integration into their culture, and the promise of a new home for all Rokha.

The Naaz-Rokha Alliance Today

The new Naaz-Rokha Alliance was a jubilant success. In a galaxy of perfidy and strife, the Alliance achieved peace, casting off the colonial oppressors and finally forming a united Naaz. Soon, construction began on orbital platforms to house a rapidly expanding population, as did terraforming operations on a barren rock two planets out. Multiple comet drops and Alliance biotech transformed the other planet into a mountainous, verdant blue-green world of alpine forests and stormy seas, suiting the Rokha’s preference for cooler climes. Finally the beleaguered nomads had a new home, which they christened Rokha.

The new planet has an open-door policy to all Rokha and any nomadic cousins who wish to claim citizenship, whether as part of the Alliance or simply as residents of the planet. In recent times it has become a locus for other Hacan outcasts, attracting clanless or displaced youngbloods with no hope of upward mobility in the Emirates and seeking new fortunes elsewhere. The city of Dormont Vault has become the home of one of the largest Hacan populations outside the Kenara system. The Exotic Energies Institute always has room for new hires, and the city has become a hub of multispecies life, as well as a major exporter of culture, cuisine, and high-tech consumer goods.

The cultural merging of the Naaz and Rokha has become a point of fascinated study for galactic anthropologists. Every level of Naaz-Rokha society became an equal partnership—the most common family unit consists of two Naaz and two Rokha plus any children, although larger family units of various species distribution have also been observed. Single-partner monogamy is nearly unheard of, and the bonds of their family units often alter and rebond, picking up new pairs of partners or shedding old ones in the passage of time. Although Rokha was established as a home for the Rokha species, today the planets are populated nearly equally by both, with some families sharing time between worlds to see their various partners and children.

Their government, the Alliance Chamber of Congress, is overseen by the Executive Tetrarchy, formed of two Naaz and two Rokha. Whenever an elected official steps down, the longest-serving member of the Tetrarchy from the opposite species also resigns, ensuring no single Naaz or Rokha can claim seniority. This also applies to the representatives of individual districts, since each has two representatives. These are almost always a Naaz and a Rokha, except from the few districts with majority populations from other species.

While the Naaz-Rokha Alliance has been successful by just about any measure, the various Great Civilizations expected them to remain a regional power at best. Their membership in the Galactic Council was treated with a sort of amused tolerance by the other members…until the Mahact returned.

Two of the survivors of the Acheron disaster were a pair of Naaz-Rokha scientists. Their readings of the massive Acheron Gate opened up a new field of applied science: entropic field harvesting. Entropic field taps gather the energy released by the continuous creation and decay of unstable microwormholes to other dimensions and, in the process, provide far more power than standard reactors ever could.

This new form of energy generation, dubbed the most significant energy discovery since the mass-drive, kickstarted a new wave of Alliance ship and factory designs. The Z-Grav Eidolon in particular has given the Alliance a mech design that can seamlessly operate in both orbital and atmospheric theaters. Entropic field harvesting powers the mech’s flight systems and enables the mind-linking supercomputers that let Naaz-Rokha pairs copilot the vehicle. At every turn, the Alliance has been overcoming challenges with cooperation and brilliant innovation.

Having established themselves as an independent power, the Naaz-Rokha have begun to eagerly travel to other parts of the galaxy, partly as tourists, partly as reconnaissance, but mostly to spread the word of Alliance-style civilization. As big spenders who love to share and don’t cause trouble, Naaz-Rokha tend to be welcomed wherever they go. However, most people tend to tire of their constant extolling of how the Alliance way of life is strictly superior to all other cultures, a subject on which the Naaz-Rokha tend to pontificate, at length, to any within earshot.

Goals of the Naaz-Rokha Alliance

When they’re not holding court on their cultural superiority or delving into the mysteries of unexplored corners of the galaxy, the Naaz-Rokha search for other civilizations to add to their fold— as well as founding cultural exchange centers and embassies to help bring Alliance culture to all.

In the end, that is one of the Alliance’s primary goals. The Naaz-Rokha hope to bring their model of cooperation to as many societies as possible, starting with those who have been just as oppressed by the Great Civilizations as they were, and possibly ending with the Great Civilizations themselves. After all, if twin minds are brighter than the sum of their parts, harmonious cooperation between all should clearly be the path forward for the galaxy.