Can you tell us anything about the Nebulan Republic or the Quintesson Pan Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere from the Malgus cluster?
Dear Political Pundit,
Though some Autobots would tell you otherwise, the Nebulan Republic is the youngest and most dynamic political union in the 22nd-century Milky Way galaxy, founded a mere one thousand years ago. Compared to the hegemonic, tightly-regulated Autobot Commonwealth, the Republic is a democratic alliance of equals where all member states receive a say in the day-to-day-running of their nation. Originally a three-way defense pact between the Nebulans of Nebulos, the Vespoids of Hive, and the Tarosians of Taros IV, this ad-hoc bargain evolved into the Treaty of Koraja: a lengthy charter of rights and freedoms that went on to shape the development of this fledgling star nation. These days, the Republic boasts twenty-five member-worlds and many more mining colonies and agri-worlds to feed trillions of mouths. Member worlds contribute a share of their resources to a combined navy and elect senators to represent their planet in the capital city of Koraja, where a billion sentients live and work within its glassy spires and towering arcologies.
Despite these advances, the Republic has not yet been able to truly unify under a single flag. Its representatives spend almost as much time squabbling with one another as they do cooperating, and more than a few fringe systems have accused the centralised Nebulan bureaucracy as the first steps toward the formation of a soft empire with Nebulos at the center. And, while the Autobots almost exclusively utilise space bridges to keep their far-flung empire together, the ships of the Republic still rely on inefficient hyperdrives—even the fastest ship in their navy would still take almost nine months to travel from Nalva to Urtusk, necessitating the construction of costly hyperspace bypasses to connect the outer systems to the core worlds.
The Quintesson Pan Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere, on the other hand, is exceedingly old; although it officially advertises itself as “an independent union of free economic zones”, it is an empire in all but name, a collection of semi-autonomous “client planets” who have been conquered and forced to the will of the Quintesson collective. The process by which the Quintessons acquire new clients is as insidious as it is brutal—by first posing as beneficent traders, the Quintessons make first contact with pre-spaceflight cultures, ingratiate themselves into their society through gifts and trinkets, and then gradually begin acquiring local currency and property. Bit by bit, the Quintessons work their way into businesses, conglomerates, and corporations, then gradually buy out national governments—a process that continues, year by year, until all of the native sentients have been excised from the workings of their own government. Some fortunate planets like Taxxos or Prysmos might enjoy a degree of freedom; most, however, are reduced to poverty and ruin, ashen worlds littered with strip-mines and pollution-spewing factories, whose inhabitants now toil under the weight of impossible contracts and debts they and their descendants can never hope to repay.
Indeed, the Quintessons believed that they could manipulate the Autobots this way when the two races first made contact during the Age of Expansion—it is fortunate for my kind that the Cybertronians had come well-armed and willing to rebuff those who might have otherwise cheated them out of their destiny. In more recent years, the Quintessons have turned their attention to the green pastures that lie beyond their reach in the Nebulan Republic… and I fear for what the future might hold.