^^ Story is up on my page, really don't badger guardsmen.

It's even worse when the people who service the guardsmen are well known for body modifications and other folks frequently call their advisory council "The science perverts."

Anyway, I'm absolutely pleased as punch at this. Entire thing is all sorts of gorgeous!

Thank you very much! We already added to our favs the version on your page.
The entire world that you are creating around these characters is pretty interesting!

If you've ever played Stellaris, the terms they use massively help to explain behaviors of certain actors in the setting.

The major actors to date in that setting

The imperials, extraordinarily prone to incorporating any species they see as being useful to them, generally without asking. Tend to massively modify uplifts to fill roles within their society after they're integrated, whether through biological manipulation or technological implantation. They're not particularly nice, but they are the most coherent power block and have locked in a century's long cold war with the insectile hive race at the center of a devouring swarm. Driven assimilators and Imperial would be their play-style with a massive authoritarian streak run by a shadow scientific council, what the science-perverts say, goes.

The federation, a slightly discordant democracy of worlds, generally a well meaning bunch. Prone to vastly exaggerating their prowess's and capabilities well beyond their reach and absolutely not above putting out ridicilous propaganda to downplay how much they're behind the other major powers. They're major driving focus is trying to improve today from yesterday into a possibly better tomorrow but stability or societal cohesion isn't always their strong point. Play Style - Democratic federation builders.

Cephalopods, friendly enough if rather isolationist when it comes to letting anyone else poke about in their space. Tends to fortify their borders to ludicrous extents while also playing prod-nose in everyone else's territories. Engineers, damn good ones, albeit confusing as hell to talk to. Not hostile but exceedingly fond of "overwhelming retribution" as a countermeasure for anyone getting any sort of bright ideas. Play style - Enigmatic Observers

The Swarm - a caste based society of resource devouring insectoids bent on making everything theirs. The lowest of their ilk, the mercantile caste, are often used as a scouting arm to probe weak systems and poorly guarded space before the far more disastrous extraction components of their fleet show up into a system, often after trading useless junk to just-reached-space-developing species and always to their detriment. Sanctity of life really doesn't mean anything here. Play style - Devouring Swarm

The Cartel - If you're going to have crime, it'd better be organized, efficient, and willing to sell your grandmother for a cruiser if the need comes to bear. The seedy underbelly that seeps through everyone's space because having a scapegoat to dump questionably reprehensible responsibilities onto, or to do seedy things regarding exploration, is useful. If they weren't, they'd have been wiped out long ago. A catch all for the underbelly that greases the galaxy's gears. Play style - Mega Corp

Observers - A machine race that occasionally shows up, utterly restructures the layout of a solar system and then either starts manufacturing a new observation post or just vanishes at the end of the day. Might have been caretakers eons ago but now, they're just slightly insane AI's that are horrible at explaining why, or frankly how, they accomplish anything these days. Play style - Ancient Caretakers

There are some minor players on the scene, the Draconids being among one of the more prevalent throughout the story.

I'm just pleased as punch to be able to write for that world again, it's been drifting around in my head for ages.

An odd if fun thing to notice, if you look at the calves on the elk they play the game of which one is in the foreground. ^^