Vulpinian

The Vulpinians are a species of Anthropomorphic canid aliens from the Rolor Nebula possessing the capability of limited shape shifting. They are most notably recognized for their rather liberal sexual attitudes and their capabilities in military endeavors particularly in the field of carrier based small space fighter combat. They are a federation member species and maintain sovereign territory in the confines of the Rolor nebula. Appearance wise they have three forms: The natural form which is similar to a Were creature similar to a maned wolf, The Vulcine form which appears most similarly to a kind of wood elf from Terran fantasy settings. and a feral form resembling a canid very much like the Terran Maned wolf.

Basics

The most basic facts about the Vulpinian race are difficult to fully appreciate without having an understanding of the complexities of their language or rather the fact that their language is unable to be verbally represented via traditional Federation means. It is important to note that all proper names of their home, their names, name of their race, terms for their deity and other things are essentially Federation names for them that the Vulpinians chose to use. Most of these terms they borrowed from Japanese. As such most Vulpinian Proper nouns for astronomical objects or even for ship names are words in Terran Japanese.

As such the name of their planet is Inari Prime, and is the second planet in the Inari star system. Compared to Earth’s trip around the sun their planet’s orbit around its primary star is quite a bit larger but the planet moves at a faster velocity. The planet rotates at a slower speed though resulting in an approximately 29 Earth-hour day and 450 Vulpinian day year. This results in an approximately 550 Earth-day long Vulpinian year. This is an important thing to know because when most Vulpinians refer to their age they refer to their age in Vulpinian years rather than Terran years.

Despite their long time in isolation, they were quick to adapt to their first contact with the federation, in year 2357, predating their discovery of warp. This was deemed not a violation of the prime directive due to their preexisting contact with merchants of an unknown alien race (later found out to be the Ferengi) who had been at the time perpetuating a continuing civil war between Inari Prime’s people and the people of its colonies. It was no more than 20 year later that their home-world became a member planet within the United Federation of Planets.

The name they chose to designate their species was Vulpinian taking a cue from the name of the Catian species presently existing within the Federation. They chose the term Vulpic for their language. And most Vulpinians who interact with the federation tend to use the federation common trade language as their language. As such they are able to communicate in a way that is readable via universal translator. Many Vulpinians who were merchants at the time of the trades with the Ferengi know the Ferengi language instead. The vast majority of Vulpinians however do not speak any other language than their native language. And as such much of Vulpinian space is not as well adapted for those from elsewhere.

Their technology level prior to first contact was a pre-warp culture with certain facets of impulse and Starfighter technology that was superior even to the current generation of federation Shuttlecraft. Many of the fighter pilots of the two opposing sides of Vulpinian military retained their combat positions as part of a unified Vulpinian defense force and post Dominion war and their entrance into the Federation many transferred their service records into careers in the federations newly formed Tactical-CONN department. Approximately 75 percent of all Vulpinians who began a federation career via a transfer of military experience to a post within Starfleet are of this department, in fact.

Among Vulpinian citizens that choose to join Starfleet currently now have no particular division bias with just as many perusing federation civilian careers as military ones.

Physiology

Body Structure and Appearance

Vulpinians are a race unique in their ability to take on multiple physical forms, a process called “shifting.” Most Vulpinians have three forms, their “Natural” form (discussed first) their “Feral” form and their “Tertiary” form.

The Natural "Vulpinian" form

The natural form of a Vulpinian is that of an anthropomorphic canid, physically resembling a mythological Terran creature called a Were-wolf or to be more accurate a Were-fox. Both males and females are very similar aside from sexual organs, and secondary sexual traits.

Height and weight are very similar amongst males and females with the female being slightly taller on average and the male having slightly broader shoulders and slightly shorter and less steeply sloping muzzles. Compared to the human male both sexes are on average slightly shorter. At ideal health a Vulpinian has an athletic, gymnastically inclined, build with a toned musculature.

Vulpinian fur color varies amongst nearly every fur color seen in canines on Earth and as such there are racial differences amongst Vulpinians from different regions though there are primarily 3 key races and in the earth language they are named for a Terran canine the fur color resembles. The Artie are named for the arctic fox though show a lot of similarities in color to many mostly white kinds of wolf. Most notably different among their race are their short rounded ears resembling those of an arctic fox. As it sounds this race that has mostly white to silvery white fur with the darkest spots often being near the tails ears and muzzle. The Labras named for the Black Labrador due to their fur color often being of a dark black to charcoal gray color. And resemble a black colored wolf in their fur length and features The Fen a Light tan race named for their similarity to the fennec fox’s color tone and their tendency to have unusually large ears for the species.

Most Vulpinians do not exhibit the traits of one race only and are a mix of all three though amongst certain noble families there are tendencies to selectively continue the bloodlines of their parent race. Examples of common sub races of Vulpinians include the “Red” the “Timber” and the “Blue” named for red foxes, timber wolves and the blue merle coat pattern in domesticated canines. As an example: Miles Renard is most likely a mix of the Red and Timber sub-races.

Vulpinians in their natural form have sharp fingernails much like claws and their teeth are those of a species that appears eats a highly, almost exclusively, carnivorous diet. One of the most prominent features of the Vulpinian is their tail which in their natural form is prehensile in nature and is capable of being used similarly to an extra limb with roughly half the strength of an arm. In addition the tail serves as a structure tied to their sense of balance.

Gender Specifics

Females of the species are often considered lithe bodied by human female standards and have 3 rows of breasts. The largest pair at the top and decreasing in size as they go down the lowest set at the abdomen.

On average the First set of breasts is smaller than a human females averaging a larger A cup or a smaller B cup size. The second is smaller and is a rather flat A-cup and the third is extremely flat and is more just a set of nipples one on each side of the belly button with little to no breast tissue around them. During late pregnancy and childbirth the female undergoes an extreme sexual change in terms of breast size when she begins to make milk and lactate. On average the primary breast swells to a very voluptuous set of C cups the middle row to perky and full B’s and the final to a rather averagely sized set of A cups. This is due to a combination of swelling of the mammary glands for the production of milk and the milk itself that begins to fill said breasts.

As far as the rest of the male body is concerned the males have an almost feminine shape compared to human males and many male Vulpinians are confused for females of the race due to the similarities amongst the two genders and both genders looking somewhat like androgynous females. Like females males do have nipples though have no breast tissue at all. As they grow all but the first row of nipples tend to atrophy to a point where at best the lower two rows of nipples appear to be small moles at the most under their fur.

Sexual Organ Traits

In the natural form the female sexual organs are canine in nature but similar to a humans contain a similar structure internally. Differently from humans though female Vulpinians have a more easily dilated cervix allowing for cervical penetration during sex. The only times that the cervix does not easily dilate for sex is at times when the female is currently pregnant (as a means of protecting the fetus) or if the female is not consenting as the cervical dilation is typical side effect of sexual pleasure. There are rare exceptions such as if a female is strongly acting in a non-consenting role in extreme forms of sexual play. This kind of play is very rare and since rape is such a serious crime fetishism of even roleplaying nonconsensual sex is punishable as a nonviolent felony in some more conservatively political regions.

Part of the reason for cervical penetration being so common is due to the average length and girth of the male’s sexual organ. Like most canine creatures the foreskin exists as a form of sheath around the male organ. When sheathed the length is about average for a male humans at a semi flaccid state and As such male Vulpinians are stereotyped as constantly horny due to their natural form tending to have a bulge looking similar to a male human experiencing an erection in public. When erect on average a Vulpinian has a penis averaging over a foot in length with a proportionally wide girth. The shape and form is similar to that of an earth canine and at its base has a large knot often around the size of a tennis ball. Vulpinian testicles are of above average size compared to a humans.

The "Feral" Form

All Vulpinians at an early age learn to transform into a form similar to the canid native to their planet that it is believed that they evolved from. This canid creature is most similar to the Terran canine called the Maned wolf. Fur color of the feral form is similar to the fur colors exhibited in their “Natural” form. In this form a Vulpinian has access to their fastest movement speeds and psychologically they take on a more instinctive and impulsive demeanor. Combat in this form is limited to whatever kinds of combat one can expect a canine creature to be capable of. However, since the feral form has access to the most strength and speed this form can be extremely deadly due to the Vulpinian retaining all sentient knowledge of their bipedal forms even when in this form and most train in forms of martial combat that utilize this form In tandem to their natural form.

The "Tertiary" forms

Nearly every Vulpinian takes on a “Tertiary” form upon their earliest stages of adulthood and choosing this form is part of most Vulpinians’ rites of adulthood. There are multiple kinds of Tertiary forms though the most common Tertiary form is known in the Terran language as the Vulcine form. The reason for this name is its slight resemblance to the Federation Species known as Vulcans.

The "Vulcine" Form

The most notable changes to the body in the Vulcine form is the loss of all fur which recedes into the skin during the change. If there is moisture on the fur the process squeezes any liquid off of the surface. This is aided by the slightly hydrophobic nature of the oils present on the surface of Vulpinian fur. Due to the recession of hair in the Vulcine form most Vulpinians in this form are usually bald. Over time the Vulpinian can learn where to stop the hair recession to take on the appearance of human like hair growth. This can extend to body hair and pubic hair. Most however prefer to either stay fully bald in this form or only retain hair on the head and rarely having any form of facial, body, or pubic hair.

During the change the muzzle recedes and the facial, and leg bones rearrange to take on a very humanoid like appearance and structure. Other notable changes are the shift of the feet from a digitigrade structure to a plantigrade structure, the slight recession of the claw structures of the hands into prominent fingernails, and the teeth becoming a mildly omnivorous in shape. Though still noticeably fanged especially regarding the canine teeth. The tail is fully retained in this form though its abilities are heavily diminished and often the tail hangs loose in this form as it takes much more effort to move tail muscles manually in this form. The eyes of a Vulpinian when taking this form are unchanged as their eyes remain the same no matter what form they take. The ears in this form are the reason some compare this form to a Vulcan due to the pointed shape. Unlike a Vulcans ears the pointed shape of a Vulpinian’s ears is much more pronounced and tends to resemble a non-furred slightly moved and a bit smaller version of the canine ears they had before, some tend to point out that the ears are more accurately compared to some form of wood elf from Terran Fantasy. However, to Humans in the Federation pointed ears usually invoke comparisons to Vulcan ears so the name Vulcine for this form stuck.

Gender Specifics

Females in the Vulcine form retain multiple rows of breasts though the bottom row is nearly nonexistent the second row is very small, and the primary row is noticeably larger than in their natural form. Averaging a similar bust size to a human female. In the Vulcine form they retain all 6 nipples usually. Some have gotten good enough at shifting to make the second and third row of nipples disappear altogether in this form.

Males in the Vulcine form take upon a male human looking chest and the additional rows of nipples disappear in this form completely.

Sexual Organ Traits

Females in the Vulcine form’s internal sexual organs change very little. The ability of their cervix to be flexible and dilate is diminished greatly though cervical penetration is still possible it is often painful in this form. The male organ when in the Vulcine form loses some size and resembles either a circumcised or non-circumcised (based on the male Vulpinian’s preference) Human Penis and is roughly 3/4ths the total length of his natural form and lacks the knot of their natural form.

Alternatives to the Vulcine form

As mentioned there are alternatives to the “Vulcine” Tertiary form. The most common alternative is the ability to take on the appearance of the opposite gender of the Vulpinian species's natural form. When one chooses a second gender as their Tertiary form, their non-original gender is sterile as far as becoming impregnated by or impregnating members of their natural gender. Sometimes this gender transformation can be further mastered to the point of being able to take on a form of features borrowed from both genders at once or being able to transform between genders with a very fluid ease.

Others opt to focus on not taking a third form and becoming much more adept at the speed and ease of transforming back and forth from Feral to Natural form.

Ageing and Life Span

The second most prominent feature of the Vulpinian race is their rather unique ageing process. And how their society views different phases of life. ((see culture and customs)) Instead of a strict view of one’s specific age defending what stage of life a person is in culture dictates the stage a Vulpinian is in within their life. These stages are referred to as Kit (child), Adult, Matriarch, and Elder. The advancement from one age group to the next is usually based on either a ritual (such as kit to adult) or their ageing process naturally changing. Such as with Adult to Matriarch and Matriarch to Elder.

The average Life span of a Vulpinian is between 250 and 550 Human years. Kits become adults through a rite of adulthood ceremony that culminates in receiving a legal document that entitles one to the privileges rights and responsibilities of adulthood. This ceremony is undertaken when the child feels they are ready to be declared legally an adult so the age that a newly declared adult appears varies between as young in appearance as Recently hitting puberty and as old as a young adult by human standards. Age of consent laws with Vulpinians are such that the age of consent is not a specific age but is tied to being declared an adult. Vulpinians age roughly at half the rate of humans until they reach the "matriarch” stage of life at about 85 human years and usually appear in their mid-40’s. It is at this stage that most settle down to have children. The matriarch stage, patriarch for males, is the longest and most long lived sage of the Vulpinian life and ageing slows to a literal crawl for between 135 and 410 years ageing from early middle age, by human standards 40 to 45 and early retirement age like 55 to. Matriarchs and Patriarchs are also called arches for short. About midway through this stage females go through the equivalent to human menopause and become infertile often resulting in an increase in their libido. Given the slight graying of fur during the Arch-years this period of increased female sexuality is known as the "Silver-heat". Often times they will seek out younger males as semi frequent partners similar to the human concept of a male going through a midlife crisis and trying to "score a trophy wife." It’s the one time in Vulpinian culture that a member of the race being solely heterosexual is in any way common. For some reason at this age most females loose interest in other females for a time. After this stage in life Vulpinians age at a rate very similar to human aging and are classified as Elders. Most Vulpinians retire upon being declared an elder though it is far from forced retirement. The retirement is more a pseudo retirement where they are taken care of by the state and are revered as masters in their fields of work. When nearing Death Vulpinians often view death itself as not an enemy to flee but as a guide to take them to the next stage of existence.

Psychology

Vulpinians often will weigh logical reasoning before making a pure instinctual choice but will usually prefer their "gut" over logic, and often can explain the pros and cons of nearly any reasoned decision they make. Vulpinians are also a spiritual people but not very religious. They typically embrace learning about other cultures' religions and spiritual beliefs and often assimilate these concepts into their own spiritual philosophies. Most Vulpinians share a common love of comparative theology and History of religions and philosophies. Furthermore, Vulpinians love competition whether in the form of sports, or hunting prey. Most Vulpinian conflicts are settled by duels between the disagreeing parties. Rarely are these duels using fatal means and in many cases they utilize duels of some form of game, riddle, or puzzle competition.

When it comes to war Vulpinians have an interesting philosophy that requires a certain understanding of the Vulpinian civil war that had been waged for a long time before they were discovered by the Federation. (More on this in History) Regarding psychology relating to war though there was a mutual respect on both sides of the war for each other. The war was less viewed as a purpose to conquer and more as a potentially deadly competition between the home planet and the colonies.

A Vulpinian who chose to join the military often joined the military of their birth place. Crossing factions was not unheard of nor was there a stigma attached to it. Secondly there was little to no hatred between either side of the war for the other and many weapons were designed to cripple the technology of the other side rather than kill the soldiers. Surrender to a superior force was viewed as not disrespectful and was considered a wise decision if facing overwhelming odds. Upon surrender or capture a soldier was expected to join the side of the fight who captured them. As such there was a greater incentive to capture soldiers alive than kill them in combat. Amongst soldiers who have retired the average is having to switch sides at least 5 times during one’s career. Secondly Civilian targets were off limits to both sides and both sides agreed to make sure that any civilian in a military related field knew the risks and that their place of work was considered a military target and that those places of work were located within militarized zones rather than civilian zones. As such these civilians received compensation in the form of hazard pay for the risk. Above all else war was viewed less as Kill the enemy and more as a competition to prove whether the colonies or the home world were more worthy to lead the Vulpinian people.

Language

There are two prevelant languages used by the Vulpinian race both which are learned as part of single lingual system. This bilingual system is called Vulpic by the federation. The first half of the vulpic langage is True Vulpic which is the older of the two. It is the language natural to the Vulpinians and is a language able to be used by a member of the Vulpinian race in any of their three forms. It consists of canid vocalizations, body and facial gestures that run the gambit from subtle to major, and pheromone signals. As such the language has no literal full translation into a human spoken federation language though approximations can be made.

As such words in the language consist of three parts at varying intervals and inflections. But the language can be divided into three root parts. Vocal Gestural and Pheromonal

The vocal portion of the language is limited to different basic vocalizations such as bark, baye, howl, woof, yip, etc. These sounds can vary from person to person and different regions have different accents. These tend to represent what humans would view as the consonant sounds of the language.

The gestural portion of the language consists of 5 basic gesture types, denoting what part of the body the gesture is made with. Postural, Eye/Facial, Tail, Hair/mane, and Ear gestures and are subtyped into gestural forms called Downwards, Upwards, Forwards, and Backwards. In addition there are tilted forms. Which are viewed as combining characteristics of said forms into a meaning between the two. such as a both forwards and upwards. Slightly forwards typically is same as forwards but in a "quieter" way These gestures seem to more similar to vowels in nature.

Finally the Pheromone portion of the language consists of approximately 3 different pheromones and serve rather than to convey tone and inflection rather than the word said itself. And different mixtures of the pheromones can mean different things from happiness and eagerness with one combination while a similar combination with one slightly more than the other may be non-genuine happiness or sarcastic happiness. Essentially the pheromone or pheromone combination can mean the difference between “OH YAY!!! *jumping around excitedly*” And “Oh, yay… *rolls eyes*“

the second language was developed by the race when they began developing technology that required communication over a audio only medium. As such it is refereed to as Phonetic Vulpic since it is a solely verbal language. Phonetic Vulpic often sounds like a more complex but humanized version of the verbal part of True Vulpic. Phonetic Vulpic essentially phoneticizes True Vulpic and was also developed into the modern written Vulpic the written form of true Vulpic having disappeared long ago. As described earlier, Canine-like vocalizations are turned into what amount to consonant clusters in the English language. An ruff sound being turned into a rudimentary rf consonant sound. The various gestures thus become the vowel sounds of this language(4 types of gestures while pheromonal signals become the differing tones of voice that would be written as punctuation and may not as clearly come across in an English style written form. (like how sarcasm is hard to convey in direct quotation though can be conveyed easially vocally.)

The Vulpinian written language consists of different symbols. 20 symbols (looking more angular in nature) for the different vocalizations. 5 symbols that are notably curved for the gestures. Gesture symbol are marked with an angle coming off the tip bottom front or back (or at an angle) to indicate the gesture's form. and two or more gestures together are indicated by pars of these characters in the same word. Various punctuations and accent marks tends to denote pheromone signals.

Most words in the written language consist of two symbols one vocal one (or more) gestural creating a word that can be pronounced in a human sounding way. The way words string together and sentences are punctuated is the written way of conveying pherimonal signals.

The vulpinian written language can be written in two forms native which utalizes vulpinian characters and punctuation and in Romanized form, utilizing the federations character and punctuation set to phonetically represent said words as closely as possible.

Most Vulpinians are at least Triingual with their second language being the common Ferengi trade language because their trade with Ferengi merchants going back long before their first encounter with the federation. Recently the secondary language that is becoming most prevalent is the Federation common dialect (Preformed on screen as Terran English). While True Vulpinian is unable to be translated via universal translator, Phonetic vulpinian is able to be translated by the average universal translator and most Vulpinians speak in it when conversing with members of the Federation. Most Vulpinians who regularly interact with people part of the federation prefer to learn the native language of those they work with. Federation liaisons and ship crews learning Federation Basic, Ambassadorial roles with foreign planets learning that planets native language etc...

Most Vulpinian terms and proper names are unable to be said by those outside the race and as a result many Vulpinians go by a home name and an outsider name of their choice. Federation designations for the Race’s home planet, solar system the nebula they are within and even the name of the race were chosen through many polls of suggestions from the youth of the planet with the guideline being they must be in a federation language. A common theme became words dealing with the Terran Fox and mythology surrounding the Kitsune creature of Japanese mythology.

Home World

The Inari System and the Rolor Nebula constitutes what is defined as Vulpinian Territory

The Inari system is composed of 1 star, 1 Brown Dwarf type pseudo-stellar object (considered the fourth “planet”), 3 Inner planets of terrestrial type, 2 medium gas giants, 1 small gas giant, and an outer belt of comets asteroids and Dwarf planets similar to Sol’s Kuiper belt.

At this point I should note that when it comes to the politics as they currently exist on Inari prime different groups of colonies have different nations of sorts. There are presently 5 nations. The two continents of Inari are their own nations. The Inner Colonies are all colonies that exist within the orbit of Inari between Inari itself and the Brown dwarf. The colonies in orbit around the brown dwarf are their own nation, and the colonies outside the orbit of the brown dwarf are their own nation called the outer colonies. There has been discussions that colonies outside the Inari system should be designated as their own nation but as it presently stands they are considered loosely confederated city states that are represented within the outer colonies group.

The star Inari is an is an A0 type Main sequence star, bluish-white main in color and is very easily comparable to the Star known by humans as Vega.

The nearest planet to Inari, designated Hantai (Japanese for opposite) is much like the Sol system’s Mercury being of small size and barren of any form of atmosphere. Unlike mercury and similar to Earth’s Moon its orbit is tidally locked to Inari resulting in an intensely hot bright side and a fully exposed to the cold vacuum of space dark side hence the name being Japanese for opposite as it is composed of 2 opposite halves. There are presently 4 Vulpinian bases on this world 2 staffed with organics on the dark side and near the horizon line. One near dead center of the dark side that functions more like a proper colony and the final fully automated on the intensely hot bright side serving as a solar observation constantly taking readings of Inari. The primary function of the 4 base colony is as a monitoring site gathering data on their sun’s internal workings.

The second planet in the system is Inari Prime the home-world of the Vulpinians. and is very much like Earth in size. Compared to earth the planet has a larger area of temperate forest and cities tend to grow around the forests rather than cutting the forests down for the cities. As such the planet is sort of melding of natural and technological with cities with spaceports bordering on nearly every biome possible. Its mass and size is about 1.3 times that of Earth. A full rotation of it’s axis is approximately 29 hours and A full rotation around Inari is roughly 450 Vulpinian days. As a close approximation One Vulpinian Year is equal to 550 Earth days. As a people the Vulpinians don’t view this single planet as their home but the entirety of the Rolor Nebula as their home and territory. Though they still see the Inari system and Inari Prime specifically as their origin regardless of where they were born. AS a planet it has similar biomes to earth but contains only two large super continents. There are many fault areas that are still very volcanically active and earthquake prone and there are no major cities in these areas but instead less permanent types of structures are built there. Roughly 80 percent of the planet is covered in water and of the water roughly 85 percent is seawater. Said seawater is slightly less salt saturated than that of Earth resulting in medical having to use a slightly less salty saline solution for medical uses with Vulpinians than with humans. There is an abundance of flora and fauna on Inari prime. And is considered to be a very botanically and zoologically diverse world.

Inari Prime is orbited by a unique Dual moon system. The primary moon is designated Kitsune a name in Japanese lore for the fox spirit. And the smaller one designated Bi meaning tail. This also creates a paired name of Kitsune-Bi which in Japanese can mean Fox Fire a kind of magical fire Kitsune were thought to possess the ability to conjure. Since moons are bright and glow in the night sky this name also fits. The reason I called it a unique dual moon system is that the first moon is a standard Luna type moon that is tidally locked with Inari prime this moon is roughly a third the size of the earth and orbits further from Inari Prime than Luna orbits earth resulting in a very similar tidal effect. The Other moon Bi is not really a moon but a comet that was trapped in the gravity of Kitsune. The result is occasionally Inari’s light catching the tail of said comet just right that it appears as if there is a tail growing out of Kitsune hence its designation as Kitsune’s Tail or Bi. Both moons are heavily colonized

The third planet of the Inari system is Chikyuu and is roughly of equal size to earth and had a primitive atmosphere. The reasoning of the name is that as it currently exists post terraforming is could almost be looked at as a near twin for Planet earth in the Sol system. As a result the name that the Vulpinians chose for it was the Japanese name for the planet Earth which roughly translated into sphere of soil. As it presently exists Chikyuu has been terraformed into what could be considered an ideal colony world. It has 5 small “moons” though a better term for them is trapped asteroids. All of these “moons have at least 1 colony on them some with multiple colonial bases

The fourth “planet” the brown dwarf star named Yoko meaning Demon Fox, Coincidentally it has 9 moons of small terrestrial planet size all which have been terraformed into major colonial centers. This lead to these planet like moons to be called collectively the Kyuubi no Yoko, Nine Tails of the Demon Fox. As such each moon is named for a Japanese number 1-9 and with the suffix Bi attached to it. With the larger moon meaning the higher number. All of these moons are within a small habitable zone from the pseudo star’s heat output. In addition to those 9 moons there are several smaller orbiting satellites that are the size of large (small moon sized) asteroids. All 9 of the major moons have been colonized an in turn those moons colonized nearby small moon sized asteroids. Regarding the appearance from Inari prime of Yoko. This it was thought that it was a planet for a long time but after observation techniques got better it was discovered that it was in actuality a Brown dwarf proto-stellar object with a size roughly the size of 1.125 Jupiter’s and a mass roughly 80 times that of Jupiter. It glows in a dark reddish color even on the side facing away from Inari via its own nuclear fusion reactions.

The fifth sixth and seventh planets are named for the Imperial regalia of Japan. The fifth named Yasakani for the “Yasakani no Magatama” a jade jewel in the shape of a magatama. It was named such due to its greenish color. The planet is a Gas planet between the sizes of Neptune and Uranus that has 1 planetoid sized moon, two major asteroid sized moons and a faint dust ring structure. Like other planets within the Inari system it has small mining colonies on both smaller terrestrial bodies and multiple colonies on the biggest moon.

The sixth planet is named Yata and is named for the Yata no Kagame or “Eight Span Mirror”. The Eight Span the name refers to are the 8 major moons ranging from small planet to small moon sized satellites. It is a gas giant size is very similar in size to Saturn and like Saturn has a very well defined group of ring structures. The gas clouds of this planet take on a mostly pale brown hue making it almost appear like it is caught in a perpetual dust storm.

The final Planet is named Kusanagi for the Kusanagi no Tsurugi or “Grass Cutting Sword “ The closest parallel to a sword that this planet has would be the amount of damage that can be seen via scans through its thick atmosphere of gasses. The majority of its mass is not of a planetary terrestrial mass but of a layer of solid and liquids ices surrounded by a thick fog of gasses. As opposed to sol’s Neptune and Uranus’s status as ice giants this would be an ice dwarf by comparison though still much larger than an average terrestrial planet. As it currently exists it is surrounded by numerous small moons like asteroids that have not yet fully accreted into spherical moons that forms a rather chaotic ring structure. As such bases orbiting this planet are primarily above and below the horizon of the ring structure. It is theorized it will be a few hundred million years before this planet will have fully recovered from whatever happened to it (most likely a planet sized rogue object impacting it) and theoretically it should form into an ice planet surrounded by multiple moons with comet like compositions.

Outside Kusanagi’s orbit there is a relatively large mass of debris surrounding the Inari system similar to Sol’s Kuiper belt. Continuing with the Japanese naming it was given the name of Kyodai Obi or Giant Belt in English. Like the planets many parts of this area have been colonized and by mere number there are more individual small colonies here than all the other colonies combined. Though the total population of these colonies combined is less than even the smallest of the Kyubi colonies, Ichibi.

Even further beyond the Kyodai Obi is what the Vulpinian language once called the Vail. The vail is essentially the gasses that compose the majority of the Rolor nebula. Due to the vail the night skies on Inari prime always consist of at the most the visible 7 “planets” and the two moons of Inari Prime. The rest of the night sky is a dark blue with a very faint light behind it almost like there are dim lights behind a very opaque dark blue curtain. There are other similar pockets of non-nebulous space within the nebula and currently the entirety of the nebula has been mapped by the Vulpinian authorities. Because the only intelligent life native to the entire nebula are the Vulpinians the entirety of the nebula was designated as their territory. The Vulpinian sovereignty has been very open with allowing other peoples to colonize the space within the Rolor nebula under the ideology that if said people colonize an area their laws only apply within the colony itself and outside the colony and in the space surrounding it Vulpinian law applies. IN the case of federation colonies Vulpinian law waives jurisdiction to federation authorities in most circumstances though occasionally there are jurisdictional “turfwars” over certain things.

Culture & Customs

Most notably amongst their culture is a very relaxed view on sexuality having a tendency to be very open with public affection even as far as public mating being far from un-common? This said there is an interesting separation between Mating and love. Particularly IN their society typically Vulpinians don’t develop strong romantic attachments unless in a mated pair relationship. Friends with benefits type relationships are common but Romantic Boyfriend and girlfriend scenarios are often frowned upon unless the pair is seeking to create children. The reason for this is partially because of the jealousy that can form if someone splits their emotional attachments between two people. (cheating as it were) by separating sexuality and mating from the romantic bond and instead forming platonic relationships with casual mates there is less risk of jealousy forming. As such having a crush or spending the night with someone after sex or even cuddling just to be together can be viewed as somewhat perverted.

Customs regarding religion are often very slight and consist of short prayers consisting of rarely over 5 words and often take the form of philosophical mantras. These mantras usually reinforce thankfulness of prey and a reverence for the predator prey relationship amongst their people and the animals they eat. Human anthropologists often compare this to the Plains Indian’s spiritual relationship with the buffalo. As such Vulpinians are often far from wasteful of Meat and even in their current technological level often will still fashion useful objects from the bones and tissues of prey animals. With technological advances this has included a further focus on artistic works rather than tools from animal materials. The on-world fashion of Vulpinians often still utilize animal skins, furs, and even bone as jewelry.

Among the high art on the Vulpinian home world one of the most highly regarded are the arts of Scrimshaw, Animal pelt and fur clothing, and Blood Painting.

The blood painting art-form has existed for a long time and the art has remained relatively the same. A part of the animal’s hide is prepared and cured in order to create a painting canvas. The blood of said animal is dried out to create a red pigment that is then mixed with different natural materials such as charcoal for darker shades or powdered bone meal (preferably from the same animal) for lighter shades. While the hide is prepared the artist picks multiple bones of the animal to form paintbrush handles and fashions brush heads from tufts of the animal’s hair. The final process is the painting itself which the artist creates while dining solely on meals made from the very animal they are painting from. It is thought that the artist tries to channel the soul of their meal into the painting allowing the prey to speak through the art and in spirit allow the prey animals spirit to ascend into the painting itself. The blood painting‘s final fate is to be passed on in full the art piece being the painting and all the brushes collectively. Most often the paintings reside within a family home at a small part of the home known as the shrine to the prey which is often located near the kitchen or dining room. Traditionally a food preparer will offer a short prayer to the shrine (essentially to the spirit of the prey animal within the painting) thanking the collective spirit of prey for the life it gives to feed the family. Similar prayers are offered by the family before and after meals and bare similarity to the idea in the Christian religion of “saying grace before a meal”. Often single person households with have a shrine of something small like a rabbit like forest rodent. Families and smaller restaurants would have something like the size of a small Terran swine. Large restaurants and large well to do family would have one made from something larger like a deer sized creature. Five star establishments, military dining halls and the like may have something made from a larger animal. Often the size of the art piece is a symbol of the mastery of the artist and collectors will sometimes collect a full sequence from small to large as a representation of the artist’s journey from apprentice to master.

Despite the amount of focus their art has on use of animal material the majority of day to day clothing and military uniforms are from synthetic fibers and there are laws strictly forbidding waste of prey animal materials and forbidding artists from taking too much prey in order to craft more art. As a general rule Artists that have a lot of demand will donate excess food to charity kitchens and respectively restaurants will donate non-food material to youngsters wishing to practice art to become an apprentice. It is an extreme faux paus among their own kind to waste anything related to a creature that was once alive.

These cultural faux paus do not apply to visitors from other worlds and as such there are people who often make sure that materials that would otherwise be wasted are dealt with in a way where they are in some way or another recycled.

Regarding Social status, one of the most important facets of ones place in the world is ones age. A phrase amongst Vulpinians is, “with age comes privilege but with hard work privilege can be earned faster.” This refers to the somewhat caste like system that defines one’s place. Vulpinians have a tradition based caste system based on stages of life. As a person ages they go up in the system. Adult females are encouraged but not forced to become the care giver and head of a household though this is only tradition not a strict rule. Males often chose an occupation to provide for a female and her family. The Matriarch stage is often met with advancement to the higher echelons of their given careers. Matriarchs go from the stage of raising a family and being head of a household to political roles, becoming politicians and policy makers in government positions. Elders are revered and allowed to retire to share their knowledge with those who seek them. To be an elder is an honor and to have an elder share their knowledge with you is a privilege.

As the saying above mentioned “but with hard work privilege can be earned faster.” refers to the fact that A Vulpinian can advance in the caste system by hard work and success as well. To see a younger than usual person at a higher caste in society than their age would suggest often means this person was unusually highly skilled in their particular field.

History

Unlike most species the Vulpinian history is extremely young and goes nearly all the way back to their unnatural evolution. It is a relatively well known fact that the fossil record shows that their evolution from quadrupedal animal to sentient biped was a sudden change lending credence to the belief that there was some god or other form of meddler who forced the evolutionary change through some form of tampering. The general belief is that this was accomplished through some matriarchal god-like-being’s powers. Other theories that are accepted as possible are that some alien life form tampered with their genetic code for some reason. The fact remains that shortly after their shift from animal to what they are now they discovered their unique shifting ability and also began to develop a written and verbal language as well as began recording their history. As such the span of their race has been less than 7000 years making their species actually younger as a species than the entire span of recorded human history. Unlike humans they can trace their society to an exact location and can chart its spread over the planet. Over time there have been various nations that have come and went but for the most part they have kept a single culture and language.

The most culture defining and dividing event for the Vulpinian race occurred approximately 1000 Vulpinian years Before Federation Contact (BFC) (approx. 1500 Earth years) with an event known as The First Schism. At this point in time the Vulpinian people’s technological level was approximately that of Rome at the height of its power. It is not for certain what occurred but what is believed is that there was a ruling family who had Twin male heirs. This was very unusual as usually Inheritances and ruling at the time went only to female heirs. Despite this fact the twins were loved by the people and it was still unknown who amongst the pair would be crowned the inheritor of the royal titles the other as the herald of the throne. Shortly after the father died a daughter was born supposedly from the father of the twins. Tragedy again struck with the birth of the lone female heir though as the Matriarch of the Vulpinian people her mother died shortly after childbirth. The people supposedly were immediately divided amongst those who said follow tradition and make the newborn daughter the new Matriarch. And those who wanted the twins to retain the Birthright because of how universally loved they were by the populous. Secondly there was a specter of doubt that the daughter was the previous matriarchs at all and may have been a child of her sister or another relative who wanted to put their child as the heir. Nevertheless the people were divided amongst traditionalists, those who said it is tradition to keep the female as the heir regardless if she truly was the matriarch’s daughter, and reformists, who said that even if the daughter is truly the matriarch’s the twins earned the throne. Needless to say the argument was heated and armies began to spring up on three different sides. Two armies ready to fight for each of the twins and another willing to fight for their infant Matriarch. One of the brothers pleaded with the people to lay down their arms and not fight their new matriarch. The other swore vengeance against his so called sister wanting her head believing she was not his mother’s child swearing that their mother showed no signs of pregnancy at all and then somehow gave birth and died in the childbirth. The Two factions fought bitterly for years the brother swearing peace asking his faction to fight neither but to protect his family as he tended to the upbringing of his young sister.

When the sister reached her ascension to adulthood her peaceful brother presided over the ceremony and in secret hoping to broker peace invited his brother. Upon the Matriarch’s coronation the peaceful brother asked the queen to welcome back her brother and unite the people pleading that by making her enemy brother the herald of the throne she may yet have a peaceful rule. Instead of seeing this as an attempt to help her solidify her power she saw it as a threat and immediately had her guards capture both brothers, executing her enemy one and supposedly exiling the ally she now saw as a traitor.

At first the New matriarch was able to rule with solid support thinking she had ended the rebellion but soon whispers started to spread that she had not exiled either and had had both of them murdered. Soon there was another war on her hands which after hundreds of years ended only when she died and her daughter wanting to do anything to end the war began making slight policy changes allowing males to have a certain degree more equality though not enough to make much of a difference in how policy was ran. The people still functioned under a Matriarchal monarchy but at least the war had ended. Unfortunately for future descendants old grudges don’t die so easily.

At a point in time approximately 600 Earth years BFC , the old grudges having resurfaced in a series of smaller “schism wars” over the passing years, culminated in event they called The Great Schism or The great Exodus. Though society had remained relatively unchanged technology had changed a lot and their society was at a level similar to late 20th century Earth. They had learned to split the atom and had discovered a near inexhaustible energy source leading to a new era of exploration. The Vulpinians began to explore their home solar system in Ernest. Seeing their chance to finally have the reformation they had craved the whispers of reformation became shouts not to wage war. No they became shouts to colonize the sky. Much like the colonists that first came to the new world on earth to find freedom of religion for their own sects the “Faction of the Twin Suns” named for both the twins of the old schism and for the sun and the night sun, the brown dwarf, they were wishing to find new life amongst. Creating the designs for colony ships and swearing an oath to never infringe on the rights of the home bound traditionalists they made their exodus and soon founded their colonies amongst the various bodies of their solar system. It less than a century when the Traditionalist Home world and the Reformist Colonies opened trade relations. Cargo ships and defensive fleets were created in earnest between the two peoples finally bridging a gap that had existed for so long. In separation from each other the two sides finally found a peaceful coexistence though said shared existence could only be maintained for so long before differences began to divide them again.

It is unclear who made the first demands. Some say the Mother World the traditionalist answer to the Faction of the Twin Suns. Demanded rights to mine in places claimed as Twin suns territory First. Some say the Twin suns demanded a reformist party within the senate of the home world First. And there are a hundred other theories about what was the action of the other that initiated one of them to make the first attacks against the other. What matters is both sides began to make attacks against the other. The home world began to try and take territory off world and the colonies began to try and become entrenched on the home world. Terrorist factions rose and fell as radicals begun to rise as the most popular leaders on both sides. Soon there was a full scale war in the sky. Amongst a people who had been living an average life span of Hundreds of years the average life span thanks to war soon became barely making it to adulthood long enough to kill a few on the other side. Families that once had 5 generations in a home now barely knew their fathers and mothers before leaving the children orphans to be raised in an environment of being forged into soldiers in a war none of them could know much about.

Seeing no end to the countless lives lost the Matriarchy unlashed their most powerful weapon on the Colonial stronghold on the home world. The weapon was a weaponization of one of their fission generators and resulted in massive devastation. (Essentially the weapon was similar to a late Cold war ICBM style fission based atomic bomb.) Knowing that neither people could continue to survive in a war like this the present matriarch offered a compromise. Instead of forcing the group of reformists into surrender as had been done countless times before only to allow them to rise back up more hungry than before she instead chose to propose a change in the nature of war amongst both sides. There would still be war but war would be waged differently. In her proposal war would become more civilized and both sides would learn more about each other rather than mindlessly trying to kill and conquer each other.

The compromise was a success. The war continued to be waged for centuries but through this civil war, this stalemate, between the Twin Suns and the Mother World factions. Both sides began to see each other’s sides. The military’s became less polarized as did the civilian populations. Slowly reformist parties began to appear in the Mother parliament and Traditionalist corporations began to be allowed to mine in Twin Suns territories. Within the last century further deals were reached making the rules of war-piece by piece resemble a form of live fire war-games. By 45 earth years they had almost fully eliminated all inequalities between males and females and the war as it were had become little more than a few skirmishes over small territories and the occasional policing of the more radical sub factions of each group who both sides governments declared as terrorists rather than as military organizations. More often than not the twin suns terrorists were fought by Twin suns Faction military more so than by Mother World military and the same went for the mother world terrorist groups. While many born under the Twin Suns became exchange students on the Home world and vice versa. Slowly both sides were beginning to resemble each other more and more. At least they were until an event that would change life in the system forever that occurred approximately in their year 18 BFC.

In the year 2329 the Twin Suns faction made first contact with an alien race. The aliens claimed to have been observing the conflict for centuries (really for only months) and said that they had two things the Twin suns would value more than anything. They claimed to have archaeological evidence that proved that the Matriarch from the first schism had assonated both brothers and that she had not been of their bloodline at all. In addition they offered technology that could reshape the war in the twin suns favor and allow them to take the home world and rightfully restore the banner of the twins to the rightful place on the throne.

Meanwhile now knowing of both sides in the war the Aliens established secret contact with the Mother World faction offering a similar piece of archaeological evidence. Their evidence offer was proof once and for all that the matriarch was indeed the daughter of the ruling mother and that not only had she exiled and not murdered the peaceful brother but that there was proof that he had been heading a plot to place his brother as the Herald of the throne then had a plot to murder both his sister and brother. Of course they also offered weapons as well. With this evidence that both sides now had the flames of war proper were rekindled and the Vulpinian people were plunged into a more violent conflict than ever before. The rules of war had dissolved POWs instead of being welcomed to come to the other side with full previous ranks were demoted down to the lowest and forced into cannon fodder to throw at their old allies. The war games had devolved into a bloody war again. With the mysterious alien benefactors playing both sides against each other for the sole motivation they required, profit.

It was not long before more of the large eared aliens arrived. The Ferengi, as the Vulpinians later learned they were called, seemed to exist to fill any trading niche either side could imagine. Some sympathized with one side, others claimed wanting to aid the other, some claimed to be mere purveyors of medicine to either side. All of them claimed their own reasons all of them said they were a race of mere merchants just wanting to offer aide to the side that they personally felt deserved help. Nearly all of them in reality were under the contract of a single corporation that had grown rich over the years from the weapons trade to both sides of this war. In the end though there was a single Ferengi selling Mineral commodities for Latinum while selling both sides false information and weapons that were worth virtually nothing anywhere else, not to say they weren’t quite effective given the relatively war-games like methods of war that had been fought there for a century.

In the year 2357 the USS Assurance, (an Ambassador class vessel assigned to a routine patrol and mapping assignment near the “upper” boundaries of the Cardassian Union) noticed a series of craft heading into and out of the Rolor Nebula and heading towards the sector of space where the USS Stargazer was lost 2 years prior.

Key Logs pertaining to First contact with Vulpinian race.

USS Assurance Ambasador class NCC- *******

Captain’s log Stardate ******, while exploring the area of space around the Badlands Tactical reported a convoy of small lightly armed craft heading towards the location where the USS Stargazer was lost.

Captain’s log Stardate ******, Keeping a distance using the Badlands region as a buffer we observed another convoy of ships heading into the nebula and shortly thereafter another convoy leaving it. Scans of the Rolor nebula indicate no significant presence of materials within aside from the presence of the rare material Sirillium which has been known to be used by the Andorians and Tellarites in warheads.

Regarding the convoy it appears the same group we are seeing enter is the same group we see leave and they do not stay long within the nebula. Assessment based on scans of the ships is they are likely some form of shipping vessels Due to the proximity to the Cardassian Union our tactical officer has theorized that the contents of the nebula is a Cardassian forward base in our war against them. The vessels in question appear to be lightly armed and armored and given their heading they may be affiliated with the Ferengi race whom it is theorized has a home world near these sectors. And whom we have had little to no official contact with. Advising this may be a first contact Scenario.

Captain’s log Stardate ******, We attempted contact with the convoy and were ignored. Upon contact the vessels increased speed and since have not returned. It has been one week since the last “shipment” was made. We have sent a probe within the Rolor nebula and are awaiting transmission of its data.

Captain’s log Stardate ******, It’s a warzone in there. Vessels of similar make to each other have been observed in close combat. Ships appear to be similar in nature to the aircraft carriers of the United States Navy during the Third world war. Each ship appears to carry a compliment of fighter craft capable of atmospheric and Interstellar flight. There is no indication of Faster than Light capabilities but stranger were the scans on some of the weapons witnessed. They are federation in nature. Old, but still federation in origin. Advising we make contact. Whoever these people are they are in the middle of a war and killing each other off.

Captain’s log Stardate ******, I have received orders to leave the sector. Some bullshit about the prime directive and non-interference. What about whoever it is that armed these people to the teeth. Who protected these people of the Rolor nebula from their interference? For all we know this war is their fault. Damn the prime directive. The Federation is already involved. These people are killing each other with OUR weapons.

Captain’s log Stardate ******, We have made First Contact. The race has limited access to translators but enough that we were able to at least reach certain understandings. Their technological level is astounding for a pre warp civilization. Nearly every habitable moon and planet is inhabited and where it isn’t habitable they have erected massive structures creating forest cities as a means to create a new homes everywhere. It appears there are two factions fighting over some claim to a single throne. So far it our only official contact has been with a captain of a colony based carrier and all communication has been via written communication. It appears their translation means are quite primitive by our standards.

They have agreed to allow one of the home world’s vessels to enter their territory they control in order to make contact with us. With our ships capabilities we have been able assure the carrier of the other faction will not be attacked.

Captain’s log Stardate ******, Upon several days of communications with both sides and communications between the faction leaders a temporary armistice has been reached. The two faction leaders have agreed to meet on our ship in order to discuss information we have shared with them regarding the shipments they had been receiving up until a few weeks ago. It appears whoever they had been trading with has been playing both sides and escalating a conflict that had nearly ended before their arrival.

Captain’s log Stardate ******, I met the Rolor Aliens for the first time today. It is uncanny how much they look like the werewolves from the old gothic novels I used to read as a child. Hell they can even turn into wolf like animals and into very human looking creatures. What was the word those old books called them. Skin-walkers? Nevertheless they are a mostly peaceful people. Not that unlike humankind even. Closer to nature but none the less our species can definitely see eye to eye on certain things. Of course I was far from prepared to see what a armistice agreement entailed between them. First time I have witnessed a species sign an accord with sexual intercourse but I guess differences are to be expected. What matters is they are no longer fighting and are sharing with us what very limited information they have on the shipments they had been receiving.

From what they told us they have as little of an idea on the race of the species as we do all the agreements were made via written data communications. What we do know is they must have access to old ship graveyards as the weaponry they had received included everything from outdated federation phasers from the old NX class ships to generator parts from old Klingon birds of prey and even a few Romulan ship components we had never seen before. Unfortunately it seems the root of the conflict still exists as these arms traders also created falsified documents and genetic evidence that gave both sides ample reason to escalate their violence. It will take years to repair the damage between the two people with their shared race but if what we have witnessed is any indication lie us they are more than capable of forgiveness.

On a lighter note these people do seem to have a sense of humor. They have already created their own oath of vengeance against their instigators. Once we leave they have asked up to leave and they will attempt to re contact their arms dealers. With any luck they will find out much more than we did. Strangely for a group that was just in a bloody civil war their oath of vengeance is not one of violence. These merchants seemed to be just in it for commerce whoever they were. They have sworn that victory will be achieved by beating them at their own game. This could become interesting.

End Logs

Shortly after First contact with the federation The Vulpinian people did indeed make contact with their instigators again. They continued their infiltration game for months at first, then years. They kept the federation informed very little on how it progressed. In their own words. “We live long lives. We can be patient in our game.”

Within a few years the federation had a colony within their star system and the race had come up with words in the federation language to call themselves by and begun joint officer programs with the Federation. Their first joint venture was the construction of a warp capable vessel. Given their technological level already this proved not to be too difficult and soon two heroes from the sides of the war were selected for the pilot and co-pilot of the mission. The Pilot was a matriarch age former captain of the flagship of the Mother world fleet. Amongst her people she was known as one of the fiercest and strongest of her faction and a strong proponent of the traditionalist values. In the copilot seat was her near polar opposite. A rather young by Vulpinian standards for his rank Male who had served primarily as an Instructor in Pilot training. Based on his record in the cockpit, had he remained in the war proper he would have likely had more kills to his name than any pilot in Vulpinian history. Add to that he was a radical if that could be said amongst his values being a Strictly heterosexual male who bucked the system of a matriarchal society of pansexuals if there was an example of the kind of person the traditionalists feared the reformists would allow to be called normal it was this brash male pilot who had vocally stated he would be willing to be fully stripped of his rank to join the federation academy if it meant being the first of his kind to “cut the curtain”. Meaning to expose his people to the universe outside the nebula they were within.

The opposing beings were a perfect symbol of the two sides working together. Both of them became household names and became to the Vulpinian people what the names Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were to Americans of the 20th century. Had the male chose to remain at home he surely would have been able to be one of the youngest Vulpinians to enter the Patriarch caste having considered a post war life as a reformist politician wanting to continue the debate amongst his people to petition to be granted membership within the Federation. The female on the other hand followed an almost opposite path. She went straight back into the military and rose to the point of being Commander of the Vulpinian Defense Force Fleet (Essentially Secretary of the Navy within the Joint Chiefs of Staff.) It was far from long before she was elected the first High Matriarch an office of the new reformed government that existed as the head of the executive branch and Commander in Chief of all Vulpinian Military Forces (President of the US would be a good comparison but for the whole race)

Shortly after this point in time, the Vulpinian people elect begin petitioning the Federation to designate the stellar bodies within their solar system based on Shinto religious terms Their sun and solar system the is named on federation charts as the Inari system and their home planet Inari Prime. They declare the name of their new government the United Vulpinian Federated States and the Planet Inari Prime signs a treaty making themselves allies of the Federation and within years begins their Candidacy for gaining membership into the Federation.

During this process the newly redesignated Vulpinian Defense Force (VDF) entered into a joint project with the federation to create a warp capable Vulpinian style Space-fighter carrier. The vessel was christened the VDF-Kitsune registration Number VX:01 in 2263 and was immediately made the Flagship of the VDF. Its first mission was a long distance shakedown voyage to Earth

Given their proximity to the Cardassian Union in the years following the end of the Cardassian Federation war. The Space around the Rolor nebula became a forward base of operations for the Federation for monitoring the escalating tensions within the DMZ and lasted as a primary point of observance on the political unrest until the federation takeover of Terok-Nor which was rechristened as Deep Space 9.

In the time that they were being considered as a protectorate within the Federation the Vulpinian people decided to begin establishing colonies outside the nebula and a bit of the area outside the nebula as well as the entire nebula was declared as Vulpinian Sovereign Territory. It was not long before the Vulpinian Defense Force was a known power within the area and due to their status as only a protectorate of the federation rather than a member. Their independence allowed for a certain sovereignty that allowed them to act differently than the federation in regards to the Marquis resistance that was beginning to grow within the Cardassian Federation DMZ.

As a result of their sovereignty and certain political liberties the Marquis were able to use the nebula within Vulpinian space to make certain illegal arms deals and as a result this caused tensions between themselves and the Cardassian Union. Of course in these times they had made their own non federation allies having become uneasy trade partners with the Ferengi, Only after an agreement was made that ended up liquidating the assets of the company who had caused the worst parts of their war of course. Of course the fact that their nebula had massive quantities of the weapons making material sirillium the Ferengi and other neighboring peoples couldn’t help but want to enter into a trade relationship with the fledgling Vulpinian Sovereignty. As a result the Federation couldn’t grant the Vulpinians much more than being a protectorate at this time but at the same time allowed for a loophole for certain sympathizers to find ways to aid the Marquis cause.

Once the dominion officially made their move and the Cardassian declared full war on the federation the Vulpinian defense force went on high alert. Given its proximity to high priority targets The Federation couldn’t afford their recent allies to have their territory captured by dominion forces. Fortunately The VDF was quite skilled at repelling attacks within their own territory.

Compared to most battles in the dominion war there were very few federation or VDF losses within the Rolor Nebula. These victories combined with the use of similar uses of smaller size ships against Cardassian and Dominion forces elsewhere were part of the reason for the formation of the Tactical CONN division.

Shortly after the end of the dominion war due to their exemplary service allied with the federation during the dominion war the Vulpinians were granted full member status within the federation and allowed to maintain the Rolor nebula as their own sovereign territory as well while the federation had jurisdiction on things outside the nebula. At the present the Vulpinian sovereignty is a self-governing faction with member status within the federation that on local matters maintains their own jurisdiction within the Rolor nebula deferring to federation law and Starfleet intervention when appropriate. AS such they maintain their own Military designated the Vulpinian defense force or VDF.

Government & Military

The government of the Vulpinian people exists as a separate entity from The Federation but is also part of the Federation. A similar relationship between the Federation and the Vulpinian Sovereignty would be the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. Their government called the Vulpinian sovereignty is made up of 4 branches. Judicial, Martial, Executive, and Legislature.

The government is divided into several levels of jurisdiction. The levels are Local, Regional, National and Sovereign. Sovereign is the level of jurisdiction that refers to the entirety of the Vulpinian people’s government as a whole and its jurisdiction is the Entirety of the Rolor nebula and Locations of Vulpinian embassies on other worlds. When a Vulpinian vessel is outside the nebula it is considered to be a mobile nation state of the Vulpinian Sovereignty.

National level of jurisdiction is the largest subdivision within the sovereignty there are 6 nations making up the Vulpinian sovereignty and each has its own customs and individual laws. The six nations consist of first the two major landmasses of Inari Prime, the supercontinents of Canus and Vulpis named for the Latin words for Canine and Fox. Other nations are the inner colonies which formed original Twin Suns Faction, The Yoko Colonies the colonies located on and around the satellites of the Brown Dwarf “Yoko” (Japanese: Demon Fox), he outer colonies which are colonies within the Inari system but neither orbiting around Yoko or belong to the group of colonies in the initial founding of the twin suns. Finally the 6th nation is a loose confederation of city states made up of colonies outside of the Inari system.

Regional would be comparable to a U.S State government and is a subdivision of the National division. Regional laws are the most common and most major offenses are tried via a regional court. It is rare that crimes are tried at a level above regional though extreme cases occur. Few major felonies are tried on a level lower than regional. Finally Local refers to the smallest unit of jurisdiction typically referring to a particular city, or colonial structure. Many colonies are far flung enough that they are recognized as city states and exist at both the Regional and Local level simultaneously.

Regarding the branches of Vulpinian government, the judicial branch is not that different than that of the United States during the 20th century. On the local level local courts deal with civil crimes Misdemeanors and minor felonies. The next level up in court are the Regional courts which try most violent offenses and major felonies as well as most capital crimes. For the most part National level courts are appeals courts operating much like State supreme courts do within the United States. Similarly the sovereign court operates much like the US Supreme Court and has the power to interpret whether legislation is constitutional. Most of the time if the federation has an issue with a policy regarding Vulpinian law the conflict is resolved through conference via the Chief Justice of the Sovereign Court appearing before the federation Council so that the issue can be arbitrated jointly.

The Martial branch is essentially the governmental entity of the military of the Vulpinian people. This Consists on the local level as a police force, Regional level as Militia for military purposes and regional police forces for large jurisdictional needs, On the National level exists a National Guard for military and consists of national level police and investigative agencies

On the Sovereign level are the various investigative and intelligence bureaus and militarily consists of the Vulpinian Defense Force which consists of multiple separate branches of military. The VDF is divided based on purpose and where the people serve. The Inarian Fleet, primarily consist of carrier type vessels. Though is supplemented by Cruisers, Destroyers, Frigates, and Dreadnaughts. For the most part The Inarian Fleet’s vessels resemble marine vessels. In form and function. As such when in space the ships typically launch using the internal launch bays while in atmosphere they function as naval vessels launching from a top deck while floating on water.

The Ground forces are a regular army that is divided into two groups that are members of the same branch. A marine soldier force with similar nature to a Marines contingent often acting as security aboard Inarian fleet vessels. The other Ground forces group is a more traditional Regular army supplemented with large scale artillery.

The final branch is similar in nature to an Air Force and consists of the Space fighter pilot contingent of the VDF. As can be noticed all three forces tend to have some of each other’s forces in some way tied with the other. Due to the prevalence of both space and atmospheric combat with air and space battle Fighter craft have yet to lose their resemblance to aircraft with designs that are built to be agile within an atmosphere equally to their agility in vacuum.

As a general rule the army maintains land based with airfields that serve as launch based for land based pilot operations. Similarly the Fleet has both Pilots and ground forces serving on board ships. Often ships exist with three separate chains of command with squadron leaders not directly reporting to a ship’s captain but to a fleet Wing Commander. And Security forces onboard the ship rather than reporting to a captain report to an Expeditionary group General.

At the top of military chain of command is a 5 person executive committee. This committee is similar to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the U.S. Military and consists of the highest ranking member or secretary of the branch in question. The 4th member of the committee is the elected grand matriarch of the Vulpinian people (head of the executive branch) who acts as the civilian voice in military matters. At the head of the committee is the Commander in Chief of the Vulpinian Defense Force who acts as the leader of all military operations and is the head of the Martial branch of Government.

The third branch is the executive branch which on the local level consists of a mayor, on regional levels are represented by a governor and their cabinets, on national level they are represented by Presidents and on the sovereign level is the Grand Matriarch of Vulpinian society.

Mayors are elected by a city council which functions as a legislative body on the local level. This legislative body is elected by the citizens of said locality. The candidates for a mayoral election are from the pool of current council members. On the next rung up the pool of mayors elects a governor from their group who then selects their cabinet. From the pool of governors for a nation the governors elect a president. Out of the entire pool of Governors one is elected by the college of governors to be the grand matriarch. Usually this is one of the current standing presidents though sometimes a relative unknown could get elected to the position. The Leaders of the nation’s function as the cabinet of the Grand matriarch who less makes the decisions and more is a mouthpiece for the will of the cabinet of presidents as a whole. It is also important to note that even though the title is Grand Matriarch the leader can and in many instances has been a male. Elections to the mayoral positions are held every year. The other offices rather than being re-elected can be voted out of office by popular vote by the people on whatever level they represent vote for reelection referendum by the people is held every 2 years for governors 4 for presidents. When a grand matriarch is appointed It is a lifetime (or until they and or the council feels It’s time for them to step down) appointment. Rarely are presidents elected out of the non-elder population and as such it is even rarer for a non-Elder to receive the Grand Matriarch Title. As a result rarely does a grand matriarch have the title for more than 25 years.

(A good comparison to the election of the presidents and grand matriarchs from the college of Governors would be the Papal conclave of the Roman Catholic Church with presidents being the Papabili and therefore not always elected to the position but definitely the names on the likely short list.)

The legislature on a local level is the aforementioned city council though on local levels most laws are voted on by the citizenry of said locality after proposal and authorization by city council. On the regional national, and sovereign levels legislative bodies are elected very similarly to the way it occurs within the United States. For the most part there are three political parties. The traditionalists and the reformists are the two wings of the spectrum with traditionalists being the traditionally conservative party of the two. Notably there is a third party that’s primary identity is of a mentality for compromise and arbitration typically developing a reputation as being good at finding compromises between the two opposing viewpoints.

As for the structure of the legislature it is a 3 house system consisting of traditionally members of the three different age castes. Adult, Matriarch and Elder. The Largest house is the Common Senate. And has reelections every year. This group primarily makes edits to bills. While the house of matriarchs and house of elders authors and approves them respectively. And holds elections every 3 and 6 years respectively. Once it passes all three houses it goes to the head of the executive branch and they and their cabinets decide whether to sign it into law or not.

Technology

Vulpinians prior to encountering other races had already developed space travel within their solar system and had established colonies on both of their moon and multiple space stations within planetary orbit. AS such they were still a pre warp civilization but had very sophisticated impulse engine technology. It is theorized that if they had knowledge that there were stars beyond the veil of the nebula they may have wanted to travel faster but with a thought that nothing was beyond the furthest planet but a wall of space the only place to explore was what they could see. As such their technology was towards colonization of their own system and the military might necessary to protect those assets. As such their primary military might was in the form of their Starfighter Carriers and their pre federation contact space fighters.

Mythology

In their short history as a species there has been a single religion that has evolved over time. At its core is the belief that a lone creator guided the earliest Vulpinians to take on a bipedal form. They call this deity “The Great Matriarch.” Current Vulpinian beliefs are varied on whether this was a Goddess as the mythology suggests, or some form of advanced alien who performed genetic experimentation on their ancestor species.

Aside from the belief in the great matriarch there is a general belief that all life has some form of spirit rather it be as simple as a microbe or a blade of grass or as complex as a sentient being. This belief pervades a train of thought that guides their mentality towards city expansion building around woodlands rather than blindly tearing down forests to expand. Unlike many civilized creatures the Vulpinians embrace their ecosystem taking constant care not to disrupt it so as to keep the food chain and ecosystem stable.

Another part of their religious beliefs is an inherent reliance on their prey and as such there are multiple holidays revolving around the reverence of different staple animals of their diet. IN addition Rather than prayers to a given deity many Vulpinians practice a form of prayer during the various processes of processing, butchering and meal preparation.

A more recent belief is that said matriarch was possibly some alien similar in nature to the denizens of the Q continuum or one of similar nature to the Apollo entity that Captain James T. Kirk reported encountering. Recently, Miles Renard has noted that this is most likely the true origin of his species due to the fact that the recently encountered Ishtar entity referred to herself as this goddess to him. Due to the circumstances it is highly probably that the Ishtar entity that the Theurgy encountered is indeed the being known as the great matriarch to the Vulpinians and their origin as a species was not through natural evolution but as some form of deity’s influence.

Special Notes

Vulpinian Adulthood

Vulpinian Adulthood is an interesting concept due to their unique physiology particularly the way they become "adults" The first event on the path to adulthood is the first signs of puberty which begin at roughly 25 Human years of age. At this point the Vulpinian graduially develops into an adult much like Human adolecence and young adulthood. Unlike many other species The hormones that affect sexual activity do not begin awakening until the Vulpinian Body has developed into a fully grown adult. (Human equivalent 18-24 years old average 21) This point of sexual awakening is often a very spiritual time in a Vulpinian's life where they undergo a second rite of passage into adulthood truly signifying the Vulpinian as a Full adult of his race Rather than the status as a "Young adult". In terms of rites privileges etc. There is no difference between the two stages of life.

An important thing to note is Vulpinians who are not yet "Fully Adult" have not had any sexual hormones activated and therefore they lack any form of sexual urges or impulses. Often the first time they have any form of sexual urge is at some point early in the sexual awakening (which in even the earliest of bloomers is the equivalent of an 18 year old human.)

Due to the fact that Vulpinians do not experience sexual urges until well into young adulthood they will have learned about sexuality from a biological and cultural standpoint in basic education courses taught when they are still children. By the time they are adults knowledge of sexuality in terms of what it is and cultural significance is just another part of ones standard body of knowledge no more important seeming than any other mundane fact. A Vulpinian's sexual awakening is thus an expected part of life they know will come much like how Human women know well in advance what should be expected when menopause begins. Most Vulpinans expect the awakening and look forward to it but don't have any frame of reference to understand why older adults do what they do until it occurs. Once they awaken it begins to make more and more sense.

Punishment of rape and statutory rape: Sexual acts between a full-adult and a non-awakened adult or a non-adult and non-consensual sex between two adults are both equally considered rape is considered one of the greatest taboos. Punishment for the crime of rape can include the death penalty, life imprisonment or punishments such as surgical castration or emasculation in males or surgical infibulation in females.

This is Because one of the most important factors of consent with Vulpinians is the presence of pheromonal signals and those who have not sexually awakened do not produce said pheromones, there is no distinction between statutory rape and standard rape. Someone who does not produce said pheromones is not consenting therefore all non awakened Vulpinians are not consenting as they have yet to have ever had any form of urge to partake in such an activity.

The act of Statutory rape is almost unheard of in Vulpinian society though due to the fact that only full adults produce pheromones and as a result there is no psychological frame of reference for any sexual attraction to someone who is not. Attraction to a non awakened individual or someone not exuding the pheromones denoting consent is viewed as not only criminal but is viewed as a psychological abnormality comparable to psychopathy. Essentially, the only thing a Vulpinian sees as similar psychologically to a rapist or a pedophile is a psychopath, a serial killer, or a mass murderer.

Vulpinian views on Canabalism

There are certain regions that treat cannibalism as a natural way of disposing of the body of the recently deceased (If the cause of death was such that no infectious diseases are present in the body). This is a very uncommon practice amongst very few modern Vulpinians but the cultural concept does exist. As such there is a high tolerance for this facet of culture. That said cannibalism in the act of murder is viewed as a taboo act as it is an act of murder but also is extremely insulting to a distinct cultural rite. It is seen somewhat as how we would view murder and desecrating the corpse as well.

When it comes to violence in a war setting biting an enemy and tearing it away and eating what was bitten off is not seen as cannibalism. And instead is just part of the inherent violence of deadly combat. This is one of the aspects of Vulpinian war that the Federation has not quite came to terms with, However as evidenced in the dominion war there is a certain brutal effectiveness in ground forces that are capable of serving both as intelligent and tactically sound soldiers and as ultra-intelligent attack dogs