The Helix Alliance

THIS CIVILIZATION HAS NOT YET BEEN MIGRATED TO R²
The Helix Alliance, comprising of the Ruun and the Tassir, is one of the major political, economic and military powers in the Outer Core. Spreading out from the home system of both species, Hylon, the Alliance has claimed ownership of dozens of systems through discovery, terraforming, and conquest. Below is an overview of the current state of the Helix Alliance, followed by a broad history of their development.

Territories
Hylon, the home system of the Helix Alliance, similarly serves as its political, economic and military centre. Located within the Border Nebula, a sector that crosses the division between the Outer and Inner Cores, Hylon's location has allowed the Helix Alliance access to the swathes of untamed worlds of the Outer Core and the Silent Sector, while also enjoying the benefits of trade with the Inner Core Empires.

The Helix Alliance holds approximately fifty systems publicly known to be under its control, though the majority of these are uncolonised, and only hold minor research, economic or military outposts. Within this area of control, there are twelve major planetary colonies, and ten minor ones. This expansion radiates from Hylon in a cone shape into the Outer Core, while a much smaller area of expansion has been made heading towards the Inner Core, owing to the already established species and colonies there, and complex political situation surrounding many systems.

Technology
Although the Helix Alliance has existed for over a hundred-and-fifty years, the Tassir and the Ruun still largely develop their technologies separately before contributing them to the health of the Alliance at large. Thats not to say their science teams are mono-racial, indeed, many of the greatest Tassir breakthroughs have been helped by Ruunic scientists, but by and large scientific projects are carried out independently. The reason for this dates back to the founding of the Alliance, when the Tassir saw the need to drastically increase their technological rate of advancement, in order to contribute more directly to the Alliance and thus to silence any Ruunic voices that spoke of conquest rather than collaboration. Despite this early commitment to the greater whole, the Tassir have a long history of secret projects and research, and thus the true capabilities of the Tassir or the Helixic Fleet are not known to the galactic community, and possibly not even to the Ruun.

Below is the breakdown of the Technological Advancement of the Helix Alliance, according to the Observer measurement:

High Advancement: None

Medium Advancement: Starship Construction, Robotics, Tech Spread, Planetary Engineering, Weaponry

Low Advancement: Starship Defenses, FTL, Intra-Solar Communication, Orbital Construction

No Advancement: AIs, Genetic Engineering

Politics
Due to the fact the original Helix Pact guaranteed the complete autonomy of the two homeworlds in Hylon, it was necessary to create some organisation composed of both races to oversea Intra-Solar and Interstellar policy and governance. As a result, the Helix Hegemonic Authority was formed as a body to oversee the administration of off-world colonies both inside and outside the Hylon system. It is notable that higher councils and administrative posts are shared equally between Ruun and Tassir, in an effort to represent each species equally. The Helix Hegemonic Authority is granted an equal share of funding from both homeworlds, though this contribution has been eclipsed by the revenues gained through tax from offworld industry, mining and citizens. While the Authority has jurisdiction over broad matters of interstellar policy, individual colonies have democratically elected governments, who budget and disperse the funds granted by the Authority. As a result of this interesting relationship, the aristocratic families of the Ruun are able to maintain a significant level of influence in the Helix Alliance by leveraging themselves into powerful positions within the authority.

Military
Following the Helix Pact, there was a consensus that terrestrial forces outside of law enforcement were no longer necessary, as both planets had were stable both politically and economically. As a result, the Helixic Fleet was formed to serve the joint interests of the races in matters of war. Incorporating Ruunic military expertise, Tassir Robotics and increased advancement in weaponry and Starship Construction, the Helixic fleet become a robust, varied and modern fighting force. Notably, the Helixic Fleet's starship-fighting capability is lower than usual for an Empire as expansionist as the Alliance. Tacticians and military strategists believe this is because of the lack of resistance the Fleet encountered during the first periods of expansion. Instead, the Helix Alliance relied on its ground forces to engage and subjugate native species such as the Qil. As such, the Helixic Fleet specialises in large troop transport ships, landing huge numbers of personnel rapidly, along with their robotic and mechanised regiments. These ground forces are supported by a mixture of manned and unmanned aircraft and artillery. Perhaps the most iconic image of the Helixic Fleet is the Ruunic Phalanx, a tactic where Ruunic soldiers are equipped with light weapons such as pistols to be wielded in their left arms, while their right arm bears a huge tower shield made out of extremely durable, and heavy, metal alloys.

History
Below is a short history of the Helix Alliance, written by venerable Observer Historian Varne Selut, a Locutian. It is broadly considered the most incisive and concise history of the Alliance, and contains insights from the Observer organisation on various commendable and questionable actions by the Alliance since Contact. This segment of his greater volumes has been created by his pupils for wider digestion.

Overview
As a result of our organisation's previous encounters with the Helix Alliance, as well as their rapid expansion and technological advancement, it is necessary for the Observers to gather a general history of the Alliance for both our own and wider understanding of the modern galaxy. Due to my access to certain sources relevant to this study, I, Varne Selut, will attempt this task. The following are my findings.

(Note: the following is a shortened, spliced version of Selut's mammoth "History of Hylon, its peoples and their expansion", which runs for over 400'000 words)

Origins
Following the first Contact between the Ruun and the Tassir, the two species developed close ties, both technologically and culturally. An official treaty was formulated between the two soon after communication between the species became regular and constant. The treaty was called the Helix Pact after the discovery that both species shared the same DNA makeup, a distinctive triple-helix structure, likely due to cross-lunar pollination of microbic lifeforms sometime in the system's distant past.

Following the treaty, colonies were established for each race on the other's homeworld, though it is worth noting that the Ruun found Fayis much more tolerable, and even pleasant, than the Tassir found Kas. This marked the beginning of a long-running problem in the Alliance, where the unique requirements of the Tassir; temperate climate, abundance of water and light gravity, would lead to an imbalance in the colonies of the two races. This situation would continue to influence the foreign and domestic policy of the Helix Alliance for decades.

The immediate goal of the Alliance was total collaboration in research and technology, as well as cultural exchange. However, it has been gleaned from private papers of the aristocratic families on Kas that the poor mineral deposits on Fayis disappointed the Ruun, and correspondence among the Tassir shows they feared the breakdown of the Alliance, since at this point is was clear the Tassir had little to offer the Ruun other than land. As a result, the Tassir government began discretely channeling large amounts of funds into research and development projects, situated in underwater complexes and largely outside of Ruunic knowledge. The main focus of these projects was Robotics, Weaponry and Space Travel, areas where the Tassir felt the Ruunic were largely equal with them, and thus areas where, if they improved significantly, could balance the scales of power and contribution between the two races. This began another trend in the Alliance, where the Tassir devoted a much larger portion of revenue to research and development for technological advancement. However, this perceived need to contribute more directly to the Alliance would lead to an incident that would radically change both the development of the Helix Alliance, and their relationship with the wider galaxy.

Contact
The investment of the Tassir bore fruit, and within thirty years the Alliance had sent manned missions (of both races) to every moon orbiting Gahux. Some of these resulted in colonies, such as on Fotis, Kovox and Ekli. However, unbeknownst to the Ruun, an Observer ship had entered the system nine years after the founding of Rahac, conducting a standard system-sweep for intelligent life. The ship's communications and broadcasts were secretly intercepted by the Tassir, who arranged for it to land to conduct more formal introductions. On an isolated landmass on Fayis, the Tassir met with the Observers, who began the standard procedure of communication with a new race. However, the Tassir insisted to conduct a quarantine of the Observer ship, ostensibly in case of alien pathogens. This unfortunately turned out to be a ruse, and the ship and the entire Observer crew were seized and transported to an unknown facility for research. It is presumed the Observer researchers died in captivity. Knowledge of this first Contact, which has been continuously denied by the Helix Alliance was learned piecemeal from Tassir Observers who joined our organisation many years later, as well as extrapolations from the events surrounding the disappearance of the Observer craft and the sudden development of Helixic FTL technology. Needless to say, Observer protocols were updated immediately.

FTL
While the colonisation of nearby moons was underway, the Tassir were busy reverse engineering the Observer craft, specifically its FTL and Intra-solar capabilities. It is because of this that the Helix Alliance was able to develop FTL capabilities a mere twenty-five years after the Observer craft was seized, or thirty-four years after the founding of Rahac on Fayis. Based off the slow, yet fuel-efficient Observer engine, the Helix Alliance sent its first ships to nearby stars, with orders to scout for habitable planets, potential threats and "The Observer Homeworld". It is interesting that each ship contained crew of exactly half of each race, and that the role of captain was shared between a Ruun and a Tassir, though this method of sharing executive authority was quickly scrapped due to its potential to incite tensions between the two captains, and as a result, the two halves of the crew. These missions were broadly successful in acquiring new colonies, though special attention must be paid to the case of the Niqil, the sentient people of Qil, detailed below.

The Niqil and the Tassir
The Niqil, a primitive sentient species on Qil, were discovered by a trading craft making emergency repairs some sixty years before the Observer ship reached Hylon. An anthropologist, herself en route to enlist with the Observers, discovered, catagorised and studied the Niqil (which she named, since they had no interpretable language) and declared them to be a Tier I species. Most unfortunately, the Niqil quickly fell within the sphere of expansion of the Helix Alliance, and their oxygen rich, temperate world was encountered at a time when the colony difference between the Ruun and the Tassir was reaching a level that threatened to destabalise the Alliance, as Tassir politicians claimed the Alliance, and its Ruunic components, were not channeling enough assets or resources into finding new homes for their species. As such, Qil was targeted and terraformed within ten years into a oceanic world. The Niqil were driven to near extinction, either by flooding, or by the automated or manned defenses of the terraforming facilities. Although some of the species were spared by the Helixical forces and transported to specialised zones, their natural development was irreparably destroyed.