Editing Proteus (section)

=The Verse Backstory=

Having survived several world disasters, from 9/11 to the Trump years to WW3 to even interstellar war once humanity colonized the stars, the United States of America finally fell when it hit economic collapse with the majority of rest of Earth's nations due to fuel shortages.

Despite the abundance of new and resource-rich planets constantly being discovered, human F.T.L. travel was no longer robust enough to quickly and efficiently transport the materials across interstellar distances. In the wake of this collapse its people coalesced into a wide variety of much smaller planet-states that stood against each other; the relative isolation of each creating senses of xenophobia. There were a few of these planet-states, however, that prospered under the guidance of local alien populations.

Decades later, the inter-planetary nations that still lived (or had come into being since the collapse) began the first galaxy-wide human-on-human conflict. In an attempt to survive, if not even win GW1, the once isolated planets along with allied alien species formed an agreement with the Swedish Armistice Federation of Euro-Terran Yeoman to be granted access to their improved F.T.L. technology in exchange for protecting S.A.F.E.T.Y. interests in the war. (Namely keeping as much out of the war as possible while expanding their territory.)

The war ended shortly after the discovery of inter-galactic travel, which, in addition to allowing less strongly involved parties leave the conflict all together, brought in new venues of resources, enough that most parties felt it was easier/more efficient to go after those instead of fighting of what was left in the Milky-Way. Once official treaties had been signed, S.A.F.E.T.Y. and those who had agreed to fight on their behalf formed a single national sovereign: the Multicultural Utilitarian Revivalist and Collaboration Association.

M.U.R.C.A.'s first century-and-a-half was a golden age that ended in a gradual decline in economic growth over the next 50 years due to hostile natives in, and prior claim to, the nearest galaxies. In an attempt to avoid stagnation, M.U.R.C.A. made the first trip outside of the Virgo cluster. This turned out to be both a boon and a bane as not only were almost half of the native population citizens of a rather open and friendly sovereign, but that there was a powerful new resource (new to the Milky Way natives at least): this was the microbial lifeform know simply as ....
Proteus