Editing TNE:GreatExpedition (section)

==== The Schalli ====
Originally classified in the Imperial system as semi-sentient, the Schalli were the subject of three sensor-novels by Cann Macaffey: ''Waveriders of Vras'', ''Starfollowers of Vras'', and ''Schalli Rising,'' that do greater justice to their rise into interstellar space as a species. 

To keep it succinct: the Schalli had been interdicted and studied in the Imperium, and the humans on Vras (now called Aubaine) had been kept in the dark about their true sentience, largely due to mining rights on Vras, which was incredibly full of rare earths. The waterworld of Schall was stocked with collected Schalli and represented as their "native" world, while Vras's schall were said to have been transplanted by early Terrans as foodstocks before their status was upgraded to semi-sentient.

The Collapse drove many of the survivors on Vras underwater; more time was spent with actual Schalli; old records and research, long suppressed, was not replicated; and communication opened. 

What happened next is now legend. The Schalli, already far more capable in complex mathematics and three-dimensional engineering, took to technology like ducks to… well… 

Their cultural explosion ran directly opposite to all theories about advanced cultures crippling more primitive ones. They absorbed knowledge into their culture rapidly, and skipped past several human stages of adaption, with human assistance, into a rapidly-modernizing undersea sentient race. While doing so, they incidently helped provide the underpinnings for the Dawn League: without the Schalli, the Aubaini would not occupy the position they do, as de-facto leader of the Federalist movement; without the Schalli's drive to the stars, cultural awakening, and almost total species devotion to the "new songs", the League would not have the technology and industry that it does. 

The Schalli are pragmatic about their new status, and are determinedly collaborative in the Dawn League, financing and building for the Reformation Coalition far beyond their chartered requirements. They have begun a limited about of building to put Schalli themselves into space - in craft purpose-built for them, rather than converted from human designs. There is a Schalli fleet over Spencer, and a scout expedition to Trailing. This is the major wedge between Aubaine and Oriflamme, who sometimes accuse the Schalli of using humans as stepping stones in their own race to become a stellar species. 

Aubaine and the Schalli provide the League's high-tech industry, and Oriflamme and Teldora provide its manufacturing capacity.