Editing Myosho-Shintar Experiment (section)

==The Sector==
===Myosho Consortium===
The Myosho Consortium is a corrupt corporate meritocracy, distrustful of 'outsiders', and which puts a high standard on the ideal of courage. Twenty-seven (once thirty) technocratic families/clans rule over three hundred lesser families, the latter organized into constantly-shifting groupings of guilds, trade groups, and service associations. An individual can climb through the clan ranks through 'merit', leaving behind one family to enter another, including the twenty-seven families that rule (though movement between the Twenty-Seven, once that social strata is attained, is extremely rare). In addition to the ''Eda'' system, the Myosho Consortium has a presence in many other systems, where society is not always as rigidly stratified as it is in the core system. The people of the Consortium are of many ethnicities, but the culture at the root of their society is very loosely Japanese.

There is currently tension between the military and the more mercantile and diplomatic aspects of Myosho society. Armed conflict with the Shintar Republic was not that long ago, and there remain political elements that wish to continue that assault which, while weaker now in society, still have some influence. 

Conflict between the Twenty-Seven families (and, by extension, the lesser families within their associations with conflicting Twenty-Sevens) makes for dramatic fluctuation in the internal Myosho economy, which makes life harder than it needs to be for the working classes. That's combined with high taxation that was instituted as a result of the Shintar conflicts, but which hasn't yet returned to former levels, which combination leads to unrest amongst the populace. The working classes additionally have the support and backing of the Naru religion. Balanced against those forces of unrest is the meritocratic practices of the society. Many people are focused more on personal upward mobility than in demanding better conditions for the masses, and a number of middle-class and upper middle-class clans (as well as a few of the Twenty-Seven) have been growing their ranks as a means to both temper societal unrest and to gain an advantage over their rivals.

The military clans are experiencing more cohesion and less volatility, though the hawkish elements among them are currently in disfavor and are chafing against the ascendancy of the more dovish military elements. There are some pressure valves there which will need releasing, before any kettles blow.
====Eda System====
The capital system of the Consortium, ''Eda'', has three settled celestial bodies: a gas giant and two of its moons. 
*''Nara'', the capital and cultural center of the Myosho Consortium, is a luxury moon of ''Kumamoto'', and is where the twenty-seven families make their home.
*A gas giant, ''Kumamoto'' features cities that float in the upper stratosphere of the gas clouds. Once a prison colony and later a key naval base, Kumamoto is important for resource extraction and its shipyard, and the entire settlement functions as a militarized society.
*''Aomori'' is the other settled moon of ''Kumamoto'', and is the ancient seat of the Naru religion. An animistic religion at the roots of Myosho culture and civilization, its priests and most devout adherents experience genetic mutation that causes them to take on the features of various animal clans. Simultaneously revered and shunned by modern society, the Naru find sanctuary and haven on ''Aomori''. In an orbital anomaly, the moon's orbit is constantly within the solar shadow of ''Kumamoto'', making it a society eternally shrouded in night. ''Aomori'' is also the seat of the Kurimoto Academy of Psionic Science.

===Shintar Republic===
The Shintar Republic is a representative theocracy ruled by the God-Empress Neithikret. The Republic is welcoming of outsiders, though citizenship is predicated on conversion to the Shintar religion, which is a worship of the Ancients and their genomic technology. A hedonistic society, they put a high standard on the ideal of loyalty. The Shintar command fewer worlds than their neighbors, but they have advanced technology, stemming from their study of the Ancients. The Shintar Republic has a presence Coreward of the Myosho Consortium. Welcoming of outsiders, the people of the Shintar Republic are of many ethnicities, but the culture at the root of Shintar society is loosely Ancient Egyptian.
====''Pakhet'' system====
''Heset'' and ''Satet'' are both water worlds riddled with ruins of the Ancients, with floating cities. ''Satet'', the smaller of the two, is less hospitable to life, yet serves as the celestial seat of power of the God-Empress.

===The Myosho-Shintar Conflict===
Forty-five years ago, the Myosho Consortium and Shintar Republic encountered each other as neighbors in the natural course of galactic expansion of their territories. Twenty-eight years ago, still early in their creation of diplomatic and economic agreements, a few Myosho families discovered an incredibly resource-rich system in the border territories that the Shintar had already laid claim to. Undertaking a campaign of corporate espionage, fake diplomacy, and deception, those clans first established a strong foothold in the system to siphon off some of those resources, and then fabricated an interstellar incident in an attempt to gain full control of the system, which was backed up by elements of the Myosho military in collusion with the families.

The Shintar Republic responded with an overwhelming show of force that decimated the attempt to steal their system. The two polities were poised on the precipice of full-blown war when the conspiracy of the Myosho families was exposed. Main elements of the Myosho military worked in tandem with the Shintar to defeat the forces of the conspiracy, which opened the doorway for a diplomatic solution between the two empires. Three of the Thirty families (two industrial and one military) were dismantled, imprisoned, and removed from the ledgers, bringing great shame to the entire Consortium.

That was twenty-two years ago.