Cantium

## Overview

The United Cantium Conglomerate is a collection of the six major nations of the Cantium people. The cantium never encountered a unification event during their history up to interplanetary colonization, the nations still stood till their first encounter with the Grand Duchy of Julithar where they formed a United Nations in order to counter the new found threat.

## Species

The Cantium are a small species standing 1.1 to 1.4 meters tall, they have brown course fur over most of their body, large ears, typically red hair, a tail with a tuft of red hair on the end and claws on their hands and feet. The Cantium home world is rather large and dense causing a stunted growth of the species, this has also given them a notable athletic ability on more typical sized world. They have been given the derogatory name of "Jack rabbit" because of their small stature, large ears and quick and almost weightless athletic abilities.

### Morphology

#### Legs

The Cantium have a plantigrade leg structure with a three toed foot with some short sharp claws.

#### Arms

The Cantium have three thick fingers and a thumb each tipped with a short claw. Notably they can use their arms and hands to scamper away by going on all fours. This has helped give the Cantium the derogatory nickname "jackrabbits" as they closely resemble the animal well running on all fours.

#### Torso

The Cantium have a small body with an extended abdominal region and a long thin tail with a tuff of fur the same color as their head hair.

#### Head

The Cantium have a generally fluffy face with hair extending off their cheeks, a short snout with a small nose that can articulate slightly to hone in on a smell, large eyes, hair which is typically red and large pointed ears that are supported by cartilage. These large ears are also a contribution to the derogatory nickname "jackrabbits". The red hair helps them blend in with the catathema brush on their home world, sometimes called "the blood bush".

#### Special feature

The Cantium's home world of Cantium prime has higher gravity which has caused the Cantium to develop short and stubby as compared to all the other species in Aetherian. Well this has limited the Cantium in a number of ways this is somewhat of a blessing in disguise as the Cantium have a very fast breeding rate and a typical Cantium pregnancy carries at least two children and a larger size would consume resources at an unsustaniable rate.

## History

Cantium was defined by many wars in their history, most notably the 8 year war, their first space flight in 15 DoS to their closest moon, after started and incredible space race in order to reach a neighboring planet in order to set up a colony. This race lasted 63 years (78 DoS) when the Nation of the Republic of Cadali reached it and began setting up a colony. This caused several rival nations to also try and set up a colony before Cadali claimed the whole planet as theirs. This kicked off a larger scale space race as all the nations attempted to set up colonies on all the planets in their system and a greater race to colonize systems outside their home one, leading to the creation of FTL drives. This took them till 101 DoS when they encountered the Ofilian empire who tricked them into conflict with the Grand Duchy of Julithar. This caused the rival nations to set aside their differences and create the united nations in order to structure a military attack against their newfound foes. The war lasted 8 years and many of the smaller nations were canalized by larger nations in order to fuel the war effort. After the war came to a close, with the Federation of Cathlium acting as a mediator to the peace talks, only six nations remained with the United Nations acting as its outward facing government.

Following this the 6 nations had to come to an agreement over how to split their newly acquired territory; with many colonize of the nations spread out scattered. This lead to the founding of the United Cantium Conglomerate (UCC) as a need to separate out these colonize into a more workable form and denoted Midland as a independent nation acting as a neutral ground for all nations. It was formally recognized as The Treaty to Divide Territory and Boarders of the United Peoples of Cantium Act (T.D.T.B.U.P.C.A) this became better known as the treaty of Midland as the nations negotiated which colonize they wanted and how to split the boarders. Once the deciding of what group maintained control of what regions all peoples of the regions that changed hands had 2 weeks to leave that territory before they were made a member of that nation willingly or otherwise. The final date before this was done was February 3rd 144 DoS and became known as move day. Members worlds that changed hands often were to low income to simply move and were forced into becoming members of nations that they often didn't agree with and would become unruly if not downright rebellious. Notably Zalious had a lot of trouble with these rebellious groups and would often employ hard crackdowns in order to subdue these groups. These issues persisted far into the 300's and often defined domestic policies for Zalious.

## Nations

Cantium is made up of six major nations with Cantium prime acting as a neutral center ground, or perhaps better stated as a shared center ground.

### Republic of Cadali

A democratic state that formed in the later decades of the Cantium's society before space flight. They spread to the Shadala, Bratanagra and Falcious system. The Biratanagra originally part of the United Kingdom of Biratanagra's territory but during the founding of the UCC it was exchanged to the Republic of Cadali for the Cadali system. The Republic maintains a good relationship with the Mass Alliance and has even adopted Ifirithism as their dominant religion.

### Federation of Shadala

The Federation of Sadala was founded biased upon several kingdoms standing united against Sandala in centuries long before space flight. The alliance continued into the modern age and maintains an odd system of a democratically elected chancellor who serves for life, but a cabinet that he or she is not allowed to choose. This odd system has worked for centuries and continues to remain stable and with the a free market the state remains wealthy but does not hold a well equipped military outside of it's mandated amount of ships and troops by the UCC, perhaps this is because they boarder with the Federation of Cathlium. Before the UCC divied up territory it had formed a colony in the Shadala system, but was traded to the Republic of Cadali in order to trade Zalious with the nation of Zalious to have unified system.

### Zalious

Zalious is one of the only remaining communist states in Aetherian. One of the largest nations on Cantium prime Zalious has long been a place of brutal suppression of the masses and massive government projects with lax safety laws. Many other nations have condemned these practices but little has come of it. In a likely move to strengthen their relationship with the Grand Duchy, which they share a long boarder with, they have adopted Rei'Olozon as their religious icon; later spreading it to Sandala who they have a transportation treaty with so they can access Salmora, their farthest territory and that Sandala can access their system through Zalious.

### Union of Artalago

The Union of Artalago, often times refereed to as just the Union was a vessel state for Biratanagra for many decades till it gained it's independence in -67 DoS. It holds full dominion of all the space between the Minicion system and the Cadali system which they split between them and the United Kingdom of Biratanagra, allowing them to have access to their farther territories in the north. The union is is a very religious order that holds to the old gods of the Cantium and rejects both Ifirithism and Rei'Olozon.

### United Kingdom of Biratanagra

The longest standing order of the Cantium the United Kingdom of Biratanagra stands tall and proud as one of the most powerful nation, even being the lead founder of the UCC, though the young up-starts in the Republic of Cadali may have gotten to space first it was the Biratangra who pushed the colonization effort beyond just simply reaching a nearby planet. It is organized by a constitutional monarchy supported by a democratically elected court. This has made the Kingdom equally fair and decisive over it's many centuries of existence.

### Sandala

Sandala is seen as one of the weakest of the nations, over spread and under powered to enforce their will, they are a semi-communist state, which helps them get along with Zalious. Their single major star system , Afrangic, has many, many branching satellite systems that fall under it's control, some of the most resources rich planets, however their vast distance apart makes gathering and harvesting these resources a large pain. The Sandala were the only one's to make a claim for this region as the UCC dived out the territory trading their system of Sandala to the Federation of Shandala, once their rivals, to have a larger hold of territory.

## Weapons

### UCCZ-311-SMG "Darka"

Built by Zalious armories in 139 DoS the 311 "Darka" is the primary arms of most forces under the UCC army. Well most navy contracts are given to Novadora Heavy Drive Yard, Zalious snagged the exclusive contract to produce infantry weapons with the 311 being their first and most major contribution. Using 3.72x23mm rounds at a rate of fire of 831 rounds per minute and a standard magazine of 38 rounds the Darka is easily built and almost constantly in supply. However its accuracy and frequent jamming causes it to be rather despised among most groups who use it, but its robust enough to handle any environment. The saying among its user base is "If your gun jams just turn it around and swing it like a bat." The gun also features a collapsible stock introduced 18 years after its production began as many complained about the pain of its hooked edge digging into their shoulder.

### UCCZ-HHLR-003

Develouped by the Zalious engineering corps in 164 DoS for use by the newly developed marine G-01 armor division. The gun was a fully handheld laser rifle with its own internal power system and heat sink capable of firing at CF8 an impressive power level for an infantry laser weapon. The weapon was a marvel of engineering and was unlike most normal weapons put out by Zalious, each gun was hand assembled to ensure the quality of each rifle. This dramatically increased the cost, but the G-01 project had a high enough budget to justify this cost. The HHLR had a dramatically low 1.2% failure rate largely due to heat build up. It saw little action till the Serpent war in 177 DoS where it found itself dramatically out of its depth against Serpents plasma shields.

## Ground forces

### UCC Marine armor G-01

The UCC attempted to have a high end military armor to show how advanced their military capabilities were. The G-01 armor was made to maximize the few advantages the Cantium have when fighting the other, larger, species of Aetherian. They can't handle the larger kinetic weapons that other species use due to the recoil so they use laser rifles and maximize distance from their adversaries. The suit has a long range scope built into the helmet to maximize range they can locate enemies at and a large left shoulder pad to lean into for defensive reasons. However all this combine created a suit that was much to expensive to be fielded in mass going against the Cantiums major advantage: their large population.

### UCC Armed Forces Combat Fatigues

In order to maximize the large population in warfare the UCC also has the much simpler and cheaper combat fatigues which mostly consist of a large bull pup smg and an armored vest. This doesn't offer the wearer much protection but it means that many more troops can be in a single deployment then the G-01. However most of the time the UCC is fighting small insurgency movements so deploying troops en-mass is not necessary or recommended. For true wars the plan was to combine the use of combat fatigues and G-01 armor by taking potions with the G-01 armors on high ground to maximize their range with units in combat fatigues defending the base of the position.

### UCC-ICE (Intelligence and Counter Espionage) Fox Hunters

The veiled hand of the UCC the Fox Hunters are an elite force that is one of the least known about special forces divisions in Aetherian. Named as a spoof of the nickname "jackrabbit" that other species use to describe the Cantium, so their special forces are called fox hunters as foxes attack rabbits and they will be the hunters not the prey. Rumors of just what exactly the Fox Hunters are or do are abound with little evidence to suggest what they are or do. It is well known that they are close quarters combat experts, having a large serrated extendable knife on their left hand, but little is known about their training or deployment. It is said that most of their members come from Zalious top ranking ranger divisions, however this is classified and cannot be proven. Many didn't believe that they existed until the UCC joined the Serpent war in ███ DoS where they began to appear in news feeds and reports. A number of the other species described the Fox Hunters as scary; according to many the Fox Hunters never spoke and only communicated through hand signs which lead to the rumor that the Fox Hunters were the UCC's experimenting in psionics.

## Fleet

### Ship types

* Dashan-Class Corvette
* Myrad-Class Frigate
* Outlander-Class Cruiser

* Defender-Class heavy Cruiser
* Inquisitor-Class Battleship
* Eminence-Class Battleship
* Mercy-Class Light Carrier
* Werlaius-Class Light Carrier
* Victory-Class Carrier
* Radiance-Class dreadnought destroyer (concept - never built)

### Fighter/Shuttle types:

* Aerial hawk-Airborn carrier
* Albatross Drop ship/Strategic bomber
* Avarock Arrow Interceptor
* Blackfrost Stealth Recon
* Griffin bomber
* Predator Total superiority fighter
* Shriek Air Superiority Fighter
* Tabby Close Air Support
* Wasp Space Superiority fighter
* Windrunner fighter

* Wyvern-Total Superiority Fighter
* Voltwolf-Stealth recon fighter

### Major fleets

* Republic of Cadali:

1-Victory, 8-Werlaius, 4-Mercy, 3-Inquisitor, 7-Defender, 11-Outlander, 6-Myrad, 62-Dashan

* Federation of Shadala

1-Victory, 2-Werlaius, 4-Mercy, 3-Inquisitor, 22-Defender, 9-Outlander, 8-Myrad, 53-Dashan

* Zalious

1-Victory, 6-Werlaius, 6-Mercy, 2-Inquisitor, 28-Defender, 28-Outlander, 4-Myrad, 92-Dashan

* Union of Artalago

1-Victory, 3-Werlaius, 5-Mercy, 3-Inquisitor, 25-Defender, 4-Outlander, 3-Myrad, 85-Dashan

* United Kingdom of Birtanagra

1-Victory, 9-Werlaius, 5-Mercy, 3-Inquisitor, 17-Defender, 18-Outlander, 8-Myrad, 79-Dashan

* Sandala

1-Victory, 5-Werlaius, 4-Mercy, 2-Inquisitor, 27-Defender, 17-Outlander, 2-Myrad, 43-Dashan
Totals:

* Victory = 6
* Mercy = 28
* Inquisitor = 15
* Defender = 126
* Outlander = 87
* Myrad = 31
* Dashan = 414

Total = 676 ships