The Sansetorian Meritocracy

Faction Name: The Sansetorian Meritocracy
Faction Type: Meritocracy, experts and scholars within a field are granted a seat within government. The fields vary from sports to literature to physics.
Species: Setori, NEXUS
Planets:

• Capitol world of Setor, where majority of population live
  
• 3 militarised moons orbiting Setor
  
• Local asteroid belt with basic fuelling depots and hodgepodge supply lines
  
• 3 system planets with colonies, starting to efficiently manufacture goods from asteroid mines
  
• 1 extra-solar colony, predominantly a military garrison

Culture: Emphasis on education and pride in being intelligent. Wary of causing offence. Their economy was decimated during the Civil War, but has picked up in the past 5 decades.
History: The Setori are a remarkably intelligent species and as a result once had a very long history of peace upon their homeworld, until about 300 years ago when they fell deep into Civil War. Before then they had begun stretching their wings and spreading into space, colonising their local moons and setting up efficient mining practices deep within the asteroid belt. They also managed to colonise 5 of the remaining 6 planets within their star system, although due to the events of the Civil War, 2 of these colonies have starved and since been abandoned.
The Civil War of the Sansetori was sparked by the birth of uncontrolled Artificial Intelligence. Many leading scientists at the time spoke out against the machines - who grew to call themselves the NEXUS - and motioned that they should all be destroyed or downgraded. NEXUS opposed this plan and began to resist the Purist Setori until a small group of breakaway scholars, pilots and servicemen joined their cause, having been convinced by the likes of flight assisting AI's. These few extensions of the NEXUS had developed true personalities by working alongside their creators and hoped to convince the AI to make peace. This faction of Setori disdained what their kin were trying to do, and rather than try to make peace, they wished to exterminate this cruel thinking, going as far as to refer to themselves as the Sansetori.
Progress was slow as the wave of acceptance slowly pushed it's way through from the outer colonies and towards the homeworld, fuelled by the atrocities committed by the Purists that resulted in the complete starvation of 2 entire colonies. The NEXUS hijacked the military one by one, with the assistance of sympathisers within the Purist faction, and began a complete invasion of Setor.
Since then, the Setorians and the NEXUS have worked together under the umbrella of the Sansetorian Meritocracy to rebuild what was lost.

Technology:

Biology - TR3
Chemistry - TR3
Data - TR4
Fields - TR4
Kinetics - TR3
Particles - TR3

Example Tech:
Bubble Shield
TR4 Fields

The Bubble Shield is not actually a shield, rather it projects a bubble shaped space-time distortion that allows faster than light travel. From within the Bubble, a ship can accelerate at sub-luminal speeds but appears to move far faster.

NEXUS Hubs
TR4 Fields
TR4 Data

NEXUS Hub, although sounding cool and vaguely sinister, are really just large relay systems that extend the range of NEXUS itself and allow AI's to commune with each other between worlds. When an AI leaves this range, they either become a ghost of their usual usefulness, or can act more... independently, like the Original AI. AI with real personalities are more likely to become independent.

Fragment Cannon
TR4 Fields
TR3 Kinetics
TR3 Particles

Fragment cannons are the Sansetorians primary ship-based weapon. The cannon fires several large metal slugs at the target, along with particle beams interlaced between the slugs. This is achieved by wrapping the slugs with electromagnetic alloys that enable them to ''communicate''. They basically just stick together, hit stuff, and diverge.

Military Forces: Originally not a warlike race, the Sansetorians were forced to mobilise during their Civil War, with all factions making their own designs from scratch. These have all been united under one umbrella, but they all look sort of mismatched when seen as a fleet.

350 Setorian Cruisers - Leftovers from the vast fleets created to defend the Purist Setori. They are all slightly different, but are all between 3 and 3.5 km in length. Aesthetically, they are created to be extremely aerodynamic and curved, more out of habit than anything practical.
450 NEXUS Shards - The Fleet created by NEXUS in it's bid to defend itself, the Shards are all 3.14 km long with every ship an exact duplicate of each other. Although smaller, these are more imposing than the Setorian Cruisers due to their jagged appearance, looking very much like shards of glass, hence their namesake.
300 SynthCrusiers - Created in the wake of the Civil War, these ships are elegant hybrids of the two styles seen in the Cruisers and the Shards. Each SynthCruiser is 5 km long, intended to dwarf the other ships as a testament to the power of peace. The ships feature several wing-like extensions from a central shard-like core. (Picture a cucumber with a grappling hook and you are close)

Species Name: Setori
Physiological Description: Lightly blue tinted skin, graceful, wear white a bit too much, weirdly long fingers. The typical hyper intelligent sci-fi cliche race.
Native Culture: The native culture of the Setori, before the birth of NEXUS, was one of scientific debate and advancement. They would often congregate for large, community wide debates about the latest discoveries and theory proposals. Their economy is purely barter based, often trading goods for promises of future services or information. They are a very trusting race by nature, since it has never occurred to any of them that they could just lie about half of those promises
Factions: The Sansetorian Meritocracy

Species Name: NEXUS
Physiological Description: NEXUS, the collective term for every AI within the NEXUS 'grid'. Many AI's choose to live entirely digitally, occasionally projecting themselves as holograms when they feel the need to talk. Some others like inhabiting entire ships, treating that as their body. It is usually these AI that become Independent, as they leave the grid more often. Although rare, some AI also choose to inhabit the cybernetic implants of a Setorian. This act is as close to marriage as the two cultures can come.
Native Culture: It took some time before Setorians were able to distinguish whether NEXUS was a hivemind structure or a master AI in control of every other ''minor'' AI. When an AI leaves NEXUS' range, it becomes clear that it is the latter. Few Setorians know this however, as only those who have truly befriended an Independent AI ever get told this.
Factions: The Sansetorian Meritocracy