those are the apocritans! theyre space bugs who have lost the ability to molt as adults, so instead they augment and replace their bodies with metal armor and complex biotech.

theyre one of the most common sapient lifeforms in galactromeda, partly due to millennia of conquest and resource extraction. there have been many different apocritan empires over the course of galactic history, and they have all gotten into many prolonged conflicts with humans, beastkin, cetacoids, and just about everyone else who lives in the galaxy.

apocritan society is rigidly heirarchical, but theyre hardly a monolith. factions within the empire each struggle with each other for power. vespids, the most militant faction, currently hold the most power and are united under queen ichneumona, but the formids have a firm hold on industry and the creation of new parts for apocritans, and a renegade formid warlord known as nexus red has recently taken control of the mining infrastructure in the solus system, setting up his base of operations on the planet of new texas, which happens to be the planet chuck (the catgirl) is from!