The Interstellar Governments of Starfield [Starfield]

Today we talk about the three main factions and interstellar forms of government in Starfield-- the United Colonies, Freestar Collective, and House Va'ruun. We do a deep dive on humanity's journey to the stars and how the three major factions came to power, their struggles, and their strife.

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Transcript

Hey there, welcome to the Lore’d to Death podcast. My name is Brett, and today I want to share in the hype that is Starfield. I’ve been playing as much as I can since its release on September 6th, and I’m really into it. There are plenty of complaints about the game, but I think that’s mostly a very vocal minority. Overall, it’s a pretty standard Bethesda game and I think the people complaining about it were expecting Star Citizen or some other space simulator, when it was never advertised that that would be the case.

It really does have that standard Bethesda charm, which I think is really important. While it’s a totally different game than their other IPs like the Elder Scrolls or Fallout, it takes the essence of what makes those games so special and throws it into a whole new universe– literally. I think that it’s quite spectacular what they’ve managed to accomplish on this scale, and I’m pleased to announce that as-of writing this episode the only bugs that I’ve encountered are bugs with the character models that don’t interfere with the game, and only one crash to note! Bethesda said that it was their least buggy launch to-date, and while that bar is lower than a limbo pole at a contortionist convention, I think that’s actually a fair statement.

I’ve said this to a few people, and have gotten varying degrees of confusion regarding the statement, but hear me out. To me, Starfield feels like an offshoot of the Outer Worlds, made by Obsidian Entertainment in October of 2019. It’s almost like the roles were reversed from Fallout 3 which was made by Bethesda, and Fallout: New Vegas which was its spiritual successor made by Obsidian. Granted, Starfield is a bit less goofy and animated than the Outer Worlds, but it has the same vibe in my opinion. If someone put Starfield in a case that said “Outer Worlds 2: Electric Boogaloo”, I probably wouldn’t question it too hard.

I could go on forever about that weird comparison, or just both of those games separately forever but I think it’s time to get on to the topic at hand. Today I want to talk about the three interstellar governments in the Starfied universe– the United Colonies, Freestar Collective, and House Va’ruun.

It’s important to point out that this episode will be entirely spoiler-free for the main story of Starfield. Everything that I talk about is the deep lore from before the events of the game, and just touching on where each faction is at during the events of the game, but nothing that I would consider a spoiler. We won’t touch on the plot at all because I want this episode to be a solid backstory for the game so that if you have played or are currently playing it, you can get some more information that might enrich your experience. And if you haven’t played it at all yet, maybe this can give you the push to try it! So, once again, there will be no spoilers for the main plot, or even the side quests, but rather this episode is aimed at mostly events that happened before the game.

So without further ado, let’s get into it.

As I mentioned before, the three forms of interstellar governments in what is known as the Settled Systems are the United Colonies, Freestar Collective, and House Va’ruun. Before we go too far into their history, I wanted to state a step back to when humans first started exploring space.

Humans first started their space exploration with expeditions to Mars in 2050. In the next 100 or so years, a fellow by the name of Dr. Victor Aiza found an artifact on the planet’s surface which had some interesting gravitational properties. He was able to take this artifact and reverse-engineer it into what would be mankind’s first Grav Drive, formally known as a Graviton Loop Array. This was a module that would allow ships to make faster-than-light jumps from one place to another, and also provided ships with artificial gravity. But nothing comes without a price, and unfortunately the extensive testing of grav drives on Earth rapidly caused the destabilisation of the Earth’s magnetosphere.

This facilitated the need to get off the doomed planet, and caused mankind to band together to get people into space where they would search for other habitable planets. Thankfully, the grav drive was more or less perfected in this time, allowing them to make jumps to other planets in search for new homes. 

In 2156, they travelled to Alpha Centauri, a star system with four planets and eight moons, which was also the closest star system to Sol. It was here that the United Colonies was founded in 2160 in an attempt to secure an interstellar government, and for a period of time it was the only one. In the Alpha Centauri system, the colony of New Atlantis was founded and became the capital of the United Colonies in 2161. Their administrative building was created at some point, it’s not really explained when, called MAST. This stands for Military, Administrative, and Scientific Triumvirate. MAST is where members of the United Colonies get together to make important decisions, much like a board of directors.

Official evacuations of Earth continued until 2199, but only a fraction of the population was able to be successfully taken off Earth and billions died on the barron planet before its atmosphere collapsed in 2203. By 2330 at the time of the game, Earth had no signs of life, and most evidence of their society had been wiped out and nothing but dunes and a few ruins remained.

In the evacuation on Earth, there was one fellow who played a pretty big part in making sure as many people got out as they did. His name was Solomon Coe. Originally born in Wyoming, he was an astrophysicist first and a spaceship designer second. His ships were some of the designs used to get people off Earth. After he left Earth, Coe was inspired to become an explorer, seeing the vast wonders of space.

In 2161, the same year that New Atlantis on Jemison became the capital for the United Colonies, they issued the Centaurus Proclamation, which was a sort of framework for settling new planets and the creation of sovereign factions. This was basically the frontier phase of the United States where it was sort of, “if you can find land that no one else has claimed and you can hold it, it’s yours” and as far as I can find, there’s not really a lot of information about it otherwise.

Because of the Centaurus Proclamation and Solomon Coe’s newfound interest in being the next space Columbus, Coe found the Cheyenne system and in it found a habitable planet which was dubbed Akila. He would later establish Akila City with the help of other colonists just beside where he first set foot on the planet. For several years, he was invested in mapping the planet before he turned to politics in the year 2188 where he proposed an alliance with the planet Neon in the Volii system. This alliance would birth the second interstellar government which was called the Freestar Collective and was officially founded in 2189.

It’s around this time that I think it’s important to note that past the founding of these two factions, a lot of history is distorted by the United Colonies’ viewpoint, and much of this lore comes from their accounts of the tales in their council building in New Atlantis. There’s definitely some bias here, as pointed out by different party members as you walk them through the UC Orientation Hall which has an interactive exhibit on the history of the United Colonies.

In 2190, it’s said that a colony ship set off from New Atlantis to possibly find new planets to settle. Somewhere along the way, the colonists aboard claimed to have communicated with a deity known as the Great Serpent which gave them the mandate, “worship the Great Serpent, or be devoured by it when it encircles the universe.” The colonist ship was lost for about 50 years before they suddenly came back in 2230, led by a man named Jinan Va’ruun. They revealed themselves to the Settled Systems as House Va’ruun, the third form of interstellar government whose sole purpose was, at the time, to spread the word of the Great Serpent and their religion so that they could save as many people as they could from being devoured by their new God.

Their origins are shrouded in mystery, and there isn’t a lot that we know about their founding, their religion, or their beliefs past the message of the Great Serpent. If you ask a member of House Va’ruun to elaborate, they basically look at you like you have three heads and say something like, “what’s not to understand? Worship the Great Serpent or be devoured!” We do know, however, that their capital city is called Dazra on the planet Va’ruun’kai. However, we don’t know where that is. It’s in an unknown star system so that House Va’ruun can stay safely hidden away from the rest of the galaxy. Maybe when people are “saved” from the Great Serpent, they are taken there. Why are they cut off from the rest of the galaxy, though? We’ll get there in a hot minute.

Taking it back to the year 2194, 5 years after the Freestar Collective was founded and 4 years after the Va’ruun colony ship had gone missing, the United Colonies launched a massive medical star station known as The Clinic into orbit around the planet Deepala in the Narion system. The residents of Deepala, not yet allied with any other faction, protested the United colonies putting a station into orbit around their planet for fear that this was the first step in annexing their planet under UC rule. In their protest, they voted to join the Narion system with the Freestar Collective. This vote succeeded, yet the United Colonies refused to remove the Clinic from Narion’s orbit. In 2195, the Freestar Collective officially moved in and mobilised a military to protect their new planet, seeing the United Colonies’ refusal to back out of the system as a threat to their sovereignty. 

In 2196, the United Colonies mobilised a fleet to Narion to protect their asset, which the Freestar Collective saw as a further threat and sent in their own navy in response which instigated the Narion War, which lasted for 20 years before its end. The United Colonies effectively destroyed the entirety of the Freestar Collective’s navy, forcing them to back down and sign the Treaty of Narion and end the hostilities. The terms of this treaty were that Narion was conceded to the Freestar Collective in exchange for two concessions: the Freestar Collective had to pay back reparations for damage done in the form of mineral rights on other worlds, allowing the United Colonies to mine in their territory, and an agreement that all great factions in the Settled Systems would limit their colonies to 3 systems each, effectively stopping space colonialism.

The United Colonies might have won the war, but over the course of two decades lost support from their citizens who came to see their leaders as brutal aggressors who engaged in a twenty-years-long war over a space station which was, in all fairness, voted against by the planet whose orbit it was in.

So the war ended in 2216. As we mentioned before, it was 14 years later in 2230 that House Va’ruun made its dramatic entrance into the galaxy. And in 2231, the Council of Governors who made important decisions on behalf of the Freestar Collective established the Freestar Rangers, a peacekeeping military whose sole purpose was to protect and enforce Freestar Citizenry.

To this point, in the last 10 years since they had made themselves known to the galaxy, House Va’ruun was basically just a quirky religion that was trying to get people on their side peacefully. But in 2240, for some unknown reason, they decided to put on their mean faces and officially declare war against anyone who was not following the gospel of the Great Serpent, marking the start of the Serpent’s Crusade. This is exactly what it sounds like, and House Va’ruun wandered the galaxy indiscriminately murdering anyone, be it military or citizen, who they deemed to be a non-believer. This was, believe it or not, not cool.

Thousands of people died in this crusade, which lasted far longer than it had any right to. Unfortunately there isn’t a ton of information regarding the crusade and any notable battles that happened other than a battle in the Wolf system where House Va’ruun managed to overrun the United Colonies star station, The Old Den, prompting them to make a new one to replace it which they just called… The Den. The creativity there is staggering.

23 years later, in 2263, House Va’ruun’s founder and leader, Jinan Va’ruun, died. We’re not sure whether it was because of the war or old age, because if it’s the same person who started house Va’ruun in the first place then they would be old as dirt. At this point, it had been 73 years since the Va’ruun colony ship was lost after their departure from New Atlantis, assuming that story is true, which would place their leader in their 90’s, assuming they were a young adult when they set out. So, Jinan was dead and his heir, Jarek Va’ruun, succeeded him as leader and immediately sued for peace with the rest of the galaxy. 

The war ended, and House Va’ruun was able to set up an embassy on New Atlantis in an attempt to establish diplomatic relations. I think it’s understandable that there were very few people who wanted anything to do with them after their attempted genocide, and they were, at the time of the game, unable to recoup their reputation in the following years.

So, remember how I mentioned that House Va’ruun was cut off from the rest of the galaxy? This is why. Because their homeworld is a secret to anyone who isn’t in the family, and no one will openly trade with them, supply issues are abundant for their people. To get supplies to their homeworld from the rest of the Settled Systems, they have to resort to having smugglers bring supplies to random systems so the Va’ruun cargo ships can meet them and bring supplies back to their people. They also have spies all over the galaxy who are dropped off seemingly at random places to report on the happenings on the rest of the galaxy to make sure that no one is planning to retaliate against House Va’ruun for their past atrocities.

I just want to take a quick sidebar to discuss the names of the founders and leaders of the different factions, because I find it very interesting. Let’s start with the United Colonies, who were under the leadership of Alexandra Abello. The name Alexandra comes from the Greek “alexin” which means to defend, and the word “andros” meaning man. So Alexandra can mean “the defender of man” or “the protector of man”. I think that’s pretty pertinent to the United Colonies’ view of themselves, believing themselves the saviours of mankind after being established on the first new colony after the evacuation of Earth.

From the Freestar Collective we have Solomon Coe. Solomon is derived from the Hebrew word shalom, meaning “peace”. The Semitic root of the name, Shin-Lamedh-Mem means “whole” or “complete”. In the Bible, Solomon was a monarch of ancient Israel and the son and successor of King David. Solomon was revered for his wisdom and wealth, and also for being a habitual man-whore. I’m not really sure that the last part has much to do with Solomon Coe, but the air of peace, wisdom and wealth certainly fits. Also, Solomon being a king is a parallel to Solomon Coe being the “king” of Akila and the Cheyenne system.

For House Va’ruun, we’ll go with both Jinan and Jarek. Jinan is of Arabic origin and translates to “paradise” or “garden” and is said to remind one to always look on the bright side of any situation. Jinan is also the name of a city in China, which is known for it’s long-standing history… which we could take the English teacher approach and say that means that he cultivated a long, rich history in House Va’ruun or that rich history is referring to the myth of the Great Serpent, but I think that might be a stretch. I think that the first translation is a bit more in-your-face, being an obvious biblical parallel.

Jarek, which is pronounced jar-ehk in game, frustrates and confuses me because its origins are Slavic and is pronounced yah-rehk and is typically short for Jarosław which comes from jar which means “strong” or “powerful” and sława meaning “glory” or “fame” in Polish. Depending on which flavour of slav you ask, the name can mean something different from “the god of spring” to “one who is strong in defending peace”. I think that all of these are pretty self explanatory for someone who, as soon as they came into power, stopped a war mounted by their predecessors and did everything in their power to start from scratch.

So I guess what I’m getting at is, Bethesda has some damned good writers in their pocket, and names that are seemingly random can actually speak volumes for the characters. Sure, that’s pretty common practice for writers but I think it’s impressive nonetheless. Plus I really needed to flex that I know the right pronunciation for Jarek and I’m frustrated that he’s referred to as Jarek in game. I’m looking at my script and seeing Jarek and Jarek and it’s really just a tomato tomato scenario… which now I’m just writing tomato tomato and… okay, moving on.

Nothing of note happens between the factions for quite some time, and then in the next century in 2306, United Colonies’ MAST created the UC Xenowarfare Division which was a specialised military group tasked with researching and implementing ways to weaponize alien lifeforms. This division started at an undisclosed location but was later moved to the planet Kreet in the Narion system in 2307 which, if you remember, was under Freestar control. This would pose a serious issue if they were found out, so they carried on with utmost discretion. Their main research was on a neural control interface which would latch on to alien species and manipulate them and was used on certain species to varying degrees of success.

In this same year, 2307, the Freestar Collective began mining and farming operations on the planet Vesta in the Lunara system. If you remember, one of the conditions of the Narion Treaty was that no major faction would take control of more than three systems. At this time, Freestar had Cheyenne, Narion and Volii. The United Colonies would take issue with this, and decided to act on Freestar violating the treaty in 2308 stating that Freestar should not be allowed to colonise a fourth system.

Some diplomatic discussions took place, but the United Colonies decided to take matters into their own hands when Freestar disagreed. Instead of, you know, dealing with this like a rational government body, the United Colonies decided to send in their navy and raze the new Freestar colony on Vesta to the ground, killing all Freestar military and citizens there. This was, obviously, not received very well, and marked the start of the next major conflict known as the Colony War.

Here, the United Colonies decided to make use of their new, fancy alien soldiers that they had been working on. They deployed a group of marines with some pets, the Kreet Stalkers, which they used in their slaughter of Vesta. Once that was deemed successful, they started genetically altering the aliens to be more lethal, or to have specialised roles in the war which they would continue to use against the Freestar Collective.

Once again, I want to mention that most accounts we get of this in the game are from the United Colonies’ standpoint, and are therefore very biassed. If you ask anyone from Freestar about the war in the game, they’ll tell you that the UC frames the whole thing to make themselves look like they didn’t just start massacring people. So, I’m going to try to take both sides here and come up with what probably happened with the limited information that we have.

One of the first major conflicts in this war was the Battle of Niira, where the United Colonies tried to take the Freestar planet as a forward operating base. Freestar repeatedly assaulted the planet in an attempt to reclaim it, to no avail. Because of the constant assault, large swaths of the planet were devastated. The planet wouldn’t fully recover from this in the events of the game, and served as a reminder of the war.

During the war, the United Colonies city of Londinion, a newly built supply hub to serve the war effort, was overrun by a hostile alien race called the Terrormorphs. These were large, 6 limbed monsters that serve as the Deathclaw of Starfield, if you’re familiar with Fallout. They were resilient, agile and had some form of mental power that could overpower weaker lifeforms. They would emit a haze that would cause a person to go into hysterics, often hurting or killing those around them. Because of this, they were a huge danger to colonies.

Terrormorphs tend to crop up in human colonies after about 70 to 100 years after they are established. I supposed this coming up is the only spoiler for the game, but not the main story. So if you want to avoid spoilers for the UC Vangaurd quest, then skip forward about 30 seconds for so and you should be good. Terrormorphs transform from heatleeches, which are an alien lifeform that tend to stow away on ships and are treated as a general pest, but they are non-threatening. That’s why they always show up in colonies, and I’m assuming it takes so long because there’s a sort of incubation period like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but that butterfly will make you kill your family and then eat you alive.

Anyways, these terrormorphs that showed up were particularly aggressive, and showed up earlier than expected. This devastated the city of Londinion, and the United Colonies was forced to abandon it. They had to bomb the spaceport, trapping the citizens in the city, in an effort to make sure that the terrormorph’s warpath did not spread. This was a massive blow to the United Colonies, and would mark their downfall in the war.

The war would culminate in 2311 at the Battle of Cheyenne. A flotilla of military and civilian Freestar ships used hit-and-run tactics to destroy a number of the United Colonies’ ships. Freestar was able to win this way, and after the battle both sides agreed that the war should be brought to an end before more damage could be done. This led to the signing of the Armistice, which was similar to the last treaty that was signed. It stated rules about the size of military fleets that a major faction could have, along with bans on mechs and xenowarfare. All research about these subjects was stored away in New Atlantis in the Armistice Archives. If anyone wanted to get their hands on the research, all three major factions would have to agree and generate a code which would allow access to a very specific set of data that was stored in a massive server.

The two powers never really came to trust each other after the Colony War, and for good reason, but they managed to work together diplomatically for the better of their citizens. There was a monument built in New Atlantis to honour those lost in the war, but it served more as a bitter reminder of the petty wars that humanity has engaged in since their journey to the stars.

As a reaction to the Freestar Rangers, the civilian group of military peacekeepers that were used against them in the war, the United Colonies decided that they needed a civilian military of their own, and created the UC Vanguard.

But past that, there isn’t a whole lot to tell. Shortly after, in 2330, the events of Starfield happen and the rest is history. But even then, none of these factions have a major conflict or breakthrough during that period. So, what do you think?

Do you think that any of the wars waged by any of the major factions were justified? Or do you think that they could have avoided them if they had just talked it out like adults? My vote lies with the latter. You can find us online @loredtodeath on your favourite social media or podcast websites. If you have any ideas for an episode, feel free to answer in the Spotify Q&A section on the app, or send a message on Instagram where I am most active.

And until next time, remember, you are made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. All of these things combined mean that you’re literally a star. Shine bright, be kind, and don’t go supernova. No one likes that. I’ll chat your ear off next time. C’ya.