Strange war like humanoid invertabrates living on the planet Velara
In Velidus society power is the ultimate rule. Those who have it control the weak while those who don't are controlled. Gender or skin color is meaningless. All that matters is how well you can intimidate and more importantly back it up when necessary. The family bond is however sacred. Things we would consider crimes such as killing are or theft are still controlled but the police forces are all freelance. Money is seen as another form of power to get the cops on your side. All cops hold some standards and the trade of money is still honored as well. Mercy of any sort is considered a weakness.
Velidus live in a loose dictatorship where the leader is still determined by military strength but the citizens rights are roughly American level.
While their is infighting the winners usually end up killing all opposition before claiming power. While civil wars happen only one side lives at the end.
There are five small jump gates within yearly distance of the home planet Velara which used to be a large travel hub for the proginators. Nothing remains except for the warp gates now. Each warp gate leads to a solar system with two habitable planets. The large jump gates haven't been discovered in concept let alone found yet however. There is one within a years journey of a colony however.
A mixture of complex radar and sonar is used to guide most vehicles and maps are essentially electrical circuits kept behind non conductive glass. Audio records is incredibly important as a way long distance communication but electrical pulses sent along wires with similar purpose to a telegraph still exist. This is easier to construct and maintain than phones of any sort but harder to learn to use. Cars, planes, boats, and even spaceships use this technology.
Rocket propulsion is used to propel spaceships great and small through space. Added to the cost of fuel is the fact that materials from cold areas must absorb heat and be jettisoned to maintain a cold ship. Thank to thermal sensory these cold sources (Ice planets, High water content asteroids, etc) are easy to find. Some ships are small and economical, and some are large and heavily armed with heat seeking rocket technology... or worse. All however have some form of weaponry. While new to the space game the military is strong. On planet weaponry is quite similar to what we have now although nuclear warheads are ever more rarely put to use. Spaceships hold missiles, larger explosives that must be dropped, and smaller bombs dropped in mass for depopulation of enemy cities.
Like humans the Velidus experienced many wars before getting to space in a time frame of roughly three thousand years. They've had roughly seven wars big enough to be called world wars however these were mostly rebellions. The largest war of all unified the planet and the dictatorship was put in place. Each and every colony was taken from a civilization or set of tribes which had yet to reach space faring advancements.