Interstellar Concordium

In the fictional Star Fleet Universe as represented in the range of games from Amarillo Design Bureau Inc., as well as in the PC video games Star Trek Starfleet Command II: Empires at War and Star Trek Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates from Taldren, the Interstellar Concordium (ISC) is a union of several sentient races, similar to the Federation, beyond the Gorn Confederation and Romulan Star Empire.

ISC Culture and Society
The ISC is avowed to the principle of nonviolence, in the sense that they have no compunction about intervening in even the smallest conflicts between factions, races or empires. They are governed by an ISC Parliament in which several major member races are represented, such as:

and (only in Star Fleet Command)
 * The Veltressai - The most prominent member race of the Interstellar Concordium, holding a position akin to that of humans within the Federation. 1 in 20 Veltressai births result in a quadriplicate of psionically-linked individuals.
 * the Pronhoulites - a reptilian race, renowned as master engineers, and are adept at military matters.
 * the Rovillians - resembling a cross between a turtle and a dolphin, this aquatic race is ungainly on land, but almost preternaturally graceful in an oceanic environment. In addition, Rovillians are powerful psionics, which allows them to more than compensate for their cumbersome 'hands'.
 * the Q'naabians - methane-breathing humanoids, this race possess a deep curiosity in alien cultures and societies.
 * the Korlivilar - a felinoid race (without the less savoury culinary habits of Lyrans or Kzintis), the Korlivilar are masters of speed and reaction time, if a bit sleepy...
 * the Meskeen, resembling Terran frogs, the Meskeen do not die of old age, and continue to grow in size throughout their lifetime - the oldest being over five metres tall and thousands of years old. in Star Fleet Command, it is the Meskeen, not the Vestressai, who are the most prominent ISC member race.

ISC Technology and Tactics


The vessels of the ISC are advanced, due to the level of the ISC's technology base, as well as their covert observations of the other races' fleets. Concordium starships possess phasers and plasma torpedoes, akin to those used by the Gorns and Romulans, as well as the unique long-ranged Plasmatic Pulsar Device.

This combination of technology and equipment allows ISC vessels to form an Echelon formation in order to maximize their combat potential. This would place their PPD-armed heavy warships at the core of the formation, with a gunline of plasma-armed frigates and destroyers as a vanguard. While this resulted in higher-than-average losses of these smaller ship classes, it allowed a greater number of cruisers and dreadnoughts to survive engagements with the enemy. Only the Tholians (whose ability to generate energy webs enabled them to effectively disrupt echelon formations) and, to a far greater extent, the Andromedans (who were able to use their displacement devices to either forcibly move an ISC ship out of formation, or place a fearsome Andromedan warship into close range of the heavier ISC vessels) were able to effectively counter it.

Early Contact and the Founding of the ISC
The worlds located in what is now the home sector of the Concordium, Veltrassa, Pronhoula, Rovilla and Korlivala, gave rise to a range of sentient races which eventually discovered each other and set a course of peace and common cause by founding the Interstellar Concordium on a Declaration of Ideals of 'peace, order and good government', with Veltrassa established as the capital world and location of the main fleet shipyards.

The ISC spread throughout the neighbouring sectors of space, incorporating several additional alien races, colonising worlds and protecting several worlds populated by pre-warp races, to allow their natural development to interstellar travel - and the eventual prospect of Concordium membership.

''In Star Fleet Command, the Meskeen are presumably either founders or later members of the ISC, but the location of their homeworld and their date of membership is unknown. Since all of the current capital ISC worlds are established as belonging to another race, it could be postulated that the major planet in the ISC Distant Zone could have been intended to become the Meskeen homeworld, but this is merely conjecture and has no evidence in either the background of the SFU or provided in SFC.''

The ISC expected that any race capable of warp drive would be similarly inclined to peaceful - and profitable - means of conduct, yet this illusion would not soon last once the Concordium began to venture towards the borders of the Gorn Confederation and the Romulan Star Empire.

The ISC and the General War


The ISC first came into contact with the Gorn and Romulans, and were disturbed to find the two races at war with each other (the ISC found it hard to believe any sane race of advanced spacefarers would resort to warfare or pursue it with such viciousness), and were even more shocked upon learning that all of the other major powers of the region, from the far distant Hydran Kingdoms to the Klingons and Federation were in a state of war which had devastated known space.

The ISC were in a fortunate position, in which their expansion into their outer provinces bordering Gorn and Romulan space was unchecked as the rest of the region was involved in the brutal General War, and drew plans to forcibly pacify the rest of known space, as clearly the other races - even the supposedly-altruistic Federation - could not be trusted to themselves after the armistice which ended the War, as in their eyes both the Coalition and the Alliance were merely buying time to jump at each other's throats again in another ten years - a not entirely unfounded accusation!

By the time of the Pacification, the ISC armed forces were a match for any three of those of the belligerents of the General War combined and unlike those races had not had their considerable economy - the only one in known space which could rival the Federation's - exhausted by nearly 2 decades of war.

The Pacification Campaign and the Andromedan invasion
The ISC launched their campaign of enforcing peace between the belligerents, known as the ISC War of Pacification, on the 14th of February of Y186, placing a string of battle stations in the neutral zones dividing the various empires and driving any belligerent naval assets from any provinces bordering the respective Neutral Zones. The other races did exactly what the ISC predicted they would do if left to themselves and worked feverishly to rebuild their armed forces.

The good fortune of this for the indigenous races of the galaxy was only apparent in Y188, when the Andromedans struck with their invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy. The ISC fleets were scattered across known space, their unique formation tactics mercilessly countered by the highly advanced technology of the Andromedan armada, and 80% of the Concordium's armed forces were annihilated. Even the capital world of Veltrassa was in mortal danger, as the Invaders sent two Dominator dreadnoughts to attack it - but fortunately the Echelon of Judgement (a powerful squadron of ISC X-ships) rushed all the way from Klingon space to intervene in time to save Veltrassa. Scattered ISC fleet assets tried to consolidate their strength, and modified some of their remaining light cruisers into a more heavily-armed System Cruiser type, to more effectively defend their tenuous supply points from Andromedan assault. The buildup by the other races' armed forces from Y186-Y188 proved just enough to hold out against the invaders until Y195, when the discovery of the Andromedan Rapid Transport Network led to the eventual turning of the tide. The Concordium re-built its armed forces, and took part in the Operation Unity of Y201-202, joining the expedition to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud to destroy the Andromedan holdings there.

Afterwards, the ISC abandoned any attempts to forcibly pacify the other races, and normalised relations with the other powers in the Alpha Octant.