Interstellar Concordium (ISC)

In the fictional Star Fleet Universe as represented in the range of games from Amarillo Design Bureau Inc. as well as the first two Star Fleet Command games (and the Orion Pirates stand-alone addon for Starfleet Command II) from Taldren, the Interstellar Concordium (ISC) is a union of several sentient races, similar to the Federation, beyond the Gorn and Romulan empires.

''Please note that the following text, while based on the representation of the Interstellar Concordium in the SFU, is not in itself to be considered canon, the official descriptions of the history, technology and various societies of the ISC are available in the C2 module for Star Fleet Battles as well as other sources from ADB. This article is an unofficial representation of the ISC and is intended as a reference point for those unfamiliar with the Interstellar Concordium.''

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 the Pronhoulites, the Rovillians, the Veltressai, the Q'naabians, the Korlivar and (in Starfleet Command) the Meskeen.

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, and possess phasers and plasma torpedoes akin to those used by the Gorn and Romulan fleets, 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. Only the Tholians and to a far greater extent the Andromedans 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 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 efter 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 technlogy of the Andromedan armada, and 80% of the Concordium's armed forces were annihilated, but the buildup by the other races' armed forces was just enough to hold out against the invaders and eventually turn the tide, ending the invasion in Operation Unity of Y203-205.

Afterwards the ISC abandoned any attempts to forcibly pacify the other races.