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they be hostile if the Anticans met them in person? Once
the Anticans developed space travel, they didn’t really
wait for an answer. Their ships bombarded Selay from
orbit with very little contact as prologue. The Selay, who
had also just developed space travel, responded in kind.
Over the next 60 years, the two civilizations exchanged
both spaceborne raids and ground invasions with little
advantage and much destruction to show for it.
The Anticans made first contact with the Federation
in 2360, but it took four years of persuading by an endless
stream of UFP diplomats to get them to consider
making peace with their longtime foes. Only when
the Federation made a formal peace treaty the prime
condition of UFP membership did the two sides agree
to a cease-fire and direct negotiations. High-ranking
embassies from both sides met on Parliament in 2364
and hammered out a long-term peace agreement,
known as the Beta Renner Treaty, although it took
considerable pressure on both sides by Federation
intermediaries to get them to actually sign it.
Since then, the Anticans have abided by the treaty,
and every Maximum Pack Leader since then has formally
disavowed any aggressive intent toward the Selay.
However, it is not inconceivable that rogue elements
within the Antican political or military leadership might
try to orchestrate a violation of the treaty by one side
or another. Restless young military officers sometimes
grumble about how peace deprives them of the chance
to live up to their ancestors’ heroic deeds. And it is a
known fact that ambitious politicians have considered
stirring up a crisis to give them a chance to prove
themselves more fit for leadership than the current Pack
Leader, and a new war with the Selay is the gravest crisis
that the Anticans could create for themselves.
Illustration by Blake Beasley
958
placeS of iNtereSt
The capital of the Antican government varies from
generation to generation, as each new Maximum
Pack Leader holds court in his own regional base of
power. This means, inevitably, that the seat of power
is an improvised affair, with the physical infrastructure
needed to support a planetary government flung up in
a hurry, or on top of the remnants of a past administration.
This usually means a period of administrative
inefficiency at the beginning of a Maximum Pack
Leader’s reign, as his underlings scramble to assemble
the infrastructure of government.
The forests that blanket the northern and southern
sub-arctic and sub-tropical bands are noteworthy
because of the sestap trees that flourish there. Almost
all species of sestap are valuable for their hardwood,
which is both aromatic and exceptionally dense and
durable. These properties make them valuable for
construction, as well as furniture and other consumer
items (goods made out of sestap wood costs 30%
more than similar items made of ordinary hardwood).
Entrepreneurs and traders began to visit Antica shortly
after it joined the Federation. Dealing with regional
Pack Leaders and their followers who controlled the
sestap forests can be difficult—even dangerous, if you
get on their bad side—but by the mid-24 th century sestap
logging was widespread enough so that depletion of
the forests became a legitimate environmental concern.
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