There is a persisting myth among species that someone has to rule. Often, on Earth, those rulers are the ones with the best weapons. Others view their culture as superior and thus their ordained mission to rule over those lesser than in some cases to uplift them, but mostly because it perversely proved their superiority. Don’t think about that too much, you’re head might explode.

When crafting the Syn-En world, I wanted a place most of us could identify easily. I fully used our current belief that bigger is better and that things are best compartmentalized, so it wasn’t hard to imagine a world where entire species filled a business niche. And yet, I didn’t use them all as more than a passing glance in many of the book.

So, without further ado, here are the Founding Five as I imagined them:

The Accumla: Primarily an economic power, who sees trade and profit as the end of every worthy endeavor. They lobby to acquire worlds rich in resources that are conveniently already located near major lanes of transports or wormholes.

The Decrepi: A frail species who suffer greatly from years of space exploration and reliance on technology. Their specialty is on medical advances and are extremely reluctant to give up their favorite lab rats: Humans. Their power lies in the translation of their medical advances into military advances and the profit in offering these advances to lesser species.

The Unadul: Their focus on arts and sciences lead many to underestimate them. Their focus on purity of art and the drive isolate the development from the influence of barbaric cultures, forces them to side with the military arm of the Founding Five and advocate for the eradication of these bad species.

The Municians: The political arm of the Founding Five. Designed to be pleasing in appearance and worship the intricacies of manners and protocols. Given the limited number of worlds, these leads the species to be cut throat and in favor of domination.

And lastly, the Scraptors: For those who’ve read Ghost World, you won’t be surprised to learn these were the last of the Founding Five. As warriors they occupy the lowest rung on the power ladder and for the most part are treated as a commodity and ignored until they are needed to reassert the authority of the Founding Five.

I was sad I didn’t use more of the first three species in the Syn-En books, but there are always more stories to tell and Nell and Bei did have children.

Until next time.