Right...

The Breen Federation is best decribes, in game terms, as a republic. Each of the major worlds has a right to set it's own policys as regards planet-wide matters, and has a limited say in system defence and any small colonies in the system.

Each major world sends three delegates, and each worlds's smaller colonies (fex, four moons round a gas giant would send one delegate) to the Breen Assembly.

The Assembly decides any major matters, however there is a second body - the Peoples Assembly. Each Breen family  - familys are large cohesive groups numbering in hundreds - selects a member to send to their local Assembly, usually the oldest fit member.

That body, which acts as a local government, is the largest body on a small (non-habital) world - they act from there on up as part of the nearest habital worlds government. local Assemblys send one member on to the world Assembly. The world assmeblys are the policy setting body for the world, subject to certain conditions. Basically, if a family finds a situation too intolerable, they can allways chose to move to another world. A small but steady stream of Breen do this.

The world Assemblys send one further member on to the Peoples Assembley. All they can do is challenge any law passed. If they challenge a law - by majority vote - then the law is sent back to the Breen Assembly for further debate, a 2/3 majority then being needed to pass it (as opposed to the simple majority it needs initially).

The Breen fleet and army has a single command at the top, and the Unified Breen Command (UBC) has three seats on the Breen Assembley and one on the Peoples Assembly. In normal times, these seats do not vote, simply acting as advisors to the Assemblys. In times of strife, they cast their votes in accordance with the wishes of the UBC.

Physically, Breen males stand just under two meters. They are broad and powerful, with two stubby legs, and two powerful, longer arms with four fingers and a thumb. The fingers - but not the thumb - have six centimeter long, partly retractable claws. They have a long, prehensile tail, relatively weak but still useful. Males are somewhat agressive, and form the Breen marines and army.

Breen females, on the other hand, stand just over a meter and a half tall, and are generally smaller physically. They have hands with six fingers and two thumbs, with four centimeter, fully retractable claws. They do not have a prehensile tail. Naturally slihgly more inteligent than males, and calmer, they make up a large majority of the fleet, and over 65% of the Government is female.

Breen produce litters of three to five youngsters, a female carrying them for some seven months, and being able to carry a litter once every year. Typically, one or two of the offspring die within a few days of birth - a natural process which does not distress the Breen. Males have a pouch, in which they carry their mates young offspring - although a synthetic subsititute is used in modern times by all but the most traditional families.

Breen are omnivores, naturally, however some 75% or more of modern Breen are vegitarian by choice, and meat is not that favoured with other breen. Some synthetics are very popular among breen.

Beeya is a harsh planet, and the Breen's strenght and fast reactions are a reaction to a place where crumblerock, tanglevine, mist stalkers and other hazards still exist in the wild places even today.

Early Breen technology was crude, but they have great adaptability and they show a genuis for altering their avaliable tools to suit the task at habd.

The Breen's early history is dominated by myths and legends, but early records show that for much of their history, the family and small tribes of families were the focal point of society.

When groups met - infrequently - it was not uncommon for one or teo familes to swap between the two groups, creating a dynamic socirty even in primative times.

And that dynamism was needed, for Breeya is a harsh world. High gravity and with a very dense atmosphere, the death rate rate among Primative Breen was high, and their lifespans rarely came to twenty of Breen's nine month orbits, let along the fourty of their full lifespan.

In the time known as the Kingdoms, mountain clans carved huge strongholds in the mountains, and united the clans as never before, with secure bases for the first time. Breenn population swelled, and over fifty kingdoms existed on Breeya.

--**-- This section is NOT, NOT for release to other races!

And then a ship arrived, a ship frim the stars. Carrying messages of peace from an alien rake, the Ikk'sooni. They offered a lot to Breeya, but several kingdoms wanted nothing to do with the aliens. A brief war later - the only time Breen has fought Breen - the Breen accepted, and a planetary government began to form.

Slowly and carefully, the Ikk'sooni gave technology to the Breen. Within a decade, they had an industry not unlike that of 19th century Earth, and the Breen population swelled.

And then, an Ikk'sooni ship arrived, bearing news of disaster, a ravening alien threat to the Ikk'sooni people. Nearly all the ships departed from Breeya, and only a small colony was left. A year passed, and a Breeya plague ranavaged the remaining Ikk'sooni, and soon none were left. The Ikk'sooni where never heard from again.

Working freom the base the Ikk'sooni had left them, the Breen discovered fusion power within fourty years, and fifty six years after the Ikk'sooni had left, they developed the Drive Field. Swiftly, tey spread out across their system - quickly finding that their radiation tolerances made the airless, barrren worlds of little use to them.

Even so, they expanded rapidly, and from old Ikk'sooni documents quickly produced and tested science intruments. Within two years of achieving spaceflight, they had probed the system's warp points and slowly expanded outwards.

*--*

The Breen slowly achieved spaceflight, and eventually discovered WarpPoints.

The Breen were cautious - their home systems have impressive defences (mainly on the warp points) - bases and missile buoys. And out from there are colony systems, which expanded rapidly - replying on the might of the Breen navy to keep them safe. They fought a few minor conflicts, but then came across several other races, of roughly the same technology as them..and friendly.

The rest, as they say, is history.