Tribal Civilians

When technology has become so vastly complex as to appear indistinguishable from magic, it becomes increasingly difficult to convince those who depend on that technology to investigate it closely. Just like few people really knew how cell phones worked in the 21st Century, “they just work,” showing a ConFed Tribal a Spotlight or MECSIS Satchel would be like trying to explain the internet to a cave man.

Coincidentally, when CoreCivs and Tribals meet, the experience is similar to time travel.

Though they live on the same planet just a few kilometres below the canopy, Mexam Tribals are human beings with virtually no genetic modifications from their ancient Earthly ancestors. Aside from dormant nanites encoded to rapidly update their physiology on contact with microgravity, these people are born to a world where their eyes only see visible light, their minds can only process a single thought stream at a time, and their will doesn’t extend past their fingertips.

Their ancestors were part of the first generation of people born of Glys on Terra. When asked whether they wanted to leave behind the metropolis and live an agrarian life with no starting tools or knowledge, or if they wanted to ascend the ivory towers and live as titans near the gods, they chose to leave. The CoreCivs flew to the sky while the Tribals took the low road.

They found a world virtually identical to Ancient Earth, and the doors behind them shut tight. From that day on, the world above became a mystery accepted as divine.

3000 years later the Tribes have been transplanted to nearly every world the ConFeds land on. They’re as ubiquitous as synthetic wildlife. Under the rare conditions where ConFeds meet their terrestrial kin there are harsh penalties for interfering with their way of life. The Articles of Confederation forbid the two from meeting until such time as the Tribes have reached a level of advancement equal to the rest of the galaxy, alone. A few CoreCivs have descended to live among them, acting much akin to wizards in medieval times but just as divorced from life above as their peers.

On Vision and Terra especially the tribes have achieved space flight and the internet, living a life roughly equivalent to the 21st century after racking up a historical record as long as that of Ancient Rome to the modern world - all spent apart from external intervention. On Xiabula and Ran these tribes have advanced to a level just shy of the Bronze Age; most still living in Neolithic times. To live in space a tribal must undergo agonizing physical transformations; some they will only survive under rare cases, and if they are lifted to space it’s likely been through piracy or another race’s illegal poaching & liberation.