Humanity is a scattered race. After they were 'uplifted' at the end of the 21st century by the Xarn, they were forced into a war with the Scree. Earth's defences were destroyed in 2109, and the Scree started colonisation and terraforming of Earth.

Pacification process of humans on Earth went drastically wrong (a disease used to cut down Earth's population to ~2billion left only 500 million). Earth is under the control of the Scree, who have done much work changing Africa to their tastes (the deserts are covered in lush alien plant life, and the native rain forests are fighting for survival against the new breeds of Scree plants).

The atmosphere has increased its oxygen content by 3% - not that many humans have really noticed.

Since the change in regimes in the Scree Empire, humans are starting to be allowed to work alongside the Scree. Still many restrictions on what humans are allowed to do or possess though. Earth is being turned into a Garden World, with all industries in LEO.

Somewhere in the region of a million humans were transported off to planet, being sold to the Drae slavers. Many died, but many more found ways out of slavery. Together with a few hundred humans who escaped from Earth before the Scree took control, they can be found throughout the One Time surviving as best they can. For many of them, Earth is a but a name - a memory of their parents. A few have done well for themselves, but most are living poorly.

Their homeworld of Xi is a large, warm world, with a chlorine atmosphere, making the Xarn somewhat unusual in not breathing oxygen. They are three legged, strong, scaled, egg layers with three many-fingered tentacles. Vision is slightly into the ultra-violet.

The Xarn lifestyle revolves around its religion - the worship of the mother Goddess. Originally they had many religions, but several successful jihads have united the majority of Xarn under one religion.

The Xarn were brought into the One Time 150 years before humanity by the Drae. They began the colonisation of several worlds with the help of terraforming technology purchased from other races, and then went on to oversee the creation of a new wormhole - the one used to link Earth to the One Time. Though difficult to get on with because of their religion, the Xarn made a lot of progress in advancing as a member of the community.

Just before the Xarn contacted Humanity, an extremist section of one of their colonies attacked and killed a Scree delegation. Retribution was swift, though limited. The Xarn could have apologised and ended things there, except the Scree's retribution had slain one of the Most Holy Daughters, a revered leader of the Xarn. The people screamed out for retaliation, though the government knew full well that such was impossible. Something could have been worked out, except the Scree healed the Most Holy Daughter. She was dead, and then she was made living. This was seen as sacrilidge, and by that point the government lost control.

Attacks on some Scree shipping followed. Though it did little in actual physical harm, it annoyed them. Attacks on other species followed, and the Scree then stepped in end the affair, deciding to remove the Xarn entirely. The Xarn homeworld of Xi was destroyed, an event that couldn't be kept from humanity by the Xarn diplomats. Now, very few Xarn still live (maybe a few thousand), and they are in even worse state than humanity.

One of the oldest of the races, the Scree have a technological edge over most of the other races. They are avians, small and frail but greatly respected. Society revolves around extended families, with the male governing a nest of several females. Females give birth to live young, two or three at a time. Because of their added mass during pregnancy, pregnant females are unable to fly, and are very vulnerable at this time. Males and other females tend to be very protective towards them at this point.

Scree give loyalty only to those they have either had sex with, or they are the parents of. This has led to great promiscuity amongst the Scree being necessary for peaceful society. And also a huge population problem since contraception is very difficult for them (and often fatal). Scree also have great problems dealing with other races.

Scree are unusual in that they have no religion, and have had none for at least the last five thousand years of their civilisation. Neither are they superstitious, and they have short patience for anyone who is (which is the reason for their war with the Xarn).

The Scree homeworld has a gravity of 0.8g, and an atmosphere of 27% oxygen, with nitrogen as most of the rest. They adapt well to zero g, and few of their space constructs have artificial gravity. They are gregarious, with little need for privacy.

Drae are known as “Slavers” in the One Time, for the obvious reason that they have a large use for slaves of other races. Their principle religion forbids the use of machines for thinking. Therefore AIs, and even computers are forbiddon by them. There is a complex limit on the complexity of machinery as well, which has led the Drae to use slaves (always of other races, never of their own) to do manual labour.

Drae are oxygen breathing humanoids, with rubbery segmented skin, multi-jointed limbs and long necks. They are herbivores, being generally docile and cowardly, and not much sense of curiosity. The climb of their society has been slow and steady. They were introduced to the One Time by the Scree some four hundred years ago.

Maybe because of their lack of research into machines, the Drae are expert chemists and geneticists. They have deliberately tried to keep ahead of all other races in these areas, and have a reputation of being the very best in these fields.

The Drae normally use other races to move themselves around between systems, though have a few (generally unarmed) cruisers of their own. They have virtual immortality for themselves. The price to develop it for another race is very high.

The Kin Empire is situated right next door to Earth. The Kin were the race to contact the Xarn, and were a bit miffed that the Scree practically wiped them out. The humans that escaped either Earth or slavery to live in the One Time have generally been befriended by the Kin. It could be argued that the Kin have saved mankind from extinction, by providing shelter and work, but it isn't strictly true. Intelligent races have a tendency to survive whatever the odds.

The Kin themselves are a herd based herbivore race. They tend to remind humans of centaurs, having four legs, and two arms, though their tails and bodies are more worm like, and their heads are definitely not humanoid.

No more than a few tens of thousands of Huri are currently left alive. They are unusual amongst the races of the One Time in that they have evolved from plants instead of animals. They breath CO2, and exhale oxygen. They gain some energy from photosynthesis (not chlorophyll, something somewhat more complicated and efficient), but also from being carnivorous. They generally don't eat plants (they see it as immoral). And no, they are not typical nature friendly Ent-clones. They no more enjoy living in forests than a human would enjoy living in a zoo.

At the height of their development, they colonised many worlds, and contacted two races, the Kin being one of them. The other, the Kutal, are now even rarer than the Huri…

About 400 years ago, the Huri opened their latest worm gate to a new system, ripe for colonisation. The system - Chithooa - became rather famous. The Atharmi did their usual careful scan of the system, making sure it wasn't infected with any nasty surprises (the Atharmi have always been paranoid about Berserkers. Unfortunately, they weren't paranoid enough). The declared it clean, and the Huri started colonisation. The colony lasted 17 months.

It had hidden in the sun. Quite a remarkable feat, even despite the fact it was only a cool K2 star (the Huri like their stars that way). The Berserker headed straight for the worm gate, passing through it at about the same time as the wavefront from the supernova did. All Huri in the system, quite unsurprisingly, died.

The Berserker split, two parts headed for the worm gates, the other towards the sun of the new system. By this time warning was spreading from system to system, but the Berserker came through two more systems before an Atharmi warship arrived on the scene. Each time, the Berserker split, following all wormgates out of the new system, and sending a smaller probe towards the star. The probe would gather the energy/matter from the star, build bigger heavier berserkers, and send them to reinforce the ones which had gone to secure a foothold in the new systems. Then the star was destroyed, taking out the system.

Outwardly, the Burlan are probably the closest to being human in appearance. Inwardly of course, they are very different. They are dark blue-black in colour (the colour of a bruise on a human), tall (about 2m) humanoids, with long hands, and small heads.

They are an old race, dating back many millions of years. Some time before the arrival of the Scree in the One Time though, they were 'cast down' by the Atharmi, and had their knowledge taken from them. They have no home world, but live amongst the other races, making a living by use of their 'trinkets', which seem to be hold overs from their days of power. When they travel, they do so in old ships - very old ships, built by the original Burlans. Their weapons and other technologies have been restricted by the Atharmi, but these ships are still formidable compared to the other races.