Chelti history is a murky thing filled with turmoil and conflict, and nothing really changed when they went into space. Chelti really reached space before their time, using technology from an alien crash they were able to get their hands on FTL drives, however the equipment around those drives is almost primitive in comparison. Only the wisest chelti brain tanks have any real clue about the mechanics behind these devices.

Before the chelti became sentient they were of the other animals that dwell on their planet living in the canopied maze that was the Northern jungles. However, when food became scare and living too rough many nomadic packs migrated South to the dusk plains where the lesser danger, and need to build defenses helped push them towards intelligence.

Slowly settlements and villages grew from these temporary shelters, and soon enough the chelti emerged from their animal state. Life was still fraught with risk in their environment, even their mightiest warriors and weapons little match for the larger creatures on their world.

Writing slowly grew from marks in the trees and dirt, language evolved from hunting sounds and culture sprung up wherever there were chelti to create it. However they did not always have it their own way. Disease and plagues would periodically kill off vast portions of the population, and even those that survived were usually horribly marked.

As chelti societies developed and grew medicine was always a huge concern for all chelti, barely a chel was not left without disgusting marks from some form of infection or disease that not even their powerful immune systems could completely protect against. Chel without the marks that disfigured almost all chelti were highly sought after as mates and often called “the beautiful people.”

Because of the almost universal effect of disease on themselves medicine was always the biggest dream of the chelti race, almost an entire race worked tirelessly to treat, counter and perhaps finally cure the myriad of infections that plagued them.

The creation and widespread availability of vaccines against disease actually did create a new calender for just about the entire chelti as a race. In modern times it has been replaced, but is still taught as something of a golden age of medicine and scientific advance.

Space flight for chelti was a bit of a start-stop affair. Their natural satellites weren't really big enough to attract much attention in landing on them, and their home planets rather eccentric rotation made planning such jaunts difficult. However the need for resources put one thing on the agenda. Mining.

Mining projects sprung up as factions bit and fought over who would win the race to claim the valuable and rare minerals that other planets offered.

This is how the first space clans developed in the micro gravity of refinery vessels and mining stations, working on asteroid mining, gas taps and other alternative means of resource gathering. The earliest chelti space warfare were raiding parties that could attack and steal resources while defending their own miners at the same time.

This series of passive-aggressive economic actions, and not so passive raids has set the stage for the current chelti space age where resources are everything. The large influx of materials and economic stimulation that these events stirred has left a major mark on the chelti homeworld, accelerating technological progress and driving demands for resources even higher.

Factions unable or unwilling to acquire such resources have, by and large, been swallowed by one of the current major factions.

During the the standard year of YE 11 a strange object was discovered by chelti prospectors, it appeared to be some sort of drone abandoned by whatever had sent it. At first it was thought to be just something another faction left behind, or some strange practical joke. However, closer examination proved this false. The technology was obviously far more advanced than their own, and the writing and marking on the sides were completely unfamiliar with anything they had ever seen.

It was decided that an effort should be made to try and salvage it, however as the recovery team attempted to work open the hatch so they could take a measure of the mass inside the unknown device exploded, killing nearly the entire recovery team. Whoever had left it had been dangerous enough to leave a booby trap on a disposable drone. Naturally the finding faction tried to cover it up, but communication taps and various spies over the years eventually saw the information passed to nearly all major factions high-security departments.

The chelti as a race have since always stood wary of such devices, although sometimes the mere hint or rumor of alien artifacts is enough to spark colonial wars.

It was only in YE 29 that further contact with other sentient species occurred, and it came like a storm. A heavily damaged alien warship crash landed on their home planet. The ship had been mortally wounded in a battle in a far off system, the crew desperately jumping to a random system and crashing onto the planet in an attempt to save themselves.

To put it simply, diplomacy failed. The survivors from the crash, seeing the relative infancy of the chelti race, immediately began trying to take over their own fiefdom on the homeworld. A fierce battle ensued, the outnumbered but technologically advanced aliens more than a match for whatever forces that had scrambled to the crash site. In desperation a team was sent, thirty commandos to take on a worshipful of the most powerfully armed aliens on the planet. With them they carried a tactical nuke to carry inside of the ship where the damage would be contained, but wiping the aliens makeshift stronghold off the map.

It was a massacre, within minutes most of the commandos were dead and only a small team of survivors carried on the mission inside the broken but still deadly vessel. Finally, the remnants the commando team planted their deadly payload, holding off the swarm of enemies with threats to blow the ship.

When the captain of the stricken vessel refused to negotiate he was struck down brutally by his more pragmatic and cunning first officer who agreed to a cease fire. It was another two days before the commando team was extracted, hauled out on the shoulders of their comrades to have their extensive injuries treated. From the carnage of those short, but meaningful few days emerged one hero. The face of the stand between the commandos and the hordes waiting to butcher them.

In a highly unusual step the commanding officer of the team at that time (the original commander had been killed) was made public, his identity exposed and promoted to high command. His home faction using him as a media piece rather than allowing the commandos their usual cloak of secrecy. Uiguay Garza Coren Totoka became a hero overnight. Months later he commissioned a memorial near the crash site listing over two-thousand names of those who fell in the Battle of the Crash Site. Naturally, all the commandos involved were given an anonymous honour.

Eventually a deal was brokered, the survivors from the ship were feed and supplied in exchange for building for the chelti some of their advanced technologies. This was how the chelti got their hands on the FTL drive. The number of these drives built up quite rapidly as the ships crew were able to manufacture them if supplied with the right materials and a fee. An alien race developed a monopoly over chelti FTL travel, allowing them to manipulate many political spheres of cheltikind.

Chelti expansionism now reached new systems, recklessly growing and fighting over land rights and resources. The hunger of their home industry only intensified from this new means of travel.

Break neck expansion is the order of the new day as factions and individuals scramble to claim riches and glory. Fringe wars rage and reside with great regularity as various home factions and upstart colonial rivals battle each other for the best spots. This aggressive stance has only been encouraged their new alien benefactors, themselves eager to scout out the situation since their hurried exodus.

Having received a somewhat biased version of events about the war the aliens fled from, chelti colonial fleets have been given strict protocols for contacting other alien ships. In a word, don't.