Web Video / Stellaris Invicta

"Humanity has awoken, and now the galaxy will see its might."

— Part Two | Greater Terran Union | Stellaris Invicta

Stellaris Invicta is a Stellaris Let's Play on Twitch created by the YouTube channel The Templin Institute. It employs the game to craft stories revolving around future human civilizations.

The first season, narrated by Larissa Thompson, focuses on the Greater Terran Union, the military regime that led humanity after thwarting an Alien Invasion by a race called the Tyrum from 2089 to 2096, later emerging onto the galactic stage as a rising imperial power dedicated to making sure that humanity is never threatened by invasion again.

The second season, narrated by Stephen Trafford, revolves around the Antares Confederacy, an alliance of Lost Colonies descended from a colonization fleet that left Earth in 2159 only for a wormhole accident to dump them in the wrong system, where they were forced to survive on several harsh Death Worlds instead of the thriving, developed colony they were originally heading to. What's more, the leaders have figured out that something terrible happened to Earth after they left, and that if they ever do return to their homeworld, the Confederacy may have to liberate it. In addition to a Stellaris Let's Play, season two also features a Cities: Skylines Lets Play titled Skylines Invicta: Founders of Antares, focused on the Antares Confederacy's capital of Sagallo as it grows from a small colonial outpost to the seat of a galactic empire.

In addition to videos on the centuries-long campaigns of the Union and the Confederacy, the Templin Institute has also released supplemental videos detailing their history and organization, which can be found in each season's playlists. These are not necessary to understand the story, but provide useful worldbuilding, context, and Sequel Hooks.

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Stellaris Invicta provides examples of the following tropes:

General

• Audience Participation:
  • Ahead of each season, the Templin Institute's Patreon supporters can vote on which nation Marc will play as, and can even submit alien nations as well.
  • The sessions themselves allow viewers to vote on Twitch on major in-universe decisions, and audiences are encouraged to develop their own lore and backstory along the way.
• Alien Invasion:
  • Centuries prior to the start of the first season, Earth was invaded by the Tyrum. However, humanity managed to cripple the invaders’ orbital command ships with an ICBM barrage, and then spent years fighting the invaders tooth and nail for control of Earth. Eventually, the invaders were pushed off of Earth, though not without great cost.
  • In Season 2, it turns out that Earth has invaded by the Screk, a Higher-Tech Species who initally act as benefactors but ultimately enslave and subdue humanity.
• Artistic License – Space:
  • In season 1, the Florian Matriarchy declares war on the GTU for building a Dyson Sphere around Barnard's Star and thus removing it from their skies. The Florian Matriarchy lies hundreds of light years from GTU territory. Barnard's Star lies six light years from Earth, and yet is so dim that it is impossible to see with the naked eye.
  • In season 2, the Earhart flotilla disappears whilst en route to a habitable planet around the star Antares B. In the real world, Antares B is a B-type main sequence star, which have lifespans of less than a billion years — hardly enough time for life to evolve in the system.
• Central Theme: The defiance and martial spirit of the human species.
• Final Boss: This being a Stellaris Let's Play/After-Action Report, both the Greater Terran Union and the Antares Confederacy have locked horns with the endgame crisis towards the end. Both times, it was the Unbidden.
• The Ken Burns Effect: Throughout the series, footage of gameplay is supplemented with panning and zooming on many pieces of science fiction art (used with permission, of course) to tell the story of what's happening "on the ground" at any given time.
• Robot War:
  • The GTU's mid-game crisis is an AI uprising by a networked intelligence called NEX.
  • In season 2, by midgame a rogue servitor faction, the Prime Core, has risen in the Galactic South, leading to increased paranoia and militarisation in the Confederacy. Later, the UTP itself is embroiled in a conflict with a rogue AI system that created a race of Driven Assimilators.
• Running Gag: The Statue of Liberty was destroyed in both seasons, albeit in radically different circumstances.
• Standard Human Spaceship:
  • Both the Union and the Confederacy use the game's "Mammalian" shipset, which is this trope to a T: grey, boxy, and covered in antennae and greebles.
  • The United Terran Protectorates in season 2 use the "Humanoid" shipset, which is a sleeker design but still grey and recognizably human in origin.
• Standard Sci-Fi Fleet: Fleets in Stellaris consist of Corvettes, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, Battlestars, and Titans. The GTU eventually adds a Colossus, the Sword of Terra, to their ranks.
• Weirdness Magnet: Humanity seems to be shaping up to be this regarding the Unbidden. The only two alternate worlds where organic life triumphs over the Unbidden have the GTU and Antares Confederacy largely responsible for saving the galaxy.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The Holy Solar Empire, one of the factions proposed for both seasons but never used, is a gigantic one to the Mad Max films, especially in its proposed season two incarnation. It is described as having emerged from "the road warrior tribes of Ah-Tralia", and its religion calls to mind the War Boys from Mad Max: Fury Road.

Season One

• 0% Approval Rating: Pretty much the state of the GTU after world cracking the Tyrum homeworld.
• The Alliance: Much to its surprise, the GTU found itself in an alliance of convenience to avoid entanglement in a war between two fallen empires. For added embarrassment, the alliance included its erstwhile military antagonist, the Florian Matriarchy.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The GTU's destruction of the Tyrum homeworld happened on Christmas Eve.
  "'Twas the night before Vengeance, and all throughout space, The fleets had assembled, to destroy the whole Tyrum race."
• Big "NEVER!": How the High Marshall responded to the demands of the Jaz'Gavaz and Xani to join them or suffer.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The GTU's final pincers move against the Unbidden, thanks to a fleet mustering in neighboring systems that lasted an entire year.
• Defeat Means Friendship: With the Wessari. Eventually.
• Dyson Sphere: The GTU built one around Barnard's Star. This of course lead to a war with the Florian Matriarchy mentioned above.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The Union's revenge against the Tyrum, as delivered to their homeworld.
• Enemy of My Enemy: The GTU was the beneficiary of this trope as many former enemies joined it in mutual defense against the Fallen Empires and, later, the Unbidden.
• Forever War:
  • Over the course of 232 years, from 2263 to 2495, the Terran Union was locked in conflict with the Algan Republic and its allies, fighting a total of seven wars before finally conquering them outright.
  • From 2517 to 2661, the GTU finds itself locked in a seemingly endless stream of wars, first with the Vol Hive, then the Florian Matriarchy, then the NEX computer network, then pretty much the entire galaxy in the Five Front War, then the Fallen Empires of the Mesh Ben and the Jas Gavaz, and then finally with the Unbidden.
• Genocide Backfire: The GTU's shattering of the Tyrum homeworld leads to near-universal condemnation from the other galactic powers.
• Guilt-Free Extermination War: The GTU appears to have little problem with genocide, provided it is against hive minds.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Invoked in-universe, as some members of the Union believe that by invading the Wessari homeworld, the Union has become no better than the aliens who invaded Earth in 2090.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The Great Khan's successor performs one during the war with the Unbidden, preventing them from conquering a vital system long enough for GTU reinforcements to arrive.
• Hobbes Was Right: There is a strong undercurrent of brutal cynicism that underlines much of the GTU's guiding ideology. As the byproduct of a war that nearly led to the extinction of the human race, they assume the worst of practically everyone's intentions. Collectively, humanity is considered a force for greatness; individually, humans are seen as prone to decadence, rebellion and immoral behaviour. All aliens are treated as current or future threats to humanity's survival until they are pacified and subservient to the GTU. The social apparatus of the GTU is geared towards national unity above all other considerations, military force is the number one tool to keep others in line, and cultural, political and religious practices are all heavily policed to minimize internal strife.
• Horde of Alien Locusts: The Tyrum Consciousness, who were the aliens responsible for invading Earth back in 2090.
• Hostile Terraforming: Part of the Tyrum invasion of Earth.
• Humanity Is Superior: The GTU's ideology is explicitly human-supremacist. However the GTU government eventually abandons this aspect.
• Human Resources: The GTU, after invading the Vol Hive, thought they could consider themselves heroes after liberating a slave race from the Hive's clutches. Unfortunately the species, though humanoid, was simply mindless livestock.
• Knight Templar: No matter how noble their intentions, it's undeniable that the GTU is taking some rather distressing actions to ensure humanity's prosperity.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Pretty much sums up the relationship between the GTU and the Wessari.
• Merchant City: Karma, capital of the planet Moksha, and the Vaikuntha system. This is due to the fact that Vaikuntha holds the only group of settlements in the long and only hyperlane corridor conecting the outer rim to the core sectors, making it effectively the only possible route through which to move people and goods between both halves of the GTU.
• Portal Network: The Gateways, which span the galaxy and were built by a mysterious, long-gone Precursor race (as is the case in Stellaris). The GTU theorizes that the Tyrum used a Gateway near Sol to invade Earth back in 2090. They eventually use one to return the favour, and then start building their own.
• Planet Destroyer: The exact function for what the Sword of Terra was built.
• Plant Aliens: The GTU has encountered at least three: the Sophox Garden of Worlds, the Algan Republic, and the Florian Matriarchy.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The GTU is socially liberal and does not discriminate based on gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Not because they particularly care about equality, but because it makes no sense to turn down useful manpower when you're trying to preserve humanity. This ultimately extends to accepting alien races within their ranks, with a Wessari eventually becoming High Marshall and the Union being forced to abandon its human-centric xenophobia.
• Ring World Planet: The GTU constructs one in the outer L-Cluster, which, together with the energy from the Dyson Sphere, provided the resources to counter the Fallen Empires and the Unbidden.
• Rising Empire: The Greater Terran Union, even while being a great empire already, is still on its way to growing even larger and more powerful.
• Those Were Only Their Scouts: The GTU's battle against a networked AI called NEX turned out to be a pre-emptive strike in a gigantic combined offensive comprising most of the major powers in the galaxy.
• The Unfought: The GTU never fought the Great Khan, since they were not an immediate threat to themselves and died before they could encroach on their holdings.
• We Have Become Complacent: Following the destruction of the Tyrum Consciousness the GTU began to grow arrogant and believed no one would ever be able to challenge them. This caused the GTU to seriously underestimate the Florian Matriarchy and their rivals, resulting in a costly and devastating war that proved otherwise.

Season Two

• Alternate Calendar: The Earheart colonists, after arriving in their new system in 2159, reset their calendar to year 0. The series proper begins in 210 AL, or 2369 CE.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: One episode details the history of the United Terran Protectorates, much of it in a propaganda style.
• Arc Words:
  • "Hic manebimus optime" — "Here we will stay most excellently."
  • "Evil must be opposed." The Confederacy's foreign policy in four words.
• Back from the Brink: After suffering massive defeats in its war with Antares, including the collapse of their Screk benefactors, the United Terran Protectorates turn the tide against Antares in a devastating counterattack that puts them on the initiative, eventually forcing a stalemate and shortly after reforming into the Greater Terran Empire, an even more belligerent foe.
• Balkanize Me: The Galactic North is largely free of border gore, but the Galactic South, thanks to endless wars and, eventually a machine uprising, has been utterly shredded by midgame.
• Battle Thralls: The Screk invaded Earth to turn humanity into these, believing that Humans Are Warriors and that they needed a powerful warrior caste for when the Unbidden returned. Having seen the Alternate Universe where they became the Greater Terran Union and beat the Unbidden, they knew humanity could do the job.
• Benevolent Alien Invasion:
  • How the Collaborators present themselves to the United Terran Protectorates. In reality, the leaders of the latter are having their doubts, and the "benevolence" is mostly propaganda, with the Protectorates in fact being a Police State where most of the population is kept ignorant.
  • A straight example is the Confederacy's conquest of the Vrul Salvation League, meant to save the masses from a capricious elite. The Vrul become part of the Antares community, though there is admittedly friction at first.
  • When the Confederacy conquers the Screk, the latter are surprised by the mercy and restraint shown by the Confederates.
• Big Bad Wannabe: The Vrul had ambitions to conquer the galaxy and exterminate all alien life, but their homeworld going kaboom in the first episode (and Antares invading afterward) kinda put an end to those plans.
• Big Damn Heroes: As the war with the Great Khan turns against their favor, the Antares are surprised by the surprise aid of the Vran Pilgrims, a Precursors empire that they had previously given some holy relics to.
• Bittersweet Ending: More "sweet" than "bitter, but it takes a lot to accomplish it. The Antares Confederacy triumphs over both the Unbidden and the Greater Terran Empire and reforms into the Antares Commonwealth, a more centralized and powerful state capable of carrying the torch of liberty and challenging any who might threaten it. Unfortunately, by the time they defeat the GTE, Earth That Was has become a blasted hellhole thanks to centuries of oppression and exploitation, leaving many to wonder if it was all worth it.
• Canon Welding: The video on the Screk Empire reveals that seasons one and two take place in a multiverse. The Screk, in their research into other dimensions in order to prepare for the next war with the Unbidden, witnessed the universe of season one in which the Greater Terran Union triumphed over them, which led them to invade Earth so that they could forge humanity into that kind of warrior race.
• Commonality Connection: The spiritualist lithoids Cloister of the Spirits get along fabulously with the Antares after learning about the black stone of the Kaba, a sacred stone of Islam.
• Death by Irony:
  • As the Confederacy landed on the Screk's homeworld, several leaders expecting to be treated as badly as they treated the aliens they conquered fled to their vassal state, the United Terran Protectorates... which committed genocide against them when it became the Greater Terran Empire. By contrast, those who stayed behind were surprised by the mercy shown by the invaders.
  • More broadly for the Screk, the reason they invaded Earth was because, in their research into other dimensions, they stumbled upon the universe of season one where humanity reigned supreme over the galaxy, and wanted to both nip that threat in the bud and turn humanity into their own warrior caste to serve them. All this did was piss off the lost human colony of Antares, which became the actual human-led military superpower that ultimately destroyed them.
    The United Terran Protectorates were a pale imitation, a means by which human destiny could be twisted to serve the Screk. Too late, the archivists realized, that in seeking to control that power they had feared, they only served to give it a different form. A new colossus that arose from imprisoned lightning, divergent yet equally supreme. In studying the facets of The Multiverse, the Screk brought on themselves the very fate they had sought to avoid.
• Death World: The system that the ships landed up in was filled with these. Of the nineteen settlements they established across eight planets, only eleven colonies on six planets survived, and the fate of one colony is classified. It was 149 years after first landing when regular contact between the surviving colonies was reestablished, and by that time, they had evolved into separate nations entirely and formed four separate power blocs.
  • Dakarai, the most habitable and Earthlike world in the Antares system, is blessed with great mineral wealth and a perfect climate for growing human crops... but is also plagued by massive hurricanes owing to its slightly larger oceans and warmer temperature compared to Earth. Needless to say, it is the most populated planet in the Antares system, and the Republic of Rutiva and the Federation of Jut Fareed, the Confederacy's two largest and most powerful nations, both originated on this planet.
  • The ocean world of Hai is the second most populated and habitable planet in the system. It shares Dakarai's propensity for mega-hurricanes, but it lacks mineral wealth and natural resources, most of which are found on the planet's sole continent. The Republic of Chengatai is based on that continent, and the much smaller Federation of Rhumdara is based on Hai's many island chains.
  • Lindiwe was initially thought to be a great choice for settlement, but serious environmental issues eventually cropped up, too late for them to relocate. Along the banks of the planet's largest river, a giant insect carried a deadly plague that killed about 30% of the colonists living there, and near the colony of Sagallo, the soil composition caused the crops they attempted to grow to asphyxiate themselves; only a breakthrough in genetic engineering by a scientist named Rho Phan and the support of a sympathetic officer named Banza allowed them to solve their food problem (and solve their energy problem while they were at it). The republics of Maltuan, Alfjari-Vet, and Mandakir are based here, as is the Confederacy's capital at Sagallo.
  • Alhaji lacks oceans, but is still blessed with fertile soils and serves as the breadbasket of the Antares system. The Union of Thanh-Jenal controls the entire planet. At the end, it's revealed that Alhaji was terraformed into a Gaia World, a utopian paradise for all species.
  • Vinh, another ocean world, is plagued by volcanism but blessed with enormous mineral wealth and exotic resources. The Commonwealth of Embasora controls the entire planet. Like Alhaji, Vinh too gets terraformed into a Gaia World.
  • Vinh has a single moon, Ziva, a jungle world where said jungle is actively hostile to human life, but is also the only world with life forms as evolutionarily complex as Earth's. The Sabmadi Republic, one of the planet's two nations, only survived because of the firepower of its military drones, while the Tehnali Republic was founded by those who hid in underground caves to escape the hostile wildlife. Two other colonies on Ziva both failed.
  • Ariane seemed like a pleasant world at first and was even considered the jewel of the Antares system, but none of the colonies that landed there survived, owing to its Earthlike qualities being such that the colonists were given only the bare minimum equipment needed for terraforming... only for them to discover too late that the anomalies in the planet's magnetic field would cause extrasolar radiation to kill their crops and give them cancer. Humans are still banned from visiting its surface.
  • Finally, the alpine world of Nakiska is a closely guarded secret and, like Ariane, an exclusion zone, with what little is known about it concerning its cool climate, towering mountains, and vast alien forests. Officially, the Confederacy says that no attempts were ever made to colonize this planet, but its constituent republics all have evidence proving that one colony ship did in fact land there, and the fate of said colony ship has been fodder for Conspiracy Theorists throughout the Confederacy. What's more, lights have been documented as appearing on its surface, which the Confederacy dismisses as natural phenomena. It's the world where, ages ago, the Screk's wormhole experiments brought the Unbidden into the galaxy the first time. And The Stinger reveals that Antares scientists discovered human beings on the planet.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • After defeating the Vrul, the Confederacy grants them full citizenship and free movement within their territory, and begins to reconstruct their economy. By the time of the Athorian War, the Confederacy is led by a Vrul Prime Minister. It remains to be seen if the same occurs with the rump of the Baanthurian Khanate.
  • The same thing happens after the Confederacy defeats and conquers the Screk. The fact that the Confederacy doesn't exterminate them, but instead rebuilds their worlds and gives them full rights as citizens, shocks and humbles them, with one of their leaders quoted as saying "if they can forgive us, they will be the greatest nation in all reality."
• Dug Too Deep: The reason why the Vrul homeworld was destroyed. Out-of-control mining operations fueled by greed eventually destabilized the planet's crust and caused its destruction.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The fate of Vrul-Ho, taking much of its population with it. Furious that they callously left billions to die (and seeing an opportunity to neutralize an aggressive neighbor), the Confederacy invaded the Vrul Salvation League.
• Eagleland: The Confederacy's casus belli against the Vrul was essentially to liberate them from themselves.
• Earth That Used to Be Better: Officially, the Antares Confederacy tells the public that it received no messages from Earth after passing through the wormhole. In truth, their leaders received over a hundred mostly garbled messages implying that something very bad happened to Earth, such that they suspect that, if they ever return home, it will be to liberate their homeworld. It turns out that Earth was invaded by aliens, who created a collaborator regime called the United Terran Protectorates. By the time Antares finally liberates it, Earth is a blasted hellhole thanks to centuries of totalitarian rule. It gets better.
• Eldritch Location: The Antares Miasma is noted to have a strange distribution of alien ruins and relics, almost as if the region is a "cosmic dumping ground" for objects and civilizations across the galaxy. The Screk Empire video reveals that the system that became known as Antares was used by the Screk to test wormhole technology responsible for the galaxy's first Unbidden invasion, which also caused a number of alternate realities to briefly bleed through into ours.
• Entitled to Have You: Apparently, the Terran Protectorate's rulers, the Screk, have declared their right to the Antares Confederacy.
• The Federation: The Confederacy joins into a Galactic Union with the Cloister of the Spirits after subduing the Vrul. Then, after one too many wars, decides to leave. By midgame, their conquest of the Khanate and immense racial diversity has made them essentially a Federation in themselves.
• Fictional United Nations: The Confederacy sends envoys to the Galactic Community, where they make first contact with the United Terran Protectorates.
• First-Episode Spoiler: The existence of the United Terran Protectorates is revealed at the end of the very first story episode, though it isn't until episode four that its nature as a Vichy Earth Crapsaccharine World is explained.
• Gaia's Lament: An alien example. Vrul-Ho was destroyed by mining operations that eventually Dug Too Deep and destabilized the planet's crust, rendering it uninhabitable and forcing the evacuation of as much of the Vrul elite as they could to a new world.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Unbidden ravaged the galaxy centuries ago and were only repulsed by the Screk at great cost, and only temporarily. Everything the Screk have done since then, including subjugating Earth and turning humanity into Battle Thralls, is part of a last-ditch plan to defeat the Unbidden once and for all when they inevitably return.
• The Horde: The Banthurians after uniting under the Great Khan.
• Harbinger of Impending Doom: After defeating the Screk, Antares scientists find within their archives a mysterious artifact that the Screk had once treated with religious reverence. It is counting down to a date in the very near future — not centuries from now, or even years, but a matter of months. It predicts the arrival of the Unbidden.
• Humans Are White: Averted. The people aboard the Earhart colonization fleet mostly came from the "Third World", specifically Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean, and South America, as the first wave of colonists to the original Antares system came mostly from the world's wealthier nations. It's mentioned that Islam is the largest religion in the Confederacy, followed by Christianity, Hinduism, and atheism, and while the Confederacy's most common languages include French and Spanish, they also include Swahili, Arabic, and Vietnamese.
• Ironic Echo: The Antares Confederacy invaded the Vrul Salvation League because of how their elite abandoned the rest of the Vrul to die on their increasingly uninhabitable homeworld. We later find out that this was the exact excuse that the Collaborators use to justify their invasion of Earth and creation of the United Terran Protectorates, that the Earhart colonization fleet was comprised of Earth's elites abandoning the rest of humanity to die on Earth That Was.
• Kill the Poor: The Vrul Salvation League did this on a ghoulish scale. Once it was learned that their homeworld Vrul-Ho was dying thanks to their own greed, the Vrul set out to colonize a new world, Torix — but only the elite were invited to go. The rest of the Vrul were worked to death in the mines on their doomed homeworld, given the false promise of a ticket to Torix as a reward for their work. The Antares Confederacy is so appalled by how the Vrul treated their own people that it leads them to declare war.
• Last Stand: General Liliana Reyes leads one on the planet of Melaka after the Banthurian invasion, one that lasted so much longer than anyone expected that the Great Khan himself had her posthumously declared a Worthy Opponent after the planet was finally captured. Her defiance leads the Confederacy to refuse to accept submission to the Great Khan, and it begins a massive campaign to fight back.
• Lost Colony: The Antares Confederacy, which never reached its intended destination and instead landed up in a system full of Death Worlds. And it turns out they were lucky to be cut off from Earth.
• Meaningful Name: "Antares" is derived from the Greek Ἀντάρης, meaning roughly "rival-to-Ares"^note the real star was named Antares because, like Mars, it is red and resides in the zodiac. Ares being the god of war, the name Antares is meaningful here in that it reflects the Confederacy's desire for peace and democracy in an otherwise chaotic and despotic galaxy, and also sets them apart from the first season's Greater Terran Union.
• Monumental Damage: Invoked. The Screk destroyed the Statue of Liberty, melting it down into mocking jewelry worn by their nobles, as the ideas of liberty and freedom were not exactly in line with their goal of making Earth a subject state.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Earth's alien rulers, the Screk, have the same avatar as the Tyrum from season 1.
  • The Earhart Flotilla got lost due to a freak accident during transit through an artificial Wormhole. Wormhole drives were one of the three original ways to travel in Stellaris, until they got replaced by hyperlanes while wormholes were relegated to a handy but rare natural phenomena.
    • Additionally, the Confederacy’s origin almost perfectly mirrors the base game’s human Lost Colony: The Commonwealth of Man.
• Negative Space Wedgie: Previously undiscovered instabilities in the wormhole between Sol and the original Antares system caused the colonization fleet to get sent off course to an uncharted star system. What's more, it's implied that this may be connected to whatever happened to Earth.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Confederacy defeating the Screk and trying to free Earth leads directly to the UTP becoming The Greater Terran Empire.
• Paradise Planet: The original Antares system was the site of the first planet humanity discovered that was amenable to human habitation. The Earhart colonization fleet was expecting to colonize this planet, where the first wave of colonists had already built infrastructure in anticipation of their arrival.
• Perfect Pacifist People: The Screk used to be a compassionate race dedicated to spreading their technology and uplifting the primitive aliens of the galaxy through peaceful means. Then they first met the Unbidden, and the resulting centuries-long war against them caused them to start seeing their uplifted allies as pawns to fight the Unbidden for them.
• Post-Scarcity Economy: Antares invokes the "utopian abundance" exploit, and immediately sees a plunge in available consumer goods. They can take the hit though.
• Pretentious Latin Motto: "Hic manebimus optime" — "here we will remain most excellently" — is the slogan of the Confederacy. It comes from Livy, who said that it was first uttered by the centurion Marcus Furius Camillus in an address to the Roman Senate when they planned to evacuate Rome in anticipation of an attack by the Gauls, and was adopted by the Confederacy for their refusal to give up in the face of adversity.
• Propaganda Piece: Most of the video on the United Terran Protectorates is presented in the manner of in-universe propaganda extolling how the Collaborators saved humanity from itself and how the Earhart flotilla was in fact comprised of Earth's elites who left the rest of humanity to die. Towards the end, however, the darker side of the regime — the Police State, the state censorship, the mysterious "disappearances", the ruined cities — starts creeping in, indicating that something much, much more ominous is happening, and that the UTP and the Collaborators are together an isolated rogue state.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • The war against the Anthorian Empire ends with the prior status quo restored, with neither side making any gains, and with the Confederacy at war with the Anthorians' far larger and more powerful ally, the Beldross Empire.
  • The Screk ultimately prevailed in their first war against the Unbidden, but the cruel measures they took to win turned what had once been an upstanding member of the galactic community into The Empire and destroyed their credibility with the galaxy's alien races, the devastation that the war inflicted on the galaxy meant that upstart alien empires could challenge their authority by the time they pulled themselves back together, and while the Unbidden were down, they were not out, and they would one day return. This led them to become a Fallen Empire.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The second race the Confederacy encounters, the Vrul, are a genocidal race of reptilian Fanatical Purifiers.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Patreon supporters effectively play the role of corporate donors and are able to buy votes in elections and parliamentary votes.
• Shout-Out: The home system of the Cloister of the Spirits is named Chromatica.
• Silicon-Based Life: The first aliens encountered by the Confederacy, the Cloister of the Spirits, are a race of friendly, spiritualist rock people.
• Solar Punk: Segallo has this aesthetic.
• Space Clouds: The Antares Miasma, a turbulent cloud of hydrogen and other elements that permeates the Antares system and make communication extremely difficult. It turns out the Miasma is just a small part of a gigantic nebula that spans multiple star systems.
• Space Romans: As explained in this video, the Antares Confederacy is based on a number of real-life confederacies from throughout history, particularly Canada and The European Union. Their confederal system is based on the relationship between the federal government in Ottawa and the provinces, as well as that between Brussels and the EU's member states, particularly with regards to the tensions between them. Their parliamentary system, particularly the ill-defined role of the Senate, is also based on Canada's. Finally, their cultural diversity and origin as a group of multiple independent nations coming together while still maintaining their sovereignty and distinctiveness is rooted in how the EU was formed.
• Stealth Pun: Electricity for Sagallo is produced by genetically engineered pine trees. That's right, literal power plants!
• The Stinger: Human life is discovered on Nakiska. "I can see them... they're just like... like us!"
• Take a Third Option: The Confederacy is descended from the Non-Aligned Movement, formed by the smaller colonies who opposed the dominance of the Antares system by its three superpowers.
• United Space of America: Some of the specifics of the Confederacy's byzantine governmental system seem quite similar to those of the United States. Namely, it has a bicameral legislature, with the Chamber of Representatives meant to represent the people (members are elected democratically and apportioned according to the population) while the Senate is meant to represent the Confederacy's constituent republics (each republic gets equal representation, and Senators are selected by the leadership of their republics), much like how the United States Senate was structured before the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment. The capital of Sagallo, like Washington, D.C., is a federal city not part of any of the Confederacy's republics. It is also a cultural Melting Pot of people with roots all over Earth (and, as time goes on, various alien species), with strict laws preserving freedom of religion and language, and much like the Mayflower, their colonization fleet landed up very far away from their intended destination. One notable difference, however: unlike the US, it is a parliamentary system rather than a presidential one, with executive power vested in the head of the Chamber of Representatives (the prime minister) rather than a separate office (like the US President). To quote one commenter:
  "So, a quirky constitution, a host of newly made traditions, limits on the national military, a Senate that represents territories rather than people, no official language, and what you might call a wall of separation between mosque and state: so basically totally not not the USA in space."
• Vichy Earth: The United Terran Protectorates are a puppet regime of an alien race called the Screk, or the Collaborators.
• Vestigial Empire: The Screk were once the dominant power in the galaxy, but war with the Unbidden devastated them, turning them into an insular, feudal state.
• Voluntary Vassal: After a much-contested "Vrexit", the Vrul are granted their own territory within the Confederacy's sphere of influence. They are later reincorporated after they take their freedom a bit too much for granted and expel all humans from their planet.
• We ARE Struggling Together:
  • The Confederate Republics of Antares is a true confederacy, and its government and military are the result of many, many compromises between its constituent nations.
  • The Moya Pact between the Confederacy and the Cloister of the Spirits grows increasingly strained out of a sense that the latter is dragging the former into its wars. The Confederacy eventually withdraws from it as a result, leading to a lot of bad blood between them and the Cloister.
• What Did You Expect When You Named It ____?: The Earhart colonization fleet, which gets lost in space.
  Commenter: Just go ahead and name it "Icarus" or "Hindenberg". Couldn't doom it much more.

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Here, we will remain most excellently... but not here alone.