The Timelines give mention to some organisations and terms that may not be familiar. Here is where these are (hopefully) explained. What is the Galactic Federation? The Galactic Federation - or Milky Way Confederation, or Confederation of Colonial Planets - is a large organisation that attempts to govern the various colony worlds, planets and organisations (like the SDR) that exist in the galaxy. It is made up of many member states, who each has a share of the vote in the organisation. It generally leaves worlds and organisations to rule themselves, but attempts to bind the whole lot together, much like the United Nations of the late 20th Century. It is not always entirely successful and has been involved in some disputes in more recent times. If it needs peacekeeping troops, it has to ask one of its member states, although not many of these states have a large standing army anymore - the SDR is an obvious exception. One of the Galactic Federation duties is to determine which planets are available for colonisation, and the Milky Way Federal Commission is the organisation that is responsible for this, checking out planets and assessing immigration and colonisation rights. The main language of the Galactic Federation is German. Who are the Shutoral Republic? The Shutoral Republic are a collection of German and German related colonies. These colonies have banded together for mutual support, and are now governed by the SDR, which uses German as the official language. The SDR are a newly formed republic, being born around the time of the World War that forced life off of Earth in the early 2800's. They are an active member in galactic politics - they have very strong links with the Galactic Federation, and one of the few organisations left that have a reasonably sized standing army (called the Shutoral National Defence Force). Due to manpower shortages in the SDR army, they use a lot of automated units and employ Foreign Legion Battalions where they must. While SDR is the official title of the Shutoral Republic, it actually has several offical meanings. Shutoral Democratic Republic Strahl Demokratische Republik Strahl is a more modern term and is the preferred term for all important or official duties and ceremonies. Shutoral is an older term and one that is in much more widespread use by practically everyone who refers to the SDR. However, there is no wrong useage for which expression to use - this site, for example, uses the term Shutoral just to ease potential confusion. Who are the Independant Mercenary Army? Whilst there is a single ruling body in the galaxy, that doesn't mean that there is always peace and harmony reigning. There have been two noteable Interplanetary Disputes and numerous border conflicts and civil wars. And where there are wars, there are fighters and in the case of the Galactic Federation a lot of these conflicts need Mercenaries to fight their battles. The actual IMA on Earth is made up of the men and women who fought in the Second Interplanetary Dispute, and these in turn are descandants of the men and women who fought in the First Interplanetary Dispute. These people were lured to Earth by the prospect of having a place to call home, but also by the fact that they sensed that tension and probably conflict was going to break out on the planet. Once on Earth, they started organising quite quickly, infiltrating the local SDR forces and the Foreign Legion. The IMA is not the government of the Earth though - the Earth has it's own Terrestrial Goverment and militia, but the forces of the Earth are far smaller than the IMA and play little part in the conflict.