Nehantish (planet)

"Quotation"

―Who said it

Nehantish is not the original name for the planet, but has become the dominant name for it among the galaxy. Originally known as Auricus, the old name was discarded as the Sultan of the kingdom of Nehantish established military supremacy and controlled the planet's first, and still primary, spaceport.

Unilke many planets whose populace has become spacefaring, Nehantish is not a unified planet, and has no one central government. Instead there are five main kingdoms, and about two dozen smaller ones still in active power. The most powerful of these is the kingdom of Nehantish, with the capitol city of Nehantish as its seat of government. The four other main kingdoms are Munjesh, Kuf, Midloth and Cathay.

While each kingdom has its own space program, the planet as a whole was woefully underdeveloped in its spacefaring technology when they encountered life outside their world less than two hundred years ago. Lacking hyperdrive technology, they posed no threat to anyone, and were often left alone for their first ten years, but the lucrative business of trade brought off-world technology, including advanced spacecraft design, to the planet, where it was quickly studied and reverse-engineered. Through this introduction to advanced technology, a dormant trait found in most every Nehantite emerged, and they quickly became a race of engineers and mechanics possessing an uncanny ability to work on and repair ships and engine systems. Over the course of ten years, the entire planet shifted focus from male work being crop and livestock-centered to becoming skilled spacecraft workers, and food was bought in, instead, while females took over much of the void left in the agricultural and business fields.

Nehantites found themselves so adept at ship maintenance and engineering that it became common for many races and empires to seek out and hire male Nehantites to run the engine rooms of their starships, or man repair facilities on planets or space stations. Being a culture used to division of labor by gender, mechanical work was considered a male task, and therefore Nehantites who were able to make it off-world were almost exclusively male. This led to a misunderstanding among other races about the gender of their species for some time until at last a few female engineers began to make their way off-world. However, the balance of male and female mechanics never evened out, and off-world population currently stands at a male dominance of 96%.