One minor complaint of mine was that the Terminus Systems never seemed fully fleshed out in the lore. The description of it the codex of the original game said it was inhabited by a collection of minor species united only in their opposition to the Citadel Council. In later games however we really encounter one of those species, the Batarians, who aren't really natives to the Terminus. The Quarians had no alliances and the Vorcha were still pre-spaceflight, so the codex couldn't be referring to them. There must be other species there who just were never actually introduced in the games, although the comics gave a brief glimpse of one. (a four-armed alien appears as a background character in one of the comics set on Omega)
Also the Council's reluctance to get embroiled in a major war with the Terminus Systems makes more sense if there are more factions kicking about there than just the Batarian Hegemony.
On that note I'm going to take a stab at creating a fanfiction species native to the Terminus rather than Andromeda.
1. The Ireshi
Synopsis:
Biology:
The Ireshi evolved from ambush predators and scavengers, and compared to humans are poor runners with a somewhat lumbering gait. Having evolved from creatures who obtained between 40 and 60% of their diet from carrion, the Ireshi have a much more robust immune system than humans and have longer lifespans. Males average around 185 years and females 200. The modern diet of the Ireshi consists entirely of meat and they have difficulty digesting vegetable matter.
Qan Iresh is the second-most eezo rich of known planets in the galaxy, and just as on Thessia the animal kingdom evolved in response to the high concentrations of dust-form eezo in the enviroment. Many species native to the planet are biotically active or resistant to eezo. The Ireshi are one of the latter, and as a result there are no natural Ireshi biotics.
History:
A robotic probe launched by the Ireshi was the first craft to explore the planet, while the Salarians were the first to launch a manned expedition to the planet. The dispute over colonization rights arose from the Ireshi recognizing unmanned visits to planets as sufficient to claim a planet, while the Salarians only recognized first manned expeditions. The Asari attempted to mediate the dispute by hosting a diplomatic conference in Armali, suggesting the species share colonization rights to the planet with each species getting sole claim to two of its four continents. Negotiations stalled however when the Ireshi demanded a Council seat in exchange for renouncing half of its claim to the planet, and the delegation of Salarian dalatrass refused to consider anything other than an associate membership to the Council. As negotiations broke down wildcat Salarian miners and frontiersmen, ignoring the Salarian Union's moratorium on colonization of the planet until the dispute was resolved, began to flock to the planet in droves.
The Ireshi, who had felt slighted by the Salarian delegation, ramped up pressure by moving a small fleet into the system to occupy the planet and remove the settlers and miners, who they viewed as little more than squatters. The relocation initially was peaceful, but turned violent after some of the miners formed a colonial militia to resist the relocation. Images of Salarian colonists being driven onto Ireshi ships or gunned down by soldiers after violent confrontations played repeatedly on Salarian news networks and stoked outrage among the people of Sur'Kesh. When a Salarian delegaton returned to Armali for what had originally had been planned as a resumption of negotiations before the violent confrontations, the assembled Dalatrass instead delivered a declaration of war. As the fleets of both species battled for control of the system, Four Asari hospital ships that had been sent to system to provide medical aid to injured Salarian civilians, were fired on and destroyed by an aggressive Ireshi commander that misidentified them as Salarian cruisers. Bowing to both external pressure from their Salarian partners on the Council, and domestic outrage over the attacks on the hospital ships, the Asari Republics declared war on the Ireshi. The Mannovai War, as it would later be called in Council space, would last three years and claim the lives of hundreds of thousands on both sides.
The Council victory secured Mannovai for the Salarians, but would have far-reaching consequences for relations between the Council and the Terminus Systems. The bitter experience of the war and the loss of Mannovai made the Ireshi deeply distrustful of the Council, and they refused all subsequent attempts at negotiating associate membership to the Citadel Council. When the Batarians later withdrew from the Council, the Ireshi formed a loose alliance with the Batarian Hegemony where each agreed to provide military aid to the other in response to any armed incursion into Terminus space by any Council member. This alliance has held fast even following border clashes with the Batarians, with each viewing the Council as a greater threat. The Camala Pact, as the alliance is known, is responsible both for the Council's reluctance to get involved in the Terminus Systems and for the Systems Alliance decision not to declare war on the Batarian Hegemony, during the Skyllian Blitz.
Culture:
The culture of the Ireshi is partly responsible for their distrust of the Council, and their refusal to accept a lower tier of membership.
Wealth obtained from the sale of Eezo mined on Qan Iresh and the asteroid belt in its parent system has fueled investment in public works, infrastructure, education, and the arts. In Ireshi culture an ostentatious display of wealth is to sponsor artists or musicians, schools, or building projects. The competition between some of wealthiest eezo magnates to outdo each other in the number of patrons supported or architectural projects funded has resulted in many of Qan Iresh's cities being among the most modern of the galaxy, with a thriving arts and cultural scene.
Irethi space is a frequent stopover for the Quarian migrant fleet to trade for eezo, deposit young Quarians on their pilgrimage, and to hire out engineers for the Ireshi's many eezo-funded engineering projects.
Military / Government:
With the loss of Mannovai and a lack of classic garden worlds in Qan Iresh's immediate neighborhood, Ireshi colonization efforts instead focused on the construction of several space stations, the building of large aerostat cities above the surface of two Venus-like planets, and long term plans to terraform a cold but potentially habitable desert planet. The less than ideal colonization prospects have resulted in an Irethi population that is much smaller than that of many of the other spacefaring species. Its largest colony, on the Venusuvian hothouse world of Qan Azul, has a population only in the tens of millions.
The small population of the Irethi relative to their chief rivals has resulted in a reorganization of their military in the aftermath of the Mannovai War. The Army, once entirely Irethi, is now primarily staffed by alien mercenaries from several species with the Irethi only serving in the high command, special operations, and a few elite armored units. Since the end of the Krogan Rebellions the Irethi Army has become a major employer of Krogan, and while the high command are largely Irethi, a few notable Krogan warlords have risen to general in recent years. The Irethi transition to a mercenary army was also in part due to their lack of biotic talent and inability to sprint for long putting their infantry at a disadvantage facing the Salarians and Asari. Genetic engineering and surgical procedures could correct both, but in the aftermath of the war it was deemed cheaper and more expedient to hire mercenaries, with medical enhancements being limited to a small cadre of Irethi special operations personnel.
The Navy however remains near entirely Irethi, and is considered the more prestigious branch of service. With foreign mercenaries meeting a lot of the Army's manpower needs, the Irethi have been able to expand their Navy since the end of the Mannovai War. The Irethi Confederation fields a rough parity of ships with the Batarians, despite having a much smaller population. This has allowed the Irethi to maintain their territorial integrity following border clashes with the Batarians and the more aggressive of the Terminus warlords.
Reaper War:
The Irethi fleets were caught out of position when the Reaper attack soon poured into Irethi space, and defeated in detail. As the remnants of the once proud Irethi navy retreated, the Reapers completely destroyed the aerostat colonies and settled in to occupy and harvest Qan Ireth. The decimated Irethi fleet could no longer challenge the Reapers directly in pitched battles, and instead shifted to hit and run attacks similar to those employed by the Asari. A small number of ships retreated into Systems Alliance space, where they joined the Terminus Fleet that participated in the offensive to retake Earth.
A little over a third of Qan Iresh's 5 billion inhabitants and seventy percent of its colonial population perished during the war.
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