"Damn... my hands our tied. How can I know what to do without the full picture? Make our agents lay lie for now, and gather more intelligence."
"We may miss out on an opportunity to influence the election early, and this information may become freely available with time as the factions try to campaign for support..."
"Did I stutter? Get Usis on it right away!"
"Yes, your grace."
"Hold on-"
"Hmm?"
"...What are those weird lumpy things? On the council, I mean? They look like Esaal."
"Oh, those are Casliaans. They're a hairy large-bodied species that evolved firmly in Esaal space. Not much contact or information about them has filtered out, as the Esaal discovered them when they were technologically underdeveloped and used them for physical labor. The Casliaans are not known to be especially intelligent and would be unlikely to develop space flight on their own, trapped on their home planet, but it seems after many years of occupation and rebellions against the Esaal, they managed to steal enough technology for at least some splinter groups to make it into space and become a minority within Urgi freespace"
"Hmm... They could be allies against the Esaal if necessary. There seems to be bad blood between them."
"Perhaps. The Casliaans do value warrior and martial tradition; but being consigned to be civilians in the Esaal's government; the highest of which are still seen as less honorable then the lowest military member; they likely became discontent. Their similarity in appearance may be coincidental; but the Casliaan's have a very unique genetic composition in which experiences and trauma an individual experiences through life influences their heritable traits directly; meaning a Casliaan who physically trains will have a child who is highly physically developed in the same way. It is the opposite to most species reproductive strategies, whose genes are assigned at birth and reproductive success is influenced by probability thru natural selection. It is theorized that the Casliaans all once had two eyes, for example, but a common ancestor lost one during life yet was successful enough for that trait to pass down to all future Casliaan descendants."
"Strange beasts. I'd like to fight one of those some day!"
"If the Accord wins the election in Urgi freespace, it's highly likely we could get access to some Casliaans for body scanning for our AI models and sparring sessions. Just be careful of the Supremacists on the council, they're much more likely to not want any aliens in their newly developing nation..."