Harch were traditionally individualistic, exacting, and aggressive creatures, with each belligerently pursuing their own interests and avarice with little concern for their homeworld or cultural identity. As such, they resisted developing a monolithic Harch identity, and a vast number of different cultural groups developed with greatly differing cultural norms. The species’ individualism obstructed the organization of larger armies and meant only smaller groups banded together to skirmish with enemies. This meant that there was no war in traditional Harch society, although the species was just as capable of violence as any other.

Harch society was led by ruling nests, families who could trace their lineage back for generations despite not technically being aristocracy. The members of these nests had cultivated training and interests in the social arts, diplomacy, negotiation, and leadership. Unbeknownst to the Harch public, for centuries the nests manipulating Harch society toward militant patriotism and war, with their end goal being a Harch empire that they could rule as true aristocratic dynasties.

The Harch lived on their homeworld Secundus Ando, a temperate cavern-riddled planet in the Mid Rim’s Lambda sector. The wealthy ruling nests dwelt within massive, craggy trees that were rooted in the loamy earth of the planet’s ecologically protected parks. The cost of living in such parks was so high that the average Harch citizen could not afford real estate there in their lifetime. As such, the majority of Harch on the planet lived in industrial megacities that resembled mechanical versions of the ruling class’s preserved arboreal homes, with giant spires and cloudcutters spewing waste gas into the upper atmosphere from war factories on the ground. So great was the Harch people’s craving for war that the war industry even expanded onto artificial islands in their oceans, partly due to how much land fell within the protected territories of the nests.