Der Unerwartete Außerirdische Teilhaber (The Unexpected Alien...)
This story starts about two decades after the Mars Human/Katzen colony was built. In orbit of Mars is a new ship construction satellite, and for resources the asteroids from the nearby Asteroid Belt are mined. The colony and satellite were built by CAW (Collation of Aligned Worlds) using some human labor. The colony contains a place where young humans are taught about technology, space travel, as well as the economics and politics of the CAW. Most of the instructors are Katzens, there are a few other member species as well. There are also a few human instructors, mostly teaching Human culture to the members of CAW.
University to the Stars, as it was named about a decade ago, was created so that humans could be a part of CAW, as part of the arrangement, in exchange for knowledge, humans will give their support to CAW in manpower, as well as a sharing of sought after parts of culture. It was agreed it was better to have it off world, as Terran politics and religion did not mix well with pretty much anything. Many on Earth are not happy with this arrangement, but since they won't leave Terra, there's not much they can do about it. Those that are admitted into the program for labor or schooling are carefully screened, and agree to limited contact to those they leave behind. About eighty percent make it through screening. The Katzen have agreed to help those accepted get to Mars unmolested. There are families of CAW species that live on Mars as well, mostly Katzen. Mars does not have any political connection to Terra other than what was already mentioned. CAW does not get involved with internal conflicts on Terra except for humanitarian aid. In trade for aid, they must offer candidates for the help with construction, maintenance or their young for the university. Those candidates are also screened with about only ten percent that make it to Mars. Children as young as twelve are eligible for schooling. If a human family lives on Mars, they have basic schooling starting at age four available that is shared with the rest of the species living their.
As it was the Katzen that found and later convinced the Humans to join, they have the strongest relationship with Humans. Some say this is because of all the cat videos on YouTube. It just so happened that Katzen's core system was on the edge of the galactic group next to Terra's. They have a somewhat new colony world on what we call Kapteyn b. It was inhabited a few decades before Terra was found. In fact, that is when Terran radio signals were discovered that led to the investigation of that world. That will be discussed in detail in the prequel, but needs some mention here.
All member species except the humans have trade worlds with colonies on worlds or moons with trade stations orbiting them. The humans have or are in the process of building small trade stations in orbit around the other trade colonies. This is where all official trade takes place between them.
There are some systems with nothing but mining outpost stations as they don't have any habitable planets or moons, and those systems are not worth any species colonizing.
CAW technology is about a thousand years ahead of the humans. Everyone has some kind of personal communication, entertainment and computation device. Even the most basic compared to Terran tech is like comparing the IBM neuroscientist to an Altair 8800. Most people of the CAW have them embedded into their bodies such as their arm or appendage with holographic displays, or even in the head with micro displays on their corneas or visual sensory organ and audio feed and pickups in their ear canals or audio sensory organ powered by their own bodies. Some even have it wired directly into their brains receptors powered the same way. Some go old school and carry a device with them with batteries, a screen and audio drivers, these people are thought of to be eccentric.
