The cats of San Lucas are at least as warlike as mankind can be. They were in the middle of several rather impressive wars when we colonized their world, in fact. Three, maybe four depending on the exact definition, were religious wars of some kind. One of them was extremely serious, with losses on both sides equaling Earth’s Socialist Revolutions, and destabilizing the political structure of an entire continent. Most of the others were more colonial rebellions, on the outskirts of a previously united empire that had recently fallen into a serious civil war. These wars didn’t end when humanity arrived. There were only a few thousand of us, living on the seashores that any self-respecting cat stayed far away from. We, the aliens who crossed the stars to colonize their world, didn’t matter when it came to the political calculations of power on their world. Let that sink in for a moment.