Elysian Empire

Elysian Empire or Empire of Elysians is a federation of several planets and colonies in the Third (Elysian) arm of the Grau galaxy, with its capital planet being Eleyor. The Empire primarily focuses on trade and exploration and advancement of other lifeforms. Only portions of the Empire's history are known to other lifeforms, with primary sources being data cores on shipwrecks.

Name
The name comes from the capital of Eleyor, Elysium and more specifically its capitol building, which has been called Elysium for thousands of years.

Political system
The Empire's most prominent figure, the Emperor (or Ancient, Eternal, etc.) is the head of the Empire and holds absolute power in it. Under him is the Elysian parliament which has elected representatives from all the planets. Each planet has its own parliament, and some planets may have even more parliaments and one central.

History
Most of history of the Empire is not known to other lifeforms than Elysians, due to their isolationalism. The reason of the isolationalism is unknown, but the most accepted theory hints religious meaning.

Eleyor and the Lev system
History of the species on Eleyor is unknown, but it is known they were eventually merged as a federation of all the Eleyan states with one purpose, to colonize space and let their kind survive. This is considered as the moment, when they realised that life is too valuable to die out on its homeplanets, and that it must be spread across the universe. Eleyan plan was to colonize their system first, but instead of finding empty, Terran planets, they found planets with already developed sentient species, unable of space travel. Instead of conquering them, they've chosen to aid them with technological development. As a result, the other race agreed to join the Elysian state as a federal planet and continues to thrive in it till today.

Colonisation
The colonial period started within ten to twenty years after their initial meeting with another species. The main goal of the colonies was to provide resources for the two planets. Terraforming was planned for the colonies as well. The colonial campaign was successful, and in a hundred years, the Empire had over one hundred colonies in seventy systems. Over the hundred years, the Empire met seven another civilisations unable of space travel and gave them the technology, creating seven small colonial empires.

Philosophy
The most known feature of the Elysian philosophy is their value of life, which was prominently mentioned in their religious scriptures found in shipwreck's datacores. This may explain the reason why the Empire aids every lifeform to develop space travel - life is too valuable to be let to die slowly on their home planets, and that the wonder of life must be spread across the universe. Besides that, they consider spreading technology as one of their purposes to exist, along with finding the mysteries of the universe.

Systems
Estimations of the number of systems controlled by the Empire (entirely or partly) is between 500 to 2000. Due to their defensive mechanisms in systems of their colonies, the exact numbers cannot be known. The only system that is accesible is the Lev system, and in it, only the station around Eleyor is available. It mostly serves as a large trading hub for all the civilisations brought up by Elysians. Elysians are known for some of their stellar engineering achievements, such as the Dyson sphere around the Aqia system (which is most likely used to produce energy for their antimatter generators) or terraforming all of their colonies to form habitable worlds.