Government
Humma society is feudal with the equivalent of a king (called the Highest One) and royalty (Higher Ones, High Ones, and so forth). These positions are chosen by election within the house (rarely lineage) that has the status to hold one of these seats. Hummarin society has been an every flowing web of alliance and jockying for these positions.
The advent of the sathar changed all that. By convention the First Sathar War is called "first" because it was Frontier wide encompassing the Rim and Frontier. It was not the first sathar incurssion in the Rim, the sathar having previously attacked at the Osak and Capella systems. Despite long and tedious negotiations by the osakar and the ifshnit to bring the humma into an alliance for protection from the worms the humma viewed these other species as lacking enough status to entice them into an alliance. During SW1 the worms swarmed the Osak system destroying its space infrastructure and invaded Fokrik, the humma's home system. The devastation wrought by the sathar rocked hummarin society to its core and for the first time in history all humma banded together in one cause, destruction of the sathar.
With a unified planet the Highest One had the power to institute other changes, levying system wide taxes, government funded military organizations, changes in legal, educational, and medical systems. By universal acclaim all seats of royalty were frozen in place till the threat of the sathar was removed. The Highest One used the crisis to solidify his position and that of his house while remaking his society in response to the crisis. Many of the houses holding royal seats were relieved that they would not have to defend their positions but have now realized that the Highest One's power has surpassed them exponetially. With the economic might of the second most populated system in the Rim at his disposal his position is assured for decades to come.
Attitude
Most Frontiersman do not like the humma, and even
their fellow Rim dwellers are not overly fond of them. That is fine
with the humma, because they do not care for the other races either.
Humma are rude, crude, lewd, pushy, and arrogant. The only races they
enjoy working with are the yazirians (humma admired their battle rage)
and osakar (because no one likes them either).
The hummarin view
of the ifshnit is complicated. In the early days of contact between
these races the ifshnit, in the agency of the Capellan Free Merchants,
the races readily traded. The humma desirous of new technology and
motivated to boot strap themselves into space while the CFM were
interested in expanding new markets. The market that the humma
represented was so strong that the CFM established an enclave on the
planet Larg in the Fokrik system to better serve their operations. The
aggressive exploitation by the ifshnit in Fokrik led to their undoing.
Willing to sell advance military technology to any buye, rivals attacked
the CFM and a short interplanetary war resulted. The CFM lost heavily
in material (they were forced to abondon their enclave on Larg) but the
humma lost heavily in casualties. With the osakar playing peace makers
the war ended and relations stablized.
Only one other time has a
hummarin house dared to attack a CFM vessel trading with a rival. On
that occassion the CFM not only struck back with extreme prejudice but
they also sold at whole sale prices arms, weapons, and equipment to the
rivals. Between the reprisal by the CFM and the rival's "sensing food in
the larder" the offending house was wiped out. Since that time the
humma have noted the object lesson well and CFM vessels are left alone.
There
is a second sentient race that co-evolved with the humma, the
boon'sheh. The humma being humma have hounded this race to near
extinction. Their name for the boon'sheh is indicative of the humma
attitude toward them, beck (it translates literally as excriment).
Largely seen as lacking any status for their inability to successfully
fight back most humma are largely ambivelent toward the boon'sheh. They
were driven into the most inhospitable locals on the planet Hum then
most were forcibly relocated to Larg in the quest to claim resources to
fuel the growing space industry.
A few houses and lineages
believe that the boon'sheh should just be exterminated once and for all
but there may be economic motives for this attitude as even now the
perservations on Larg have been shown to harbour important natural
resources. The Highest One has legislated protections for them due to
pressure from the osakar and the ifshnit.