You have been warned.
I need more explanation than what the game provides (or maybe I don't know most of the secrets of the game)
For starters:
Teratons
Ringers
Ferians
Xenophobes
1.Who are they?
2.What are they doing in the Outer Realm?
3.When did they colonize the Outer Realm?
4.Where do they live [as in stations- Teraton nests look worse than the Sung slave quarters!]?
5.Why are they friendly/enemy to the CW?
AND
6.What's up with the Ringers and Ferians?
7.Are Ferians a related, but distinct faction of the Ringers, like the CW and Corporate with the same relationships?
8.What do the Ringers do with those ores that the Ferians provide them? Are they making some kind of uber- fleet to get past the Iocrym to make an uber uber-fleet?
What I know from in- game experience:
1.Teratons: mutated ???
They sell and buy super high-end stuff. What the criteria is, I don't know (I should probably look in .tdb?). The only reason why I still get rins is because those Ares Sentries sure have great loot. Sometimes when you dock with them, they like to steal stuff from you cargo. (happened... 3 times in a row.) Then you slaughter their nests. Something about living in Jupiter and expanding at around the same time as the Ringers. They live in their nests I guess. They are friendly to the playership, and don't fire on CW ships.
2.Ringers: Neo-human
They get ores from the Ferians. You get rins from them. They protect you from Phobos better than the CSC. They even like amassing Gaian salvager wrecks for you to loot. They ??? with all the ores they get. Maybe ores are their kind of jewelry. Colonized Outer Realm at same time as Teratons, except from Saturn. They live in their Enclaves. Friendly to the CW b/c they trade with them.
3.Ferians: Zoanthropes
They farm asteroids and can be farmed as well. The neurohack website even has that on their list of 20 things to do
so it's A-ok to kill those devolved humans! If one too many dies from a stray shot or their colony gets the kicker, they drop everything without even dropping their ores in a freighter to send to the Ringers. About a while after the Ringers stabilized did they colonize the Outer Realm. Friendly to Ringers and all the Ringers are friendly to.From Twenty Things To Do in Transcendence: 12. Farm Ferians
4.Xenophobes: you don't even TALK to them in-game. Unlike the Ares, who you talk to in Heretic (for about 5 seconds!) if you save the Antarctica.
They... shoot stuff. Gaians jack the armor from dead Worldships I guess, but I have no clue what they are doing. Something about a Bennin Xenophobe who started it Xenophobe colonization. They probably are enemies to the CW by know, given that they blow up colonies.