Space Race AU

okay so

many many planets + species have figured out space travel already and have fancy ships and stuff. there's an intergalactic system of government made up of representatives from each sovereign planet. there's a Big Law not to interfere with planets that have sentient species that have not yet achieved space travel- the only exception to this is cases where the government/company in question had no knowledge of a sentient species on the planet.

some stuff i think would be cool to include:

the invention of gene mods. i imagine that intergalactic companies totally manufacture genetic mods that people can take in pill form and just change to get qualities they want. probably not yet approved for human use, since humans haven't really joined everyone else in space. buuuuuut humans can probably use them just fine w/e

R O B O T S. robots that are spaceships, war robots, """Relief""" robots, etc! probably not considered sentients but u know they really are.