A.D. 3596
While Xathen are of many body-forms, they are all Xathen, one and united.
However, a billion years ago the Xathen fought each other in the bloodiest civil war the galaxy has ever seen. Trillions died and hundreds of star systems were extinguished as battles raged all across the Milky Way.
They fought not over race or body-form, but over a single ideal:
Thou Shalt Not Interfere.
The losers fled the galaxy entirely, cast out into the great dark between the stars.
The winners were left to play as gods with the Orion Spur, fostering one cluster of new intelligences after another, wiping them out, then starting again.
We are the result of their toils.
Now those who had fled have returned. They call themselves the True Xathen.