Just over eight-hundred years ago, the crippled sleeper ship Hispania and her passengers arrived in a then-unknown system, today known as Omicron Alpha. They found themselves stuck on a planet that was very ill-suited to supporting human life, and their first and only goal was to survive. On their new world of acidic oceans and plains, these Outcasts managed to carve out a place for themselves, and form a society which not only met the daunting challenges of survival head-on, but was able to evolve into a true nation. While Maltese society "works" - it has its own order and idiosyncratic sort of overall stability - it seems, to outsiders, extremely harsh and unforgiving, much like Malta itself.

As such, it was inevitable that conflict with the other, luckier, more successful Houses would occur. Obvious from the outset that they could never win through brute military force, the Maltese fittingly developed more cruel tactics, using their own lifeblood as a weapon. As soon as the jump holes to the Taus and the Sigmas were discovered, it was known to all what must be done. Cardamine convoys began to rush into the border worlds, and from there into the inner systems of Sirius, flooding the rest of the galaxy with the orange dream that powered the frighteningly-agile beast of the Maltese economy. The Outcasts would claw their way to the top eventually, whether through diplomacy or through a great, torrential storm of orange that wipes away all opposition, so that Malta's children could seed the fertile land left behind.

Those who owned the plantations producing the marvellous drug became fabulously wealthy; not only did they have more digits of nines and zeroes in their bank accounts than their countrymen, but they possessed great human and social capital as well. With time, their influence grew to encompass every facet of Maltese society. No more would the ad-hoc ministries of government, established by regional councils of citizens or dons long dead and propped up as much by custom as by legitimate authority, stand in the way of ultimate profit. The cartels came to utterly dominate every single part of Maltese life. While, again, to outsiders, this seems an incredibly oppressive, unfair, and extraordinarily unstable system, the few abortive attempts at revolution to instill a more centralized authority in Omicron Alpha have always met with failure; truly, it would seem, the Maltese are mostly content with this cutthroat culture, and it's served them well so far.

Despite the previous successes of the Outcasts, however, there are always those who yearn for more. Just because one has come a long way doesn't mean one should rest on their laurels and cease trying to improve. With this in mind, some influential members of Maltese society justify their own scheming, arguing that only they have the vision and the will to bring Malta forward. On occasion, some daring few throw their lot in with each other, so as to crush mutual enemies or, on even rarer occasion, work justly and truly for the benefit of all Maltese everywhere. These attempts are often fraught with the distrust and betrayal they were nominally made to avoid, but sometimes they really bring various families and syndicates together, despite competing interests. The most recent of these efforts is the National Council of Malta, styling itself as a popular, conservative front to maintain Maltese traditions in the face of a hostile and changing galaxy.

The National Council of Malta (also known as the NCM, NC, and Maltese National Council) is a council formed in 823 AS by influential Maltese personalities who are united in opposition to the Maltese status quo. After the Council of Dons ceased to exist, the smaller families and syndicates of Malta began to consolidate themselves into small but numerous councils, usually with members of the nobility at their head. At first, the only goal of these councils was to secure their own influence in a rapidly changing world. Slowly but surely, they grew into true political movements, almost invariably with a distinctly conservative bent. Despite the new addition of domestic political rhetoric, the councils still mostly focused their real efforts at increasing their own profits.

However, the ideological undercurrents of nationalism were not to remain dormant forever; by now, the consolidated nobility had a better idea of the national interests of Malta. Along with the constant efforts to increase their own income and power, some families, or sometimes individuals, began to feel strongly a patriotic duty to Malta. Even so, discerning true patriots from conniving plutocrats remained a difficult task. In the wake of this, the National Council of Malta was formed as the union of the disparate local Maltese opposition, with strong support from former political exiles who decided to return to Malta, in some cases in flagrant disregard to the current order. As their influence extends and former enemies and exiles return, throwing their lot in with each other, the National Council has only continued to grow in power.