Fiction:Realm of the Girtabelilu

The Girtabelilu are a highly-collectivist, superstitious, and militaristic race of rapidly-breeding insectoid beings, with a society led by three major estates-- the sovereign, who directs the empire; the nobility, which act as the sovereign's confidantes and governors; and as a counterbalance, a very powerful priesthood, which leads the spiritual lives of the people and run the day-to-day for the most part. All three such estates have a substrata of AI assistants. The aggressive polity was originally divided among numerous small Bronze-age kingdoms, which rapidly and violently seized control of the territorial, megastructural, and technological assets from their previous owners-- a nation of pacifistic and naive benefactors who uplifted the Girtabelilu in the hopes that their society would become more peaceful as a result. Because of the rapidity of their conquests and gains, the actual basis of their society has changed little, and runs essentially as a particularly-pugnacious bronze-age kingdom, only granted the sophisticated technology of an interstellar power with none of the long process of societal maturation and change usually associated with such a long march in advancement.