Species rights

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This article is for the PC version of Stellaris only.

Species rights determined how species are treated in an empire. The rights can be determined individually for each species and can be changed every 10 years. Default rights for new species in the empire can also be set, which can later be modified for individual species. What rights can be selected depends on whether the species is the main species of the empire and what ethics, civics, policies, and authority the empire has. The set rights interface can be found from the species panel.

When a species template is created, it inherits the species right of the unmodified species. However, the template can be given separate rights afterwards.

Citizenship[]

Citizenship represents the status of a species in an empire: whether they are free, partially free, or subjugated; whether or not they can participate in the political processes of the country; what freedoms and restrictions can be placed on them; and even whether they have the right to live in the empire at all. In addition to rights and obligations, citizenship also affects pops' ability to seek refuge: empires can allow all refugees, granting them residence or full citizenship, or only accept refugees from species that already have full citizenship.

Type	Pop effects	Requirements	Description
Full Citizenship		Only option for primary species Only option for same species class as primary species if Selective Kinship Only primary species or sub-species if Xenophobe Citizen Rights AI policy if species is Mechanical Full Military Service if empire has Citizen Service Hive-Minded species unless empire is Hive Mind Machine unit species Machine Intelligence Selective Kinship if species has a different species class	Pops are free and allowed to join factions, and the species can produce leaders. Each and every individual of this species is an esteemed member of this society.
Residence	−10% Happiness −25% Amenities usage −50% Political power	Citizen Rights AI policy if species is Mechanical Does not have Full Military Service if empire has Citizen Service Fanatic Purifiers Gestalt Consciousness	Pops are free but are not allowed to join factions, and the species cannot produce leaders. They have yet to prove themselves worthy of all rights afforded to others. Perhaps they never will.
Slaves	0.75 Base amenities usage 0.75 Base housing usage −75% Political power	Allowed Slavery Policy or empire is Gestalt Consciousness Does not have Full Military Service if empire has Citizen Service Hive-Minded species Not Robotic species Genocidal Rogue Servitor Driven Assimilator	All pops of this species will be enslaved. What this entails depends on the type of slavery. Freedom is an illusion. For some this truth is more tangible than it is for others.
Servitude	0.5 Base amenities usage 0.5 Base housing usage −100% Political power	Mechanical species Does not have Citizen Rights AI policy Allowed Robotic Workers Policy Gestalt Consciousness	Robots with Servitude citizenship can work any Worker or Specialist job they are capable of doing, based on technological constraints and Artificial Intelligence policy. They cannot produce leaders. A toaster will always be a toaster.
Undesirables	−100% Political power	Primary species Prohibited Purge policy, unless purging or assimilating is the only option Full Military Service if empire has Citizen Service Only option for aliens if Fanatic Purifiers Only option for non-Hive-Minded species if Devouring Swarm Only option for organic species if Determined Exterminator Only option for Hive-Minded species if empire is not Hive Mind, without Evolutionary Mastery Only option for Machine species if empire is not Machine Intelligence Only option for Mechanical species if Outlawed Robotic Workers Policy or empire is Hive Mind	All pops of this species will be purged. What this entails depends on the type of purge. State records do not recognize the existence of this species.
Machine Integration		Machine Intelligence One of: Mechanical Machine Cybernetic if the empire has the Driven Assimilator civic	All owned pops of this species are fully integrated with the Machine Intelligence. They can work any job (besides special cases such as Bio-Trophies) and produce leaders. Assuming direct control.
Bio-Trophy	+1000% Political power	Rogue Servitor civic Robotic species Hive-Minded species	Pops of this species are revered and cared for by the Machine Intelligence, freed from the burdens of responsibility and agency. They are given the Mandatory Pampering living standard, enabling them to 'work' as Bio-Trophies. Glory to organics.

Assimilation[]

Assimilation is a special citizenship type where pops are changed over time to match the primary species of the empire. Each year 3, 6, or 12 pops will be assimilated on each planet. The type of assimilation depends on the empire and the pop in question. Assimilation is not available to Genocidal empires and cannot be used on robot pops.

Assimilating a pop removes the Cybernetic and Psionic trait if they have it. Assimilating an invaded primitive species will remove stellar culture shock modifiers.

Assimilation trait	Requirements
Cybernetic	Driven Assimilator or Transubstantiation Synthesis tradition
Mechanical	Synthetic Age tradition and not Machine Intelligence
Machine	Adopted the Synthetic tradition tree and Machine Intelligence
Psionic	Great Awakening tradition
Hive-Minded	Engineered Genesis tradition and Hive Mind
Hive-Minded	Engineered Genesis tradition and not Hive Mind

Living standards[]

Living standards represents how economically favored a species is, as well as the gap between different social strata. The higher the living standards of a Pop is, the more Consumer Goods it will use, but the happier it will be. Higher living standards also remove the penalties from unemployment.

Most living standards require the species to be neither Machine nor Hive-Minded, and to either have Neutering purge type or not have Undesirables citizenship.

Changing the living standards of a species from Chemical Bliss to anything else will give that entire species the Withdrawal Symptoms modifier, which reduces its happiness by −10% and its resource output by −20% for 5 years.

Type	Ruler effects	Specialist effects	Worker effects	Slave effects	Unemployed penalties	Requirements
Chemical Bliss	1 Upkeep +40% Happiness −60% Job Output +0.5 Trade value per Pop	1 Upkeep +40% Happiness −60% Job Output +0.5 Trade value per Pop	1 Upkeep +40% Happiness −60% Job Output +0.5 Trade value per Pop	0.1 Upkeep +40% Happiness −60% Job Output	yes	Subdermal Stimulation technology Mechanical species
Utopian Abundance	1 Upkeep +20% Happiness +400% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	1 Upkeep +20% Happiness +400% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	1 Upkeep +20% Happiness +400% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop		no	Egalitarian
Shared Burden	0.4 Upkeep +5% Happiness −45% Pop demotion time +300% Political power +0.25 Trade value per Pop	0.4 Upkeep +5% Happiness −45% Pop demotion time +300% Political power +0.25 Trade value per Pop	0.4 Upkeep +5% Happiness +300% Political power +0.25 Trade value per Pop		no	Shared Burdens
Employee Ownership	0.5 Upkeep +300% Political power +0.33 Trade value per Pop	0.5 Upkeep +300% Political power +0.33 Trade value per Pop	0.5 Upkeep +300% Political power +0.33 Trade value per Pop		no	Worker Cooperative
Decadent Lifestyle	1.5 Upkeep +20% Happiness +700% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	0.75 Upkeep +20% Happiness +200% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	0.5 Upkeep +20% Happiness +0.5 Trade value per Pop		yes	Pleasure Seekers or Corporate Hedonism
Social Welfare	1 Upkeep +10% Happiness +400% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	0.5 Upkeep +10% Happiness +300% Political power +0.33 Trade value per Pop	0.5 Upkeep +10% Happiness +200% Political power +0.33 Trade value per Pop	0.1 Upkeep +10% Happiness	no	Shared Burdens
Academic Privilege	1 Upkeep +15% Happiness +10% Output +600% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	1 Upkeep +15% Happiness +10% Output +250% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	0.25 Upkeep +50% Political power +0.2 Trade value per Pop	0 Upkeep	yes	Materialist Shared Burdens
Decent Conditions	1 Upkeep +10% Happiness +500% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	0.5 Upkeep +5% Happiness +250% Political power +0.33 Trade value per Pop	0.25 Upkeep +150% Political power +0.2 Trade value per Pop	0.05 Upkeep	yes	Shared Burdens
Stratified Economy	1 Upkeep +15% Happiness +800% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	0.5 Upkeep +5% Happiness +125% Political power +0.33 Trade value per Pop	0.1 Upkeep −10% Happiness −25% Political power +0.1 Trade value per Pop	0 Upkeep −10% Happiness	yes	Authoritarian Enslaved unless has Battle Thralls slavery type
Dystopian Society	1.5 Upkeep +25% Happiness +1000% Political power +0.5 Trade value per Pop	0.1 Upkeep −100% Happiness −25% Political power +0.1 Trade value per Pop	0.1 Upkeep −100% Happiness −75% Political power +0.1 Trade value per Pop	0 Upkeep −100% Happiness	yes	Oppressive Autocracy
Basic Subsistence	0.5 Upkeep −5% Happiness +950% Political power +0.33 Trade value per Pop	0.25 Upkeep −10% Happiness +0.2 Trade value per Pop	0.05 Upkeep −20% Happiness −50% Political power +0.05 Trade value per Pop	0 Upkeep −10% Happiness	yes	Shared Burdens Full Citizenship rights
Servitude					no	Robotic species Servitude AI policy
Non-Existent					never unemployed	Undesirables Citizenship Purge is not Neutering or Displacement
Drone					no	Hive Mind if species is Hive-Minded Machine Intelligence if species is robotic Driven Assimilator if species is Cybernetic
Mandatory Pampering	1 Upkeep +40% Happiness				yes	Bio-Trophy Citizenship
Hive Dissociation					never unemployed	Hive-Minded trait Assimilation Citizenship
Identity Sublimation	−50% Happiness				never unemployed	Hive Mind or Driven Assimilator Assimilation Citizenship
Transubstantiation Synthesis	−25% Happiness				never unemployed	Cybernetic or robot main species Assimilation Citizenship
Transcendent Awakening	−25% Happiness				never unemployed	Psionic main species Assimilation Citizenship

Military service[]

Military Service determines a species' right to join the police or military and whether or not they can become military leaders. Gestalt Consciousness empires can only use species with Full Citizenship or Machine Integration citizenship for Full Military Service; all other species must be Exempt.

Type	Requirements	Description
Full Military Service	Only primary species if Xenophobe and not Selective Kinship Only primary species class if Selective Kinship Undesirables, Slaves, or Servitude citizenship Serviles trait Nerve Stapled trait Droids technology if Mechanical	They are doubtlessly among the most competent in our armed forces.
Soldiers Only	Not Undesirables citizenship Primary species	They make excellent soldiers - but command is better left to others.
Exempt	Not Battle Thralls slavery type Primary species	They serve better away from the battlefield.

Colonization rights[]

Colonization Rights determines whether a species is allowed to board colony ships and settle new worlds.

Type	Requirements	Description
Colonization Forbidden	Primary species	In a vast sea of cold emptiness, a habitable world is the greatest treasure of all. Not all are worthy to seize it.
Colonization Allowed	Not Serviles trait Not Zombie trait Not Nerve Stapled trait Not Undesirables citizenship Has Droids technology if Mechanical If enslaved, is Battle Thralls or Indentured Servitude slavery type	Who are we to deny any species their place among the stars? Together we will drive back the darkness.

Population controls[]

Population Controls determines whether a species is allowed to reproduce enough to grow new pops or only enough to ensure it will not die off.

Type	Happiness	Requirements	Description
Population Controls Enabled	−10%	Primary species Not Xenophile Allowed Population Controls Policy	Selective reproductive suppression fields are often referred to as the blunt instruments of demography.
No Populations Controls		Not Undesirables citizenship If Hive Mind, has Necrophage	A species that does not propagate itself is at an evolutionary dead end.

Migration controls[]

Migration controls affect both migration between planets within the empire and migration to and from empires with a Migration Treaty. Even if Migration Controls are disabled, enslaved pops can only auto-resettle if a Slave Processing Facility is built on the planet or a Transit Hub is built on a starbase in the system. If Migration Controls are enabled, the Slave Processing Facility and Transit Hub will not allow auto-resettlement. Migration controls do not affect manual resettlement.

Type	Effects	Requirement	Description
Migration Controls Enabled	Unemployed free sapient pops may not automatically resettle Pops cannot be selected for biological growth on a planet unless already present		The free flow of pops can allocate resources efficiently, but sometimes what is necessary is not efficient.
No Migration Controls	Unemployed free sapient pops may automatically resettle Pops can be selected for biological growth on a planet if not already present	Undesirables citizenship Livestock slavery type Grid Amalgamation slavery type	Just as our primitive ancestors wandered in search of a home, every being must be free to seek its destiny among the stars.

Slavery type[]

Slavery Type requires either a species to have the Slaves Citizenship or the empire to have the Slaver Guilds or Indentured Assets civic and determines how the enslaved pops will be used.

Type	Pop Effects	Open jobs	Requirements	Description
Chattel Slavery	+10% Resources from Jobs −30% Happiness	Worker jobs	Gestalt Consciousness	Chattel Slavery is the most common form of slavery in the galaxy. Whether for life or a limited time, unrestricted access to the labor of others is in some parts seen as a privilege with numerous counter-duties attached, and elsewhere considered a self-evident prerequisite for a functioning society.
Battle Thralls	−20% Happiness +20% Army Damage	Worker jobs Enforcer Soldier Duelist Necromancer	Gestalt Consciousness	Battle thralls are weaponized serfs, often trained from birth in the martial arts and conditioned for absolute obedience. In exchange for unquestioning military service, they are granted much more autonomy than other slaves and can be employed in a greater variety of jobs.
Domestic Servitude	−20% Happiness	Worker jobs Entertainer Servant	Gestalt Consciousness	Domestic servants spend much of their time tending to the needs of free Pops - some are assigned to individual domiciles, while others tend to public spaces. They tend to live alongside their masters, and thus require almost no dedicated housing.
Indentured Servitude	−20% Happiness +50% Political power	Worker jobs Specialist jobs except: Enforcer Entertainer Duelist Necromancer	Gestalt Consciousness	They can theoretically pay off their debts and be freed, but their contracts are intentionally structured to make this a non-issue.
Livestock	−40% Happiness −50% Housing usage −10% Political power World can construct Alien Zoo buildings	Livestock Protected Fauna Gladiatorial Xeno	Xenophobe or Hive Mind Mechanical species Noxious species	Livestock is Pops!
Grid Amalgamation	−40% Happiness	Grid Amalgamated	Machine Intelligence	Combined with a form of fusion, we have found all the energy we will ever need.

Purge type[]

Purging is where a species receives the Undesirables citizenship and is then systematically exterminated from within the empire. The purge type determines how this is carried out in practice.

Pops being purged can produce resources based on the purge type, for as long as the pop has the Undesirables citizenship, not just when the pop is being declined, meaning that a planet with a pop of Processing purge type will yield +6, while a planet with 2 of these pops will yield +12 in total, until all undesirable pops have been purged. These monthly resources are modified by planet unique buildings in the same way as the associated jobs; for example an Energy Grid gives an additional +1 per pop under Chemical Processing.

The Fanatic Purifiers civic gives +2 unity for each pop being purged while the Devouring Swarm civic gives +2 society research per pop in addition to the resources said purge type may have.

Each planet has at most one pop at a time that is Declining; purging is not the only way it can happen, but it generally takes priority. A decline progress bar goes from 0 to 100, and fills up at a rate depending on the purge type. When the bar fills up, an undesirable pop on the planet will be removed. Depending on the purge type, the pop has a chance to be displaced as a refugee, if it is eligible; otherwise it is killed. Most purge types also cause other empires to get opinion penalties towards the purging empire, provided they have enough intelligence to know it is happening.

All non-gestalt empires that have the same primary species as the purged pop will have their opinion of the purger reduced by −25 per pop, to a maximum of −1000.
All other empires will also have their opinion of the purger reduced by −5, and Egalitarian or Xenophile empires who don't allow species-wide purges have it reduced by a further −5–15 per pop, to a maximum of −1000.

Type	Monthly decline	Effects	Loss	Refugees chance	Requirements	Description
Displacement	25	−30% Happiness −50% Pop housing usage	no	100%	Not Genocidal empire Not Hive-Minded or Machine species Not Cybernetic species if empire is Driven Assimilator Not Mechanical species, unless the pops are sapient	It's not that we drive them from their homes. Their homes are simply no longer theirs.
Extermination	100	−1000% Happiness	yes	5%	Not Devouring Swarm or Terravore Mechanical species or Purge policy is Allowed	The extermination squads are efficient. The dissolution of entire populations naturally takes time, but they get the job done.
Neutering	10	−20% Happiness	no	0%	Not Gestalt Consciousness Not Hive-Minded or Machine species Not Mechanical species, unless the pops are sapient	Think of it as a phasing-out of a people. Our nation goes to meet the future, only some will not be with us.
Forced Labor	50	−1000% Happiness +3 Food +3 Minerals	yes	25%	Not Gestalt Consciousness Not Hive-Minded or Machine species	With this final sacrifice, they will at least have been of some use.
Processing	50	−1000% Happiness +6 Food if species is biological +4 Minerals if species is Lithoid +3 Alloys if species is Robotic	yes	20%	Machine Intelligence Not Robotic species Hive-Minded species unless empire is Devouring Swarm or Terravore	It is a sad but inescapable fact that some are destined to simply fuel the ambitions of their betters.
Chemical Processing	50	−1000% Happiness +6 Energy	yes	20%	Machine Intelligence Not Robotic species	They will soon attain a more efficient form.
Necrophage	20	−50% Happiness Purged Pops are changed to primary species	yes	25%	Necrophage origin Purge policy is Allowed Not Robotic species	Only the strongest may survive in a hostile galaxy. This way their journey may continue.