Char'keth Empire

The Char'keth Empire was a once-vast interstellar empire in the Andromeda Galaxy. By the early 25th century, however, the Char'keth species had abandoned it's homeworld entirely, in order to spread to other galaxies for the purpose of prolonging their species.

History
The Char'keth began researching spaceflight around 21,760 BC. They achieved their first pre-warp flight outside of their homeworld's atmosphere around 21,690 BC.

The Char'keth Empire, however, was initially founded around 23,040 BC as a united empire that was to control their entire planet. But it wasn't until their expeditions to the other planets in their star system before they truly began to impact the galaxy.

The first Char'keth warp drives were crude, but effective. The first test of such a propulsion system occured in 21,496 BC.

After that, the Empire began to rapidly mass-produce the technology, and by 21,351 BC, the Empire's territory included over 190 star systems.

By 19,650 BC, nearly 90% of the Andromeda Galaxy belonged to the Char'keth.

Although, around 19,520 BC, Species 8472 began to invade the Andromeda Galaxy, and in the process, began a large scale attack on the Char'keth. By 18,660 BC, the Char'keth Empire had been reduced to owning only about 1.5% of the star systems in the Andromeda Galaxy.

With the Char'keth being nearly destroyed, many species in the Andromeda Galaxy formed a coalition to drive out Species 8472, and take back their own star systems. By 16,880 BC, the Char'keth Empire was reduced to it's own star system, and the empire decided to send out groups of Char'keth vessels to explore other galaxies. Shortly after these groups were launched, the Char'keth homeworld was conquered by another species from the Alpha Quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy, who had arrived by a wormhole that connected the Milky Way Galaxy to the Andromeda Galaxy. This species was referred to as the "Builders", who originated from the Delta Quadrant, but were in the process of exploring their entire galaxy when they had stumbled across the wormhole.

Remnants of the Char'keth
After the fall of the Char'keth Empire, all that remained of the Char'keth species were the ships that had been sent into other galaxies. One such vessel that had reached the Milky Way Galaxy was a shuttle from a Char'keth generation ship (the generation ship was the originally launched vessel) that had been discovered by the crew of the USS Voyager in 2375.