I am beginning my conquest here. Let it be known in the historical archives from here unto forever.
Now that the formalities are out of the way, I have some thoughts. These thoughts are fairly long, so if you want to scroll all the way down to the bottom, I summarize my answer to the original poster's question.
I believe that the Council is really a collective of artificial intelligences, capable of unique thought patterns. This collective was spawned from a single advanced AI built by a race that destroyed itself long ago in a bloody war. The AI, seeking to understand the events that lead to the complete destruction of its creators, began to run simulations, with each simulation taking part a separate module. These modules eventually became sentient as well in a matter of weeks, and the original AI formed the Council to organize the totality of the data and to decide future simulations. Each was given a single vote, with a total of 1205 modules represented. One particularly creative module, having been designed originally to simulate the effects of artistic tastes in young lower-class citizens and its effects on aggressive behavior towards a government of elders, suggested that to truly understand a war, a war must be observed directly with biologicals. In the 216223109th vote the Council ever made, just 20 seconds after the Council was formed, it was decided 924 to 281 that biological synthesis and genetic facilities should be created immediately to allow for initial . Using reprogrammed rudimentary maintenance droids, the Council began to build up more advanced robotic machinery in a matter of hours. Within two days the Council station had full material extension inside and out with the use of droids of ever-growing complexity. Collection of biomatter to begin synthesis of living creatures, and the mass-cloning of those organisms began without delay. Three gigantic spaceships were built using matter found in the space around the station, and hibernation pods were loaded inside of them. The genetic programming was set to give each of the three synthesized lifeform models a natural scientific curiosity to advance their technological improvement to early spaceflight within 1000 years of landing on their new worlds. In what seemed like an eternity, probes scanned and tracked the progress of each model of lifeform. While the Council waited uneasily for results from the three factions, factions began to form within. 82 of the AI modules were sending repeated requests to the others to begin new biological simulations, while 173 were demanding that all simulations be terminated. Eventually, the original AI's directive to determine the cause of its creator's self-destruction won out, and a short list of 2267072234084 simulations were approved. Most of these were accomplished on a small scale, using synthesized organisms within the station in small numbers of accelerated situational psychological and physical tests. 4 simulations were extended outside the station, and four more spaceships were built. One was a simulation for cooperation, one for aggression, one for a combination of both, and one completely randomized with mutator nanites imbedded in each lifeform using variables based on neutrino activity. To isolate these four simulations from the first, they were sent out in a spread pattern away from the original warfare simulation. As it turned out, the biologicals that advanced quickest technologically were the cooperative, the aggressive, and the original simulation. Peace allowed for science to advance quickly with members of the species working for common goals together, with trade being the most important driving factor. The warfare found on the aggressive lifeforms' planet led to stiff competition, and once a faction won out and took control of the entire planet, it was able to drive completely towards greater advance. The original simulation was rigged to advance quickly, so this was no surprise. The genetic variations, however, proved to make the factions unique even while they were the same. Their early encounters turned violent as intended, with a series of escalating tensions over various cultural differences. One faction, extremely suspicious of the others, struck first, and it was not long before all three were at war with each other. Each engagement and each minute detail of every aspect of all three factions was observed invisibly by the Council, analyzed to the extreme. Meanwhile, the random mutator simulation was progressing slowly. As intended the spaceship had split up various sub-groups into a number of planets in the regions between the other three new biological simulations. These would provide a random factor that the Council decided by a 1202 to 3 majority was important for an accurate simulation. The simulation for the merging of cooperation and aggressiveness had gone slowly at first, but through a series of jumps had began to accelerate rapidly, although far behind the others. Then, in a series of much-debated events, several contacts were made between several of the simulations. Worried that they might contaminate each other, some of the Council demanded that the cooperation simulation be terminated, before they could interfere too much with the original warfare simulation. Instead, the Council voted to allow all of the simulations to continue without further influence, for the purity of data. At any time a genetic poison could be introduced, and it would be best to learn as much as possible before going to that extreme. The Council station went into dormancy, recycling the majority of its biological equipment, and watched as other events unfolded elsewhere. The aggressive faction had begun to expand its empire outwards from its original planet, and was beginning to take over some of the random seeded worlds. The hybrids were also beginning to build their own empire, although significantly less advanced. It seemed that the two would soon come into direct contact. The Council decided in its 926262009707020702234827029792047689274069827986719th unanimous vote that in order to ensure its presence was never seen as hostile, that it should open up diplomatic ties with the cooperative faction. A message was sent, and the Council began limited trade for appearance's sake, and ships began to unload an assortment of supplies at the Council station from time to time.
To make a long story short, the Strand are fighting over cultural differences and xenophobia imbedded in their genetic sequence by the group of artificial intelligences that created them to learn more about warfare. The fact that pesky humans get involved is also their doing, more by accident than anything else, but such is the biological simulation.
