How did the K'kree ever survive?

[Reynard]

Been going through the new alien book especially the K'kree section, you know, the most dangerous nemesis to all the other race that never went beyond their own territory.

Two things well known that defines them since introduced is the concept of militant vegetarianism and veneration of the environment. They HATE all meat-eaters, HATE HATE HATE them to literal death. They exterminated all meat-eaters on their homeworld even chasing the last meat-eating Kirur native sophonts to their off world refuge and destroying them. From the text, it seems they did the same to all Kirurian meat-eaters 'freeing' the entire world and continue this practice to every world they conquer.

The K'kree should be dead on a dead world long before they reached the stars. Kirur ecology and biology is very similar to terran ecology. That's a sci-fi given. One of the biggest ecological norms is the symbiotic relation between plants and animals and between carnivores and herbivores. Remove one side and the equation collapses. If carnivores become ultimate killing machines decimating or eliminating the food source, they also are decimated or eliminated. If predators are reduced or eliminated, the prey animals who often survive by producing large numbers now have no control leading to severely damaging the ecosystem. This has been observed on Terra but in less extreme events. Also, without animals, plants reliant on their counterparts begin to fail. One need the other.

K'kree knocked the supports out from under their world's life cycles. Think what is happening because of the loss of bees on Terra. Kirur should be a ecological train wreck. Every world they invaded should be just as bad. If at the very 'best', some plants and animals will survive but Kirur should be a far different and unfriendly world.

 

[steelbrok]

I'm minded to say that those animals that might eat a K'kree are exterminated. Insects and small mammals (mice, moles etc) get away with it. The K'kree would have to learn to limit their own reproduction to a world's carrying capacity but would likely cull any other herbivores whose numbers got out of control (so instead of predators you have K'kree hunters instead: maybe with red jackets and hunting horns for the occassion)

All of which limits but does not eliminate the ecological damage they would cause but is it not the same with any widespread transplantation of life from one world to another?

 

[paltrysum]

Perhaps their dominance over carnivores coincided with their advancement into the stars. I don't recall the historical details. Therefore, they were able to advance ever outward, inhabiting every world that suited them, enabling them to prevent widespread ecological disaster to some extent. However, this does not explain what would continue to happen on their core worlds, at the center of their empire. These would continue to be overconsumed: their grasses decimated, other species—unthreatened by predators—reproducing wildly out of control. Could be that the resources from offworld had to keep coming in to preserve the homeworld and surrounds, again necessitating interstellar expansion and centralized authority.

Where this runs into trouble is when expansion stopped. The K'kree abruptly stopped expanding outward when they ran into other species, particularly the Hivers, with whom they engaged in conflict. The Hivers manipulated them, giving the K'kree pause and causing a sea change in their culture and behavior. This might have caused sweeping changes in the way they managed their worlds but having a large, autocratic government that obeys a central authority in spite of the distances involved meant that they were willing to acquiesce to that authority and do what was necessary to maintain their worlds without continued expansion.

 

[Condottiere]

Outrunning an ecological apocalypse?

 

[Reynard]

Possibly smaller (very smaller) meat-eaters ( realize k'kree HATE meat-eaters not just carnivores) could be exempt but their described mentality is severe. They may have that human spider/snake phobia and exterminate any 'infestation' they perceive like a human bug bombing their yard because of a few spiders no matter what the bug bomb does to everything else.

Problem is larger meat-eaters are just as essential to their ecology they are (were) a part of. We see the results on Earth when those nasty, evil preds are wiped out in an area and the herbivores go imbalanced big time even with culling. Now think region and worldwide rather than locally. That means HUGE personnel population and resources dedicated to continuous culling everywhere. Adds to their instinctual insanity.

It also makes them the more predator than the predators they hated. They don't kill animals for any natural reason, they kill for a phobia. Now that is a scary nemesis if they ever broke out and thought they could take on the Imperium or Extents. I actually do use them as THE enemy in MTU versus human, droyne, vargr and aslan. Remorseless and relentless.

 

[MongooseMatt]

It also makes them the more predator than the predators they hated. They don't kill animals for any natural reason, they kill for a phobia. Now that is a scary nemesis if they ever broke out and thought they could take on the Imperium or Extents. I actually do use them as THE enemy in MTU versus human, droyne, vargr and aslan. Remorseless and relentless.

Nailed it

 

[Erias]

That's a very interesting point.

Given the fact that they did survive let's explore some possible answers:

1) First I would second Steelbrok on this: sure they hate all Meat-Eaters aka g'naaks, but probably not (at least at first) to the point of exterminating them all. So the little ones like rodents, which are not a threat to their survival were probably safe at least at first.

2 One can imagine that the food chain was a real challenge in the early days. Possibly they had to compromise back then (probably after some mistake terribly backfired on them).

3) As we are moving toward a more modern society they probably developed proteins nutrients that would allow all g'naaks to survive through it and by controlling the population of other species by other means. Would this mean that K'krees are especially proficient in biology or genetic?

 

[Garran]

Here's another possibility: they pushed out into other systems because their maniacal extermination of every meat-eating creature inevitably caused the planetary ecosystem to crash. And guess what happens on every new world they move to?

They aren't just a threat because you might be a meat-eater. They're a threat because they leave a trail of ruined worlds in their wake, and that trail is heading toward yours...

 

[Condottiere]

They may consider non intelligent carnivores the equivalent of mosquitoes.

 

[Reynard]

Just to be sure:

Militant Vegetarianism: K’kree view all meat-eaters as
G’naak and there are only three kinds of G’naak – those
that have already been exterminated, those that can
be exterminated in the near future and those powerful
enough that the K’kree must wait for the day they are
strong enough. Interstellar political relations are based
on this concept – every meat-eater in the universe must
be converted to a vegetarian diet or wiped out. Those
that will not change will someday be destroyed but in
the meantime the K’kree must co-exist and perhaps
even cooperate.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

K'kree knocked the supports out from under their world's life cycles. Think what is happening because of the loss of bees on Terra. Kirur should be a ecological train wreck. Every world they invaded should be just as bad. If at the very 'best', some plants and animals will survive but Kirur should be a far different and unfriendly world.

The K'kree adapt. Just like Humans do.

 

[GypsyComet]

My take is that the K'kree got lucky.

The supernova that occurred nearby (though not as near as its remnant is now, or Kirur would be a charred graveyard) caused mass extinctions and a vast simplification of the biomes of Kirur. With relatively few exceptions, Kirur's life was reset to pre-animal levels. The K'kree are literally the last evolutionary survivors from before the supernova. Kirur biomes don't need any large animals yet. The K'kree are biological interlopers on their own homeworld, and in some ways did their world a favor by wiping out the other large land life.

The original G'naak (the so-called Kirixurians) are not actually natives, so they don't count.

 

[Reynard]

If that were true, there would not have been threatening predators for k'kree to fear and hate so absolutely instead would enjoy an idyllic pastoral life. They became intelligent because of predators not to more efficiently hunt down a blade of grass. Moo.

 

[GypsyComet]

They are the last ones left *now*. They weren't the only supernova survivors.

 

[Condottiere]

Sounds like a panic response.

Since its by consensus, perhaps somewhat cow herdly.