K'Kree

[kristof65]

nor would they have developed shotguns as they were developed to hunt avians.

I disagree on the shot guns not being developed. As herbivores they would also to be farmers, and avians can be a real pest to farmers.

The reasons for developing shotgun like weapons would be very different, and might never see a military use, but they would still have something of the sort. Being much more massive, and thus probably able to stand a bigger recoil, I can see a K'Kree shotgun being much larger caliber than humans use, with a much larger pellet load and spread. Which could in turn wind up being effective against different beings.

Remember that with their militant vegetarian ways, K'Kree would probably develop a lot of weapon types designed to kill specific predator types - so while K'Kree vs K'Kree warfare might not develop the same sorts of weapons human's use, their "hunting" programs would, as well as possibly some other interesting variants. As they met other races, those variants might prove adept to using in their combat.

Overall, I don't think they would be very ecologically friendly as a race. Meat eaters and predators represent a direct threat to them, while other herbivores would be competitors for the same food sources. Anything that eats or otherwise destroys their crops would be a bane to them too. If you look at Earth's own history, farmers tend to put their crops before anything else, freely cutting down trees, diverting and damming water sources, plowing under anything that isn't their crop, and using poisons and weapons to kill of birds, insects and anything else that would eat their crops. A K'Kree farmer would be no different in that regard.

I wouldn't be surprised if the K'Kree had 2-3 dozen other species they considered essential, and everything else could go to heck in a handbasket. Those species would be things like voracious insect eaters, natural fertilizers and weedeaters, guard animals, etc. The use of draft animals would likely be a late development for them, given their own size.

Early vehicles would likely be sleds/dredges they pulled behind them, later would be larger versions they pulled as a family. They're probably one of the largest animals on their own planet - I simply can't see them domesticating a bigger herbivore that consumes more resources than they do* - so they would likely skip straight to mechanizing those vehicles. Those would probably be trains and ships, followed later by airships (as previously mentioned), then onto grav vehicles and starships.


----
* as omnivores, a larger animal not only does more work for us, but in addition to consuming resources, is potentially a food/material's resource itself. This leads to an interesting point - we humans regularly use food animals such as cows and pigs for materials, primarily leather. Since K'Kree wouldn't be slaughtering animals as food, one might think it's unlikely that they would use leather at all. I would make the suggestion that what better use to put those carnivores they slaughter to than to make leather - provided, of course, that they could stand the smell of it afterwards.

 

[rust]

The reasons for developing shotgun like weapons would be very different, and might never see a military use, but they would still have something of the sort.

I would think of the equivalent of a heavy blunderbuss:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blunderbuss

 

[waylandson]

nor would they have developed shotguns as they were developed to hunt avians.

I disagree on the shot guns not being developed. As herbivores they would also to be farmers, and avians can be a real pest to farmers.

The reasons for developing shotgun like weapons would be very different, and might never see a military use, but they would still have something of the sort. Being much more massive, and thus probably able to stand a bigger recoil, I can see a K'Kree shotgun being much larger caliber than humans use, with a much larger pellet load and spread. Which could in turn wind up being effective against different beings.

Remember that with their militant vegetarian ways, K'Kree would probably develop a lot of weapon types designed to kill specific predator types - so while K'Kree vs K'Kree warfare might not develop the same sorts of weapons human's use, their "hunting" programs would, as well as possibly some other interesting variants. As they met other races, those variants might prove adept to using in their combat.

Overall, I don't think they would be very ecologically friendly as a race. Meat eaters and predators represent a direct threat to them, while other herbivores would be competitors for the same food sources. Anything that eats or otherwise destroys their crops would be a bane to them too. If you look at Earth's own history, farmers tend to put their crops before anything else, freely cutting down trees, diverting and damming water sources, plowing under anything that isn't their crop, and using poisons and weapons to kill of birds, insects and anything else that would eat their crops. A K'Kree farmer would be no different in that regard.

I wouldn't be surprised if the K'Kree had 2-3 dozen other species they considered essential, and everything else could go to heck in a handbasket. Those species would be things like voracious insect eaters, natural fertilizers and weedeaters, guard animals, etc. The use of draft animals would likely be a late development for them, given their own size.

Early vehicles would likely be sleds/dredges they pulled behind them, later would be larger versions they pulled as a family. They're probably one of the largest animals on their own planet - I simply can't see them domesticating a bigger herbivore that consumes more resources than they do* - so they would likely skip straight to mechanizing those vehicles. Those would probably be trains and ships, followed later by airships (as previously mentioned), then onto grav vehicles and starships.


----
* as omnivores, a larger animal not only does more work for us, but in addition to consuming resources, is potentially a food/material's resource itself. This leads to an interesting point - we humans regularly use food animals such as cows and pigs for materials, primarily leather. Since K'Kree wouldn't be slaughtering animals as food, one might think it's unlikely that they would use leather at all. I would make the suggestion that what better use to put those carnivores they slaughter to than to make leather - provided, of course, that they could stand the smell of it afterwards.

Good points, but to slightly digress from the subject of weapons, if the K'Kree never developed leather what other materials would they have developed to use as textiles and armour. I can see them using their own coats as wool, but would they used a insect type creature to develop silk as well various types of plants to make rope and other textiles.
What sort of armour do you think they would have developed?
Also, would they have developed any form of water craft apart from rafts or barges.
Just a thought, but would the K'Kree name for a starship translate as a skybarge!

 

[kristof65]

Good points, but to slightly digress from the subject of weapons, if the K'Kree never developed leather what other materials would they have developed to use as textiles and armour. I can see them using their own coats as wool, but would they used a insect type creature to develop silk as well various types of plants to make rope and other textiles.

Ok, I think leather would wind up as more of a luxury/trophy item. Which means they'd have a stronger incentive to use metals and plant fibers, in turn probably leading them to develop synthetic fabrics sooner than we did.

As for silks, it would depend upon the type/quantities of animals on their homeworld. A nice large silk worm like animal with a strong thread would most certainly lead them to use it - if the material was strong and plentiful enough, it might entirely supplant any other sort of textiles manufacturing for a long while.

What sort of armour do you think they would have developed?

I think early armours would be mostly wood/plants like bamboo. Meat eater eather might become useful, if the K'Kree could get over the smell, and/or decided the benefits of the leather into fooling meat eating animals was worth it.

Hmm - an interesting thought - It's certainly possible that upon discovering the benefits of leather, the K'Kree might take to fashioning it from the bodies of their own dead, both for useful functions and as a form of ancestor worship - especially in their nomadic early years. That could lead to a more predominant use of leather than one might expect.

Metalworking would certainly be a boon to the K'Kree, allowing them to fashion more durable farming implements, and would quickly be adopted to their armors for protection against predators and each other. The question is what metals would they discover first - would it be copper, then bronze as in our own history, or would they make a leap to something else first - would really depend upon the available resources to them.

Most likely stone and wood would dominate their early history, much as it did ours, but it could diverge widely from there.

Also, would they have developed any form of water craft apart from rafts or barges.

Depends on their homeworld, I think - but water travel is definitely an efficient means of transporting large loads. IIRC, the K'Kree homeworld is only 30-40% water, so unlike humanity they probably wouldn't have a need for large ocean going vessels. That means their water vessels probably are mostly barges, because by the time they would have encountered worlds with larger oceans, they would have other means like airships and grave vehicles to use.

 

[kristof65]

As I give it more thought, I think the early K'Kree would have certainly been more gifted with using wood, plants and stone than our ancestors, as well as utilizing their own bodies.

With their mass and all that fur, I imagine that K'Kree hair felt becoming a predominant early cloth material. With that much shedding fur combined with the likelyhood of their gregarious nature leading to mutual grooming, it would seem to be a natural progession. Spinning and weaving it wouldn't be too far behind. Later on this could lead to them using the body parts of their dearly departed for things like leather, etc.

Their early stone age tool development would have been roughly on par with ours, just not for hunting, but for self defense against their carnivore enemies.

For buildings and such, their love of wide open spaces and gregarious natures would lead to much different building philosophies. Their size would allow them to use much larger sized stones than humans tended to, but they would be used in long, low walls, rather than towering structures. Civil engineering skills might lag behind human kind at similar stages of development, simply because it would be more efficient for Ancient K'Kree to use stone walls topped by thin wooden poles supporting cloth canopies for areas the size they'd be covering. Likewise, building dams and fords might be considered more efficient and desirable than building bridges.

I doubt very much that K'Kree would think about building up, rather than out for a couple of different reasons. The biggest would be that putting a solid roof over a living area that didn't make it feel claustraphobic to them would be a huge technical challenge for the space to be covered and the weight to be supported, making multistory buildings unlikely in their early history. This could definitely lead to much more in the way of territorial disputes between herds. However, this may be offset somewhat by the fact that their planet has more land area than Earth (according to the stats I found for Kirur, it's an 863, vs an 867 for Earth).

 

[qstor]

has anyone done the K'kree ships from Classic traveller in Mongoose stats?

 

[legozhodani]

Some very interesting ideas here. I'd love to see a quality K'Kree supplement too. Delving in to the evolution and motives for more important than if they have shotguns or not. Is there a realistic hope of a book in the next 3 years?

 

[hivemindx]

With regard to tanks, I suspect the K'kree would make very extensive use of drones. They would have to use them as a proxy in situations where a human would just go in themselves. Drone tanks on the battlefield, crawlers to go in to ducts in their starship, the grav tech equivalent of quadrocopters to go in to buildings designed for non-k'kree, multi-limbed climbers to secure and patrol areas where the K'kree themselves aren't happy going.

No doubt their starship (and all infrastructure) design is very different to ours, but I doubt they can efficiently eliminate the crawlspace completely. If you want things to operate efficiently I suspect there is always going to be pressure to have things close to each other and in as small a space as possible. There are still going to be places where someone has to crawl behind a machine to get at an inspection panel or reach a release valve. I think this will partially be alleviated by allowing entire machine to be lifted out (a K'kree never crawls behind the washing machine, they always pull it away from the wall on the little tracks designed for that) but they will still need a variety of drones to do tasks that involve enclosed spaces.

They have a disadvantage in warfare too. If you can ambush a patrol then run in to some buildings and get in to the sewers (or any one of a hundred variations on that) then you have a big advantage. Based on what we know of the K'kree a likely response to that sort of tactic is shelling the area with artillery but in some cases they are going to want to have machines they can send in to the nest of alleys and passages to go after individuals of a race who do not have their crippling aversion to enclosed spaces.

 

[steve98052]

How do you say, "We just nuke it from orbit; it's the only way to be sure." That's pretty much how I would imagine that a K'kree admiral would answer the question, "How do you fight against other species?"

 

[Condottiere]

Trampling damage.

On Black Friday.

 

[JBRocky]

How do you say, "We just nuke it from orbit; it's the only way to be sure." That's pretty much how I would imagine that a K'kree admiral would answer the question, "How do you fight against other species?"

This makes a very good point about how I think K'kree conduct warfare. I think it talks about it in GURPs K'kree but they have excellent Infantry just for how much they can carry and how fast foot infantry can more. When it comes to that city or just any strong point, by pass it, and cut it off. Then you just use what ever heavy Artillery you have to flatten it.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm thinking Mongols.

The Stallion That Will Mount The Worlds.