What Would You Want to See in a New Major Race?

[alex_greene]

The fact that the game is written from the Imperial perspective massively overrepresents their importance and influence...
the only time the veil has slipped is that little note in the original Spimward Marches supplement.

Are the Zhodani a goose-stepping hive mind - nope. If there is one society in charted space I would prefer to be born into it would be the Zhodani.
Are the Solomani fascist goose-stepping space Nazis - nope. In point of fact the Imperium invented the Solomani hypothesis and promoted the racist major race/minor race distinction.
Are the Vargr a bunch of space pirates who couldn't organise a puppy playdate? The Jullian Protectorate says hello...
The Imperium knows little about the Aslan - the Solomani understand them a lot more - and even less about the Hive Federation. Much easier to label them as strange.
And then there are the K'kree. Are you really going to believe the Imperial propaganda?
Finally the Droyne, granted major status because they have jump drives but the Imperium can not explain why.

I know.
I'd rather rewrite the K'Kree herbivores, and remove the whole Lords of Thunder BS as just Imperial propaganda - some human who found out that K'Kree do not make good hunting, and spun this whole "aggressive herbivores" malarkey to cover up for his obscene desire to bag K'Kree heads as trophies on his wall.
Same sort of guys who painted the Zhodani as evil, and psions as amoral head benders, just because the psions could see the Impies coming, and refused point blank to let those Impies climb into the psions' pants.

 

[Geir]

And then there are the K'kree. Are you really going to believe the Imperial propaganda?

In that one case, yes. And now I'm going to cook some chicken for dinner....

 

[G'Naakbusters]

The thing about the K'kree is, the propaganda is largely correct... it's just that the perspective is (obviously, unavoidably) biased. The K'kree are simply intolerant of that which -- by their ingrained instinct -- no ethical being *could* tolerate. (Or at least, if we believe the Hivers, no ethical being could tolerate without being warped into something anathema to what baseline K'kree consider sane and ethical). It's one of the major reasons why the K'kree are my favourite faction; it's a successful portrayal of a powerful, dangerous rival that *can* be coexisted with if everyone is very careful and pragmatic, but to whom there's no easy reconciliation, with attitudes and behaviours on both sides that are extremely hard to justify to the other bloc.

Genocide because ham sandwiches is ludicrous to most human ethic systems; unrepentent ham sandwiches *not* eventually triggering genocide is ludicrous to K'kree ethic systems.

Then again, while they may be less individualistic than humans, K'kree are still nearly as capable of being morally lax as humans are. They can look the other way, so long as the horror isn't taking place right under their noses...

 

[alex_greene]

The K'Kree come across as dangerous, violent, intolerant bullies.
But I'll bet the primate-descended omnivorous bipeds seeded by Grandfather are still worse. Otherwise, Yaskoydray would have seeded the Galaxy with ancestors of the K'Kree to fight the Final Wars for him.

 

[Condottiere]

Convince them that friendship can be magical.

Suggest that to the Hivers.

 

[MongooseMatt]

In that one case, yes. And now I'm going to cook some chicken for dinner....

Yeah, of all the empires in Charted Space, the K'kree are the one I would be most worried about. If they had better political/economic structure (and physiology?) within their empire, they would possibly be the greatest threat to everyone...

 

[G'Naakbusters]

Yeah, of all the empires in Charted Space, the K'kree are the one I would be most worried about. If they had better political/economic structure (and physiology?) within their empire, they would possibly be the greatest threat to everyone...

As I've said before, that amuses me a lot.

If we consider the major factions, we have:

• Ultra-conservative control freaks with a history of imperialism who crush other cultures beneath their soul-sapping bureaucratic intolerance.
• Reckless snobs who veer into dismissive racism and are obsessed with not only their own superiority but with loyalty to The Party.
• Conformists with a literal thought police who believe that the "proles" have no right to privacy and "correct" dissatisfaction telepathically
• Feuding warrior-cat people who are obsessed with expansion of territory
• Chaotic dog-people infamous as pirates
• Amoral starfish-things who think it's their purpose to pull strings and manipulate/mold other races into being part of their happy neutered protectorate
• Psychic lizards who are somehow everywhere yet suspiciously beneath the radar and no-one knows what they're up to yet mysteriously doesn't care
• Horses. With saccharine levels of care for one another.

And of these, it's the loving horses who are the one that comes closest to being the straightforward "villain" of the setting.

I love it.

 

[Geir]

The thing that always bothered me about the K'kree is the question of whether they killed of non-sentient carnivores too. Think of the damage to ecosystems. That and cultured meat: do they maintain a murderous rage against those who only eat cells grown in test tubes?

But to be fair I never liked horses much. I think they all hate us for riding on them. I only put up with them at all because every few years my wife wants to go horseback riding and every time I pretend I know nothing about horses ('this is the front end, right?') so they give me the 'nice' horse. I don't like it when my transportation has a mind of its own - though these days, even modern cars seem to have that defect.

 

[G'Naakbusters]

The thing that always bothered me about the K'kree is the question of whether they killed of non-sentient carnivores too. Think of the damage to ecosystems.

It's been mentioned in some sources that they do, or at least they did, and that they had some problems in the past because their ecological awareness had to catch up to their dogmas. I imagine it's one of the things they worry about, because pragmatism would suggest that they have to accept meat-eating among non-sapients, and could that be a slippery slope toward suggesting it's okay that an alien sophont eat meat if that's what nature intends? Which of course is *unthinkable perversion*, surely.

GURPS Traveller Alien Races 4 mentions that when they took over administration of the Girug'kagh homeworld they dropped comets into the oceans, leaving the oxygen cycle intact but killing off via impact shock the large predators that used to live there -- which suggests that the answer was sometimes "if we can kill off predators and not cause *too much* catastrophic damage, let's do it", if only for form's sake, maybe?

do they maintain a murderous rage against those who only eat cells grown in test tubes?

I suppose this is their equivalent of "if you do it in a holodeck so no-one real is actually harmed, is it okay? Or should it be condemned for the indulgence of the urge/the act itself, not the consequence or harm to others?"

The K'kree ambassador in that classic JTAS article does mention that the Two Thousand Worlds tried to introduce artificial foodstuffs that provided correct nutrition to at least one race of obligate carnivores, so that they could live and not be exterminated (albeit it's implied that they hadn't quite worked out the kinks and didn't quite care, because I suppose half of the race dying before they get it right is a small price to pay when the alternative is "keep being evil, and thus necessary to destroy"). So I suppose the more progressive K'kree would say it's moot since they can, in theory, cultivate nutritious food that isn't tied to meat.

It's possible to *not* be evil, it's just that other races want to take the easy route and not commit, no matter how many carrots and (much greater quantity of) sticks are waved at them...

 

[Sigtrygg]

Ever stop to think that they don't really kill all the carnivores on every planet they colonise because the ecosystem would collapse and they would have to exterminate all the herbivores. It's Imperial propaganda.

As to their genocide of several races that refused to adapt to K'kree ways, it appears that the K'kree idea of warfare it to completely exterminate the opposition, until they encountered a race that could stand up to them.

 

[G'Naakbusters]

As to their genocide of several races that refused to adapt to K'kree ways, it appears that the K'kree idea of warfare it to completely exterminate the opposition, until they encountered a race that could stand up to them.

Indeed. They have no warfare amongst themselves, the purpose of the military (which is really just an extension of the normal social purpose of any herd member who isn't pregnant or soon-to-be-pregnant) is to trample predators before they get hungry and decide to attack. So K'kree warfare is just "stampede over them and kill them off". They only stopped that because they ran into the Hivers, and... well...

"We've won every battle. Surrender and accept our authority!"

"That's a nice vegetarian population you have there. It would be a shame if someone were to... *sell them meat sauce!!!!*"

"Oh no! We've lost! Retreat! Retreat!"

(Of course, the Ithklur tell it a bit differently):

"We're hungry. Let's eat K'kree corpses."

"Monsters! Watch as we pay evil unto evil and eat *your* corpses!!!"

"We... don't care."

"I'm sure the Steppelords will overlook our descent into the K'kree equivalent of pure evil and that this proof that K'kree can be so corrupted won't necesitate the sterilization of our entire system."

 

[alex_greene]

Easy to paint them all as a dying species. They can't move forwards. They can't adapt. Their ecosystems are collapsing back home due to insufficient biodiversity - without carnivores and omnivores to keep non-sentient herbivore populations in check, the wabbits are outcompeting the ponies for the food, and wiping out all the oxygenating biomass on the land.
And then there's the oceans ...

 

[alex_greene]

But let's get back to what we'd like to see in a new Major Race. Let's drop the tedious K'Kree discussion. it's going nowhere, as are the K'Kree.

 

[Geir]

I'm always a big fan of machine races. AI run amok, biologicals dead or 'imported'... or consumed?
(Segway to the robots discussing communications by 'flapping meat' - great little Terry Bisson story. Hmm, maybe make the machines all look like Segways)

 

[Sigtrygg]

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”, some bloke...
I have long been fascinated by the first starfarers aside in MegaTraveller, and I have kept the Primordials IMTU - canon retcons be damned.
Then there are all those major players on the Galactic map, the unknown aliens behind the Shadows pyramid, the unknown aliens that built/rebuilt the Annic Nova and possible its crew, the Shriekers, and of course the Kursae.

The First Starfarers
We place the age of the universe at more than fifteen billion years.
The oldest stars in Charted Space are dim red dwarfs some ten billion years old.
Intelligent life first appeared in Charted Space more than two billion years ago.
Intelligent life first began sublight travel between the stars more than a billion years ago. Short-lived beings found sublight travel tedious and frustrating and contented themselves with confinement to a few star systems. Longer lived races ranged far and wide using generation ships, cold sleep, and even electronic personality transfers.

 

[alex_greene]

I'm always a big fan of machine races. AI run amok, biologicals dead or 'imported'... or consumed?
(Segway to the robots discussing communications by 'flapping meat' - great little Terry Bisson story. Hmm, maybe make the machines all look like Segways)

We've got the TL 17 Sabmiqys, but they don't do an awful lot of travelling.
Have they retconned the Florians to be organics? I thought they were another mechanoid species.

 

[G'Naakbusters]

We've got the TL 17 Sabmiqys, but they don't do an awful lot of travelling.
Have they retconned the Florians to be organics? I thought they were another mechanoid species.

The Florians are biological, it's just that they're a construct. Biological androids, essentially. Human genetic material used to create a Human, which is both brilliant and about as far from innovative and unexpected as you can get, and so the perfect fit for the Florian culture, really...

 

[WHULorigan]

The Florians are biological, it's just that they're a construct. Biological androids, essentially. Human genetic material used to create a Human, which is both brilliant and about as far from innovative and unexpected as you can get, and so the perfect fit for the Florian culture, really...

It is probably more correct to say concerning the Florians that Human (and other designed) genetic sequences were used to create a Humanoid (Biological Android - think along the lines of Replicants from Blade Runner). I do not know if the Florian genome would have all of the natural redundant, left-over, and/or repeated DNA sequences or errors that are left in the Human genome (I imagine the Florian genome would be precisely engineered, optimized, and streamlined), or even if the Florians are inter-fertile with the rest of Humaniti (or even whether the Barnai and Feskals are actually inter-fertile with one another). IIRC, they are not.

 

[tzunder]

It is probably more correct to say concerning the Florians that Human (and other designed) genetic sequences were used to create a Humanoid (Biological Android - think along the lines of Replicants from Blade Runner). I do not know if the Florian genome would have all of the natural redundant, left-over, and/or repeated DNA sequences or errors that are left in the Human genome (I imagine the Florian genome would be precisely engineered, optimized, and streamlined), or even if the Florians are inter-fertile with the rest of Humaniti (or even whether the Barnai and Feskals are actually inter-fertile with one another). IIRC, they are not.

How do we know about Florian biology? is this in the JTAS Vol 4 that I haven't got round to reading?

 

[ottarrus]

OK, going all the way back to the OP here...
If I ever decide to do a Not Charted Space Traveller game, the Pentapods are DEFINITELY gonna be part of it. Including the Kaefer would really depend on how gun happy the PC group is. I'm hoping that the upcoming 2300 Invasion boxed set will expand on the wonderful work of The Kafer Sourcebook instead of just condensing it as the Aliens of Charted Space series does.

If I were to ever design a Major Race, I have more of an idea of what I DON'T want than what I do want:
- No human in a fuzzy suit tropes
- No 'hawt' bimbos with blasters
- A culture that isn't based on historical Earth tropes [aka 'Aslan = Thundercat samurai']
- A culture with enough depth that they have to be taken as they are, not as a meme, trope, or StarTrek/Wars equivalent

All this is based off of several previous attempts to introduce minor races in Traveller games that players weren't interested in learning about. I don't know, maybe it's a lack of imagination on my part but I've come up with ideas in the past that I thought were worthwhile and other PCs though were dumb.