All Things Vargr

[Condottiere]

Remember, always pet your Vargr.

 

[Condottiere]

Universal Vargr tells:

Watch it, buddy.

Obviously, Vargr are very bad at playing Poker.

On the other hand, they can smell your fear if you have a bad hand.

 

[Tiikeri]

Late to the game, a couple of thoughts.

First, it occurs to me that the Vargr do not need to defeat an Imperial squadron in combat to defeat an Imperial fleet in a subsector. Not that I think they wouldn't be able to build capital ships, but it's really not needed. They can defeat it over the long term by eroding its base of maintenance and supply. We're making assumptions based on High Guard and MT paradigms that don't necessarily apply to a culture based on raiding and personal prestige. An Imperial battle squadron is, say, roughly 1.6 million dTons of warcraft, plus auxiliaries and escorts. A countering fleet of, say, 1600 high agility, high armor thousand dTon warships, each carrying a company of Vargr troops in armored vehicles, doesn't have to confront the squadron. They have to move past it, get to the world, land and sack it, then get out, taking whatever losses occurred as they did so, bringing out whatever loot they could. Their ground forces would be dispersed, highly mobile, and behaving atypically, sacking targets of opportunity and fighting encounter battles of their choice rather than marshaling for a set piece battle.

It's not likely the Vargr would sit down and do a calculation of forces needed to achieve even odds. They would assemble in groups big enough to raid a particular target, starting with small targets, gathering larger forces and taking on larger targets as they grew in reputation. They might take heavy casualties, they might even be defeated, but the damage to each world's economy would be significant. If the Imperial sector forces reacted defensively instead of aggressively, if the Vargr started believing the Imperium was weak, such forces would be more likely to spring up and snowball.

After years of such encounters, the sector would degenerate into islands of resistance built around the strongest worlds and their system defenses. Eventually the raiding groups could grow strong enough to attack even those, and even an unsuccessful attack would weaken an island and make it less able to resist the next raid. The Vargr may have capital ships - having the prestige and reputation to be able to motivate Vargr to such accomplishments may be an integral part of building the larger polities. But these may not have played a significant role in the sector's fate until late in the collapse.

The other point is that conflict does not need to be the primary means of achieving the kind of prestige and reputation that would extend one's influence, nor is conflict the only setting in which charisma could be asserted and rewarded, not and have the Vargr achieve any level of technological competence. Vargr with an aptitude for and interest in science or engineering may be drawn to particularly brilliant Vargr scientists or a particularly gifted engineer and aspire to high status and respect among their peers.


In business, the Vargr "disloyalty" promotes a kind of evolution among competing businesses: the businesses that are most successful are the ones that evolve a business culture in which the cream rises most quickly and consistently to the top rather than encountering obstacles and deciding to shop their talent elsewhere, while the businesses that fail are the ones that see their talent leak away to seek fortune elsewhere. A successful business enterprise might have a collective charisma akin to an individual as a result of the coordinated effort of the group, gaining the respect and support of - and the trade of - other businesses as a result, attracting capital and new recruits on that basis. The Vargr business model may treat business as something more akin to a fraternal order or association rather than as a property owned by some magnate and run on the kind of feudal hierarchies that pervade human culture. Their industries will therefore be more fluid hierarchically, with the various levels of the business organization ejecting or demoting leaders who become unpopular and promoting new leadership by consensus rather than seeing the organization disperse because a leader becomes unpopular. In essence, the one who leads your team is the one among you who everyone agrees to follow, and if he proves ineffective, the team forms around someone else among them rather than waiting for someone above to fire him or individually seeking greener pastures elsewhere: the relationships and the hope for advancement hold the team together and the job continues to get done but leadership becomes fluid, with higher levels of the business hierarchy functioning on the same model, and the businesses that endure are the businesses most effective in following that model because otherwise people leave. Industry may endure over the decades specifically because individual companies do not rigidly retain their organizational hierarchy but fluidly promote and demote at all levels based on charisma and effectiveness. Vargr businesses may be more effective than human businesses because they are more adaptive as a result of that competitive challenge to keep talent.

Sitting in a bagel shop at 0600 about to quibble over a post made 2 years ago...

 

[kilemall]

Sitting in a bagel shop at 0600 about to quibble over a post made 2 years ago...

Argument springs eternal. People make livings arguing about 'posts' from 2000 years ago....

 

[Condottiere]

What do call a Vargr ship?

A bark.

 

[CaptRet]

Do Imperial Vargr have Charisma or Social Status ?

I was wondering if, given the millions of integrated Imperial citizens who are Vargr, when rolling up a Vargr who was in Imperial service or served aboard Imperial merchant ships, do you use Charisma or Social Status (or both ?). Charisma works only among Vargr, and rank structures within Imperial services are much more firmly structured.

 

[Condottiere]

It depends.

A lot of social interactions revolve around expectations and group hierarchy.

Introduce an outsider, he may get a lot more leeway, like Western expatriates do, or get ghettoized.

If anyone gets enlisted, they will expect to get the respect their rank and achievements entitles them to, however that translates in social standing.

if Mowgli gets raised in a Vargr society, he'll have to earn the respect of his pact in the Vargr Way, and never remove his inumimi in the presence of non Vargr.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[pzmcgwire]

The old theories of dominance and hierachy for dogs are apparently out-dated, so perhaps Vargr societies are less about social standing and hierarchy as originally conceived.

Most of modern training is based on reinforcement theory by repeat and strengthening and less on dominance hierarchy.

The implication for Vargrs is that they would very much reinforce success and take the easier route and may take setbacks harder, making them less resilient to business or battle failures.

I'm launchng a new zine on dogs in Traveller, of which the Vargr are not necessarily the most evolved, but a particular evolutionary path.

If you want to consider suppot or contributing check here: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ly-traveller-rpg-zine?ref=discovery&term=woof

 

[mike wightman]

Vargr are not descended from dogs. They were uplifted from wolves. They have since had over 300,000 years of evolution to change from how they were, in much the same way humans have evolved over the last 300,000 years.

Domestic dogs may share a common ancestor with the Vargr, but they share no evolutionary path beyond that common ancestor.

Humans are descended from apes, do you stereotype human behaviour based on ape behaviour?

 

[pzmcgwire]

Vargr and dogs are descended from common ancestors. The point I made is that Vargr may be only one way that canines have evolved.

Note that a lot of the research on wolf social hierarchies is being revised from the original studies that were done of wolves in captivity, which is different from their behavior in the wild.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/why-everything-you-know-about-wolf-packs-is-wrong-502754629

 

[mike wightman]

Humans and bonobo chimps are evolved from a common ancestor. :devil:

Vargr didn't evolve from canines (wolves). They were uplifted from canines (wolves) and then had 300,000 years of evolution as intelligent beings, had numerous cultures, religeons and finally achieved spaceflight. They achieved jump drive on their own and spread out into he galaxy, they established many interstellar states, they threatened the Ziru Sirka, they handed the early Third Imperium their first defeat (the Julian Protectorate). It is Imperial propoganda to continually highlight dog like characteristics even if there are none.

I understand the point you raise about the wolf behaviour research being flawed, if you track back in the thread you will note that I made the very point that even the original author who proposed the alpha hierarchy said he got it wrong.

Dog behaviour, even wolf behaviour, is as much of an allegory of Vargr behaviour as bonobo chips have on humanity. :CoW:

 

[Condottiere]

Considering chimpanzee tribalism and bonobo sexual mores, common ancestry seems certain.

In theory, modern Vargr would be survivors of the most suitable ancestral traits; in practice, they're easily distra...

 

[GypsyComet]

they handed the early Third Imperium their first defeat (the Julian Protectorate).

They were part of that effort, but the area was heavily settled by both Vilani and conquering Terrans prior to the Long Night, then didn't suffer much from the Long Night. The Julian War was the strongest remnant of the First and Second Imperia slapping down the upstart Third hard enough that it didn't try again. Vargr are part of Julian society to a greater extent than they have become in Imperial society, but identifying the Julian Protectorate as Vargr is overstating it.

in practice, they're easily distra...

Compared to what? Tradition can apparently overcome the chaos of Charisma, or few of the Vargr states would last more than three generations. I think that even without the apparent added stability of having Humans around (the Zhodani consciously so to secure their borders, but it happens all over), you'll find most of the Vargr like stability. Their fire-eating youth are *really* volatile even compared to Humans and Aslan, but Vargr are sophonts, and they'll cover the range of drives, ability, and vision.

 

[mike wightman]

They were part of that effort, but the area was heavily settled by both Vilani and conquering Terrans prior to the Long Night, then didn't suffer much from the Long Night. The Julian War was the strongest remnant of the First and Second Imperia slapping down the upstart Third hard enough that it didn't try again. Vargr are part of Julian society to a greater extent than they have become in Imperial society, but identifying the Julian Protectorate as Vargr is overstating it.

Human propaganda once again. The Vargr/human split is nearly 50/50 with some of the polities within the protectorate being skewed one way or the other.
The protectorate that went up against the early Imperium were predominantly Vargr, but humans have a problem with accepting non-humans in positions of authority - just ask Brzk
In point of fact the Vargr invasion/migration to Medan and other border sectors of the Ziru Sirka was what deflected so much Imperial attention away from the upstart human world on the far side of the Grand Empire of Stars. Vargr historians and scholars would argue that it was the Vargr who precipitated the fall of the Imperium, not the Terrans. But I doubt that the humanity of the OTU could accept such a paradigm shift.

Their fire-eating youth are *really* volatile even compared to Humans and Aslan, but Vargr are sophonts, and they'll cover the range of drives, ability, and vision.

I agree completely.

 

[Condottiere]

Considering recent events, I suspect that Vargr are somewhat more susceptible to charismatic individuals, or at least, to ideas that are conceptualized by them, than ye default human.

That doesn't mean that they can't make a wisdom check. to counteract the effect if they suspect that it isn't actually in their best interests.

 

[pzmcgwire]

Vargr in cars or air/rafts?

Does anyone remember which issue of JTAS or Challenge had a picture of several Vargr in a car or air/raft all with their tongues hanging out as the passengers look out the window?

 

[BackworldTraveller]

And don't forget that the Wolf Pack isn't just led by the biggest, strongest male wolf. The females have a big say in the structure and if they don't like the strongest guy will gang up and replace him. The point of a pack is to create the next generations not just to manipulate the current one.

 

[Condottiere]

Know, O Prince, that between the cycles when the Ancients seeded the Galaxy and glassed cities, and the cycles of the rise of the Sons of Terra, there was an Age undreamed of, when interstellar polities lay spread across the spiral arms like mylar blankets between the stars - Uekhourg, Okhsilo, Augurgh, Aerraekoukh, Kanae with its dark-pelted she wolves and towers of feline-haunted mystery, Zhodani with its psykers, Arr Laen that bordered on the pastoral lands of Aerraekoukh, Imperium with its surveilled arcologies, Taarskoerzn whose raiders wore titanium steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Daekvagul, reigning supreme in the scheming rimward.

Hither came Khor the Theksan, black-furred, sullen-eyed, chaindrive sword in hand, a free trader, a Reaver, Special Ops, with gigantic melanomas and gigantic girth, to tread the gravitated decks of starships under his bootied paws.

 

[The Pakkrat]

More Quotes to Steal

“No one will remember if we were Good Vargr or Bad. All that matters is that two Vargr stood against many. Charisma pleases you, Runetha. So grant me one request - grant me revenge!”