K'kree, how does such a race reach for the stars?

[BetterThanLife]

I have been thinking about the K'kree. (Since I have decided to run my new campaign in the Gateway Domain.) I really don't get it.

How does an intelligent race, that is Claustrophobic, and will not travel alone, go to space in the first place? Thinking of the early days of space travel and the economic resources required just to put two people on the moon (and all that lead up to that) how would that work with a Creature that can't bring themselves to get into something like a 4 seat car. How do you form a Military, that can deal significant losses, against other races, without AFVs? (No matter how good light infantry may be, they would still have to deal with the mobility, firepower and protection of tanks.)

But the big question is how do you have a race survive as herbivores when they exterminate all carnivores/omnivores in an Eco system?

 

[Flynn]

Maybe they had outside help... perhaps this is one of the mysteries of Traveller that hasn't been revealed as yet.

Anything that doesn't make sense at first blush probably has an underlying reason for its existence somewhere. What that reason is may vary from campaign to campaign, but you have the freedom to come up with it for your game.

Who knows? Somehow they did, and probably not by thinking about problems like we do. Perhaps they are older as a society than we are, and all of this has occurred in its own time.

Or maybe, like the Droyne, there was once an aberration, a mutant, without the claustrophobic tendencies, a real super genius...

Just kidding,
Flynn

 

[mike wightman]

Just to establish where you are coming from on this, have you read through CT AM2 and GT AR2?

 

[Piper]

From JTAS 10, Contact! Centaurs:
In reference to their claustrophobia: "Through training and discipline, some individuals (AFV crews, starship pilots, and so on) are able to overcome this phobia."

Humans are social primates yet even we have trouble with prolonged isolation. Solitary confinement is usually considered a punishment and the effects of long-term isolation are an issue for manned space missions. K'kree may select vehicle crews from individuals who have a higher tolerance for loneliness and then enhance this through training. I wonder if vehicle crews would be considered elite because of this, or would they be treated as a lower caste?
As to predator elimination, herbivore doesn't always mean "free lunch". imagine what a herd of musk oxen would do with hands and intelligence.
Definitely moves the wolf to "underdog" status.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Claustrophobia can be overcome using drugs and technology.

As a race, they're obsessed with making the universe safe for them to live in (basically by exterminating everyone who could be a threat, especially carnivores).

"Service to those of superior caste is almost automatic... The good of the family, the herd, and, by extension, the race, outweighs personal considerations. ...they do their given job
to the best of their ability, for as long as that job needs to be done."

- AM2, p4

 

[mike wightman]

They didn't begin to explore space until after they'd invented the grav based drive.

The first spacefarers and AFV crews were selected from the "insane" K'kree.

Many of their smallcraft and AFV's are remote contolled, as are the engineering compartments on many of their ships.

 

[daryen]

Don't forget the G'naak on their habitable moon. When the K'Kree found G'naak on the moon, their entire space effort was based on the desire to get to the moon to get rid of the G'naak.

Unless I am mis-remembering something.

The question I have is how, after removing all carnivorous species, there ecosystems don't just collapse. If all creatures that eat other creatures is removed, then the ecosystem will collapse quickly and efficiently. How come all of their worlds don't have collapsed (or worse) ecosystems?

 

[mike wightman]

GT AR2 explains that the K'kree used poisons and other methods to erradicate the problem. They did cause huge enrironmental damage, which resulted on them building huge domes over their cities while the environmental problems were overcome.

Then came their discovery of the G'naak on their moon and the genocide that followed.

I don't think the K'kree show anymore qualms over killing off competing omnivores/herbivores than they do in killing carnivores. If you are a thret to the herd then you are (erradicated from) history.

 

[daryen]

Which is why I am amazed that the humans and Vargr don't seem to fully realize what they are up against.

The Vargr, especially, should eradicate the K'kree infestation on their side of the rift with impunity. Cleanse the worlds if necessary, but get the K'kree back across the rift at all costs.

(Well, not really. We humans have an uncanny ability to ignore danger, especially long term danger, if we don't have to deal with it RIGHT NOW.)

 

[jwcarroll60]

It could be called the Great Hunt, as packs of Vargr roam their environs, flushing out, pursing and killing the K'Kree.

Maybe the British nobility from Terra could get involved. It would be a replacement for the Fox Hunt.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by jwcarroll60:
Maybe the British nobility from Terra could get involved. It would be a replacement for the Fox Hunt.

You realise that as of this week (I think), fox hunting with dogs is now banned in the UK? They'd have to have a really long memory to want to do that again, and I suspect the Vargr wouldn't like it too much

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by daryen:
The Vargr, especially, should eradicate the K'kree infestation on their side of the rift with impunity. Cleanse the worlds if necessary, but get the K'kree back across the rift at all costs.

The Vargr would have trouble getting (and maintaining) a big enough coalition together. Especially since they would be fighting the _entire_ might of the Two Thousand Worlds.

Basically, such an attempt would paint them as predators in the eyes of the K'kree, and put them at the very top of the "To Be Exterminated - NOW!!" list.

I suspect that there's a Vargr proverb or two to the effect of "Only a fool raids the K'kree". It would have overtones of "Being an a**hole is not charismatic".

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Just to establish where you are coming from on this, have you read through CT AM2 and GT AR2?

Yes I have read AM2. THough I haven't read the GT equivalent.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Here is the Eco System problem. Not take to the extreme of eliminating all the carnivors, just thinning the bigger ones to the point where they will have little chance to help with the balance.

In Upstate NY, with the virtual elimination of the Mountain Lion and the Wolf, deer roam virtually unchecked, except for man. When a local deer population has enough food for half the herd to survive the winter, instead of half the herd surviving the winter, all the deer eat for half the winter then they all starve.

Rabbits, breeding without predators would quickly overrun the food supply. Sheep, Deer, Cattle, Horses, Giraffe, even elephants. Without the thinning effect of Predators and Omnivores the Eco System would quickly collapse as the Herbivores quickly overpopulate then strip out all the vegitation. It may take a few years, but my guess is a year maybe two tops. (Basically one winter after a year of unrestricted breeding and growth.)

The other herbavores would be just as big a threat to K'kree existence as carnivores. Though not by eating K'kree but by eating the food supply.

(Assuming tha they can eat the same food supply but that is a whole different can of worms.)

Now there may be no other herbivores on the K'kree home world that would thump like bunnies, because of the lack of predators, but once they got to otehr worlds, with other ecosystems......

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by jwcarroll60:
Maybe the British nobility from Terra could get involved. It would be a replacement for the Fox Hunt.

You realise that as of this week (I think), fox hunting with dogs is now banned in the UK? They'd have to have a really long memory to want to do that again, and I suspect the Vargr wouldn't like it too much

</font>[/QUOTE]It's actually business as usual
There were as many hunts on Saturday (250 hunts, at least 91 confirmed dead foxes) as there were on the last day for legal hunting.
Besides - the aristos can always cross the channel and hunt in France, or go to the USA where they can stable their horses.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Just to establish where you are coming from on this, have you read through CT AM2 and GT AR2?

Yes I have read AM2. THough I haven't read the GT equivalent. </font>[/QUOTE]The GT AR book does a much better job of fleshing out K'kree history.
It's well worth getting IMHO.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
Now there may be no other herbivores on the K'kree home world that would thump like bunnies, because of the lack of predators, but once they got to otehr worlds, with other ecosystems......

They would Kirurform the planet - the bunnies, deer, etc. type creatures would be exterminated as pests.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
Now there may be no other herbivores on the K'kree home world that would thump like bunnies, because of the lack of predators, but once they got to otehr worlds, with other ecosystems......

They would Kirurform the planet - the bunnies, deer, etc. type creatures would be exterminated as pests. </font>[/QUOTE]So we are no longer just destroying all Carnivores but all life that isn't K'kree?

I think the Imperium, or better yet the Hivers, should make sure the Aslan know this. Then with Imperium and Hiver assistance offer 50% of the 2000 worlds to the Aslan. Instead of a colation that may fall apart with the Vargr, you have a highly motivated, highly disciplined race of Carnivores going after the K'kree. One would think that the Aslan would be the Galaxy's natural answer to the K'kree.

I think the K'kree manifest destiny would come to a very quick and bloody end.

 

[Piper]

If the K'kree really are that xenophobic, perhaps the other races should join in to send the "2000 Worlds" 2000 planet-busters.
I wonder what a few 100-kiloton planetoids would do when crashed into a planet?
Pity to waste all that real estate, though.

 

[mike wightman]

All life that is a threat to K'kree.
Enlightened environmentalists eventually realised the importance of ecosystems, but, considering their method of conquest, I don't think the K'kree are too bothered about there being only two forms of multicellular life in the galaxy.
K'kree and grass...