Kzinti Hegemony
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This is an article about the Kzintis as they exist in the Star Fleet Universe and not as they appear in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. If you are seeking information about Known Space, see the above link.
In the fictional Star Fleet Universe, the Kzinti Hegemony is a powerful stellar empire violently opposed to the Lyran Star Empire and allied with the Hydran Kingdom and eventually with the United Federation of Planets and the Gorn Confederation in the General War.
In the fictional variant of the Star Fleet Universe as represented in the games Star Fleet Command II: Empires at War and Star Fleet Command: Orion Pirates from Taldren, the Kzinti Hegemony was named the Mirak Star League, with the species Kzinti renamed for SFC to the Mirak.
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[edit] Background material
The Kzinti originally come from Larry Niven's Known Space stories. Niven adapted his story "The Soft Weapon" as an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, "The Slaver Weapon". The epidode also mentioned that the Kzinti had fought four wars with the Federation, and lost all of them. The Kzinti have never been mentioned in any Paramount productions since The Animated Series, and by current canon, they do not exist in the Star Trek Universe.
However, the Kzinti were mentioned (if not shown) in a few other episodes and early novels, making them part of the continuty as of the time Star Fleet Battles was being designed. So the Kzinti were included as an extra enemy of the Klingon Empire. In fact, the Kzinti use of drones was used as an initial explanation for why Klingon ships had a high number of phasers that mostly fired to the rear.
Since that time, the Kzintis have seen some changes for the SFU compared to Niven's Known Space universe. While the original episode kept close to Niven's discriptions, SFU art has always shown Kzintis with cat ears and furred tails. More recently it was decided that Kzinti females are sentient (something that had not been explicitly stated either way until the production of GURPS Prime Directive). Finally, there is a difference in grammar: In Known Space, the singular is 'Kzin' and the plural is 'Kzinti'; in SFU, the singular is 'Kzinti' and the plural is 'Kzintis'.
[edit] History
The Kzinti first developed warp drive and took to the stars in Y11. By Y43, exploration and settlement had proceeded to the point where it was necessary to develop the Pentarchy to handle the demands of running an interstellar government. They quickly encountered the Lyrans (going to war with them in Y48) the Klingons (going to war with them in Y50) and the Carnivons (who they fought with intermittently from Y56). Shortly after the conclusion of the last of these wars (the First Klingo-Kzinti war, where they lost three planets) in Y82, they invaded the Federation in Y88, making peace in Y92 after a Federation counter-offensive had restored the original border.
The next round of wars of the Hegemony went a bit better, with the Kzintis reclaiming their lost planets in the Second Klingo-Kzinti war, and the defeat and near-extinction of the Carnivons. The action against the Carnivons turned into a war against the Lyrans (who had also been attacking the Carnivons), which did not go as well, with the Patriarch and two of his sons killed in (separate) actions against the Lyrans. The third son, the Patriarch Who Wept, made peace with the Lyrans in Y114, and was then forced to resign and go into exile.
This sparked a civil war when two of the nobles tried to claim the throne of the Patriarch. After several battles, the Patriarch and the Usurper (as the Kzinti histories call them, it is not certain which of the nobles is which) lead their fleets in a direct battle against the other. The Usurper got the worst of it and led his forces into the nearby energetic WYN nebula to avoid being captured. To his surprise, the nebula was essentially hollow, with a rich star cluster inside. He then started building a base for his followers in the WYN Cluster, unknown to anyone else for several years.
There followed a period of relative stability, followed by the predictable next round of wars. This culminated in the rule of the Patriarch of the Lance, who signed a treaty with the Hydran Kingdom in Y156, improved relations with the Federation, and he and his hand-picked "general staff" developed the logistics and fleet doctrine, and introduced fighters, all of which allowed the Hegemony to fight the Four Powers War (Y158-162) to a stalemate, after a very bad start.
The General War started as the 'Fifth Kzinti-Lyran War' in Y168 with the Klingons invading some months later and a substantial portion of Hegemony territory was occupied by the Coalition. Two full-scale assaults on the Kzinti homeworld of Kzintai were beaten back in the first real Kzinti victory of the war. Eventually, with Federation assistance they forced Coalition forces back to around the original borders, where a war of attrition set in. Efforts to help the war on other fronts included forces sent to help defend the Tholian Holdfast in Y177, and a fleet sent to serve as a 'flanking force' during Operation Remus in Y181.
At the end of the General War, machinations of the nobles had kept the Crown Prince from taking the throne after the previous Patriarch had died, when the grandson of the Usurper invaded with a fleet built within the WYN Cluster in a bid to take the throne for himself. The War of Return swept through Kzinti space as various commanders were faced with a decision as to which side would win—or reward them better. In the end, the winner was the Patriarch of Triumph, but it is not known whether this was the Crown Prince, the Usurper, or one of the military commanders. The Kzintis themselves have deliberately muddied the waters, for reasons that are not understood.
During the ISC War of Pacification, the Kzintis, like everyone else, tried to maintain control over their territory while desperately re-building the exhausted navy.
[edit] Government
The Kzinti Hegemony is ruled by the Pentarchy, a council made of four nobles and the Patriarch (or in some cases the Crown Prince). Each of the four nobles has jurisdiction over a part of Kziti space, and are roughly co-equal despite the Federation's translation of their titles as different ranks of feudal nobles. The Duke controls the Klingon border, the Count the Lyran border, the Marquis the Federation border, and the Baron handles the continuing exploration and development of space in the direction of the galactic core.
The Hegemony includes several native non Kzinti species in its borders. These are all ruled over directly by Kzinti, who also do not allow any access to interstellar travel. This is a bone of contention with the Federation, who protests it to various extents (usually varied by the level of need for their tenuous alliance).
[edit] References
- (R5.1) Kzinti Background. Star Fleet Battles Basic Set/Master Rulebook (ADB, 1999)
- "History of the Kzinti Patriarchs". Captain's Log #24 (ADB, 2002)
- A Brief History of the General War
