Kzin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Kzinti (singular Kzin) are a fictional, very warlike and bloodthirsty race of Cat-like aliens in Larry Niven's Known Space series.

1 Background and history
2 Naming convention
3 The Man-Kzin Wars
4 Homeworld
5 Kzinti in other science fiction
6 External links

[edit] Background and history

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Kzinti evolved from a plains hunting cat, stole their current space-faring technology, and bred (most of) their own females into sub-sapience. They are larger than humans, standing around eight feet tall and weighing around five hundred pounds. These lion-sized bipeds have large membrane ears, a cylindrical torso without a spine, and large fangs and claws. They are covered with a thick coat of long fur that comes in various combinations of orange, yellow, and black. Their tails are naked and are similar in appearance to a rat's tail. Kzinti ears are hairless, pink, and shaped liked a segment of a Chinese parasol (or Cocktail umbrella); they can fold back flat against the head for protection during a fight. They speak in a hissing language called the Hero's Tongue.

A small percentage of Kzinti are stunted, and forced into addiction of the lymph of an animal called a sthondat. 99.9% of such Kzinti are driven insane by the process, and the few who survive are left with telepathic ability. Telepaths are tolerated by the warrior class due to the rarity of their skill, otherwise they endure a low-caste position in society: Telepaths rarely, if ever, earn a name, and they aren't legally allowed to breed.

Kzinti females (called Kzinrret) are sub-sapient, with a vocabulary of less than a hundred word/sounds and primarily instinct-driven behavior, and are treated as chattel by males (Kzintosh). This was not always the case: archaic Kzinrret were sapient until the Kzin used Jotoki biotechnology to drive them to their current state while boosting their male's martial prowess. Kzinti society explains this by stating the Fanged God removed Kzinrret's souls as punishment for an attempted rebellion against him shortly after he created Kzin.

They are the first on-going alien contact that humanity has met within the Known Space universe. The first contact with humanity ends the human golden era of peace, where even history has been rewritten in a non-violent whitewash; organized violence was virtually eliminated, being reduced to roughly 1 in 1000 people, and there was no interpersonal violence, except occasional out-bursts in the asteroid belt where medical and psychological care were spread too thinly.

[edit] Naming convention

Kzinti are born without names; they must earn them through valorous deeds, after which they are granted a partial name by a superior. They are originally known by their relation to their father, and then by their occupation. A Kzin who has performed a greater deed will be given a single name; a still greater deed, a double name of which the second is the family name. The exception seems to be the members of the -Riit family, that of the Kzinti Patriarch. An example of a Kzin's naming transition would be:

Birth description: Third-Son of Khral-Hrag
Occupation description: Weapons-Technician
Partial name: Frep-Technician
Single name: Frep
Double name: Frep-Hrag

[edit] The Man-Kzin Wars

Main article: Man-Kzin Wars

In several different stories by other authors playing in the universe we see references to a total of five additional Man-Kzin wars take place. The net effect of these wars is summed by a retrospective comment from Louis Wu in the Ringworld novels: "The Kzinti aren't really a threat. They'll always attack before they're ready." With decreasingly impressive logistical and technological advantages, each Man-Kzin War results in the confiscation or liberation of one or more colony planets by the humans. In this way humanity contacts the Pierin and Kdatlyno, former slave species, and takes over worlds such as Canyon (formerly Warhead) and Fafnir (formerly Shasht).

Eventually (in Ringworld) we learn that the Kzin reverses were deliberately engineered by the Pierson's Puppeteers, who lured the Outsiders to We Made It in the first place. The Puppeteers had hoped that the culling of a quarter to a third of the more aggressive members of the Kzinti with every war would result in a more peaceful race, or at least one that was capable of coexisting with other species without trying to kill and eat them at every turn. This shift in Kzin attitudes succeeded spectacularly, although the Kzinti themselves do not think very highly of the changes, nor of the price they paid to achieve them. In fact, a fringe faction of the Kzinti known as the Kdaptists, frustrated with the reversals their race had suffered against humanity, went so far as to adopt the human concept that God had created humanity (not Kzinti) in His image, and that He favors and protects humans over other races.

As the Puppeteers expected, a form of "natural" selection occurred, with the more mindlessly aggressive Kzinti dying in ill-advised wars and the more moderate, intelligent, and cautious Kzinti surviving, presumably to think long and hard about the consequences of starting yet another war. By the time the Kzinti attained the level of sophistication and foresight needed to win against humans, they no longer had the numbers or the drive to do so.

At one point, Louis Wu, while visiting the Kzin homeworld and given access to the Kzinti Patriarch's game preserve, was confronted by a young Kzin and his father. When the youngster asked "Are they good to eat?", Louis Wu responded with a grin (baring of the teeth being a Kzin challenge to battle) and the older Kzin responded "NO". Wu muses that it would be safer for the young Kzin to eat arsenic than a human being.

[edit] Homeworld

The Kzin homeworld is called "Kzin" by all other races save the Kzinti, who call it "Homeworld" or "Kzinhome." It orbits the star 61 Ursae Majoris, has stronger surface gravity and both a longer day and year than Earth. The Patriarch rules from a large palace on the world. At the end of the last Man-Kzin War, around 2618, Kzin was occupied and disarmed by the human armies.

Blood-of-Chwarambr City was located on Kzin.

[edit] Kzinti in other science fiction

Kzinti are thought to have influenced the creation of the similarly Felinoid Kilrathi, the primary antagonists of the popular Wing Commander video game series of early-to-mid-nineties. Whether this is true or not, a small part of Wing Commander II takes place in a region of space called the Niven Sector.

[edit] Kzintis in Star Trek


Kzinti
Chuft Captain, a Kzinti
Homeworld:	Kzin
Capital:	Kzin
Base of Operations:	Patriarchy
Affiliation:	None

The Kzinti also appeared, along with allusions to slavers and stasis boxes, in The Slaver Weapon, an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series written by Niven, as a proud and carnivorous species. They were incorporated into the Star Fleet Universe where they became a powerful empire known as the Kzinti Hegemony, mortal enemies of that universe's Lyran Star Empire - although it is alluded that the Kzinti and Lyrans share common ancestry, a claim both sides violently reject.

The Kzinti reappear in the comic The Wristwatch Plantation, also by Niven (and which included the Bebebebeque from his Draco Tavern stories). Kzin appeared on a star map seen in several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a feline stripper from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was referred to backstage as a kzinrett. The name of the Tzenkethi mentioned in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was partially based on the Kzin, and had Star Trek: Enterprise not been cancelled, the Kzinti would have appeared in the fifth season.

The instruction manual for the PC game Star Fleet Command clearly refers to the Kzinti by name in the background story for the rival race, the Lyrans. This race is introduced in Star Fleet Command II: Empires at War by simply changing the Kzinti Hegemony to the Mirak Star League.

[edit] Kzintis in the Star Fleet Universe

Main article: Kzinti Hegemony

Kzinti Hegemony
An example of a Kzinti from the Star Fleet Universe.
Government:	Feudal Monarchy led by The Patriarch
Capital:	Kzintai
Known Species:	Kzintis, (formerly) Cygnans
Neighboring Powers:	(Carnivons), Lyrans, WYN, Klingons, Federation
Affiliation:	Alliance
Major Enemies:	Lyrans (Y48+); Klingons (Y50+); Carnivons (Y55-Y106); Federation (Y88-c.Y160); Romulans (Y173-Y185); Seltorians (Y182-Y185); Andromedans (Y190-Y203)
Known Allies:	Hydrans (Unk+); Federation (Y160+); Gorn (Y174+); Tholians (Y177-Y185)

Please note that in the Star Fleet Universe, the Kzin/Kzinti distinction between singular and plural is replaced with Kzinti/Kzintis.

The Kzintis in the SFU - who have traits setting them apart (no bat ears, sentient females, Kzinti/Kzintis as singular/plural etc) from the Kzinti of Niven's works - have fought wars with all of their neighbours, the Federation, the Klingon Empire and their perennial nemesis, the Lyran Star Empire, and are long-standing allies - or more accurately, co-belligerents - of the Hydran Kingdom. The Hegemony eventually formed a tentative accord with the Federation and allied with them in the General War, but they have been involved in major wars with the Klingons and Lyrans, such as the Four Powers War and the General War itself, in which a substantial region of their territory was occupied by their Coalition enemies and two full-scale assaults were made on the Kzinti homeworld of Kzintai. Eventually with Federation assistance they forced the Coalition forces from their territory, but after the War ended they were involved in a Civil War as a disgruntled faction - which had been opposed to the Hegemony's ruling Patriarch and sought refuge and developed a power base in the WYN Cluster - launched an attempted coup of the Hegemony itself in the WYN War of Return.

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 Kzintis were renamed as the Mirak.

[edit] Kzinti in D&D

The fifth anniversary issue of Dragon magazine (#50, June 1981), included an article detailing the Kzinti as a race for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game.