To: 
From: "Steve Oostrom" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com

NAME:

Ksassans

BACKGROUND:

The Ksassans were created in 1980 as an adversarial group for the Odonans.
They first appeared in the story "The Battle of Au" (1980).  The
intention was to make the Ksassans the primary Steve-Trek-created
adversarial group to the Federation and allied races.

SHORT SUMMARY:

A humanoid race dominated by their religious beliefs, and their pheromones.

APPEARANCE:
The Ksassans are a humanoid species, strongly similar to humans in
appearance.  Their most notable feature is their attractiveness, with
non-Ksassans finding members of that race attractive and leading some to
believe there is something such as universal standards of attractiveness
that apply to many diverse species.  Males average 1.8 m in height, females
are 1.6 m.  The skin colour is generally a golden brown, with hair being a
lighter shade of that.  The eyes are notable for their golden irises.
Physically, Ksassans are well-built, muscular with pronounced secondary
sexual features.  The brain to body mass ratio is among the highest for
humanoid species.  Ksassans are extremely intelligent.

BIOLOGY:
Ksassans follow the standard humanoid plan, and their biology is typical.
They are known for their pheromones, and they can be trained to release
them at will.  Pheromones form an important role in relations among
Ksassans, and they can be used to make other people, especially
non-Ksassans, suggestible and capable of being manipulated.  The pheromones
have been known to induce an almost brainwashed state in humans after
prolonged exposure.

LOCATION:
The Ksassan homeworld, Cas, is located on the fringe of Odonan and
Federation space.  The closest Federation world is Philentrophia, about 550
light years away.  Cas is about 900 light years from Earth.  Most Ksassans
live on Cas, as the Ksassan Realm has only a few small colonies and
outposts.

POPULATION:
As of 2377, the population of the Ksassan Realm is about five billion.

LANGUAGES:
All Ksassans speak one language (which can be called Ksassan).
Historically, all other languages have been made extinct or reduced to
curiosity status by the spread of the Ksassan religion.  Ksassan is a
polysynthetic language with a great deal of inflections.  It is a hard
language to learn and use correctly.

GOVERNMENT:
The Ksassan Realm is considered to be a theocracy.  The society is divided
into a number of castes determined by the individual's role in society. 
The caste of priests sit on the top of the hierarchy and they rule the
planet. In terms of administration, the planet is divided into a number of
administrative zones and within each zone, the priestly council decides
which of their number will sit on the planetary council.  The planetary
council in turn elects one of its members to be the Speaker, in essence,
the person who speaks for all Ksassans.  A Speaker rules until either he or
she (full gender equality on Cas) decides to retire or loses support of the
planetary council.  The Speaker and the council consults the religious
texts before making decisions and is guided by the religion in terms of how
it governs the planet.

ECONOMY:
The Ksassan economy is an advanced industrial society with a technological
sophistication that is roughly equal to that of the Federation.  Most
Ksassans are gainfully employed, although they are limited by their caste
affiliation in what professions they can enter.  Nevertheless, exceptional
people can move up the caste hierarchy, but one can only be born into the
priestly caste.  Nobody else can enter it.

MILITARY:
The Ksassan military, which also includes the space service, is controlled
by the priestly caste.  Although the actual soldiers and starship personnel
are from all castes in society, the officer corps is from the priestly
class.  Originally, the military was used to suppress dissent on Cas and to
re-impose central control on those regions that broke away from the central
administration.  However, since the Reformation, these incidents have been
considerably fewer in number.

The Ksassan Realm Space Division is rather advanced.  The Ksassan
warcruisers, their top line of ship, is technologically on par with
Federation starships.  The Realm maintains a fleet of about twenty top-line
starships and a corresponding number of support craft.  Each ship usually
has a crew of about 250, and may be augmented by ground troops as
necessary. Because resources are limited, the Ksassan fleet is not large,
but the full fleet was part of the Alpha Quadrant Alliance during the
Dominion War, and were involved in significant victories.

HISTORY:
Ksassan history has been dominated by religion.  At one time, the religion
was so dominant that society all but stagnated.  Technological innovation
stopped and new knowledge was no longer acquired because the Ksassan
religious establishment was firm in its belief that only the gods could
provide new information, and they would send prophets when the Ksassans
needed to learn something new.  Everything that the Ksassans needed to know
was contained in their religious texts, and their lives were guided by it.
However, around 1900 (Earth year), a breakaway group centered on the city
of Ipasqas reinterpreted the religion and decided that the gods were not
going to send any more prophets.  Instead, the words of a long-ago prophet
were reinterpreted to mean that the Ksassans were on their own to learn,
and grow and acquire new knowledge.  The religious establishment considered
this to be heresy and sent the military to crush the upstart group in
Ipasqas.  The military was defeated twice, and Ipasqas declared its
independence.  The leadership established the first university on Cas, the
University of Ipasqas (now that planet's most renowned university).  Given
the intelligence of the Ksassans, the freedom from the constraints of
religion caused a tremendous technological advances in Ksassan society.  In
essence, what took mankind on Earth a thousand years to accomplish, the
Ksassans took just 450 years.  For example, the time between the first
heavier-than-air flight on Cas and the first flight of a Ksassan
warp-capable starship was just seventy-five years (compared to a hundred
and sixty years on Earth). With this newfound might, the priestly class
based on Ipasqas replaced the original priestly class and created the
modern Ksassan state (Ipasqas is now the planetary capital).  Once they had
warp-capable ships, the Ksassans tried to begin to export their beliefs to
alien words.  The first attempt to spread their message, by force if
necessary, was to the Odonan planet of Au. The Ksassans were defeated, and
in the process realized that their religious goals could never be met by
direct military conquest.

CULTURE:
The most important aspect of Ksassan culture is the religion.  The texts
are extensive and have been written down over periods of thousands of
years. The two most fundamental beliefs of the Ksassans is that, first, the
galaxy is full of life, and that life is a lot like they are (humanoid
life), and that all of those other species were essentially seeded by an
ancient, god-like race, the progenitor race.  The second belief is that the
Ksassans are not merely a race seeded by the gods, but are the direct
descendants of this god-like race, and it is their destiny to once again
rule the entire galaxy, in the same way that the ancient god-like race
ruled the galaxy. The Ksassans also believe that the gods do speak to the
other races, and that the underlying features of many religions, which are
similar on many worlds, come from the gods, while the surface features of
the various alien religions are the interpretation of the core beliefs
through the culture and history of the race.  The Ksassans even accept this
of their own religion, as they understand what the core is, but know that
all the cultural trappings on top of the core beliefs are their own
interpretation of the fundamental message of the gods.  When the Ksassans
reunite the galaxy under their rule, the god race or some manifestation of
it is supposed to return and reveal why they seeded the galaxy in a manner
that led to humanoid life over so much of it.

RELATIONS:
The Ksassans are considered to be an adversarial race because of their
stated goal of ruling the galaxy one day.  However, other than their attack
on an Odonan planet, the Ksassans have not initiated any military activity.
They did commit their ships to the Alpha Quadrant Alliance in the Dominion
War.  The Ksassans attempt to retain cordial relations with the major space
powers, and have diplomatic relations with all of them.  However, because
non-humanoid races are considered to be "mistakes in evolution"
and are not considered to be part of the overall destiny of the galaxy, the
Ksassans have no relations with them.  This was why the Ksassans willingly
joined the Dominion War because the Founders were evil (because they are
non-humanoid, and "created" humanoid races, which in Ksassan
belief only the god race can do).  Small numbers of Ksassans have appeared
on many worlds, including all key Federation worlds, and they work as
missionaries, to spread their religious beliefs.  They often tailor their
beliefs to fit the planets they are on, while keeping the underlying key
tenets intact.

ADVANTAGES:
The main advantages that the Ksassans have is their intelligence and their
ability to develop and build technology.  Very little of their technology
is actually reverse-engineered alien technology, as the majority is
developed from Ksassans based on prior work.  Their pheromones also give
them an advantage in that in dealings with other humanoid species, they can
use the pheromones to advantage.  Most races, especially humans, find the
pheromones hard to resist and can readily fall under the spell of the
Ksassans.

WEAKNESSES:
Their numbers.  There are only five billion of them, and their birth rate
has always been low.  The Ksassans are somewhat sexual, and sexual
relations form a significant part of their culture, but the women do not
readily get pregnant.  Five billion people is not enough to rule the
galaxy.  There is also the problem that the Cas system is not a system
known for its resources.  The system has no dilithium, so the Ksassans have
to acquire it from other sources.

SPECIAL:
The Ksassan priestly class is split into two groups in terms of fulfilling
their destiny.  On one side is the "go-slows," who advocate
spreading the Ksassan religion not by force, but by persuasion.  The idea
here is that the go-slow side knows that military conquest and occupation
is impossible, so the Ksassans cannot force their rule on other planets. 
Instead, they must make the other planets want to be ruled by the Ksassans,
to make those other races believe that the proper destiny of the galaxy is
to have the Ksassans as the ruling class on every planet.  The go-slow side
admits that this process could take a long time, thousands of years, but
they believed that the Progenitor race took millions of years to rule the
galaxy and they can wait.  They firmly believe that in time, the destiny of
the Ksassans will be realized and that they will do what the Progenitors
did and rule the galaxy. On the other side, the "go-fast" side
argues that through technology, direct conquest is possible.  Through such
things as AI, automation, androids (built to the sophistication of Data),
doomsday weapons, biogenetic weapons and other things, other planets can be
forced to submit to the will of the Ksassans.  The creation of androids,
perhaps through the use of Borg technology that allows for rapid
development and customization, is seen as the greatest chance for the
Ksassans to augment their forces.  The ruling caste is split between the
two sides, with the go-slow side fearing that if the go-fast side were to
win out and actually put their scheme into place when the galaxy is not yet
ready, the resulting failure would likely be followed by an invasion of Cas
itself and the destruction of the Ksassan people.

STORY ROLE:
In the third series of "Athena" stories, the Ksassans will begin
to fall under the influence of the "go-fast" side, and they will
attempt to put their plans into action.  How this actually proceeds has not
been fully established, but I have already decided that it will not be one
big war. Instead... well, I am not going to say, since that would give the
arc away.

Steve
The Universe Unbounded.

Visit "Star Trek: Athena" at http://ussathena.iwarp.com


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Get A Free Psychic Reading!
Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/cjB9SD/od7FAA/AG3JAA/TpIolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Star Trek; The E-mail Commands

Post message: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com Subscribe:
trekcreative-subscribe{at}yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe:
trekcreative-unsubscribe{at}yahoogroups.com List owner:
trekcreative-owner{at}yahoogroups.com Get Digest:
trekcreative-digest{at}yahoogroups.com Web only: 
trekcreative-nomail{at}yahoogroups.com Normal: trekcreative-normal{at}egroups.com

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

--- BBBS/NT v4.00 MP