Kzer-Za
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| Ur-Quan Kzer-Za | |
|---|---|
 The Kzer-Za appeared as green caterpillar-like beings in Star Control II.
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| Ship | Dreadnought |
| Homeworld | Unknown |
| Contacts | Everyone |
| Quote(s) | "In our twenty thousand years along the Path of Now and Forever, we have dominated thousands of species, yes, but we have saved hundreds from extinction. You imagine the threat of unknown invaders, or alien pestilence borne on the solar wind. We have seen these. But you do not acknowledge your own worst enemy, yourselves. We have found dead worlds without number, planets ravaged by atomic fire or gaian collapse. These planets were not rendered sterile by outside forces. They bear sad testament to the effects of unrestrained instinct and emotion or simple ignorance. We will prevent such mistakes." |
The Ur-Quan Kzer-Za are a fictional race of beings featured in the sci-fi Star Control computer game series. They are the main antagonists, incredibly belligerent and the unquestioned masters of the Ur-Quan Hierarchy. Their conquest is what sets the events of the games in motion. Physically, they resemble 10 meter-long predatory caterpillars.
The Kzer-Za are actually one of the two subtypes of Ur-Quan, split from the now extinct common (and brown) predecessor. The other are the black Kohr-Ah, which had not made their presence known by the time of Star Control I, and "Ur-Quan" is often used to refer to the Kzer-Za alone.
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[edit] History
The Ur-Quan history is a long and tragic tale. They evolved from solitary hunters. The race was (and still is) extremely hostile and territorial, to the point that even in their star faring age only one Ur-Quan may be present on board a craft at a time (leaving slaves and robots to do most of the ship work while the Ur-Quan commands). The Ur-Quan keep several meters between each other when meeting personally and even so, unarmed battle may start spontaneously. As such, the climb to civilization was arduous, but eventually they managed it. The Ur-Quan eventually came to explore their own solar system in crude atomic powered ships, this is when they encountered the silicoid Taalo race. The Ur-Quan's instincts immediately drove them to attack the more advanced Taalo. Though the Taalo were more than capable of bombing the Ur-Quan back into the stone age, in their infinite patience they eventually befriended the Ur-Quan. The Taalo would become the only race the Ur-Quan would ever call 'friend.' They adopted the Ur-Quan race as their "children" and sponsored them for membership to the benevolent Sentient Milieu, entering the Ur-Quan into a golden age of progress and discovery. Due to their hostility toward other sentient lifeforms, the Ur-Quan were perfectly suited to be the Milieu's solitary advanced scouts, a role which they filled admirably.
The golden age came crashing down when, on a routine planetfall, a lone Ur-Quan scout encountered the evil mind-controlling Dnyarri race. The Dnyarri found the Ur-Quan were particularly vulnerable to their mind control and enslaved them first, forcing them to transport the Dnyarri to thousands of Milieu worlds. The resulting invasion and take over was quick and bloodless. The Ur-Quan quickly became the Dnyarri's favored slaves, using them as tools to eradicate any who resisted or were unsuited to be slaves. The Taalo (whose silicon based physiology made them immune to mind control) remained the last free Milieu race. The Taalo were working on a mind shield to free the other Milieu races from mental enslavement when the Dnyarri ordered the Ur-Quan to destroy their former benefactors. When the Ur-Quan fleet arrived at the Taalo's home world, the Taalo refused to open fire on their children, and they were burned from the face of the galaxy. This is an act that would haunt the Ur-Quan for thousands of years to come, perhaps the only act that the Ur-Quan are ashamed of and regret.
After several millennia of cruel enslavement, the Ur-Quan were split into two subspecies by their masters. The green Ur-Quan were made into thinkers and administrators while the black Ur-Quans became warriors and laborers. The Dnyarri eventually became complacent enough to occasionally allow their slaves periods of self-control. A green Ur-Quan scientist by the name of Kzer-Za discovered that the Dnyarri were forced to withdraw their mental control over creatures that were dying or suffering intense pain, and used one such period to inject acid into his veins, seize a transmitter and broadcast his revelation. Using self-mutilation to free themselves, a slave revolt began immediately across the Dnyarri's empire. The revolt ended with the Dnyarri masters crushed under vengeful Ur-Quan forces equipped with Excruciators, devices which cause its user to experience intense pain in order to remain free of the Dnyarri's mental control. But death, in the Ur-Quan's opinion, was too good a fate for the Dnyarri. As the Dnyarri had done to them, the Ur-Quans tinkered with the Dnyarri's genes, effectively devolving the evilly intelligent creatures into nothing more than dumb animals. To further add insult to injury, the Ur-Quans used the now-harmless Dnyarri as their Talking Pets (translators).
From the point of view of everyone else, the Ur-Quan were left completely insane. Culturally and societally, they remained totally fixated on their past agonies. The Ur-Quan swore they would never again be slaves and now considered every single other sentient race a threat. The green Ur-Quan now called themselves the Kzer-Za, after the scientist who had freed them; they followed the Path of Now and Forever, which called for the enslavement or imprisonment of all other sentient species. The black Ur-Quan named themselves Kohr-Ah, after one of the leaders of the rebellion; they devised the Eternal Doctrine, which guaranteed the Ur-Quan would never be slaves again by eradicating all other sentient species. By the time the Kzer-Za had caught up with their brothers, the Kohr-Ah had already destroyed one of the former races of the Milieu, and were on their way to a second Milieu race's home world. Unable to persuade their brothers that their doctrine was folly, the Kzer-Za were forced to fight the Kohr-Ah to prevent them from committing genocide again. This sparked the first Doctrinal War. In the end, the Kohr-Ah fleets were left broken and defeated. The Kzer-Za could not bring themselves to kill their brothers, so instead exiled them into the unknown parts of the galaxy, while they themselves traveled in the opposite direction.
Each side, recognizing that it is not necessarily in the right, waits until the two sides meet again to fight the next doctrinal war to determine who shall have dominance. If the Kzer-Za should win, they will continue to follow the Path of Now and Forever. However, should the Kohr-Ah emerge victorious, the Kzer-Za will stand aside and let them kill all sentient life in the galaxy.
From the end of the First Doctrinal War, the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za have been traveling through the galaxy and conquering all sentient races they encounter. After they have defeated a sentient race, they give it the option of becoming battle thralls or being locked away on their home world by a planetary shield in fallow slavery. The status of battle thrall gives the race a degree of freedom and mobility, but they must fight for the Ur-Quan to help conquer other races, which can bring up ethical issues for some.
The other option of fallow slavery means that the entire race is forced to retreat to its home world indefinitely. Once there, the planet is encased in an impenetrable force field called a Slave Shield, preventing all travel and communication to and from the planet. Most information about fallow slavery was learned solely from Earth's experience after the defeat of the Alliance of Free Stars; this may not be typical for all races.
In the case of Earth, the Ur-Quan demanded that the choice should be decided by popular vote. As the Humans refused to fight for the Ur-Quan as battle thralls, the vote naturally resulted in the choice to be imprisoned on Earth. The Ur-Quan subsequently ordered that all people and equipment should be returned to the planet. Next, they instructed that all human-made buildings older than 500 years were to be abandoned. All such structures were then orbitally bombarded by the Ur-Quan armada, destroying landmarks such as Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and even areas that humans had no knowledge of, such as a target deep under the polar ice caps. They also utterly destroyed Buenos Aires, apparently in retaliation for Earth having ever fought against them in the first place. (The destruction of Buenos Aires is a literary allusion to the novel Starship Troopers, a fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein).
The Ur-Quan were virtually undefeatable. Even during the Second Doctrinal Conflict, where massive numbers of Ur-Quan were killed in battle with each other, any attempt by the other races would have been virtual suicide. The reason for this was the Sa-Matra, a Precursor weapon of such immense power that it, alone, guaranteed the sovereignty of the Ur-Quan. They held it in a near-religious regard, to the point that even during the massive Doctrinal Conflict, it was protected by a virtually limitless fleet of both Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah. As long as the Ur-Quan commanded the Sa-Matra's power, they knew, no race could ever hope to challenge them again.
[edit] Conduct
The Kzer-Za use Dnyarri modified into subsentience as universal translators to avoid the indignity of even speaking with lower races. They are impassive and formal in their dealings, such as they are, and take their quest as a necessity and even as benevolence, in that the races they subjugate are protected from extinction via nuclear holocaust or ecocatastrophe, both of which they have seen by the hundreds.
They will not use deceit in any form nor ever insult their foes, an unusual trait for villains.
When an alien asks them "Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?", both the Kohr-Ah and Kzer-Za subspecies recall the plaintive cries of the Mael-Num, the final Sentient Milieu race to survive both the Dnyarri and the vengeful Ur-Quan, and are emotionally impacted to the point that they briefly stop their assault and explain, at full length, their reasons for following their doctrines. Very few races ever hear this explanation, because they do not ask properly - most try to appeal to some higher moral concept, which the doctrines allow the Ur-Quan to ignore entirely.
[edit] Kzer-Za in the games
In Star Control I, the Kzer-Za and their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls meet and engage the Alliance of Free Stars, including mankind, that was forewarned of the threat and hastily banded together. This led to a fierce war that lasted several decades, with the Hierarchy eventually triumphant. By the time of Star Control II, the Doctrinal Conflict had started again, and the Kzer-Za were losing, mainly due to the loss of an entire invasion fleet when the Shofixti blew up their sun, which is said to have wiped out 30% of the total Kzer-Za fleet. A chance discovery of a Precursor installation on an isolated human colony led to a slave revolt that led to a renewed alliance. It seemed that the alliance would fail-the Sa-Matra, the invincible battle station, represented enough power to single-handedly wipe out the entire Alliance fleet, regardless of the number of Ur-Quan ships remaining-but the immensely advanced race known as the Chmrr, a fusion of the Chenjesu and the Mrnhrrm, found a way to amplify the power of an ancient doomsday device, a Precursor Bomb capable of annihilating a solar system. With the Chmrr's crystal technology, the power of the Precursor Flagship, and the Precursor Bomb, a daring attack on the Sa-Matra succeeded in destroying the battle station, an event which demoralized and scattered both Ur-Quan fleets.
[edit] Ur-Quan Dreadnought
In battle, the Kzer-Za use massive and frighteningly powerful green ships known as Dreadnoughts or less often as Planetary Siege Units (PSUs). Their primary weapon is a high-powered fusion cannon, which fires quite rapidly and inflicts serious damage on a direct hit. The secondary weapon is the ability to launch pairs of small red fighters. These fighters have basic lasers and can easily tear slow ships to pieces in swarms, but on the downside they require crew as pilots, can only function for a limited time, are extremely fragile and just barely capable of dodging a planet; high attrition rates are common even on successful deployments. The use of these two weapons together, however, coupled with the Dreadnought's massive crew and energy capacities, make the ship one of the most dangerous in space. A common Dreadnought tactic is to release a few waves of fighters toward the enemy as a distraction, then accelerate in the opposite direction and approach the enemy from the rear. This 'pincer' movement can be effective against all but the quickest ships.
The Chmmr Avatar, Utwig Jugger, and the Kohr-Ah Marauder are the only three ships which can hope to match the Dreadnought in a straight-up slugfest. Two other ships which have been known to have particular effectiveness are the Orz Nemesis, the Arilou Skiff. The Nemesis can use its higher speed to stay at range while using waves of marines to wear down the Dreadnought. The Skiff's amazing maneuverability allows it to dance around the Dreadnought's fusion blasts, all the while peppering it with laser fire; the laser's auto-targeting property also allows it to destroy any fighters which come too close (of course, the Dreadnought needs to land only one shot to destroy the Skiff, so only the best Skiff pilots will attempt to down a fully-crewed Dreadnought).
In player vs computer matches, the Dreadnought is easily defeated by a number of opposing, weaker vessels, though this is due to the limited computer-AI, rather than any design-flaw in the Dreadnought's design. Since the AI follows a linear-path toward the player, the player vessels can lure the Dreadnought into a 'straight-line pursuit.' Once the Dreadnought is positioned closely behind the player, the player simply fires at the large Dreadnought target while manuevering just out of the Dreadnought's range. This tactic is especially effective with the Thraddash Torch, whose afterburner protects the Torch from Ur Quan's fighter escort. The same tactic can also be employed by the Yehat terminator and Druuge Mauler, though greater piloting skill is needed.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Ur-Quan on GameSpot's "The Ten Best Computer Game Villains"
