posted
I'm going to DM a STRPG, and one of the players wants to run a catfolk. We've seen them in ST, but always in a background alien or semi-canon (Animated Series) capacity. Just what do we know about the cat people of the ST universe? I don't really care whether it's FASA, TAS, or what not, I just want to draw on the incredible amount of coherent knowledge here that blind-Googling cannot match.
-------------------- "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
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Okay, I'm a bit biased, I'll admit, but super-sizing housepets is just sloppy writing and not worth using in a game.
Make your player use something intresting, or make the character's background radically diffrent than what's been established before: they could be advanced pacificts that resent any animal comparisons (as example only).
Or just kill off his character over nad over untill he get the point and plays a human. That's always fun too.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
M'Ress and those TVH guys were Caitians. See Danhauser's site and the Lincoln biography for the most accepted background stories. And FASA has a lot of stuff on Caitians as well (at the very least a chapter is devoted to them in the TVH sourcebook).
We had the Kzinti in TAS. Basically taken from Niven's universe, so read his books or check larryniven.org.
There was a three-breasted cat in TFF. No info on her. Except that she featured prominently on the Japanese movie-posters of TFF...
Cait orbits a star in the Lynx constellation. It is one of only two planets in it's system. Caitians are a diverse feline species, believed to share ancient common roots with the Kzinti.
Lt. M'Ress from The Animated Series was a Caitian from planet Cait, according to a biography published by Lincoln Enterprises in 1974. According to the FASA Star Trek IV Sourcebook Update, the felinoids seen in that movie were also Caitian.
There was a three-breasted cat stripper in Star Trek 5.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
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quote: Cait orbits a star in the Lynx constellation.
A lamer sentence would be difficult to find outside a Thundercats episode.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Yeah, because aliens naming their twin homeworlds after the mythological founders of Rome makes a huge amount of sense.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
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posted
More than "cat people" originating in a constellation that aincent humans thought resembled a cat. A resemblence that only someone viewing from Earth could possibly imagine.
I guess we better never explore the Orion Nebula (much less the Hellspont Nebula), but if we get thirsty, we can just stop off at the Big Dipper for a drink and then get try to get some teen nookie in Virgo...
Mabye the Catians hunt bird-men from the eagle Nebula...
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
I'm not really a big fan of cat aliens either, and I did cringe when I read the Lynx Constellation bit, so I agree with you.
But it's no more or less stupid then numerous other references throughout the history of Trek.
I know it's non-canon, but the Franz Joseph Starfleet Technical Manual had the flags of 61 Cygni (Tellar) adorned with swans. Why the Hell would the Tellarites give a crap about Human designations for their star much less what Cygnus means?
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
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posted
There's nothing wrong with some really corny sci-fi to spice things up a bit. I mean, blue guys with friggin antennae on their heads? No-one would have dared pass them off as believable aliens outside Trek.
posted
Or aliens with half white and half black faces on opposite sides to drive home the pointlessness of racism... for really, really stupid people who have to be beaten with the obvious stick.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
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-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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posted
I think that Star Fleet Battles, the semi-licensed RPG used Kzinti in their Franz Joseph-based view of the Trek milieu, but so were their cousins the Lyrans. when the SFB material was adapted into video games (The Starfleet Command series) i'm not sure if they called them something else. (possibly making references to another 'split' in Kzinti/Lyran governments). i forget the new name of the SFC and Academy games' feline Kzinti though
Then there is the long held rumor that TZENKETHI from DS9 were an anagram of THE KZINTI. take that as you will, possibly we could "replace" the word Kzinti from any TAS memories we have, establishing that there were old Man-Tzenkethi Wars (around the ENT era, 2150s-2160s oddly enough, from the TAS reference), the Tzenkethi wouldve been the villains from the Slaver Weapon, and the DS9 backstory establishes at least one more war with them between TAS and TNG.. this is a bit of a presumption, however.
the TNG novel "Captain's Honor" has Kzinti that were called something else out of legal necessity, they were called the M'Dok.
So you have a plethora of names for what is essentially the same species, possibly this could be explained by the fact that their space is ruled by several different clans, kingdoms or governments. Kzinti, Tzenkethi, M'Dok, Lyrans, an any others i forgot...
Not much has been heard from Caitians, besides their supposed ST4 appearances.
the TOS novel "Uhura's Song" has Caitians who were revised to be called something else in the Eeiauoans (and they had a parent/offshoot species too, to complicate things.
I don't remember if Peter David used the name Caitians in New Frontier, but M'Ress has just joined the crew there and theyve established some backstory for her species leaving the Federation and rejoining it.
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posted
The SFC game's Kzinti stand-ins were called the Mirak, IIRC.
200 years prior to 2269 is not the ENT era. It's earlier. (2069) But that date can be fudged a bit to make things make sense, as could the use of the term "wars." (I once considered writing a fanfic detailing Trek's version of the Man-Kzin wars.)
Shane Johnson's non-canonical Worlds of the Federation sourcebook speculated that the Caitians were ancient offshoots of the Kzinti, much in the same way that the Romulans are of the Vulcans.
Regarding the non-use of the Kzin in later Trek, as I recall Niven always said he would have no problem with them being used, but Paramount was just too scared of the possible legal implications.
The most recent "covert" reference to the Kzinti was in Geoffrey Mandel's Star Charts, where their space was mapped and simply labeled "The Patriarchy." Strangely, the charts show the Tzenkethi in a different area of space.
I haven't yet been able to understand the seemingly-widespread objection to animal aliens. I think they can be quite cool. I don't recall people complaining so strenuously about the Selay and Anticans in TNG "Lonely Among Us," so why about the Kzinti? From what I've read of Niven and his cohorts, they were a well-developed and interesting species.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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posted
the "hundred-year" fudge around there is certainly acceptable though, in my opinion. between trelane's near milennia since the 17-1800s, decker's 500 years and such, the references of the tas era certainly need to be taken with a grain of salt.
granted, it would be fascinating to portray a pre-ENT battle with The Patriarchy (i like this name) since there would be no Starfleet, or such an early form of the Starfleet that it would be hard to recognize..
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