This is topic Kzinti War-era concept sketches/notes in forum Designs, Artwork, & Creativity at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.


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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
Though I had long planned to do some fanfic centered around the Earth-Kzin Wars, I've recently come to the conclusion that I couldn't ever really pull it off, especially now that Enterprise seems to be invalidating the whole precept, and also because I don't have the top-to-bottom familiarity with Niven's original work that would be necessary.

I did, however, come up with some conceptual sketches of three of the primary ship designs that I envisioned for the period. Thought there might be some mild interest in them, so here they are, along with some excerpts from notes I made while planning out the stories that serve to portray the setting. (Please note that these excerpts are not in precise chronological order as they appeared in my notes, but rather I have selected and arranged passages as they pertain to the three major races.)

United Nations Space Navy "C-type" fighter
Inspired by Greg Jein's original design for the Phoenix from the Star Trek Chronology.

"It was but a few short years after Cochrane had made his warp flight aboard the Phoenix. The experimental advanced exploration craft S.S. Valiant had just been launched. Contact between the United Nations had been restored and recovery from the Post-Atomic Horror was well under way. The UN Space Navy, which had been essentially defunct during the War, had been reestablished and partially reinvigorated. Many ships were beginning to be fitted with Warp 2-capable engines..."


Vulcan "T'Lok-class" frigate
Quite similar to the Surak-class of the ENT era. Dorsal plan.

"The Vulcanians---or the Vulcans, as they had come to be more commonly called---had not been any great presence since they had made contact with Cochrane. There had been some additional contact, but nothing world-shattering. They certainly hadn't shown any real active interest in Earth's exploits..."

"When the Kzinti came, all this was ended. Earth, for over a century to come, would be permanently indebted to the Vulcans---for without the Vulcans, humans would never have been able to hold their own against the invaders..."

"It was also during this time that a Vulcan archeological team on Vega discovered an ancient artifact, a stasis-box containing what appeared to be some type of anti-gravity generator. Intense study by Vulcan scientists would eventually reveal a much more efficient gravity-control technology than either the land-based repulsorlift engine or the shipboard centrifugal motivators employed by the Vulcan Navy..."


Kzinti Marauder
Based loosely on designs from the old Star Fleet Battles game. (I tried doing one more in line with the police cruiser design seen in "The Slaver Weapon" but it turned out looking too Romulan.)

"The Kzin were a race of carnivorous, felinoid creatures with an aggressive thirst for conquest. In stark contrast to lesser threats, such as the Orion pirates that plagued the space lanes, the Kzinti were a bloodthirsty lot, not looking simply to acquire and posess more territory but to utterly ravage the worlds they encountered, enslaving their populations sucking them dry of all their precious resources..."

"The so-called "civilization" of the Kzin was based upon a Patriarchy, with the head of one revered family ruling the entire Empire, looked upon as a god-like figure..."


Anyway, you get the general idea. Just thought I'd share a little.

-MMoM [Big Grin]

[ June 26, 2003, 05:35 PM: Message edited by: The Mighty Monkey of Mim ]
 
Posted by Griffworks (Member # 1014) on :
 
Interesting designs. I like the Kzinti Marauder.
 
Posted by Darkwing (Member # 834) on :
 
Have you read the early TNG novel "the Captain's Honor"? It features an alien race that is obviously a knock-off of the Kzin called the M'Dok, IIRC. I figure the author wanted to write about the Kzinti, but Roddenberry had already decreed the Kzinti didn't exist (mostly to avoid copyright issues w/ Niven) in Star Trek.

It's a decent novel and explores the Roman culture as well - from "Bread & Circuses". Apparently they're Fed allies now and have their own starships (typically Connie refits and other old surplus).

Whether you read it or not, why not adapt your ideas to your own Kzin-analog? I'd be interested in seeing it; your notes show an ability to write.
 
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
Mim, I like your little "too Romulan" statement in the marauder pic! Cute. [Smile]

Maybe you could somehow model the ships on cats or something like how the romulan ships always have bird-like appearances.
 
Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
 
I like what you have created so far.

With the likes of Harry Turtledove on the bestseller list creating alternative histories, such as the American Empire-series, you could create the The Federation-Kzin War: An Alternative History of the Federation or something in that vein. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
If you want to stay true to Niven's (and his "Man-Kzin Wars" writing pals') interpretation of Kzinti ships, you should do designs that are basically spherical or otherwise rounded, even if with weapon turrets and other such spikes protruding in every direction. Aggressively painted, of course, but still with rounded shapes instead of the kind of angularity you'd expect from a race with claws...

There are two reasons why Kzinti ships are spherical/rounded. One is because Niven and pals try to do hard scifi, and those shapes minimize surface area in 3D combat. Another is that the Kzinti got their interstellar tech from aliens called the Jotoki, and those are all soft and soggy (not to mention enslaved nowadays). Only small low-tech things like sublight fighters would be "Kzinny", all claws and fangs. *That* tech the Kzinti did have before the Jotoki came. And yes, the fanfic/gaming concept that the Kzinti like to use carriers and fighters is somewhat supported by what we read in "Man-Kzin Wars".

I know that doesn't automatically look good in Trek - but you could take it as a challenge to create an aggressive ship out of shapes that *aren't* elongated in the direction of travel. And those spherical protrusions (engine nacelles? weapons?) of the police cruiser do remind me of Niven's ships (even if the real Traitor's Claw was described differently from what was shown in TAS).

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AndrewR:
Mim, I like your little "too Romulan" statement in the marauder pic! Cute. [Smile]

I'm reminded of the scene from Blazing Saddles.
"I know! We'll kill their firstborn sons!"
"hmmm...too Jewish."
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Timo:
If you want to stay true to Niven's (and his "Man-Kzin Wars" writing pals') interpretation of Kzinti ships, you should do designs that are basically spherical or otherwise rounded, even if with weapon turrets and other such spikes protruding in every direction.

Something like this Federation monitor?
http://www.sub-odeon.com/stsstcsmua/
A bit more agressive and much larger for the Kzin, but not a bad place to start.
 
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
I've just been thinking about the Kzin war(s) too.

Even when disregarding ENT, a Kzin war in the late 2060s doesn't seem right. First of all, it doesn't come up at all in First Contact, nor any of the other episodes. Second, Earth was in no position to fight interstellar wars, or to survive an invasion into the Solar system.
You could put the war somewhat later in the 21st century, but that would still make it an event someone should've mentioned (the first interstellar war fought by Earth!).

A better solution could be to not put the war 200 years prior to TAS, but 100 years. That would make it happen somewhere in the late 22nd century, making it a Federation-Kzinti war. I know, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense..

And the Kzin can't be the �berpowerful enemies from Niven's books. They have to be significantly less powerful than the Klingons and the Romulans.
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
The two concerns could sort of cancel out each other. If Sulu has to spell out for his pals who the Kzinti are or were, then it only makes sense that nobody else ever mentions them, either.

IIRC, Sulu says the Kzinti lost four wars because Earth had warp, echoing the original Known Space history. Surely it would be possible for a pre-Archer Starfleet armed with mere plasma cannon to outfight four sublight invasion fleets, even humiliatingly so?

So the Kzinti would think they had fought four glorious wars. The Earthlings would think they stopped four waves of particularly odious illegal aliens in a fairly successful immigration control operation. For Sulu to call the engagements "wars" would merely be courtesy shown in the presence of a dozen sets of imposing claws, even if they were attached to slouching cats clad in pink.

"Slaver Weapon" takes place in the late 2260s, that much is commonly agreed, yes? The "200 yrs" reference could still be taken to mean something like 2101, giving Earth time to build some plausible defenses after WWIII.

Timo Saloniemi

[ June 27, 2003, 05:09 AM: Message edited by: Timo ]
 
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
Aww.. poor kitties. Wearing skintight pink suits, *and* not having FTL capabilities while everyone else around them does have?
 
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jason Abbadon:
Something like this Federation monitor?
http://www.sub-odeon.com/stsstcsmua/
A bit more agressive and much larger for the Kzin, but not a bad place to start.

I think you meant to do this: http://www.sub-odeon.com/stsstcsmua/federation/stsstcsmua_federation.html#MONITORS

Harry:
My idea was that the main defensive thrust of the conflict would have been carried out by the Vulcans, acting in a sort of paternalistic role characterisitc of what we've seen on ENT. It would be my view that it was in fact this event which caused Earth to be so under their thumb in the 2100s. (As mentioned in my notes, we were "indebted" to the Vulcans for having "saved" us from the Kzin, because---as you and I both cite---we would have been virtually defenseless without their aid.)

Timo:
Yeah, I sort of vacillate back and forth on the warp issue. It was part of the original Niven storyline that Earth was able to beat the Kzinti with the achievement of FTL tech, although it wasn't specifically mentioned by Sulu in "The Slaver Weapon." It would make sense and is another possibility for why Earth could stand up to its attackers. However, the question then arises of how to make the conflict an exciting one and how to portray the warcats as an imposing enemy if they're really...not. [Frown]

On the subject of pink:
There's just no end to the cracks here, is there? [Roll Eyes] Now, let me ask you this...how do you know that the same colors our culture holds to represent different qualities would be viewed in the same light in an alien culture? Suppose their pink is like our red or some other color that suggests power or strength.

Either that, or part of the same Treaty of Sirius that limited the Kzin to police cruisers and hand phasers also forced them to wear pink and paint their vessels that way, as form of humiliation! [Razz]

-MMoM [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
quote:
Either that, or part of the same Treaty of Sirius that limited the Kzin to police cruisers and hand phasers also forced them to wear pink and paint their vessels that way, as form of humiliation! [Razz]

-MMoM [Big Grin] [/QB]

It also requires them to courtsey when meeting any starfleet officer. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :
 
Cats here on Earth (indeed a lot of mammals, unlike a lot of reptiles and a lot of birds) can't see colours. If the Kzinti are the same then it may not be pink, it's just a shade of grey.
 
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
In an intriguing parallel, does anyone else remember hearing the story that the guy who did the coloring for "The Slaver Weapon" actually WAS color blind, and thought he was making the Kzin ship and uniforms gray rather than pink?
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
You'd think someone that was color blind would have taken precautions to avoid that sort of thing.
What was he doing coloring in the first place anyway?
I think the Kzin just belong to the "Pride Fleet".
 
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
 
More on pink: Also consider that aliens and animals see colors outside the spectrum visible to humans. For examples bees see into the UV (or maybe its the IR), so they recognize vivid markings on flowers that appear completely blank to us. (The flowers don't care, of course; they just evolve whatever attracts the bees).

Other species, because of the way their visual systems are connected in their brains, might pay more attention to certain types of visual stimuli, such as dark/light contrast, borders, movement, irregularities in smooth surfaces, etc, with color being unimportant (but still visualized).
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
hat;s not to say that pink uniforms don't look silly on screen though. [Wink]
If it was really a practical concern, I'd think the uniform might have some camo effect (changing color to match scenery when activated) and the pink color is the unfortunate color while "deactivated".
The Kzin's ability to see into another spectrum would allow them to see their own troops despite the camo effect.

That's as far as I can go to cover a silly mistake and justify a silly alien species. [Razz]
 
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
 
Or their uniforms are made of meat.

We all know what we'd want to see.

[ June 27, 2003, 11:41 PM: Message edited by: Balaam Xumucane ]
 
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
Even better...

Hahaha...j/k [Razz]
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Uh..... No.
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Come to think of it, apart from the ears and the tail being dead wrong, how incorrect is that kzinrret? Do they have two beachballs up there, and a narrow waist? According to Niven? According to any of his "M/K Wars" sandbox pals? I can't remember, but this certainly isn't how I visualized the 'rret. This is more like something out of ...uh, the woods.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
So, spherical ships, eh?. The Xindi probe in ENT was a sphere...
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Timo, there's a very special spot in hell for you for showing that image to my poor retnias.
 
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
 
WARNING: FOR GOD'S SAKE, DO NOT CLICK TIMO'S LINK!!!!

YOU WILL SEE AN ANIMATED "SKUNK DAMSEL IN DISTRESS" GAGGED AND TIED TO A CHAIR. YOU WILL BE FOREVER DAMAGED.
 
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
 
IT'S TOO LATE! GAAAHH!!!!
*Melts down into a steaming puddle underneath my evil pointy hat*
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Considering the things I've seen done to kittens in this forum, Bondofox is relatively tame...

...But it's good. Really good. You'll never look at Saturday morning cartoon antropomorphs the same way again. You'll develop an odd compulsion for TAS, too. AND you will want to buy all the "Man/Kzin Wars" books (minus the one with the 'rret on the cover, alas, since that's just a collection of previously published works, albeit rather fun ones - the 'rret comes from one of 'em Dean Ing stories, I think).

I mean, paws up, who *wouldn't* want to see TAS:TNG done with technique like this?

And hold the "it stinks" responses, you furverts. Skunks are *supposed* to stink.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Timo:

I mean, paws up, who *wouldn't* want to see TAS:TNG done with technique like this?

Trek done with sexualized, anthropomorphic animals tied up? No, thank you.
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Skip the tied up part - what sort of a pervert are you? [Smile] But seriously speaking, I wouldn't mind another animated incarnation of Trek at all. That's basically the only way one could do justice to things like the Kzinti. Anthropomorphic nonhumans is what Trek is mostly about, anyway - but even those are still very expensive to do in a mixture of live action and CGI.

If TAS:TNG had even as much "animation" to its animation as that skunk does, it would be of superior quality to most of the cartoons out there. And certainly superior to the original TAS.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
 
I'm just yanking your...tail, Timo.

Sure, I'd like to see an animated Trek series, either TOS or TNG/DS9 era. With the animation boom of the last 10 years -- with US made animation and product coming in from Japan -- I'm sure animated Trek has a better chance than in the 1970s of escaping the kidvid ghetto. Filmation was really bottom of the barrel as far as animation quality, so doing better than that wouldn't be that hard.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Have you guts actually been watching American animation in the past decade?!?
I'll pass on "Star Trek: Evolution". [Roll Eyes]

Now if we could convince the good folks at Sunrise animation (home of Cowboy Bebop)to do the animation....
 
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
ANYWAY

How's this for a Kzinti ship?

It's a rather large, clumsy ship. Perhaps two or three of them support the smaller vessels / fighters in the four attack waves. Suffering from overstretched shields and gaping sensor blind spots , they were relatively easy to disable by a good UE captain.
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Wow! That's a mean-looking little beastie. Or not so little... Those yellow circles on the sides - are they part of the drive system, imitating the "Traitor's Claw" spheres? Even if the Kzinti didn't have warp, they might have had subspace tech, like mass reduction fields. Those globes might have something to do with that.

The ship as depicted would be right at home in the TOS or TAS environment. For a live-action show of ENT style, perhaps the surface should have a darker, more complex, more armor-plated look? Armor-plated in the usual scifi sense, of course. The current looks are the most realistic way to show physically plausible, flat and reflective armor...

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by coatlantis1745 (Member # 1034) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Harry:
ANYWAY

How's this for a Kzinti ship?

It's a rather large, clumsy ship. Perhaps two or three of them support the smaller vessels / fighters in the four attack waves. Suffering from overstretched shields and gaping sensor blind spots , they were relatively easy to disable by a good UE captain.

Id be interested in reading how you arrived at your date range of 2107-2112 for the Earth-Kzin "Conflicts" as you put it. I would like to engage you and the others in an open debate over this subject.

In my view, the Earth-Kzin the last Earth-Kzin War was fought 200 years prior to the episode The Slaver Weapon per Sulu's on-screen statements. Using Mike Okuda's "rule of thumb" on relative dating (Star Trek Chronology), this would place the last war between ca. 2064 and 2069.

I will not pretend to support the contention that the TOS/TAS Era timeline can easily fit in with the rest of the "official" history, but I AM curious about this matter. Please explain how you arrived at your dating.
 
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
There is absolutely no reason at all to the 2107-2112 range... Sorry to disappoint you [Big Grin]

Sulu's 200 years are wacky. There's no way four interstellar conflicts could have been fought in the late 2060s. Even if the Kzin didn't have warp drive, Earth couldn't possibly have any sort of fleet of armed vessels.

2107 would be about 160-170 years before TAS. That's close enough, and gives Earth a bit of time to colonize places like Alpha Centauri (although AC could have been colonized before WW3...) and to develop a more 'military' fleet. 2112 is 2111 (four Wars in four years), plus one to make it less obvious. You see? No reason at all!

And another presumption I'd like to steal from Timo is the scale of these conflicts. Four Kzinti fleets reaching the Solar system and/or a colony seem more realistic for this era than four full-out wars.

I haven't really pinned down a use for the spheres on the Fat Cat. I've thought about it being force field generators, or indeed part of the drive system.

Oh, and one last note: There's no ENT involved in this. Except perhaps for some names and places, the events of ENT take place in a different timeline, created by Borg Queen Enterprise-E Rick Berman.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Harry:
[QB] ANYWAY

How's this for a Kzinti ship?

I dig it! A very organic ship design (espically for the tme era).
One thing that would look good and improve the overall sense of scale would be to have dozens of small plates to the sphere instead of the few huge plates you have currently.
Small subtle details on a large ship give that sense of "big ship" scale that the aztec patterns on Fed ships try to achieve.

Are the forward spkie things a large railgun?
If so, the aft spikes would be the long range version for nailing a planet's population centers from a system's edge.

I think those huge round things on the sides could be subspace antenna/ recievers: something very high tech for the time period. The Kzin could be more advanced that Starfleet in communication even if they lag behind in weapons or engine power.
 
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
 
Does it have to be perfectly spherical? You could make it look a bit more aggressive by making it slightly more cigar shaped (decreasing height and width but maintaining length). Doing so would might require a few changes in paneling.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
I'd keep the main capital sips as they are and add in a few sleeker escort cruisers as Masao suggested (being more cigar shaped from a side perspective).
 
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
 
*bump*

Harry's recent 'LF Class' thread reminded me that I've had this sat on my hard drive for the last few months. With all the hard drive swapping I was doing I forgot all about it, 'till now.

 -
 
Posted by coatlantis1745 (Member # 1034) on :
 
Could we get an enlargement of that Kzin insignia there, Reverend?
 
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
That is really, really cool Rev! [Eek!]
 
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
 
Which way is the front?
 
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
 
I assume it's the left side, but it could be either.
 
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Nice job.
....for some reason I have the urge to play Frogger.
 
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
 
Watch out! Blue frogs are poisonous.

 -
 


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