Aginor
Vice Admiral
Hi there!
I'm also discussing that topic with the guys at WingCenter, but it might be interesting to hear you guys talking about it, especially since Quarto and I talked about something that might be related in Klavs' 3D thread. We also talked about some aspects of the question a while ago here in the CIC forums. But why not talk about it again. So here we go:
Do Kilrathi ships/fleets/troops belong to the clans, and do they crew their ships only with clan members, or are crews on Kilrathi ships more mixed? And why?
IMO reading the books and the fiction behind the games there are hints that both might be the case, depending on the situation.
In my mod (I still hope I can release it some day, both the artists that wanted to help me and the guys that offered to help me with my story remain silent, unfortunately, so I'm still stuck ) I explore that possibility and provide a possible answer.
Here's my theory on that:
Normally a ship belongs to a certain clan. The crew consists of members of that clan. And so does the crew of military installation. A star system is likely in the hands of one clan. That's because of the way the Kilrathi fealty system works I guess.
But maybe that's not always the case. I can imagine at least three situations that might happen (or that we even have seen happen):
- Big military actions that require lots of ships, more than a single clan could have. For example the Battle of Earth, or the McAuliffe Ambush. So they send their fleets, and the Imperial clan is in charge (Kiranka during the war)
- Religious stuff that prevents the Kilrathi from fighting each other, for example the Sivar Eshrad
- Mixed fleets or even mixed crews could happen for special purposes, but then there must be a special reason and also a rule that settles the problems with conflicts between clans as well as conflicting rules how to obey orders.
Social rank and military rank are not necessarily of equal importance, I think. Examples are provided by the books. When Hobbes is questioned at the beginning of Freedom Flight it becomes clear that his social rank is much higher than that of the questioner (which isn't even a noble) but he still has to obey, because he was told so.
But why could the Emperor (or someone else who has a high rank) decide to have mixed crews or mixed fleets?
Well, like in many cases with the Kilrathi a possible explanation is provided by the Japanese culture as well as some things that happened in Europe during the Middle Ages. The ruling dynasty forced either the leaders of clans (families, states, whatever you call them) or some of their relatives to stay near them (actually holding them captive), and/or they mixed their troops. Both were techniques to prevent uprisings of a single clan. They didn't trust each other since they had fought each other numerous times for centuries, just like our Kilrathi.
And of course we know that some of the clans are specialized a bit. If the Emperor or someone else who happens to be in charge wants to have a certain thing done he might want to build a fleet for that special purpose out of troops from several clans. A "pro bowl" or "best of" fleet. If I am not mistaken we can assume that such fleets exist because of the known Kilrathi names which appear in the games. So mixing fleets is not a problem I guess.
But we also see it the other way round, I think. Hobbes' crew on the ship he commands are all of his clan, aren't they? I also think that something like "ships of the XXXX clan" appears more than once in the books.
That would also be a possibility for the language stuff Quarto posted in the other thread. Mixed operations and stuff may be the reason for a unified language and glyphs system, and the other ones we see in the games (or the movie) might be rarely seen because they belong to a certain clan.
Ehmm... I guess this posting is a bit chaotic, I also think I missed some stuff I wanted to say. I was writing it while doing a bunch of other stuff. Sorry.
Anyway, discuss!
I'm also discussing that topic with the guys at WingCenter, but it might be interesting to hear you guys talking about it, especially since Quarto and I talked about something that might be related in Klavs' 3D thread. We also talked about some aspects of the question a while ago here in the CIC forums. But why not talk about it again. So here we go:
Do Kilrathi ships/fleets/troops belong to the clans, and do they crew their ships only with clan members, or are crews on Kilrathi ships more mixed? And why?
IMO reading the books and the fiction behind the games there are hints that both might be the case, depending on the situation.
In my mod (I still hope I can release it some day, both the artists that wanted to help me and the guys that offered to help me with my story remain silent, unfortunately, so I'm still stuck ) I explore that possibility and provide a possible answer.
Here's my theory on that:
Normally a ship belongs to a certain clan. The crew consists of members of that clan. And so does the crew of military installation. A star system is likely in the hands of one clan. That's because of the way the Kilrathi fealty system works I guess.
But maybe that's not always the case. I can imagine at least three situations that might happen (or that we even have seen happen):
- Big military actions that require lots of ships, more than a single clan could have. For example the Battle of Earth, or the McAuliffe Ambush. So they send their fleets, and the Imperial clan is in charge (Kiranka during the war)
- Religious stuff that prevents the Kilrathi from fighting each other, for example the Sivar Eshrad
- Mixed fleets or even mixed crews could happen for special purposes, but then there must be a special reason and also a rule that settles the problems with conflicts between clans as well as conflicting rules how to obey orders.
Social rank and military rank are not necessarily of equal importance, I think. Examples are provided by the books. When Hobbes is questioned at the beginning of Freedom Flight it becomes clear that his social rank is much higher than that of the questioner (which isn't even a noble) but he still has to obey, because he was told so.
But why could the Emperor (or someone else who has a high rank) decide to have mixed crews or mixed fleets?
Well, like in many cases with the Kilrathi a possible explanation is provided by the Japanese culture as well as some things that happened in Europe during the Middle Ages. The ruling dynasty forced either the leaders of clans (families, states, whatever you call them) or some of their relatives to stay near them (actually holding them captive), and/or they mixed their troops. Both were techniques to prevent uprisings of a single clan. They didn't trust each other since they had fought each other numerous times for centuries, just like our Kilrathi.
And of course we know that some of the clans are specialized a bit. If the Emperor or someone else who happens to be in charge wants to have a certain thing done he might want to build a fleet for that special purpose out of troops from several clans. A "pro bowl" or "best of" fleet. If I am not mistaken we can assume that such fleets exist because of the known Kilrathi names which appear in the games. So mixing fleets is not a problem I guess.
But we also see it the other way round, I think. Hobbes' crew on the ship he commands are all of his clan, aren't they? I also think that something like "ships of the XXXX clan" appears more than once in the books.
That would also be a possibility for the language stuff Quarto posted in the other thread. Mixed operations and stuff may be the reason for a unified language and glyphs system, and the other ones we see in the games (or the movie) might be rarely seen because they belong to a certain clan.
Ehmm... I guess this posting is a bit chaotic, I also think I missed some stuff I wanted to say. I was writing it while doing a bunch of other stuff. Sorry.
Anyway, discuss!