Kinshaya

[Deranged Nasat]

I'm interested in learning more about the new Kinshaya; seeing as they're the only race of the six not to be explored in the upcoming "Typhon Pact" novels (well, I'm sure they'll feature but not to the extent of the others), I hope we eventually get a definitive Kinshaya story.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Personally, I'm hoping for a 'Klingon Empire' epic, showing the Klingon-Kinshaya conflict prior to Destiny. But then, I happen to think that our favorite Klingon crew has been a little too quiet lately, so I may be looking at this primarily as a chance to revisit the characters on the Gorkon.

 

[kkozoriz1]

So the Kinshaya are basically showing up at the Klingon's front door and asking if they've been saved and offering them the latest issue of Alien Watchtower? No wonder they went to war.

 

[SheliakBob]

Aw, crap. I had a moment of seriously piqued interest there....but I have too much personal history invested in the FASA version of the Kinshaya.
Griffin theologians?
I'm going to have to give this one a pass.
sorry.

 

[Christopher]

^Why not just treat them as a different species with a coincidentally homophonous name?

And I'd say they're more theocrats than "theologians." They're a pretty militant, dogmatic religious state, as I recall. Warrior priests or crusaders, not scholars.

 

[EmperorKalan]

Aw, crap. I had a moment of seriously piqued interest there....but I have too much personal history invested in the FASA version of the Kinshaya.
Griffin theologians?
I'm going to have to give this one a pass.
sorry.

Speaking of RPGs, my own impression of them is that they combined some of the elements of Traveller's K'Kree and Droyne.

I have no idea if KRAD has ever read any Traveller material or if the similar elements are just due to serendipity (or perhaps a common literary heritage), but it makes a nice (if possibly inadvertent) nod to John M. Ford, who was a relatively prolific contributor to Traveller.

 

[KRAD]

Speaking of RPGs, my own impression of them is that they combined some of the elements of Traveller's K'Kree and Droyne.

I have no idea if KRAD has ever read any Traveller material or if the similar elements are just due to serendipity (or perhaps a common literary heritage), but it makes a nice (if possibly inadvertent) nod to John M. Ford, who was a relatively prolific contributor to Traveller.

Not consciously. I haven't even thought about Traveller since I edited a novel based on the revival of the RPG in 1998....

 

[EmperorKalan]

Speaking of RPGs, my own impression of them is that they combined some of the elements of Traveller's K'Kree and Droyne.

Not consciously. I haven't even thought about Traveller since I edited a novel based on the revival of the RPG in 1998....

Oog...I remember that book: that would be the Gateway to the Stars, correct? The "First Traveller Novel" (even though there had been three based on the previous edition and its setting)?

IIRC, the actual story was ok, but it had a bad case of "author working off of very brief descriptions" or else "I reject your setting and substitute my own" (the latter not a crime for an RPG, especially one as broad-based as Traveller, but unusual for what was supposed to be a tie-in novel).

A lot of the details that provide verisimilitude and are supposed to draw you into the setting didn't mesh with what had been better established in the game materials (not only did it clash the Traveller setting from previous editions, it clashed with the new line it was supposed to be supporting). The Droyne and K'Kree were especially off in that book, so I guess it's just as well you weren't thinking about it.

But dang, now that I know about your connection, next time I come across it while rummaging through old boxes I'm inevitably going to ahve the urge to take another look at it.

 

[KRAD]

^ Yup, that's the one. We were provided with conflicting information and instructions by the people who owned the RPG and the guy who created it, and it was an absolute nightmare to put together. Pierce was a wonderful writer whom I loved working with, but working on that novel wasn't a particularly edifying experience for anyone involved.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Seems like they're Kinshaya in name only except for the ships. Why not create something new rather than changing an existing race (even if they were mostly from a RPG).

From what was posted it seems the kinshaya from trek lit are much more interesting than RPG kinshaya - these are, apparently, brutes that only know how to fight, automatons programmed for brutality that can't have a diverging/interesting thought if their life depended on it.

 

[kkozoriz1]

That's fine but again the question is why not create something new? From what I can see the only things unchanged are the name and the design of the ships. Don't forget that in many TOS novels, before TNG, the Klingons were depicted much as you say the Kinshaya are in FASA. The description of the Kinshaya in the Klingons supplement are written mostly from the perspective of the Klingons. It is, after all, written for Klingon player characters & GM's.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Why go to the trouble of creating an entire new race when you can play around with one that barely exists in the first place?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Considering the Kinshaya are defined by their struggles against the Klingons, it's kinda fitting they go though a similar metamorphosis to the one Klingons did between TOS and TNG.

 

[kkozoriz1]

That would be fine IF that's what had happened. The Federation knows very little about the Kinshaya and that is filtered through the Klingons view of them. Then, as there's contact directly between the two cultures the truth slowly reveals itself.

I don't see why it's necessary to change what has been our view of the Kinshaya without reason. And why the change in the apperance? The drawing in the Klingons RPG supplement was crude but it would have been interesting to see them fleshed out visually. Alas, they're now griffins.

 

[Christopher]

^I doubt very many readers of the novels are familiar with the games, so they wouldn't have had a "view of the Kinshaya" to begin with. Even aside from that, it's never been an obligation for one Trek tie-in work to hew slavishly to the conjectures of a different tie-in line. There are many prior cases of such contradictions, such as the novels taking the Andorians in a very different direction than a lot of RPGs have done, or for that matter canonical Trek itself defining the Klingons and Romulans very differently than John M. Ford and Diane Duane did. Or the way both the modern novels and canonical Trek contradicted the Tholian anatomy depicted in DC's TNG comics (and the very different Tholian anatomy described in the earlier novel Recovery). This is far from the first time one tie-in's conjecture about an alien race (and they are just conjectures, remember, not dogma) has been disregarded by a later tie-in or by canon. And most of those disregarded conjectures have been a hell of a lot less obscure than the FASA version of the Kinshaya. So it doesn't make much sense to react to this as if it were somehow unprecedented or required special justification. It's just a basic fact of Trek tie-in materials that they're only bound by canon, and consistency with other tie-ins is strictly optional.

And it isn't "without reason," as Keith explained. He didn't find the games' version of them to be suitable for what he had in mind for them.

Besides... is this the image you're talking about? That's hideous and vague. I like the gryphons better. They're refreshingly non-bipedal.

 

[Sci]

I don't see why it's necessary to change what has been our view of the Kinshaya without reason.

It's not necessary, but it's what he chose to do.

Because, really, and I don't mean this as an insult -- but no one else cares. So why not do his own thing, since the number of people who would really care about such a change is so low?

 

[kkozoriz1]

I don't see why it's necessary to change what has been our view of the Kinshaya without reason.

It's not necessary, but it's what he chose to do.

Because, really, and I don't mean this as an insult -- but no one else cares. So why not do his own thing, since the number of people who would really care about such a change is so low?

No insult taken. It does appear that I'm a minority of one on this.

I bow to the will of the majority.

 

[captcalhoun]

you will be assimilated

 

[F. King Daniel]

I don't see why it's necessary to change what has been our view of the Kinshaya without reason.

It's not necessary, but it's what he chose to do.

Because, really, and I don't mean this as an insult -- but no one else cares. So why not do his own thing, since the number of people who would really care about such a change is so low?

No insult taken. It does appear that I'm a minority of one on this.

I bow to the will of the majority.

You're not quite the only one. Although I enjoy the stuff authors come up with, I sometimes wish they'd use FASA backstories for many species and worlds. Not because those are better, just because they were first. Someone had gone to great effort to create them and it's seems a waste to ignore it.

I remember reading Christopher's Orion's Hounds, and during a messy mess hall scene thinking "...but...Caitians...are...vegetarians!"

 

[Christopher]

^Caitians are felinoids, so it stands to reason that they must be obligate carnivores. The feline anatomy is a set of adaptations for predation. For instance, whiskers exist to give a cat tactile feedback enabling it to target its bite precisely on a victim's neck, since it's too close to gauge by sight. The shape of the muzzle is the result of having jaws adapted to bite with killing force. The large, forward-facing eyes give stereoscopic vision for accurate distance gauging, an adaptation only needed for predators and brachiators, and images of M'Ress from TAS suggest that Caitian fingers are too stubby to be adapted for brachiation. The shape of the hind legs and feet is to enable them to leap and pounce with great force and speed. And so on. So any species with those anatomical features is bound to be a carnivore by nature. (Also, if we go by the Trek convention that life on other worlds evolves on parallel paths, then it follows that a species appearing felinoid in most every respect would also have felinoid behavior and nutritional requirements.)

And while an omnivorous species like humans or Vulcans could adapt to a vegetarian diet, an obligate carnivore like a feline literally couldn't survive without meat, and its instincts would fundamentally revolve around predatory behavior.