What do the Tzenkethi look like?
Tzenkethi
- Thread starter HOoftheKinshaya
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We don't know, they haven't been revealed to us yet. 
I'm assuming the upcoming "The Rough Beasts of Empire" will reveal all, though.
I'm assuming the upcoming "The Rough Beasts of Empire" will reveal all, though.
^ Maybe not all, but some. Er...maybe more than just some.
And not to be too picky, but the novel is entitled Rough Beasts of Empire.
And not to be too picky, but the novel is entitled Rough Beasts of Empire.
It's been something of a running gag to date that the Tzenkethi are a powerful political force, but we the audience have not once seen them.
The guesses about their appearances range from feline-like to Robert Hewitt Wolfe's vision of them being 'heavily armored lizard-like things.' But since they haven't actually appeared, the writers are free to do whatever they want (and, with the Gorn already a part of the Typhon Pact, personally, I'm hoping against the lizard thing option, just for some variety).
The guesses about their appearances range from feline-like to Robert Hewitt Wolfe's vision of them being 'heavily armored lizard-like things.' But since they haven't actually appeared, the writers are free to do whatever they want (and, with the Gorn already a part of the Typhon Pact, personally, I'm hoping against the lizard thing option, just for some variety).
Not long after the term turned up canonically, some fans started drawing felinoid interpretations of this race. But...
From:
http://andorfiles.blogspot.com/2009/10/part-2-toon-trek.html
Although we never see representatives of the Tzenkethi Coalition ("DS9: The Adversary", TV), some fans (wrongly) assume that this now-alligned race, with whom the Federation fought two wars ("DS9: Paradise Lost", TV), was intended to be the Kzinti of TAS (and Larry Niven SF), due to the near-anagram of the name.
A Tzenkethi settlement is located on M'kemas III ("DS9: The Adversary", TV). Garek claims to have been a spy on Tzenketh ("DS9: By Inferno's Light", TV). Tzenkethi male described as a "feliform" biped ("DS9: Infinite Bureaucracy", SS, in "Strange New Worlds VII").
In 2006, the screenwriter Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who coined the term "Tzenkethi" for DS9 recalled, "I basically made them up. And yeah, I named them. But I can't remember if I was making a purposeful homage to Niven or not. If I had to guess, I suspect I did my usual and combined a couple things. Probably Kzinti and Tsankth. But when I picture them in my head, they weren't big cat people. I thought of them as more like the Hakazit."
(The Tsankth are from "RuneQuest" and "HeroQuest", RPG. The Hakazit are from Jack L Chalker's "Well World" novels, and are described inconsistently as either: three-metre tall Tyrannosaurus Rexes with powerfully strong arms; or large mosquitoes.)
There is also no connection between the Xindi ("Star Trek: Enterprise", TV) and the Kzinti, despite both fighting wars with Earth.
Which would be S.O.P for powerful political movers — think Dominion Founders.
And that ^ would make them a cross between a lizard and a cat — if Garak was going to have any hope of blending in.
Is there a process you had to work through with Paramount in establishing what they look like and what their cultures is about? I guess its unusual that they are a cannon race in that they appeared during the DS9 series even though it was in name only. I am wondering if they gave input or their design was subject to their review and approval in this kind of situation.
Well, first off, CBS owns Trek now; Paramount only has the feature film license. Second, CBS wouldn't care about a detail like the appearance of some minor race mentioned in passing in a few DS9 episodes. As a rule, they leave the creative work to the writers; they don't dictate our stories to us. As long as we don't contradict what's already been established onscreen, we're usually free to do what we want. They certainly wouldn't change that policy for this, considering that the odds of ever seeing the Tzenkethi on screen are negligible.
Thanks, I wondered how it worked. I guess though, they would edit, if something used in a novel that was likely to be used on screen was radically altered like Klingons? Or do they consider onscreen and the trek literature entirely separate?
^Every book has to be consistent with what's onscreen at the time of its publication. Any inconsistencies would ideally be fixed in outline stage, so it wouldn't need to be fixed in editing, though there's always the possibility that new information could come along onscreen after a manuscript is written (e.g. Surak's Soul had to be revised before publication to incorporate new information about T'Pol's backstory from "The Seventh"). But since the books are merely conjectural and not binding on screen canon, the makers of new episodes or films are free to contradict pre-existing books.
But CBS doesn't directly edit the books any more than they directly dictate their content. Pocket publishes the books, and the editors working for Pocket edit the books. But they answer to CBS Licensing, which must approve their decisions and can request changes.
After all, the folks in Licensing have a full-time job handling the licensing of CBS properties. Why would they come up with the ideas or do the editing themselves when they're already paying writers and editors to do those jobs?
But CBS doesn't directly edit the books any more than they directly dictate their content. Pocket publishes the books, and the editors working for Pocket edit the books. But they answer to CBS Licensing, which must approve their decisions and can request changes.
After all, the folks in Licensing have a full-time job handling the licensing of CBS properties. Why would they come up with the ideas or do the editing themselves when they're already paying writers and editors to do those jobs?
this just in; JJ to use Tzenkethi as enemies in next Trek movie!
As with all literary Star Trek, the outline for my novel--in which I initially described the Tzenkethi--had to be approved by CBS, and then the novel itself had to be approved by both Pocket Books and CBS.
^Are you sure you were looking at Crucible: McCoy instead of Crucible: Kirk? The McCoy volume is 627 pages of small print, while Spock is only 390 pages of medium-sized print and Kirk is only 294 pages of slightly larger print. Misson Gamma: Twilight is 504 pages of print close to McCoy in size. If anything, I'd say Crucible: McCoy is DRGIII's longest novel to date.
Oh, okay. I thought JD's statement was in response to your second sentence rather than your first, due to proximity.
Well, it's still longer than Crucible: Kirk's page count, although of course we can't be sure without knowing the font size.
Well, it's still longer than Crucible: Kirk's page count, although of course we can't be sure without knowing the font size.
Don't have a final number yet, but Provenance of Shadows remains my longest work. The page count for Rough Beasts provided on Simon & Schuster's website is not even an estimate, but merely a placeholder.
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Yeah, I meant Beasts. And I was going by the page count for C:K from Memory Beta, which says 320.
this just in; JJ to use Tzenkethi as enemies in next Trek movie!
I know you probably meant that to be tongue-in-cheek, but that might not actually be too bad. The Kzin were actually going to be brought back if Enterprise saw a 5th season (based on the concept CG model being made for a Kzin vessel). Wouldn't be too much of a stretch to make it happen in NuTrek. The CGI budget they would throw at the project would doubtless make them look very realistic and something very different from the tired Klingon/Romulan story lines.
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