Is this reptilian race realistic?
Well, I have been having computer problems and I decided that now is as good a time as ever to continue to waste my time developing my reptilian, honor-obsessed militaristic race of lizards for a planned Stellaris AAR.
Here is a description of them for the first draft of my planned four part preluide series:
<-- Drash Karr Basic Information -->
Overview: The Drash Karr are a warrior race hailing from the moon Karr orbiting the Gas Giant named Bid' Jossk in the Dec' Haran System, though their people are actually divided into many different castes. Their name literally translates into English "The Children of Karr". Each caste accomplishes a very specific task, though the broader castes are divided into many smaller sub-castes. For example, the Warrior Caste is divided into the Grunt caste, the Mecha caste, and the Naval caste. Each of those is further subdivided until every specific niche required to keep an army functioning is filled.
Planet: Bid' Jossk actually orbits towards the inner edge of the habitable zone of its star, and some would argue that it is actually too close to its star to support life, however the rapid orbit of the moon combined with its rotation means that a day is only six hours, half in the light, half in the dark. The surface is primarily composed of desert, mesas, and mountains, though there are a dozen or so small seas. The depressions surrounding the seas and the heavy cloud cover on the northern hemisphere combined with fossilized aquatic animals indicate that at one time, many millions of years ago, a much larger percentage of the surface was covered in water. Perhaps the moons' parent planet once had a more favorable orbit, but moved in closer to its star, but this would have been long before the Drash Karr had even started to evolve.
Culture: Drash Karr culture stresses The Challenge, or the challenges one will face throughout his or her life. The Challenge is different for each caste as well as each individual Drash Karr, basically providing that for one to do ones' best in all things would bring both the individual and the greater whole more honor.
This is an amazing system because it blends perfectly a sense of individualism by encouraging one to strive to achieve ever greater amounts of honor and acclaim while maximizing the sense of being part of a greater whole for each individual. They defend their home worlds with wild ferocity, and will not suffer foreign overlords defiling their homes. Aside from this one quirk, they are actually extremely tolerant for an interstellar empire, allowing conquered races, no matter how primitive they were before, to rise through the ranks and attain great glory and respect in their society, even to the point of the most trusted, honorable, and talented Xenos to command their great fleets and armies.
Females, unlike in many human cultures, are treated with the utmost reverence and respect, as they bring life to the entirety of the Drash Karr and are physically completely equal to males.
Warriors prefer single-combat and will tear a scale from their body, usually the back, and pin it to their armor upon defeating a foe in single combat. While the Drash Karr are willing and able to use more advanced weaponry such as the feared Orbital Drop Mechas and Tanks, or even basic projectile weapons, they prefer to close the distance to an enemy and use either their short or long swords to duel.
Religion: The Drash Karr have no single religion, per se, but throughout the many millennia of recorded Drash Karr history they have worshiped many gods. Even now, they follow their Protector, and treat him or her with near god-like reverence and respect. Before they followed the Protector, nearly all Drash Karr worshiped their homeworld of Karr as a god.
Biology: The Drash Karr are a large, bipedal species. They are covered in strong scales of varying color. These scales, when combined with the bulletproof silk suits worn under their heavy metal armor, can stop projectile weapons from causing any real harm. Their only known physical vulnerabilities are their eye and mouth openings as their metallic helmets open up to allow them to breathe and see.
Their home planet is covered in mesas and large open deserts with the occasional mountain, and their scales turn pure white when their bodies begin to overheat.
Their mouth is divided into three mandibles. They used to serve the purpose of hunting back when the Drash Karr were primitive animals, but since then have served little purpose other than to inspire terror in their enemies (and quite effectively at that, considering that they are covered in hundreds of small incisors. The Drash Karr possess specialized organs in their stomachs to grind up meat into a digestible form.
Members of the Drash Karr species communicate with each other using special organs in their throats that can produce more complex sounds than a human can. As a result, the first languages of the Drash Karr were a complex combination of sounds. In the end, as the Drash Karr created and adopted a simpler language as their interstellar Empire expanded and incorporated more and more races.
When their bodies begin to overheat, their scales turn a shade of white to deflect the sun and their scales open up to allow the wind to cool their skin off. They do sweat to some degree under their scales
Breeding: Drash Karr breed in much the same way as most other species. After sexual intercourse, the two Drash Karr are bound to each other for life by unique chemical and physical reactions to the sensations. The female will then lay anywhere from 10 to 20 eggs that develop into Drash Karr infants in two Earth-years. Only half of the eggs will hatch, however, and rarely does more than 1 survive their first five great cycles of training and schooling.
Size:
The Drash Karr can easily reach heights in excess of 7 feet, and some have been known to reach up to ten feet. Their bodies are somewhat aerodynamically designed in form to help them reach maximum speed. Their average strength is double that of the average human, but can in rare cases be triple. Unfortunately, the societal selection process used by the Drash Karr, many years of hard training, that has caused their race to develop such strength, has a high fatality rate and when combined with the low hatching rate of the Drash Karr eggs. In most cases, only 1 or 2 Drash Karr children survive the training, the strongest, fastest, and smartest of their species. This low survival rate is offset by the fact that Drash Karr women can have up to two broods of eggs a year, one in the celestial spring and the other in celestial fall, meaning 1-2 new children per year.
Conquest Policy: First Contact Protocol was dictated by the actions of Protector Oberon, the War-Chief that united his homeworld and brought the Drash' Karr Empire onto the interstellar stage. From his personal journals;
"In the event of contact with an alien race, overwhelming force must be used to ensure the security of our species. The aliens will be given the chance to prepare for the coming battles equivalent to 1 great cycle. After the grace period expires, our entire fleet will mobilize to meet the enemy. Any encroachment in our space during this time will immediately end the grace period. Our armies will be brought to their worlds to do battle in their cities while our fleets engage in space."
"Every attempt to meet them on equal ground must be made. To seek a decisive technological advantage in combat would bring dishonor to the Drash' Karr Empire and would be a punishable offense. Punishment will be left to the discretion of the reigning Protector."
"The one exception to this rule, however, is if the security and survival of the state as a whole is in danger. In the event of contact with a race that desires our destruction, appropriate force will be applied. All technological innovations will be leveraged."
Time: Time is measured in Great Cycles, Cycles, hours, and minutes. Minutes and hours are roughly measured in the same way they are on Earth. A "Cycle" is the time it takes the moon of Karr, their homeworld, to orbit its parent planet. A Great Cycle is the time it takes its parent planet to orbit its Star. Its parent star itself is a Type F Star, shining with a blue color.
Technology:
Technology has steadily progressed, and the Drash Karr are very capable of designing terrifying weapons of mass destruction, but have agreed across the board that such an action would be horrendously dishonorable and any nation that attempted to do that was easily swatted down and destroyed by the combined military might of the rest of Karr.
<--End Description-->
I am looking for inconsistencies as well as any and all input on the verisimilitude(is that a word?) of my scenario. I am planning on asking some more questions, such as where the habitable zone for such a star would begin, where it would end, as well as designing the warbeasts the Drash Karr will ride into battle on, but those are questions for another day.
Karr's parent gas giant, Bid'Jossk, is slightly larger in both circumference and mass than Saturn.
EDIT To clarify, I am looking for cultural and biological quirks that I might not have noticed, as I am not too confident in my ability to be accurate and not overly extravagant.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/45820. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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