Who's in charge? - Kilrathi military and clans

Interesting notion - I'm trying to remember where I've seen it, but I remember reading that Hhallas is part of nar Raghitigha. Would be interesting if A) that were indeed the case and B) Ralgha could've conceivably ascended to the throne of Kilrah.

You also saw the Emperor at Kabla Meth. That's actually in Tr'L Rass Quadrant of Epsilon Sector, but it is a single jump from Ayer's in Deneb.

I still think that the Cats would be longer lived - there is only so much experience and educmucation you can gain in a short time span, and it's never mentioned anywhere that the Kilrathi have a superior ability to learn compared to Terrans. Indeed, most of the focus has been on their physical prowess.
 
capi3101 said:
Interesting notion - I'm trying to remember where I've seen it, but I remember reading that Hhallas is part of nar Raghitigha. Would be interesting if A) that were indeed the case and B) Ralgha could've conceivably ascended to the throne of Kilrah.
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I believe that's correct. I forget if that's in Freedom Flight or The Heart of the Tiger.

I really should go back and look this up to be sure, but there are 8 clans overall, I think. Each of the clans than has smaller subsets and so on.
 
I've seen several sources that say there are eight Great Clans, and that all Kilrathi pay due deference to at least one of them, regardless of their station. Even Kilrah'hra.

I got more to say on Ralgha, but I'm on my phone right now and I fat-finger every other word. Going to wait until I'm home.
 
Ok, let's get into the clan thing as well, while we're here.
The eight great clans are
- Kiranka
- Ki'ra
- Caxki
- Qarg
- Ragitagha
- Sutaghi
- Kurutak (also spelled Kur'u'tak)
- Sihkag

I also think that all Kilra'hra (commoners) belong to a clan, most certainly their local clan. That's because nobility makes no sense if there are no commoners assigned to the nobles. It's also safe to assume that most soldiers - I would even say most pilots - are commoners.
I think that you would notice it in their names (no 'nar' or something), but since it could also be possible that the 'nar' works like the German word 'von' in earlier times (and still in some southern German dialects). In those cases the word can either mean membership in a noble family, like in 'Otto von Bismarck', which is exactly like 'Thrakhath nar Kiranka', or it can mean from a certain place, like a village. I think it is the same with the Japanese particle-thingie 'no'. My Japanese is really bad but IIRC it is common if you call from Germany to say "Doitsu no Hans desu" meaning something like "This is Hans calling from Germany" (Doitsu is Germany, the 'no' means from in that context).
Whatever. What I'm trying to say is that it is possibly that even commoners might have a 'nar' in their names. I prefer the other version though, since it is also sort of supported by the books. We don't have many commoners in the books, actually I recall only one with a name at the moment, Jahkai. He doesn't have a 'nar'. EDIT: I forgot Dawx Jhorrad. He also lacks the 'nar' and is a confirmed commoner.
So commoners might not have their clans in their names, but for me it is certain that there is one clan (maybe more clans if you support the sub-clan theory) they owe fealty to.

Back to the clans: LOAF once made a list of words that come after 'nar' once in a book or game, and which might either be names of clans, or names of places, or both. I can't find it at the moment, but it is here in the forums archives, I'm sure.
EDIT: Now I found it, in this thread: https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/kilrathi-clans.4039/

As for the maturity thing:
Interesting ideas here! Maybe Kilrathi are mature (in a biological sense) by the age of 4, so you can give them a laser rifle and use them as marines or so, but in order to have them fly fighters or for other complex tasks you have to give them further education, say, at least a few months more.
If they are nobles they might command ships at the age of 6 or so (like a 12-year old lord on a British ship during earlier centuries), but pilots may be a bit older. Ok, modern space fighters might not be as hard to fly as an F-16 jet, rather like a WW2 plane. And we know that could be learned in a dew months. (not great pilots, yeah, but those were sent to war back in the days).
As for having children: While the "pater familias" is still fertile they might not be allowed to reproduce, even though they might be able to, or the definition of being mature is different from the biological one, just like it is in most countries on Earth. Humans are able to reproduce at age 13-14 somewhere, but normally aren't encouraged or allowed to until they are 18-21.
 
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As for the whole nar thing, I should mention Najji "Fireclaw" Raghitagha, a Darket ace. Here we likely have a Thrak'hra who, for whatever reason, does not utilize the nar honorific though that's clearly a clan name (one of the Great Clans, no less). Incidents like that are probably what saddled us with that unexplained seven honorific system we wound up with in False Colors.

I don't know if the serfs would actually "belong" to the clan or not. It's likely that they are "loyal" to the clan leader upon whose land they live, and in that sense they are "members" of the clan. I'll have to look up my history on Japanese feudalism.
 
Hmmm.... really? Who said Fireclaw is noble? Perhaps the nobles have the nar and the Kilra'hra don't, but still can use the clan name as some sort of last name, saying "Najji, the one who belongs to Ragitagha" instead of "Najji, member of Ragitagha"

I wish Forstchen would have explained the lak and lan and dak and dai stuff better :(
 
Aginor said:
I wish Forstchen would have explained the lak and lan and dak and dai stuff better :(
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Ehhhh, be glad he didn't. Considering that he couldn't even remember character names and the like.

It would have been nice for Andrew Keith to explain/expand that stuff.
 
Dundradal said:
Considering that he couldn't even remember character names and the like.
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I know what you mean. Ralgha nar "Hhalles", twice in False Colors......why didn't he just take a rusty nail down a chalkboard; it would've been kinder to the fanbase.
Then there's Turner vs. Bainbridge; that was a fun one to have to explain for WCRPG...
 
False Colors was almost all Andrew. Forstchen did the outline, if I'm remembering it correctly.

LOAF also helped edit that one a bit too ;)
 
Aginor said:
As for having children: While the "pater familias" is still fertile they might not be allowed to reproduce, even though they might be able to, or the definition of being mature is different from the biological one, just like it is in most countries on Earth. Humans are able to reproduce at age 13-14 somewhere, but normally aren't encouraged or allowed to until they are 18-21.
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There are actually many societies in our history where a young man had to prove himself worthy in order to marry, and this was restricted based on his age. This was especially prevalent amongst tribal societies. In some tribes with headhunting traditions, for instance, the young man would actually have to bring a trophy head to the father of the girl he was after. This would have simply been a part of the rites of passage - obviously, you have to be an adult to marry, and you need to be admitted into adulthood first. A really remarkable case was a particular Australian Aboriginal tribe, where a young man was only considered an adult after having (amongst other things) fashioned a stone axe. When this tribe established trade with the European settlers, disaster ensued - for at least several years, the young men would not bother making axes, because they could get the far superior steel axes from the Europeans... but the tribal elders refused to recognise them as adults and permit them to marry. I'm barely recalling the details from a class I took ten years ago, so I don't know how the situation was ultimately resolved. It goes without saying, having children outside of marriage in these societies, though it certainly did happen, was extremely frowned upon.

And finally, the most obvious example - Spartans. Young warriors, already adults, were required to live communally in the barracks, and IIRC, they didn't marry until they were actually ordered to. Marriage was a privilege to earn, like a medal.

So, what I'm getting at is that reproductive age, and the age of actually being allowed to have children - they're not the same thing :). We can easily imagine the Kilrathi having first to prove themselves in battle to be able to marry. In the case of Kilrathi nobles, we can also imagine something else that happened regularly in our own history - arranged marriages with a significant age difference, where the bride is actually a child, a baby, or has not even been conceived yet (i.e., two families would agree that should Family A have a daughter, she would marry Family B's already-born son). In such cases, even though a young noble potentially could marry as early as sixteen (in some places, earlier), he may have to wait until his twenties, because his bride-to-be is still wearing diapers. This clearly translates well to the Kilrathi - I mean, can we even imagine Prince Thrakhath being permitted to freely choose his wife(s)?
 
I didn't want to go that much into detail with real world examples, because - as you keep reminding me sometimes and you are right - Kilrathi are not humans. But yeah, that was exactly the thing I was trying to say. :)

As for Thrakhath: I don't know. Maybe. He seems to have quite a bit of freedom, given the fact that he isn't Emperor yet. I still believe you are right. Marriage - not to be confused with f***ing around which Thrakhath seems to do quite often, according to Ralgha's nose IIRC (yay for cat smell!!!) - is an important thing for heritage. I even think it is somewhat strange that he doesn't have a son we know of, I mean he is at least 35 years old in WC3. At that age Gilkarg had already at least three children.

EDIT: Waitwaitwait.... Isn't it somewhere implied that Thrakhath can't have children, because of some... ehm... medical condition?
 
Aginor said:
EDIT: Waitwaitwait.... Isn't it somewhere implied that Thrakhath can't have children, because of some... ehm... medical condition?
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Actually, page 152 of Fleet Action has this:

He (Thrakhath) was now the only heir, and not one son had been born to him, a sickly daughter his only surviving offspring from a single litter, and that from a lowly concubine of the second order. It was a humiliation almost beyond bearing. He should have sired dozens of offspring by now. He felt a deep and lasting shame. War was the only outlet left to him to vent his rage over his failure on the mating couch.

It goes on to mention how there were many cousins along the Emperor's sister bloodline with claim strong enough to provoke a blood feud over the throne. Thrakhath's continued power grab may be a pipe dream with no heir. Even if Blair hadn't dropped the Temblor Bomb, and Joor'rad was on the out, with the heir having no heir himself, the war may be his only means to earn favor among the Imperial Court.

Sounds more like ol'Thrak needs some Viagra. Excuse to preserve the human race? Perhaps.
 
I've been following this conversation since my last post. Have to say, I'm really confused, but it is an interesting read. I think I'll have to go back to the start and re-read it. So long as capi doesn't start writing in Kilrathi I might get a basic understanding of this. ;)
 
Ni'is alkin r'ikh k'la... ;):confused::cool::p:D:eek:

Fair question - am I annoying anybody with any of that stuff? Because I'll stop if that's the case...

and now back to the conversation.
 
I'd like to bring up another topic (as if this thread wasn't complex enough already, I know :D) since Whistler provided us with such a nice quote. If you look at it you'll get some facts which are interesting, even though they are not very surprising. Let's list them and see if we can derive something more about the Kilrathi culture from there:
1. Thrakhath has several concubines
2. the concubines are ordered in some way
3. they don't kill sickly children it seems
4. Kilrathi have litters of children, meaning probably more than two at a time is common if I understand that correctly
5. mating couches.... hmmm....

So... are Kilrathi monogamous or polygamous? Maybe both, depending on social status and so on? Do we know more about that?
I think they can have up to six kittens in a litter. Otherwise the six-cup bra the Sivar priestess wears would not exist I guess.
What does a mating couch look like?

Soo many questions :D

OT:
And actually I'd love to contribute something to the language stuff as well, but I need to find the time to read through all your stuff. I have a few ideas already though.
One is a possible word for the mating couch: vrax'lana
I took the vrax from the word for the brothel, vraxdai, which could be something like "mating house" If I understand correctly, and added "lan-a" for "place somebody does (or masters) something", like in your possible translation for ulanna. Although I don't know if I agree with the assumption that the "ul" part is for sleeping or resting. IIRC Kilrathi like sleeping on the floor, not on trees. I would rather assume that this particular "ul" part is derived from either the word for vista, or something related to sitting somewhere high and/or watching. Something along those lines. Maybe they shortened it from something longer.

Anyway, going to sleep now. Will think of some more weird ideas about Kilrahti culture to discuss here. :D
 
Language:
Actually, I got ul = "rest" from the ulanna tree, under whose shade hunters would rest after a successful hunt (originally from the CCG if I'm not mistaken).
I've taken vrax to be a corrupted form of vrash = "to mate"; vrax comes from the curse vraxar used by Murragh (IIRC) in False Colors. Take a guess as to which curse word I've equated it to. Vrashlan wouldn't be too bad of a translation, though perhaps lanvorkma'gavrash (lit. "bench of mating") would be better (I have yet to type up the section on nounal modifiers). A vraxlan would be for something much, much different. We can talk more of language over on the thread if you wish; it is pretty much just my own interpretation of things.

Culturally:
The best clue we have to Kilrathi culture is the culture of Japan during the Sengoku and Tokugawa Periods. During that period, it was culturally acceptable for men - even expected - to occasionally go and visit brothels. They did still have wives, which were for managing the household and child-rearing; the prostitutes were for "entertainment" (geisha were something else - entertainers, but not that kind of entertainment). I think some members of the kuge and buke castes (buke doesn't sound right - I'd say bonge but I know that's wrong) did keep concubines as well. Long story short - probably monogamous, but allowed to have fun on the side. That's my guess.

As for the topic of Kilrathi lingerie, I'd suspect that they would have multiple cub births, or at least they did at one point or another. If they are down to single births, the six is probably an evolutionary holdover.
 
On having different "orders" of concubines, I can see the nobility distinguishing between mistresses of high birth (i.e. ones who could have hypothetically married the male in question if he did not already have his full quota of allowed wives, and whose offspring by him could either be made legitimate or have their illegitimacy overlooked), and mistresses of low birth (whose offspring are always illegitimate). Thus, children via a "first-order" concubine might be considered as heirs in the absence of fully legitimate heirs born to a wife, but children via a "second-order" concubine would almost never be allowed to inherit the father's titles and status even if there were none ahead of them in line.
 
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