Kilrathi gender questions

Aginor

Vice Admiral
Here's another thread from me:

What do we know about the anatomy and other differences between the two genders of the Kilrathi?

IIRC we don't see many female Kilrathi. I think I remember two:

- Some painting or engraving seen in the intro video of Prophecy
- The Kilrathi priestess on Firekka

EDIT: There was a female in one of the Academy Episodes, too.

EDIT2: And I also like the one NinjaLA painted some time ago.


And here are some thoughts about it:

- There are hints that the female Kilrathi are much weaker (and maybe smaller) than the males, just like the human women. This theory is especially circumstantiated by the fact that we don't see any females that are warriors.

- We know that only females can be priests, though. So they seem to be of great religious importance. Why? Just a cult about females like we know of some stone-age cultures? (It came from the "mystery" of birth). Maybe that is the fact, because the Kilrathi culture looks very primitive in some things (although it isn't, prbably). At least they LOOK LIKE some kind of hunter-gatherer culture.

- Maybe the other females (those which are not priests) are just "birthing machines", like the females of some races in other sci-fi and fantasy-stories.

- Do Kilrathi marry? Do they mate for life? Is it the female who chooses or is it the male? Do they live monogamic or polygamic?

- Do the female Kilrathi raise the children? Or maybe they raise just the female children, and the males take the male ones with them as soon as they are able to live without their mothers?
 
Women are very important in Kilrathi society, not only do they run the religion but also parts of the administration, IIRC.

We also see a Kilrathi woman (I presume) in the CCG: "Sivar's blessing".

Also, in WCATV we see Thrakhath's sister Zukara (?) being a fighter pilot (though that might be because of her special status) and she does not look exactly feeble. Smaller than the male ones but definately stronger than a human.

Also, when reading the first few pages of Freedom Flight and Ralgha's thoughts and conversation with Hassa (a woman is one of the leaders of the rebellion!), it seems that the women are not looked down, that they do seem to mate for life (in VoW is also a passage that emphasizes that) and care for the children (in another novel, FA I believe, it's said that the women cry in their pillows because of their lost children).

But we also know that Thrakhath had multiple concubines and was not too happy to have only a feeble daughter as offspring.
On the other hand, the Emperor brought his mother to safety from Vukar Tag.
 
Wasn't there also the part where a confed pilot was offered a Kilrathi Female as kind of a gift for the time he was onboard of the Kilrathi ship.
I realy can't remeber who or where it was.
 
hmm... Maybe the fact that they are the ones who give birth to children is the reason why they stay at home, and it is not because they are weak. It is just clever to keep them at home, in order to prevent the race from dying out.
 
Space point!

The implication has always been that Kilrathi females are the silent power in how Kilrathi society - they run both elements of the political system *and* they have (or had, until Thrakhath) complete control over the church. Because of how the Cult of Sivar works this means that they have a complete check over the working of the military - which is about as powerful as you can get in a warrior race. The priesthood can (and does) control where the military fights and who it follows.

We rarely give Thrakhath credit, but it was a stroke of political genius to maneuver his sister into power with the priesthood... which allowed him not only greater control over the military, but to reform the clan system to give the Emperor much more power.
 
Adding on to LOAF's input:

The Kilrathi females are basically the architects of Kilrathi unity and preservation - using their religious status, they direct the race's overactive sense of aggression outward - towards other races - using the Cult of Sivar (The sivar eshrad is a good example of this in action). This keeps them all from slaughtering eachother, and repeating their even more violent history.
 
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