Kilrathi Questions

frostytheplebe

Seventh Part of the Seal
I've got a couple that have been bugging me for a while.

1. By Wing Commander 3 I got the impression that the Kilrathi wanted to end the war quickly. I don't know why but there seemed to be some urgency about them. Did they know something about the Nephilum coming that they needed to defeat Confed quickly?

2. Sivar's Prophecy does anyone think that Thrakath or one of the other Kilrathi predicted Blair to be the one who "Who has the heart of the tiger, but Ii not Kilrathi Born." When they saw Blair's achievements.

3. If the Kilrathi live and die by the hierarchy of the Empire, do we know of any Mass-suicide following Kilrah's destruction?
 
IIRC from Fleet Action, the Emperor was getting really old and upon his death, a civil war was a distinct possibility mostly against Thrakhath. Also, most of the empire was not that closely tied to the empire that there would be mass suicide. In fact, most of the Kilrathi clan leaders favored the Emperor for their own personal advancement. The society was not much different from a monarchy with the king playing favorites to various nobles to engender contention amongst the nobles, so they don't all rise up against him.

I hope I explained that clear enough.
 
It is mentioned several times in the books (Action stations and Fleet action most notably) that the Kilrathi are aware of a Strong and powerful force moving their way from the centre of the galaxy, which is on the opposide side of their empire to which the Confederation sit.
I always guessed that t hese were the Nephilim, though it is possible it is someone else. They also mention another species that they had a short war with who could strike at any time, but I forget their name.
The focre moving from the centre of the galaxy are what spurs them to try and end the Terran war as quickly as possible, so much so that the loss of the mega carriers in the Battle of Terra is seen as a crushing blow as the Kilrathi wanted the bulk of them to return to be ready to face this new threat.
 
I think that the race the Kilrathi are worried about were the Mantu or something like that.

I'm not sure about the prophecy, but Thrakath refered to Blair as the Heart of the Tiger, so probably he knew he was the one mentioned in the prophecy or at least suspected it was him.

I think I read somewhere in the timeline of WC that the kilrathi did some kind of mass suicide between WC3 and WC4, but not sure what was the reason for it.
 
Yes, there was a mass suicide. You can read about it in Star*Soldier, the Arena manual. It was, apparently, pretty major - possibly, most of the Kilrathi war-era casualties are actually the post-war suicide.
 
My cat always feels bad weather and bad people, she never tried to commit suicide though.
1. By Wing Commander 3 I got the impression that the Kilrathi wanted to end the war quickly. I don't know why but there seemed to be some urgency about them. Did they know something about the Nephilum coming that they needed to defeat Confed quickly?
They were probably (also(!))running out of recources and were realizing they were up against an equal foe, to end the battle quickly would minimize their losses.

2. Sivar's Prophecy does anyone think that Thrakath or one of the other Kilrathi predicted Blair to be the one who "Who has the heart of the tiger, but Ii not Kilrathi Born." When they saw Blair's achievements.
He IS the designated "heart of the tiger", according to them.

3. If the Kilrathi live and die by the hierarchy of the Empire, do we know of any Mass-suicide following Kilrah's destruction?
The novels describe this.
 
Yes, there was a mass suicide. You can read about it in Star*Soldier, the Arena manual. It was, apparently, pretty major - possibly, most of the Kilrathi war-era casualties are actually the post-war suicide.

That does not surprise me at all.
 
On the theme of Kilrathi in general.

WCATV has a backstory that many people seem to be missing, a story about Thrakath (with the help of his sister, the pristess) trying to force clans under the more direct controll of the Imperial Family. Personally I belive it gives us a great insight of how the Empire work. We see some Kilrathi strongly oposing to this move, with tha whatshisname Kil even alling himself with Blair against Thrakath.

If I'm allowed some valid (IMHO) speculation, I'd say it may be similar situation in Ghorah Khar (Didn't read the novels though they may give differen't explanation). The few Kilrathi systems didn't ally themself with humans because they loved Peace and Confed - instead they saw them as strongest ally against Kilranka Clan domination.

As for "destroy that Hierarchy - and you destroy them". I don't think Palladin and his man counted on surrender and following wave of Suicides. insted I think they belived that after destruction of Kilrath AND death of Emperor many Clans will see Kiranka (what's the proper spelling BTW?) weak and dishonoured, and would challange Thrakath, throwing Empire into massive Civil War.
 
1. By Wing Commander 3 I got the impression that the Kilrathi wanted to end the war quickly. I don't know why but there seemed to be some urgency about them. Did they know something about the Nephilum coming that they needed to defeat Confed quickly?

Several reasons are given in the introduction to the Wing Commander III novelization:

- The war has bankrupted the Imperial clan.

- There are reports that the Mantu are again imposing on the Kilrathi border; Thrakhath wanted to end the war so he could focus on that next challenge (in reality, the Mantu were not a threat... but the Kilrathi didn't see them this way).

- The war had twisted Kilrathi alliances against the Kiranka and had an impact on court politics. Assassination attempts, an entirely human concept, had occured against the Emperor and the Prince.

- The Emperor is on his way out; he wants to celebrate the Sivar on Earth... and Thrakhath needs to win the war in order to be accepted as the new leader.

2. Sivar's Prophecy does anyone think that Thrakath or one of the other Kilrathi predicted Blair to be the one who "Who has the heart of the tiger, but Ii not Kilrathi Born." When they saw Blair's achievements.

Sure, with your new leading version of the quote. :) The actual Prophecy intro says "one who has the heart of a *Kilrathi* but is not Kilrathi born".

While I like the suggestion, that the 'lower caste' assigned Blair the nickname (Thrakhath claims) because they believe him to be this figure, it doesn't fit the actual quotes (or the mood of the war; it's doubtful that any Kilrathi believed their war against plant-eating monkeys which they were winning all the way up to the last minutes was a form of cleansing fire).

Thrakhath, almost certainly not - he wasn't especially religious.

3. If the Kilrathi live and die by the hierarchy of the Empire, do we know of any Mass-suicide following Kilrah's destruction?

Indeed. Star*Soldier's timeline says: "M’ragrakath nar Hhallas is appointed as the main Kilrathi spokesperson and is assassinated during an international conference on Alliance Rights on Venus. Following his death, an overwhelming percentage of Kilrathi survivors commit Zu’kara, a popular form of ritual suicide. In an effort to ease tensions, the Terran Diplomatic Association sets up eighteen reservation worlds and fights to incorporate them into the Alliance." This was initially created for a Wing Commander IV timeline that was never published, and included in Origin's Wing Commander bible until it was 'canonized' by S*S.

Yes, there was a mass suicide. You can read about it in Star*Soldier, the Arena manual. It was, apparently, pretty major - possibly, most of the Kilrathi war-era casualties are actually the post-war suicide.

Indeed; the Wing Commander Prophecy guide gives us some fairly outrageous casualty figures for the war: 2.1 trillion humans and 7.4 trillion Kilrathi. A mass suicide among Kilrathi survivors (which may mean surviving warriors or everyone, it isn't clear) would explain this to some degree (it's still an impossibly huge amount, indicating that the war was going on on a much greater scale than we personally saw).

WCATV has a backstory that many people seem to be missing, a story about Thrakath (with the help of his sister, the pristess) trying to force clans under the more direct controll of the Imperial Family. Personally I belive it gives us a great insight of how the Empire work. We see some Kilrathi strongly oposing to this move, with tha whatshisname Kil even alling himself with Blair against Thrakath.

Good catch. This is actually spread across several sources. We also see it, surprisingly enough, in the movie-related stuff. The Confederation Handbook talks about how Confederation intelligence believes Kilrathi shipbuilding is being centralized under the Kiranka banner instead of the various clans and Pilgrim Stars has Kilrathi talking about these efforts at conslidation and their reaction thereto.
 
Back
Top