Those of you who have read "The Mote In God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle should recognise the basis of this race.
Fundamentally - the Moties are an alien race operating a Caste system
which is physically inherent in the evolved "mutated" varients of the
race itself.
Their BIG Problem
Genetically, Moties are bi-phase hermaphrodites - they cycle between
male and female forms. In order to both change sex and to survive, they
MUST breed regularly. This causes a major population problem - they have been unable to find a "cure" for this problem.
Trapped as they were in a single system due to their only local jump point "The Crazy Eddie Point" exiting inside a star at the other end - they never escaped their system for thousands of years.
They fell into a "boom-bust" cycle of civilisation as each "boom" ended
in near self-destructive wars. Their system became "worked out" as they
mined every resource for material to feed their regrowth and wars. On
the bread-line, materially, they have become Masters of "Recycling".
Motie ships are redesigned almost on a daily basis as needs change -
"don't need this bit now? - modify it to something we do need"
Their ships are generally SLOW - most of the castes cannot survive Hi-G
manouvres - many die through Hype, Jumps or Chunnelling. It's rumoured
that their Warriors can survive such things?
The Castes
The Ruling Caste are the "Whites"
- (which for game purposes includes the "Negotiator" caste). The Whites
lead Motie "Clans" in the political and diplomatic arena. They do
not fight - not well at least. These are the High Guard.
The fighting Caste are the "Warriors"
- these guys have been bred to kill and are lightning fast, completely
dedicated and rumoured to be uncontrollable if there are no Whites
around - perhaps. They are so good - the Moties do not have Ground
Assault units. These are the Troops.
The engineering Caste are the "Browns" - again - these guys only
do engineering and they do it exceedingly well and blindingly fast.
Their method can almost seem chaotic - over a few hours you could watch
a complete Ship change form, fit and function - it seems to Morph? - In FLIGHT!!! No need for spacedocksfor these guys.
They're not much good as fighters, mind. These are the Crew.
The "Others" represent
all the other "Castes" - they have messengers, farmers, miners and so
on. They all look different - they have all been bred for their tasks.
They don't fight at all. These are the Colonists.
Oh! - there's one other "sub-species" worth mentioning?
They're called the "Miniatures"
(or "Minis"). Cute looking tiny versions of the Browns - and are often
used as "helpers" for the Browns. They can be trained to do simple
maintainance/engineering tasks and could be considered like "House
Elves" - only they're also a rather more like rats. Whilst they don't
fight either (much), they are EXTREMELY dangerous if your own ships get
"infested" with some. They breed like the proverbial rabbit and can
happily modify your pristine Battlecruiser from underneath your feet.
If you discover them early enough you might
be able to kill them by opening your ship to space. Too late and you'll
find they've either sealed of sections of the ship for themselves or
disabled your airlocks or flight controls or..... in the meantime your
coffee machines will be working much better than designed!
The only cure at that point is to get all the crew off the ship -
ensuring all exiting space suits contain a member of your crew and not
a severed head held up by a load of Minis packing out the body of the
suit - and then self-destruct the ship. Might work?
They don't occupy a game "position" as such - we're working on how to have them as a sort of "ship virus" race ability?
Overall?
This race is intended to be FUN - and very different to
play. The basic concept is that they go through "boom-bust" cycles
during the game.
They are very powerful in space combat/boarding - there ships pack a
punch but are structurally weak. They favour beam weapons rather than
wasting resources on missiles.
They are really slow to expand - due to speed limitations.
You can see them coming - slowly and inexorably - your options? - get
allies and charge in there when the collapse starts? - maybe even
accelerate the collapse by podding food at them? Who knows?
Perhaps you should ally with them?
The general aim is to have them "collapse" roughly every 25 turns or so. The mechanism is not decided yet, sadly.
The collapse would involve losing Tech , buildings, ships and
population as war breaks out between the Clans. Knowledge and
Infrastructure are wrecked, although some percentage of the materials
would be recoverable. They are very expert at recycling materials. They
had to be.
For more detailed "ramblings" on the various issues please have a browse through the Concepts/Discussion page.
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