The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

After all, the Kohr-Ah react more violently to the Words, but does this mean that those had the most effect on them or the other way around? If the Words (and the Dnyarri slavery) struck them with such force, they would probably NOT talk about them, would they?

Not to mention that the Green were the ones who began the revolution.

Of course, there would be arguments for the Kohr-Ah as well: they were more altered than the Kzer-Za (including the removal of their solitary hunter instinct, or part of it). And they have a more radical policy (though this would be explained by their intrinsic nature, rather).

I chose the Kohr-Ah, because they are the ones who believe that all other species are inferior, and kill everyone in the game if the Sa-Matra is not destroyed.

And near the end, when the Kzer-Za encounter you, and tell you to run from the Kohr-Ah, instead of fighting you, so they have some miniscule form of mercy.

The Kohr-Ah are simply a more violent species, having been engineered as warriors.

Traumatized by the Dynarri experience?

By the Dnyarri, of course. The reaction to the Words is directly linked to the strength of the trauma of the Dnyarri experience.

I thought they viewed all other races as potential threats. I doubt they'd care much if you were simply inferior, but that potential for evolution into something dangerous dooms you.

I'd still say Kohr-Ah though, but mainly because I simply view them as less resilient. Bred to be fighters and doers, their minds might have been simpler, and therefore shattered more easily by the excruciator. The Kzer-Za, while clearly off their rocker, still seem to be able to hold together better.

Both are equally messed up. They would have to be to determine that either doctrine would be a good way to soothe their trauma. Because when it all boils down to it, the Kzer-Za are condemning other races to death just as surely as the Kohr-Ah, just in a more indirect manner. After all, given enough time, some sort of planetary event is going to cause mass extinction, unless the imprisoned race ends up killing themselves before that. This is ignoring the impact of the planetary damage the destruction of every structure over 500 years old wreaks (considering they have no compunctions about destroying subterranean structures as well).

The reaction to The Words is a different matter entirely. The Kzer-Za seem to place a great deal of stock in the ideas of ritual and routine, as befits their nature. Hence, their take on the Doctrinal Conflict, which causes them to sever all voluntary relations with other races and focus solely on combat with the Kohr-Ah, despite the fact that they have slave races which could aid them in the conflict; their battles have even been ritualized, to the point where they will only fight the Kohr-Ah alone, without aid, and will not tolerate interference, setting the stage exactly as it was in the first Doctrinal Conflict. This is also reflected in their take on The Words, which involves a ritualized response with no opportunity for the listener to interject and take the speaker "off-script." The Kohr-Ah are more straightforward and utilitarian, once again as befitting their nature. As such, they primarily focus on the Doctrinal Conflict, but are not averse to pursuing other goals when the opportunity arises (the cleansing of the ZFP is a perfect example). Their ideals are also reflected in their response to The Words; the Kohr-Ah simply answer the alien's questions in an honest and straightforward manner, only beginning cleansing once all questions have been answered.

One race tries to kill everything, and the other race just wants to trap everyone. They both got issues.

This is assuming a lot of things about the SC universe that we don't/can't know. Do the Kzer-Za eventually slave-shield all Thralls in a sector before moving on? Do they leave any forces behind to oversee the enslaved worlds? Do they intervene in the affairs of slave shielded worlds, as they did the Traddash? Your making a (likely) assumption, that they simply enslave and move on, and in that case you'd be right.

However, you wouldn't need many ships to oversee slave-shielded worlds, so it's not impossible that they leave a ship or two behind in every quadrant. In that case they could step in in the event of a major planetary upheaval. The Kzer-Za are strong and honourable. Their doctrine forbids exterminating slaves (unless they disobey).  If they break that oath, they break the Doctrine. and if they do that, they are (in their eyes) no better than the Kohr-Ah.

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But if using the slave races violates the doctrine, then they have no choice. The Kohr-Ah follow a similar pattern. Instead of finishing off the Utwig and Supox, which would be the logical course of action, they just drop everything and head straight for the Kzer-Za. They both follow their doctrines. The Kzer-Za are more organized, because their Doctrine demands that they deal with other races. The Kohr-Ah need not be, as they deal only with their own kind.

In regards to the ZFP, the Kohr-Ah reaction doesn't seem out of the ordinary..The doctrine is on hold for as long as they are fighting the Kzer-Za, but not within the battle zone. Thus, when they find a race there they exterminate. The Kzer-Za do the exact same thing. When they find a renegade human within their sphere, they certainly do their best to hunt you down and finish you off. But they ignore you once you leave their perimeter, in the same way that the Kohr-Ah ignore all races outside that perimeter.

In regards to the Words, I'd say it's a question of habit. The Kzer-Za are used to dominating, ordering and generally speaking to their inferiors. So they speak to you in the only way they know. The way they speak to all aliens that must be dominated. The Kohr-Ah on the other hand mostly speak to each other, or to creatures about to be wiped out. They are not used to ordering people around, because they have noone to order around.

So in conclusion, both races are messed up, but in my book the Kohr-Ah are a rung higher up on the scrambled ladder.

They leave battle Thralls behind. The Battle Thralls just have a tendency to wander off, as in the case of Earth. The absence of them on the Syreen world is probably a plot hole or overlooked detail.

I think these guys just need a nice long hug :(.

But once the Ur-Quan fleet leaves the sector, what makes a Battle Thrall a "thrall" anymore? Their masters are gone, and effectively will never return. It seems much more likely that the Ur-Quan simply slave shield their Battle Thralls once they're finished with a given region of space, and the entire fleet moves on. Nothing to administrate, no need to split forces, and no concerns about slaves rebelling once the main Ur-Quan presence has left.


Actually, this explanation makes a lot of sense, too. The Kzer-Za wouldn't want to encourage free thought among races soon to be their slaves, whereas the Kohr-Ah wouldn't care less.


There are a few problems with these lines of reasoning. First of all, the Thraddash had decided to become Battle Thralls, and apparently did not understand how limited their "limited autonomy" actually would be. So the Ur-Quan stepped in to enforce their brand of absolute discipline. If the Thraddash had elected to slave shield themselves, I suspect the Ur-Quan may not have found out about the atomic exchange (or whatever weapon of mass destruction they would have wound up using in the absence of the technology the Ur-Quan would have taken away had they chosen that route) until many years later, and likely wouldn't have cared very much, simply seeing it as further justification that aliens could not be trusted nor allowed to rule themselves.

There is also the issue of the Ur-Quan leaving behind the equivalent of a police fleet to keep order in a conquered sector. First of all, with the coming battles in a new region of space, they would want to have as large a fleet as possible to hasten conquest as much as possible. Second, how large a fleet would have to be left behind to keep their Battle Thralls in check? If the fleet is too small, a revolt is sure to come as soon as the bulk of the Ur-Quan force has moved on. If it's too large, the Ur-Quan risk not having the resources to conquer the next region of space. And if enough Battle Thralls are present in a given area, it is possible that any split of Ur-Quan forces could produce one of those unfavorable outcomes.

I can't imagine the Ur-Quan being willing to move on with the potential for leaving behind loose ends like these. The only way for them to assure complete obedience among their slaves is to remove all of their autonomy while their masters are away. This entails that any remaining Battle Thralls within a conquered sector be relocated to a slave shielded world and turned into fallow slaves. The Ur-Quan can then leave with a clear conscience, knowing that their own safety is assured, and that any harm that befalls their slaves was a result of their own self-destructive tendencies or unfortunate (yet inevitable) chance. This is part of a greater evil inherent within both doctrines, but only immediately apparent in the Kohr-Ah's: The Ur-Quans' motivations are purely selfish. They don't care about other races, only themselves and their own safety and independance. The Kzer-Za are only deluding themselves into thinking that they are superior, because they only kill directly to enforce their doctrine. In the end, the results are the same, and the only difference is whether or not the world in question is reduced to a charred husk, or simply a barren orb with an impenetrable shield covering it.

Well both species of the Ur-Quan, did what they did for their own protection due to the enslaving they received, so one assumes they would both feel traumatized and threatened again, but I believe the Kohr-Ah would be more. Because the Kohr-Ah were on a path of destruction, and they were stopped, they're probably ashamed more than anything.

The Kzer-Za would be traumatized, but not as much as the Kohr-Ah.

The most traumatized. . .I would have to say the Gazurtoid. They don't even talk about their feelings and they don't have any pets for comfort. They also taste quite good in a number of Italian dishes and that can't be good for your self-esteem.

Why assign human psychology to them?  They might or might not tend, as a species, to talk more or less about something, the more traumatic it was.

I'd say the Kohr-Ah were more traumatized/broken, just because they seem to have regressed back towards their... roots, more than the Kzer-Za.  The Kzer-Za are broken, too, but they're hanging on to the remaining scraps of civilization, logic, cooperation, and what-have-you.

Also... the way the Dnyarri modified the Kohr-Ah was pretty much the opposite of the direction they'd been heading before.  They worked hard to be able to repress those instincts, to be able to work with/be around/interact non-violently with other species, and the Dnyarri came and turned them back into killers.  Seems like that must be painful.  The modifications made to the Kzer-Za, on the other hand, would seem not to be such an antithesis to what they were trying to do for themselves.

First of all, about the Words:
The Words induced a spontaneous reaction when they were first uttered, so a ritual couldn’t have been established. So when the Words are uttered, the Ur-Quan (KZ/KA) divulge honestly their very feelings, they do not use pre-composed ritualistic sentences.
Worth mentioning that the Arilou say “twined about the memory of pain” – it is a spontaneous response induced by the trauma.

(Also worth metioning that it is the Excruciator pain that traumatized them, not the effective Dnyarri slavery, as results from the very same Arilou quote and from this Kohr-Ah quote:
Can you imagine, alien, what it must have been like to wear an excruciator?
To live in endless screaming pain for months on end? No you cannot.)

There are also these quotes:
Zelnick: What has made you this way? It is insane!
Kohr-Ah: You have not asked properly.
If you do not ask properly, we will not discuss this matter.
Instead, we cleanse.

Zelnick: I cannot understand why you do this.
Kohr-Ah: Your understanding is not necessary.

The first one seems to indicate that the Words have been turned by the Kohr-Ah, at least, into a ritual, augmented by the second one who shows the great difference between how Kohr-Ah behave normally and how they behave when answering the Words.
It seems likely, though, that the ritual is instead NOT answering any other plea, no matter how much the Ur-Quan would like to. Or they simply say that the way you formulated your plea was not persuasive enough.
After all, they say:
Your words, `Why do you do this thing?' echo that ancient plea.
- it is an echo, not a ritual.

(I'd like to remember, also, that some say that the Kohr-Ah only initiate communications in case they hear the Words. This is not true, as they also use to share a "comforting fact" with their victims - that they have the chance to be reborn as Ur-Quan. Not to mention that they can simply wait for the victim to open communications and utter the Words.)

I thought that, since they are so violent and so proud, they tend not to talk about such dishonourable things, instead "ordering" them not to exist anymore - they repress them.

Indeed, this is a very good point. But since they were modified from the ground up, and they had no education or anything to keep the nostalgia for the "peaceful old times", they shouldn't be traumatized that their species was changed so much. Their roots were moved too. Indeed, they seem very content with it.
While the Kzer-Za -- well, they probably also had more mental freedom, being the Thinkers...
Anyway, as I said, pain was what traumatized the Ur-Quan (KZ/KA). The Kohr-Ah had a better resistance to pain. The Kzer-Za did not.

The Kohr-ah get more "emotional" about the path of now & forever, from the text it seems like they are more dedicated

Well, the Kohr-Ah do NOT talk about the most traumatizing part, the use of the Excruciators to defeat the Dnyarri. Thus, the Ur-Quan, like humans, do not talk about things that have traumatized them. Ergo, the Kzer-Za are more traumatized, since they talk less.

You switched from Kohr-Ah to Kzer-Za. Which do you mean?

I never switched. I was supporting that the Kzer-Za are the most traumatized, both in Reply #17 as well as in the older posts.
Probably you misunderstood Reply #17 (I didn't word it too well).
What it was saying is:
Assumption 1 (counter-argument to Reply #14): Kohr-Ah do not talk about the most traumatizing part (the Excruciators), nor do the Kzer-Za.
Conclusion 1: Negative Reply #14 (I mean, the Ur-Quan KZ/KA do not talk about traumatizing experiencing, just like humans).

Assumption 2: The Kzer-Za talk less about their trauma.
Conclusion 2 (from Conclusion 1 and Assumption 2): The Kzer-Za are more traumatized.

I think this Daktaklakpak-ish layout is the best way of wording reasonings like this one.

the kohr-ah are clearly more traumatized since their doctrine entails completely wiping out species. this is a side effect of the extreme paranoia they suffer from. the kzer-za, by allowing species to remain alive shows less of a fear that the races will somehow rise up and come back to enslave or kill the ur quan again. the attitude of the kzer-za shows a sense of "reason" and I use that term loosely, but they at least have more "reason" then the kohr-ah, therefore making them the less paranoid of the 2.

kzer-za = we let the species live, it is very unlikely that they would ever be able to rise up against us
kohr-ah = we're afraid they may in fact rise up if we let them live, we must kill them all

Wrong game, doofus.  :P

Assuming that we can apply trama to the Ur-Quan in the same manner as we
would approach the mind of humans, I'll go with Korh-ah as being more
tramatized.

There is nothing, short of killing them all, which will stop the Korh-ah. They appear
unable or unwilling to change their approach or view on the world. The Greenies,
on the other hand, can and do change their views from time to time, or
at least the way they interact with other races. Also, the green Ur-Quan give
races options (thrall or fallow slave) where the black Quan offer only death. This
leads me to think the black Quan were more ... broken than their green counter parts.

this is correct as long as we are applying human psychology to it, there is no question the kohr-ah are more 'undone' by the trauma. its impossible to analyze it outside of human psychology so that is a whole different game. however it also depends on one's interpretation of alot of aspects, such as the line between insanity and genius or madness and clarity. often times in human psychology the more one leans towards genius or clarity the more one can be seen as bordering on insane to the common folk. so in that sense one could argue that kohr-ah are actually more 'developed' mentally rather then traumatized, and the kzer-za, in their sense of 'weakness' to let species live, are actually less developed, still holding "morals" and "humanity" as somewhat important items, when those things are very "earthly" and primitive.

it really depends on what side of the line you want to look at it from.

The mistake most of the posters in this thread make is that they don't realize this:
Let "psychology" be the quantity which defines how "warped" their psychology is (so the Kohr-Ah psychology is larger than the one of the Kzer-Za).
Trauma=change in psychology
Trauma=psychology_final - psychology_initial
Trauma_Kohr-Ah=psychology_finalKohr-Ah - psychology_{initialKohr-Ah}
Trauma_Kzer-Za=psychology_finalKzer-Za - psychology_{initialKzer-Za}

psychology_{initialKohr-Ah}=psychology_{initialKzer-Za} + n, n>0
psychology_finalKohr-Ah=psychology_finalKzer-Za + m, m>0

Trauma_Kohr-Ah=psychology_finalKzer-Za + m - (psychology_{initialKzer-Za} + n)
Trauma_Kohr-Ah=psychology_finalKzer-Za - psychology_{initialKzer-Za} + m - n
Trauma_Kohr-Ah=Trauma_Kzer-Za + (m - n)

So this depends upon the unknown values of m and n. Thus, we cannot use the fact that the Kohr-Ah are more warped in comparison to us than the Kzer-Za, because they were so initially, anyway (before the trauma).

Wtf are you babbling on about?

In normal speech:

We measure how traumatized a species is by measuring how warped it is.
The Kohr-Ah are more evil than the Kzer-Za, but this doesn't mean that they had to warp more than the Kzer-Za to become so.

Let's say that the Kohr-Ah value of evilness was 3 initially, and the one of the Kzer-Za 1. And the final value of the Kohr-Ah is 6, while the one of the Kzer-Za is 5. The Kohr-Ah are more evil than the Kzer-Za, both initially and finally, but they only changed 6-3=+3, while the Kzer-Za changed 5-1=+4, so here the Kzer-Za are more traumatized.

Translation : I like to technobabble.

It wasn't technobabble actually, it was just a simpler way (for me) to present the idea.

Is simpler than


Is simpler than

"The Kzer-Za are more traumatized than the Kohr-Ah, despite the Kohr-Ah being more evil" ?

Remind me to never ask you to explain anything in a more complicated way.

Well, in fact your last simplification (the one at the bottom) got rid of some important parts in the reasoning.

To respond to your question - I said "simpler for me" - I mean, if I wrote it in the complicated way (the one at the top), I didn't have to torture my brain to find a simple way of expressing myself.

Ah, I understand. Still, when communicating with others it might be good to keep in mind that if the message is not clear it might not be received. Also, what did my last simplification omit?

You said simply, "The Kzer-Za are more traumatized than the Kohr-Ah, despite the Kohr-Ah being more evil". In fact, it was "The Kzer-Za may be more traumatized than the Kohr-Ah, despite the Kohr-Ah being more evil, because more traumatized means <<more changed in comparison to their initial state>>; knowing just the final state isn't enough to be able to say what is the difference between the initial state and the final state."

The Kzer-Za are more evil, anyway.

But the Kohr-Ah and Kzer-Za were initially indistinct, and only rendered distinct due to the (traumatic) influence of the Dnyarri.

So Valaggar's 'delta' argument fails because there is no initial delta.
~~~
EP, how do you figure?

In essence: Once you're dead, you don't suffer anymore.

If the Kohr-Ah get their way, they make one tour of the galaxy and the 'evil' is essentially over. Sentient races take a long time to evolve, and they could prevent that from happening in the first place. The Kohr-Ah wipe out everyone once, and then live reasonably as the galaxy's sole race for much longer.

The Kzer-Za, on the other hand, intend to keep other races around as their slaves. They will let more and more generations of these races be born, wasting their sentience, only to force them to work for the petty gain of the Ur-Quan. This process is to go on forever, with any newly evolved races being added to the Hierarchy.

I think it's less evil to wish to subjugate all life than to completely eradicate all life from existence. Even if their thralls and fallow slaves aren't free, at least they haven't been completely eradicated from existence. Furthermore, you're assuming a lot that we don't know. Their circuit around the galaxy takes a long time - it's quite possible that more sentient life has evolved in places that the Kohr-ah left in ruins.

Also, the Kzer-za are clearly more merciful in the Kohr-ah. In addition to not believing in completely exterminating life, they say some interesting things when they lose the war. They don't even attack you and tell you to run, saying things "We, who have tried to protect you" and "I hope your species survives."

That's what I thought at first too, but then I realized that the initial moment may be the moment when the Kohr-Ah and the Kzer-Za were separated, not when the original Ur-Quan were enslaved.
You see, that is the initial point of existence of their twin species, not the one in which they evolved on their homeworld.


I wonder why nobody got into play this argument: The Kohr-Ah reaction to you having the Dnyarri aboard is far deeper than the one of the Kzer-Za: it brings up the creature's ancestral memories, while at the Kzer-Za it is not even powerful enough to stop them from detecting the "source of these fetid emanations" as your vessel, and issuing a warning.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the most probable thing is that both are almost equally traumatized, too similar in order for us to be able to tell exactly who is more traumatized.

And there you have a much more simple and readable version than that technobabble. Next time just say that.

Thought they were both bent screws myself, and haven't really figured out which screw is more bent.  In valgar's terms you can't see how broken they are because we have no clear indication of their initial state.  Even if it exists in their genetically-tinkered new colourful selves.  I remember pitying both of them after I learned enough of their story.

I wonder if anything special happens if you both let the Kor-Ah rampage and don't capture the Dynarri... a potential end even worse than 'everyone dies,' in my opinion.