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On Sun, 5/15/16, Thomas Jones-Low <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: K'kree vs Hiver, was Re: [TML] GMing Manipulations
 To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
 Date: Sunday, May 15, 2016, 5:13 AM

 On 5/12/2016 7:08 PM, Richard Aiken
 wrote:
 > On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 11:34 AM, Phil Pugliese (via
 tml list)
 > <xxxxxx@simplelists.com
 <mailto:xxxxxx@simplelists.com>>
 wrote:
 >
 >      (Someone Whose ID I
 >      Accidentally Deleted Wrote): "I've
 always wondered
 >      why (the K'kree) didn't also
 redouble their efforts
 >      to wipe out the other 'threat'
 (hivers) that created
 >      the first one."
 >      I thought that went without saying;
 the
 >      K'kree had ZERO desire to discover
 what ELSE the Hivers
 >      had ready to deploy, in the event
 that their demands were
 >      not met.
 >
 > 
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 >
 >     Yeah, but that sounds a little
 too 'pat' for my taste.
 >
 >     Not to mention a little wimpy.
 Esp for a race as militant as the K'kree.
 >
 >
 >
 > K/kree are herd animals, native to wide-open plains.
 Everything I've read about
 > them makes them sound very straightforward and direct,
 with little if any
 > subterfuge in their deallins with each other or anyone
 else.
 >
 > The Hivers - with a society purposefully built upon
 hidden, indirect
 > manipulation - are the complete antithesis of this.
 >
 > So I can easily see the K'kree - after being shown very
 clearly that direct
 > action against the Hivers would result in an
 *indirect,* *unpredictable,*
 > *sacrilegious* and thereby extremely terrifying
 response -  deciding to "let
 > sleeping dogs lie" and thereafter limit themselves to
 expanding in the opposite
 > direction.
 >
     This discussion has relied too heavily on
 alien psychology and not enough on
 military logistics and strategy.

     At the start of the war the Hiver have no
 effective navy. They've not needed
 one. The K'kree are their first encounter with a real
 spacefaring race. But it's
 not for the K'kree.

     The K'kree tactics are to sweep forward
 with the navy. Defeat in detail the
 space forces, orbitally bombard the obvious military
 targets, and move on to the
 next world. A follow-up, more civilian, force is then landed
 on the world to
 assume administrative control. This is the ideal K'kree
 military strategy. Fast
 moving, overwhelming force, and the enemy is crushed.

     The Hiver are both innovative and
 practical. They see the K'kree invasion as a
 challenge to their technical (and manipulation) skills.
 Well, the ones that are
 not in the immediate threat of being crushed underfoot. I'm
 quite sure the
 K'kree encountered a wide range of interestingly amusing if
 ineffective attempts
 to resist them. The motif of a gaping, sharp-toothed maw is
 something that
 persists on the border worlds to this day.

     When the Hiver unveiled their clever
 manipulation of the K'kree conquered
 worlds, it forced the K'kree to adjust their tactics.
 Instead of the sweeping
 attacks across space they must perform a military conquest
 of each world
 individually. This requires the more expensive military
 forces.

     It also gets the Hiver the one thing they
 need the most: time. The Hiver would
 have come up with an simple and effective naval ship design,
 but they need the
 time to build enough of them to stop the K'kree invasion
 forces. This idea of
 sacrificing parts for the greater whole is completely
 comfortable to the Hiver.
 They have the ability to regrow (slowly) parts of their on
 bodies. So loosing a
 finger or a dozen border worlds is considered normal.

     From the K'kree perspective they have
 conquered or explored between 4
 subsectors and a sector worth of space. They have not
 encounter the home world
 of the Hiver, the Ithklur, nor any of the other majority
 races from the
 Federation. This means the K'kree are not conquering a small
 pocket empire, but
 a large, technologically advanced multi-sector federation.

     With so many things the Hiver do, the
 explanation offered and the truth of the
 matter are vastly different. The Hiver offer their clever
 manipulation as the
 reason for the K'kree stopping their war.

     The truth is the combination of an
 increasingly effective Hiver navy, the
 K'kree needed an increasingly expensive logistical trail to
 conquer worlds, and
 the Hiver offering a "Peace Treaty" on their terms. The
 alternative was a
 conquering Hiver/Ithklur army turning the K'kree into
 another Hiver client.

     The local K'kree commanders probably
 figured taking the deal would allow them
 the time to bolster their forces and restart the conquest at
 their leisure. What
 they didn't count on was a shift of political viewpoints
 from home. If this was
 the result of a Hiver manipulation or simple ongoing
 political evolution is for
 you to decide (Occam's razor says the latter).

     There are two alternative histories
 here:

 1) The Hiver demonstrate their clever manipulation. But the
 Hiver are neither as
 clever nor as manipulative as they think. The K'kree laugh
 in their face and
 continue their conquests. Would the K'kree over stretch
 their military forces
 before conquering the whole of the newly founded
 Federation?

 2) The K'kree reject the Hiver peace treaty. The upgraded
 Hiver navy begins
 reconquer the Hiver border worlds, then advanced into K'kree
 space. Their sense
 of parental caring toward the K'kree client races pushes
 them to conquer the
 whole of K'kree space. And the K'kree become just another
 Federation member.

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I prefer another option;

3) Infuriated, the K'kree begin an extermination campaign. Every world in each system 'infected' by the Hiverswill be 'sterilized'. This has the side benefit of actually requiring less resources than either 'conquest' option (detailed in the 1st paragraph). It would be "Defeat in detail the
 space forces, orbitally bombard the obvious military targets, and move on to the next world." If the 'Sterilization' force is included w/i the attack forces then there would be no need for a follow-up force &, perhaps, also no need to orbitally bombard military targets. Of course it will all depend on whether or not the K'Kree are capable of sustaining what will seem to become a 'Forever Campaign'.

Just how fanatical are they? Well that depends on....

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