Diverse Aliens (Was Re: Star Trek background - Reply)

>From David Brewer

>I think, just to drag this somewhere vaguely on-topic, that this
>should be avoided in any medium, including game-background. So the
>Kra'Vak, there's no diversity to them at all? All the same bunch
>of stock psychotic predator aliens?

	Perhaps, who's to say that they are psychotic?	Perhaps this
method
of inter-species relations is the only one they know?  And what if they
are
a hive species?  Whilst I agree with you in terms of the fact that there
is
a tendency to portray aliens as monocultured, how do we know that they
aren't?  I dunno, I quite like them being psychotic bugs from hell,
there's
something intrinsically fun about squashing Kra'Vak like.. umm, well
bugs.
;-)  But it is a valid point, most aliens are either monocultured
humanoids
(Star Trek etc.) or  big mean and nasty hive bugs that just kill things
(Aliens etc.)  What I'd really like to see is a compassionate and caring
hive species, just for the hell of it.	;-)

	However back to the Kra'Vak, they really haven't been expanded
on
beyond the original few pages, well that's as far as I know.  Are they
in
the SGII or DSII games at all?	I only have Full Thrust at the moment. 
IMHO
the *real* problem with having monocultured species is that the creators
don't *justify* why they are monocultured.  If say humans went berzerk
and
started wiping out anyone that did not have blonde hair and blue eys,
and
was not conforming to a specific culture, we could become very much the
specific culture.  It's also possible that  the cultures we are viewing
are
not as simple as what we see: look at the English 'Victorian culture',
it
was very moral and uniform... on the surface, but underneath?  No way. 
But
if you were an outsider, which view would you have seen?

	The impression I have, and please bear in mind that I have not
read
the source material in a while, is that the Kra'Vak are either a hive
species, or very close to one?	And at the very least, a culture in
which
the individual is relatively unimportant.

Just my 2 cents worth, on the bugs of death side.  :)

Loki

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Life is a comedy to those who think,
A tragedy to those who feel.
	  Denton

Loki
s953273@student.macarthur.uws.EDU.AU
University  of Western Sydney - Macarthur
Australia
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