Re: [GZG] Ixx Psychology & behaviour?

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reas I enjoy the idea of some form of insect-based race as I think that
offers some interesting potential for gaming based on different
physiology
and psychology, I'm really not anxious to see these created as 'the
boogey
men' of the GZGverse. That really just smacks of GW to me.

Is there any reason an intelligent, insectoid race can't be a member of
the
GZGverse in just the same way the Kra'vak, Phalons, Savasku and P'taah
(though only by virtue of having a figure line) are? Do they need to be
the
cosmic sledgehammer? That's so dreadfully cliched and boring IMO.

Ultimately, it might be interesting to see a new race, with some new
ships
for FT, units for SG and DS, that is based on some form of insectoid
physiology and with unusual psychology that has play-impacting effect.
Yet
at the same time, I hope they can be 'another example of diversity in
the
larger universe' rather than 'the classic fearful bug alien race'. If we
want settings like that, we've got several sci-fi examples - I'd rather
not
see the GZGverse go that way.

That's my 0.02.

For reference:
Kra'vak - predatory roots, hunting oriented mentality, can be driven to
fits
of seemingly berserker rage (affects small ships and ground units),
interesting railgun technology
Savasku - not sure if there are any psychology or physiology aspects
that
would affect ground combat, interesting mechanics for the space based
savasku fleets that differ from other races
Phalons - interesting gender relationships that play a role in ground
combat, plasma bolts

So if we added the Ixx:
Ixx - hive based psychology which should affect ground combat in some
respects, larger worldships probably not stoppable by any reasonable
amount
of human fleet tonnage, smaller landers/scouts/escorts that are
engageable
by human fleets (even a small planetoid shaped and based hiveship wold
be
several orders of magnitude larger than the biggest FT SDN or CVA)

The hiveships can be slow moving and maybe the Ixx, although somewhat
less
focused on single casualties are focused on racial survival and take
large
casualty counts as a bad idea and a good sign to get out of the area, so
human defenses against Ixx scouting teams becomes 'hit them as hard as
you
can to convince them your area is a bad place to come to' and versus
motherships as 'we can't blow up the mothership, but if we kill enough
escorts and landers, they'll rationally elect to pack up and move on'.

This makes them a threat to weak outer rim colonies and even to inner
colonies if the defense is not strengthened by principal fleet elements,
and
it makes ground combats fierce because if the locals show themselves as
weak, the Ixx will show up and move in to occupy and that's bad new.
Versus
the Ixx, the guerilla campaign is a losing option - it has to be a hard,
violent initial defense - if they actually settle in, you're borked.

This is fairly different than if say, the Kra'Vak arrive. They probably
wold
hate the attritional guerilla war of with them as the occupation forces
-
slowly bleeding from cowardly IEDs, assassinations, and ambushes.
Eventually
they'd probably move on or nuke the place.

Anyway, I'm just suggesting that creating anything called a worldship or
hiveship means that, if it is ever represented in the game, it'll be
worth I
suspect tens of thousands of CPV points in FT (I see a huge-ass resin
model
here that looks like a basketball with turrets and bays all over it -
think
Tigress DN in Traveller or the like). No reasonable fleet could hold
against
it. So to do this sanely, you need to make sure it is never a question
of
destroying a hiveship - always just a question of convincing them to
pack up
and go away. The hiveship then becomes a big support artillery platform,
but
your real targets are the escorts and landers. Them you can kill. And
most
times, you'll encounter scouts and foraging parties and try to stop
those by
whacking them before any worldship even comes your way. Ground combats
ensue
from letting the scouts get through (or not detecting them until they've
landed).

And the Ixx psychology revolves simply around the hunt for resources and
the
pragmatic, rational need for food and supplies and around racial
survival in
this model. It isn't some evil desire to wipe out the humans. It is
simply
finding the easiest place they can procure the best supplies with
minimum
necessary conflict, but with the unemotional realization that some
conflict
and casualties are inevitable. And acceptable. Large casualty counts
threaten the race or at least the hive viability and are not acceptable.

That makes for an interesting insectoid race, gives playable FT and  DS
and
SG scenarios, and doesn't create the ultimate bogeyman or some sort of
boringly homicidal alien. In this case, if the humans let them take the
resources they need, they'd leave them alone. Of course, the humans need
some of those resources and hence the conflict. Nothing to do with
either
side being genocidal. The Ixx would view the humans as simply defending
their resources and would understand that. They'd probe for weak points
where they could secure the resources they need to survive. And they'd
do
the same in Kra'vak, Phalon or Savasku space. So we get good potential
for
games in the GZGverse that don't even involve any humans!

With respect and the hopes of a model that doesn't make the Ixx the
'monster
under the bed',
Yours Truly
Thomas B

-- 
http://ante-aurorum-tenebrae.blogspot.com/
http://www.stargrunt.ca

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy
from
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will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine

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