Klinzai

== The Klinzai == 
Name: - The Klinzai
Created By: - FASA and various others, refined by Jay P Hailey
Summary: - The other Klingon Race
Game Role: - Adversaries and rivals for the PCs
World Role: - Junior Partners in the Klingon Empire
===Culture:===
The Klinzai descended from plains riding war makers. These early armies swept across Klinzai and subjugated any other cultures.
The established a military dictatorship which borrowed elements of Feudalism.
The Average Klinzai is a normal person, a merchant, a craftsman or a laborer working to make a living and support his family.
In the vaguely middle-eastern style cities on Klinzai, he may see the wealth and power of his military rulers but these rarely interact with him on a daily basis.
The Key to social advancement is in the Army. The Klinzai Military is huge in proportion to the Klinzai population. Well organized and ruthless, the way to advance is to either be born rich or to get results, preferably both.
The average Klinzai soldier serves a tour or maybe a handful and realizes that despite promises of recruiters, glory, honor and riches are actually very rare and it's a rare Klinzai who elevates himself through military service.
Although conventionally organized the Klinzai military retains vestiges of it's past. Conquest for loot, booty and plunder are recognized as valid reasons for war and blood shed. Klinzai soldiers can become positively medieval in the field, looting and pillaging with abandon.
The upper classes of Klinzai society are fluid. A noble usually has a high military rank and must justify his existence through military conquests. Since open rapacious plunder often draws the attentions of Imperial Klingons, it's rare for a Klinzai General or Admiral to die of old age.
===Biology:===
Klinzai are humanoids who follow a conventional physiology and bio-chemistry. They are cross fertile with humans. There are differences in Physiology, a doctor with a scanner can easily tell a Klinzai from an Earth-Human.
The Offspring mix the differences in parental physiology in several different ways.
===Languages:===
tlhInganHol - the Warriors tongue and official language of the empire.
Klinzai - a more complex and less guttural language, often seen in Song, poetry and popular media. Discouraged by Imperial Klingons.
===Population:===
Approximately 12 billion over several planets
===Economy:===
The Economy of Klinzai itself is archaic, but self contained and self reliant. Moves have been made with partial success to modernize.
Klinzai colony worlds seek financial independence but are often supported from the coffers of Klinzai and the Council on Qo'onoS
===Relative Influence:===
Large along the Klingon spinward frontier. The Klinzai can and often do wind up dragging the whole rest of the empire into wars on their borders.
Along the spinwards Klingon Frontier the term "Klingon" often means a smooth headed force of conquistadors.
In the rest of the empire, the Klinzai are viewed as a rowdy Client race to be used and kept in their place - something Klingons who border Klinzai territories view as naively arrogant.
===Relative Wealth:===
Large, the Klinzai build and man a huge Space fleet of Klingon Designed ships Compared to the Federation or the Klingon Empire, small - On their own they'd be smaller than the Cardassian Empire.
They are poor for their size other wise since their governmental budgets are overly militarized.
===Government:===
A techno feudalistic Military Junta rules Klinzai - when Qo'onoS allows it. They tend to reward scheming violence, rapine and pillage with power and wealth.
In some ways the Klinzai Junta acts as a major Klingon House, and is often viewed as such with in the empire.
In other ways it acts as a conquered client state that wriggles to be free of restraint.
===Military:===
The Klinzai have large, tough Space Navy and ground army. They are kept in check by being held behind the curve in Technology and periodic purges by Imperial Klingons.
===Area of Operation:===
The spinward frontier of the Klingon Empire, some contact with the Federation
===Headquarters Location:===
Klinzai - Capital city Klin
===Public Face: ===
Swarthy faced conquistadors. "Resistance is Futile!"
===Public or Secret:===
Public. Although they have many activities in secret
===Publicly Stated Goal:===
To increase the size, wealth and obedience to the Empire
===Relations:===
Qo'onoS and Imperial Klingons - Tense. Beloved enemies. The Imperial Klingons have to come in and smash Klinzai aspirations for greater power sometimes.
When the Real Klingon Faction is in charge, the Klinzai must be careful, or they risk a violent purge and possible Genocide at the hands of the Real Klingons.
Federation - Hostile. Although technically allies because of the Khitomer Accords, by all accounts a Klinzai's second favorite target besides an Imperial Klingon is a Human. The Klinzai are notoriously prickly, defensive and irritable at Federation people. Conventional wisdom is that this is because the Klinzai know they're going to wind up Federation members eventually and resent it.
The integration of the "results oriented" Klinzai and the "Honor-bound" Klingons is a puzzling question that entices Federation social scientists. However, neither the Klingons nor the Klinzai are especially ready to be forth coming.
Orions - the Orions have been the Klinzai's main ally and cultural true love. In Orion House Hamilcar a sizable minority of people are of Klinzai descent. Klinzai worlds welcome Orion ships and trade, legitimate or not. In return the Orions lovingly support Klinzai to the best of their abilities, cultivating an alliance against the day when the two big powers on the block let their guards down.
===Those opposed to them:===
Freedom loving people, people who believe in civil rights, people who believe in honest diplomacy and People who believe that a deal is a deal.
===Those who favor them:===
Orions and Klinzai
The Sword Worlds
The sword worlds are independent worlds whose people are a mix of Humans, Klinzai and Orions - they work hard to stay independent. Rumor has it that Klinzai uses these worlds as sources of deniable contact and interaction with less savory forces in the galaxy.
The Klinzai Government has fought wars to conquer the Sword Worlds without success so far.
===Advantages:===
The Klinzai are organized and brutally efficient. They follow a very dog-eat-dog philosophy.
===Weaknesses:===
They have a well earned reputation of being untrustworthy and treacherous.
===Special Abilities:===
They can call on the rest of the Klingon Empire for back up - but are subject to such calls themselves
===Special Disadvantages:===
As a Klingon Client state Klinzai is subject to occasional purges and re-conquests by the Empire - Klinzai hasn't successfully resisted one of these reconquests yet.
===Appearance:===
From the 2240s through the 2260s the Klinzai were the main interface between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
===History:===
A culture of nomadic, fast moving, hard hitting warriors, the Klinzai conquered their world and set up competing nations and empires where ethnic Klinzai were the ruling class.
After many centuries of warfare and intrigue - Klinzai entered it's atomic and space faring age. A limited nuclear exchange set the Klinzai back generations and convinced them that such weapons were not a good idea.
In the 2150s the Klingon Empire met the Klinzai Dominion. The resulting battles and campaigns are recounted in Klingon History as "Glorious"
The Klinzai lost and were occupied by Klingons.
The Klingons favor a style of rulership over conquered people that varies from benign neglect to outright domination and oppression. The Klinzai were used by General Komak as leverage for his own forces. The Klinzai built ships, Klinzai crews and Klinzai troops helped Komak defeat his rivals and attain huge power in the Empire.
The pay-off for the Klinzai was semi-autonomy and Klingon military technology.
Early encounters between Klinzai espionage agents and military scouts left and the Federation left the impression of sneaky weasels who felt that all backs looked better with knives sticking out of them.
After Klinzai started the 4 Years War with the Federation and proceeded to loose it despite heavy Klingon reinforcements, Komak was ruined. The Ruling order of Klinzai was violently purged and new rulers, more compliant to the wishes of Qo'onoS were installed. 
In the 2270s a horrible plague struck the Klinzai. Their population was cut to a third of it's former size - the death toll was in the billions.
The Klingon Empire spent itself nearly to ruin containing and trying to treat the plague as well as keep it secret from other powers.
The Klinzai fell to the status of minor subject race and were not seen for a long time
The Klinzai have waxed and waned as one of the chief Vassal states of the Klingon Empire. Sometimes the Klinzai ride high. One will see Klinzai ships and military units serving with the Klingon Fleet.
Sometimes, usually after treachery, the Klinzai all disappear from the space lanes for a while. When they return, their high command structure has new faces.
The Status of the Klinzai is also closely linked to the ascendance of the New Klingon political faction. When the New Klingons are in a superior position to the Real Klingon Faction then the Klinzai are free to pursue their own and the empire's goals.
Notable Members:
Kor, Kang and Koloth, Talented Klinzai Generals who vied for territory and loot with the Federation and other rivals.
== Notes: ==
This marks a change for me. In regards to the "Smooth Head/Bumpy Head" Klingon Debate
This comes from the fact that he Klingons in TOS looked like swarthy humans but from TMP onwards, they had bumpy foreheads. 
The reason for this in the real world is that TOS has a small budget. The Klingons were created by Gene Coon as replacements for the Romulans - the pointed Romulan ears and make up was too expensive to have the Romulans occur very often.
The TOS Klingons were created to be cheaper and more blatant bad guys - but their first appearance (Errand of Mercy) cheerfully played hob with assumptions about good guys and bad guys and victims - something Trek is good at.
The appearance of the Bumpy Fore-headed Klingons sparked a discussion in Trek fandom that goes on until this very day. Why do we see different kinds of Klingons?
The first to address this that I am aware of was John M Ford in his write up of the Klingons for FASA and for a Pockets Books Trek Novel "The Final Reflection"
He postulated that the Bumpy headed Klingons were the core race - the Imperial Klingons
And that the smooth headed Klingons of TOS were Human/Klingon Fusions created by the empire to give Klingons a handle on how humans thought. 
They also postulated a Klingon/Romulan Fusion race
There was a quiet assumption in the Trek Production offices that this issue was to be ignored
"They always looked that way" became a sub rosa default. Until recently this is the tack I took for Jay Trek.
But when DS9 did a crossover episode with TOS - they ran smack into the issue - and hand waved it broadly.
Enterprise addressed the issue by making the smooth headed Klingons victims of a genetic disease created by attempting to create Klingon Eugenics supermen.
As I thought about it - I realize that we see hints of a culture in the TOS Klingons. A sort of Militarized mongol thing.
Klinzai was an old name for the Klingon Homeworld. What if, I thought there was a planet named Klinzai, who's people were these swarthy, militaristic humanoids who were subjects and allies of the Klingons of Qo'onoS?
As I considered the idea It caught my imagination more and more.
Category:Klingon Space
Category:ST-OM
Category:Races
Category:Political Units