As'taan

Created By: Kitty Howard
====Short Summary:====
Angry Bald Bear/Mole thingies. Their friends don't like you and they don't like you, either. Chief Rivals of The Bendarri Empire
====Occurance:====
Deep Space Ten
====Appearance:====
The As'Taan are large creatures. They resemble a cross between a naked mole rat and a bear.  they average 250 to 300 lbs.  They are strong creatures, and properly trained can mix it up with Klingons with a reasonable chance of success. Although their claws are small and under developed, they have long used metal add-on claws with good effect. They wear vests.  Their genitals are hidden unless aroused.  This is as horrible as it sounds.  They can and do adopt more coverings if necessary.
Their eyes look beady, but thats because they're normally size for humanoids in an odd skull. They have good vision, but poor close up vision.  Their devices tend to be designed to be identified and used easily by feel.  
They have whiskers that can sense vibrations.  Exceptionally sensitive As'Taan can almost see in the dark with these.  In a close up fight these are an adequate or superior substitute for eyes. 
====Biology:====
The As'Taan have a pretty conventional bio-chemistry and they are Mammal-ish. But they patently evolved where they are. Their DNA Diverged from everyone elses billions of years ago, unless it just coincidentally similar to start with.
They bear live young and suckle them. They are omnivores, and mostly eat crustaceans and insects that grow to enormous size on their world.
====Psychology:====
As far as anyone knows, the As'Taan are made of pretty normal stuff. They love their children and their families. They aspire to make a mark in their society. They have warriors, poets, mechanics, engineers, scientists, doctors.
But for reasons not clearly understood, other people make them angry. The longer an As'Taan must deal with an alien, the angrier he will get, until he flips out and attacks. As'Taan who do diplomatic negotations must do so in shifts to avoid becoming irrationally angry. Prisoners must be kept in isolation and interact with Jailers remotely.
Although As'Taan can be all sort of people, poets and murderers, comedians and astrophysicists, they all have it in common. Hurting non As'Taan is fun for them. They just get a dopamine kick out of it.
Some As'taan get hooked on this and pursue it to untenable ends.
But mostly they seethe and plan.
The As'Taan are not stupid people. They can do math and it doesn't look good. But they are equipped by their nature with a narrow people button and generally hate non-As'Taan
====Location:====
Just Rimward of the Bendarri.
Their space is pretty‏ firm and built-in. They took the space they could hold and developed that.
====Population:====
North of 10 billion people on several worlds. The Most numerous on As'Qard, their homeword
====Languages:====
As'Taan. They use old Orion and Klingon Universal translators. Updated programming is accepted without gratitude.
====Government:====
The As'Taan have a militaristic high command. In their civilian lives they're relatively laid back with each other. But all As'Taan know they are working to advance The Mission.
====Economy:====
The As'Taan use an Energy Economy. They borrowed this idea from the Federation and from the Orions. It's the only way to sustain a long term war time economy.
====Military:====
The As'Taan Military is grossly over sized for their relative size and population. All As'Taan adults serve a tour in the military and bring their kits home to become reservists.
The entire As'taan military is designed around one idea. Kill the Aliens.
Currently the As'taan are doing a slow trial and error process of learning what they can build that will defeat the Bendarri. Their current fleet is arranged around ships they call "Attack Cruisers" these battlecruisers are built for one reason, Locate, identify and destroy Alien starships. They pack an enormous punch and mount super heavy shields. But they're smaller, to increase speed which costs them endurance in long term battles. If As'Taan are not obviously winning early on, they'll tend to make an orderly and violent retreat.
As'Taan attack cruisers patrol their borders alertly and aggressively. When they encounter an Alien incursion, they will attack if it looks good for them. If not they'll shadow and call for back up.
As'Taan attack cruisers in war operate in cooperative groups of five.
As'Taan engineers enjoy building weapons with the idea that they'll be used to hurt aliens and it shows. As'Taan ships are frequently "overgunned" and use guns in rotation to avoid over heating, wear and too much drain on their power systems. For very short bursts As'Taan ships can power ALL their weapons and this can get dangerous.
As'Taan are currently building and testing new attackers in small lots to see what works best by empirical experience.
Somewhere, the As'Taan got and old Klingon technical database, and then they've gotten updated Orion technology at a fierce cost.
Recently evidence shows that the As'Taan have been buffed, probably by Real Klingon operatives, seeking to counterweight the Bendarri. As the old Klingon saying goes "The enemy of my enemy may be something I can use."
Besides Attack Cruisers, the As'Taan have a fully three dimensional fleet, albeit a fleet specialized for military purposes. They have escorts, troop transports and rescue ships. The works.
The As'Taan Army trains almost obsessively. Without careful training, As'taan troops in combat can be tempted to break ranks and just randomly seek aliens to kill.
As'Taan special forces troops are lethal and very well trained. They are very objective focused. But they tend to only take prisoners when that's the goal of the mission. (A prisoner to interrogate and extract information from.)
Normal As'Taan troops are well trained, but in combat can tend to over extend themselves as they get into having fun killing aliens.
As'taan, when over whelmed, tend not to surrender. In a highly emotional state, the added irritation of nearby aliens tends to over ride good sense.
However, good ground commanders tend to keep their troops together, on-plan and objective oriented.
Slaughtering every alien they meet is just a perk of the job.
Category:Races
Category:Political Units
Category:ST-OM
Category:Epiphany Trek
Category:Unfinished Articles
====History:====
The As'Taan grew into a sentient species on As'Qard, their home world. They were one of many sentient creatures. The early As'Taan systematically killed all their rivals.
They they grew into civilization, by themselves. They fought the usual wars and had a complex and blood soaked time.
When they discovered hidden or remote populations of rival creatures, the As'Taan gleefully mounted a crusade to exterminate them. Many Ancient As'Taan songs deal withg the Joy and blood lust of seeing outsiders fall and die. And even some old heroic ballads about addicts to this feeling, searching the world for outsiders to murder to slake the thirst in their hearts.
Then, one day, the As'taan were minding their own business. Their world had been conquered and tamed. They were launching satellites and considering how to advance their civilization, when the Bendarri arrived.
Now the As'Taan thinking at the time was that only As'Qard was suitable for life and the chances of other worlds holding life seemed next to nothing.
So to have Aliens show up... was intensely annoying. How dare they. traipsing all across space like they owned it. Monsters, looking down on the one true people.
The As'Taan quickly and intelligently set about acquiring alien technology and forging it into a weapon.
The As'Taan fought the Bendarri angrily, harshly and aggressively. Every time it looked like they were about to get on top of the problem, something else happened and set them back.
The As'Taan made contact with rival aliens and made agreements for better technology and weapons. The As'Taan really hated this, but if it leads to more dead aliens, then there are As'Taan who will suck it up and do what needs to be done.
Alliances soon fell apart. Ther As'Taan simply cannot tolerate aliens around them for very long. But so far, they've made a few long distance friends and they're still in the game.
Some thinkers point out that it's all but impossible for the As'Taan economy and war machine to grow quickly enough to over come the people they KNOW about, let alone people farther away.
But more optimistic As'Taan have held sway. One Alien Horde at a time, they're eventually going to get them ALL.
The Most unhappy As'Taan is an intelligence analyst. The As'Taan are tied into several civilian networks. Poor analysists are confronted daily with pictures and images of Aliens they may never meet and get to kill. They're significantly grumpy.
After multiple wars against the Bendarri, in the early 2370's, The As'Taan attacked the Federation, trying to force them to withdraw away from easy contact with the Bendarri.
As The Plan was really getting started - a special operations crew from the Federation revealed that key memberrs of the As'Taan high command had been hijacked by the Cardassian Obsidian Order.
The As'Taan immediate cancelled their plans and conducted a swift purge. Then they fought a brief, bitter, inconclusive war with the Cardassians, hampered by the fact that the Cardassians had complete knowledge of the As'Taan military and their technology.
Since then, the As'Taan have hunkered down and are working on developing better ships and technology to pursue The Mission
====Culture:====
The As'Taan culture descends from multiple factions attaining shifting balances. In their early space flight time they had a stable patchwork of As'Taan nations. Now such things are curiousities. The way humans regard eye or hair color. The awareness of aliens in space instantly made all internal conflicts between As'Taan secondary and discarded in favor of The Mission.
====Relations:====
Everyone: Hate 'em. Non As'Taan people annoy and irritate As'Taan people.
The Bendarri: The As'Taan reserve special hatred for the Bendarri. The Bendarri have committed two crimes that fire rage in their hearts. 1 The Bendarri didn't lie down and die when the As'Taan attacked and 2 - They aren't just ONE type of hideous vile aliens. They're LOTS of aliens in one bucket!
The Cardassians: When it's their turn, they'll be exterminated with extreme prejudice. But they did teach the As'taan an ugly lesson about espionage and security.
The Federation: They next on the list, Buddy.
The Fulcrum: They're on the list after the Federation.
The Kaa: At least their attitude makes a little sense. They'll be roasted over open fires, but at least they're not all peacenik and Kumbya.
The Thasites: Again, another batch of Aliens with a nice, normal hatred of everything. They'll make sense to fight, when the time comes.
The Ferengi: Will occasionally sell good stuff. When they won't they scream funny when you kill them. It's a win-win
The Acceptians: Hmmm. Instead of slaughtering all aliens, they conquer them and make them work for the Acceptian Empire. Interesting. Not really, it's perverse and grotesque. They're evil aliens so they're on the list.
The Orions: Stupid aliens who can occasionally be fooled into selling toys. The Orions think they're using the As'Taan, and that's okay. Mutual exploitation is a sensible strategy... until their turn comes.
Klingons: Not only are they Aliens and therefore wrong, but they're CRAZY violent. When the War to exterminate the Klingons starts, the As'Taan are going to have to attack quickly and wipe out as many as possible early on. Because after that, it's crazy ville and that only ends one way.
Some stupid Klingons approach the As'taan for a bout of mutual exploitation, and sure, why not? But zowie, stay out of their crazy until ready to go all in.
====Advantages:====
The As'Taan are a very large military machine. No one in the region can really assemble a big and strong enough fleet to reduce the As'Taan, At least not without leaving themselves open to another rival.
The As'Taan are competent militarily and getting better all the time. They're not stupid people, so they are struggling to learn and adapt to the task they've set for themselves.
Because of the tendency to project one's own world view, preferences and opinion on the world, the As'Taan have been subconsciously expecting the rest of the galaxy to wake up and realize that they hate the As'Taan as much as the As'Taan hate them.
So the As'Taan worlds are armored strongholds.  They are equipped for a defense in depth, and to make every light year an ocean of blood. 
As'Qard itself is one of they most heavily defended worlds in known space, shot through with buunkers, shelters and redoubts.  Each City on the surface is equipped wth starship grade shields and weapons.  They have really large cannon everywhere. 
And this is on top of a forest of defensive weapons satellites. A fleet of System Defense Boats and large armored battle stations. 
The idea of attacking the As'Taan is strictly for thought experiments, amateurs and crazy people. No one sane and experience wants to go there. 
====Weaknesses:====
After a short time, everyone gets that the As'Taan hate them. Their willingness and ability to have allies is slim and none.
They only have As'taan brains, and a limited number of them compared to the Federation or the Bendarri. So their ability to innovate and create surprising new technologies is limited compared to what the Federation or the Bendarri might do in time.
The As'Taan may not be aware of this weakness, which can be a weakness in and of itself.
====Special:====
The As'Taan are not only inveterate bad guys, but a challenge for the Star Trek frame of mind. They cannot help but hate all non As'Taan. The As'Taan are not an irrational people. It's possible to pitch them the idea that violence serves neither party's ends at this time and they could well agree.
But the best you'll get from them is a temporary cease-fire.
That's not to say they won't LIE if they think it will advance The Mission.
Because of the tendency to project one's own world view, preferences and opinion on the world, the As'Taan have been subconsciously expecting the rest of the galaxy to wake up and realize that they hate the As'Taan as much as the As'Taan hate them.
So the As'Taan worlds are armored strongholds. They are equipped for a defense in depth, and to make every light year an ocean of blood.
As'Qard itself is one of they most heavily defended worlds in Known space, shot through with buunkers, shelters and redoubts. Each City on the surface is equipped wth starship grade shields and weapons. They have really large cannon everywhere.
And this is on top of a forest of defensive weapons satellites. A fleet of System Defense Boats and large armored battle stations.
The idea of attacking the As'Taan is strictly for thought experiments, amateurs and crazy people. No one sane and experience wants to go there.
Campaign Role:
Bad guys and Rivals of the Bendarri Empire.
Category:Races
Category:Political Units
Category:ST-OM
Category:Epiphany Trek
Category:Unfinished Articles