Dasii

[Rigel Stardin]

Everyone need a race to just beat the crap out of.

Dasii

Homeworld: Unknown
Classification: Insectoid

Physiology: The race is similar to an ant colony. There is a queen, drones, workers and warriors. Their appearance is that of a larger armored spider with eight legs and six eye. The warriors are the largest measuring 2 meters in length by 1 meter high. Workers are 1 meter length by .5 meters high. Queens grow to enormous sizes depending on their age and the size of their colony. Drones are no bigger than a worker. All classes of Dasii have specialized front legs to allow them to manipulate objects. They are more animal then insectoid which accounts for their size.
Reproductive cycle is approximately 4 weeks. From the time the egg is laid to birth another month is require for the Dasii to reach maturity. The queen can lay upwards of a million eggs in her life span. Eggs can be stored up to 90 days before fertilization by the Drones. Unused eggs are recycled (eaten) if they are not fertilized after this time period. All Dasii live approximate 20 years.
Drones determine the number of workers and warriors to be born. Generally they product 100 warriors to every 1000 workers. They produce 1 queen every 18 months or if their queen dies. In times of stress this number can change.
Like a spider they have a set a fangs which inject a paralyzing toxin into their prey before introducing digestive fluids into them.

Psychology: Like any ant colony they have a need to expand and grow their colony searching for more food and living space. It is believed when the Dasii began running out of room on their homeworld, ecological pressures lead to the development of agricultural and animal husbandry in order for them to survive. Technology grew from the basic needs of shelter and tool making.
They view all other life forms as food. This seems rooted in their genetics and not in their ability to reason. The functions performed by the warriors and workers are programmed into them, yet they have a high degree of intelligence in the functions they are intend to perform. The sole purpose of warriors and workers is to maintain and grow the colony as large as possible in the short time possible, so it may defend itself from other harmful life form.
Dasii intelligence allows them to use tools and create machines. Workers and warriors can use tools but the warrior can’t create them. Drones don’t use tools without the aide of workers and queens seem to have no intelligences whatsoever.

Government: The Drones seem to form a counsel which sees to the needs of the colony.

Society: Maintaining and protecting the colony seems to be the only function. Colonies form lose alliances with other colonies of the same genetic bloodline for defense. Technology and information about food sources are passed to these colonies as well.

Religion: None.

Military: Like ants, warriors defend the colony and will sacrifice themselves in order to protect the colony. However, their degree of intelligence allows them to create strategy to defend against hostile forces. They use projectile weapons and armor design for them by the workers. If the colony is breached workers will swarm the attackers with whatever is handy. It also appears that workers operate the weapons on Starships and ground based defense system.

General Information:

No one is sure how they obtained space flight but the current theory is they developed space travel because of ecological pressures placed on their homeworld. Soon after achieving space travel the made contact with an alien race and reversed engineered their Hyperspace drives to fit their needs.

Colony/warship.
800 ton spherical ships with three drives mounted on the rear of the craft. Six PAW batteries which provide full cover fire for the vessel. The have some sort of force shield. The ship is capable of planetary landings. Room for about a 1000 warriors, 2000 workers, 3000 eggs, drones and queen.

Act as nests for the first 18 months of infestation. By this, time they have built an underground nest directly underneath their landing site.

Once a planet becomes overpopulated by the Dasii, they build ships for newly hatch queens which sets in motion the whole colonization process.

I'll leave the rest up to you....

 

[Andrew M]

The Dasii definitely have potential as a horror critter. It would be difficult to fit them into the OTU. Any race that was iredemably hostile and capable of star flight would have their home planet nuked from orbit without a murmer. One possible solution to this would be to give them STL ships. Then it wouldn't matter if their homeworld was in the Imperium, way outside it or just cinders. You have bunch of seed ships, that could turn up anywhere anytime.

Your seed craft are very small at 800tons to carry that many critters. It would be worth your while designing your mothership using some ruleset or another. I would not worry about weapons and armour so much. When you use a horror race it is good for them to have some obvious vulnerabilities. Then you can pile on the angst when people realise that this nightmare could have been easily avoided. Also, ship to ship combat could never match up to a desperate tunnel crawl.

Ideas that you could take or leave...

If they do animal husbandry, that could easily extend to capturing members of the dominant species (us) as livestock. It give the players a reason to get into their nest and fight man to-bug.

I like the idea of the intelligence being a rider race rather than the hive creatures themself. It strikes be as being more convincing somehow, though I'm not sure why. It also adds another level of ick, which is always a good thing.

This may well take your creation in the wrong direction for you. I've just been watching 'Dawn of the Dead', if that helps explain where I'm coming from.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

The whole thing about playing the Dasii is how much intelligence do you give them.

I say this because what makes the Dasii a race is their ablility to use their intelligence to change their environment, use tools and come up with defensives options for the good of the colony. Animals cannot change their environment or adapt there defenses strategies to the point where they are affective against a new threat. Mankind ablility to grasp and understand threats is a key element to his survival and his intelligence.

If your setting is a frontier zone, they could raid the shipping in the area and everyone would believe they are pirates. The only hint the players would have is every ship that encountered the Dasii would be the missing crew members and passangers.

The second thing is they have a little technological edge. IE Force Shield or in Traveller Black & White Globes. Their ship size off sets this advantage, however depending on how you play this slight advantage, one ship might give an imperial cruiser a run for it's money.

Their use of weapons also sets them apart from the animal kingdom. Making the Warriors mindless killing machines just turns your scenario into a horror flick. Yes they will ambush their prey but presented with the fact your dinner is armed with a fusion rifle, they whip out the old hand cannon just to let you know you're not dealing with your run of the mill gaint bug.

As for the nuclear option, three things you must consider before using it. One: If they swarm into your sector how many ships do they have? Two: How long is it going to take the military to respond? Three: How close are the ties between old colonies and new?

One: Earth has 4 billion people on it and some scientist believe we are nearing that point where their will not be enough land to grow the food we need. If the Dasii swarms at this point 400,000,000 ships would be headed your way.
Two: Seven days between worlds is the time it takes for a star ship to reach the next planet. If it is a frontier zone or even a populated sector, it would take 2 or 3 weeks before the sector military command would be notified. And like I pointed out 400 million ships are fanning out over the sector.
Three: If these new colonies pass back the information that this new food source is using nukes against them, they could rally their forces and send another 400 million ships with better weapons and nukes of their own ...

This race is a nightmare scenario if you want it to be. Or it could be a nusance race. It's all up to the Gamemaster...

 

[Andrew M]

If your setting is a frontier zone, they could raid the shipping in the area and everyone would believe they are pirates. The only hint the players would have is every ship that encountered the Dasii would be the missing crew members and passangers.

This is great for most settings. I would only have a problem with it in the Third Imperium, where all the systems have been explored, forgotten and rediscovered several times.

The second thing is they have a little technological edge. IE Force Shield or in Traveller Black & White Globes. Their ship size off sets this advantage, however depending on how you play this slight advantage, one ship might give an imperial cruiser a run for it's money.

A race having a technological edge is fine if it is well explained, and so long as you remember that the laws of physics work the same for everyone.

Their use of weapons also sets them apart from the animal kingdom. Making the Warriors mindless killing machines just turns your scenario into a horror flick. Yes they will ambush their prey but presented with the fact your dinner is armed with a fusion rifle, they whip out the old hand cannon just to let you know you're not dealing with your run of the mill gaint bug.

The horror flick thing was just what was in my mind. I don't want to tie you to anything I dream up.

As for the nuclear option, three things you must consider before using it. One: If they swarm into your sector how many ships do they have? Two: How long is it going to take the military to respond? Three: How close are the ties between old colonies and new?

The nuclear option was just a 3rd Imp. thing. If the Dasii come from a previously unexplored region, then fine. The old age of the the Imperium, and it's well established borders, can be frustrating when you want to introduce surprises.

This race is a nightmare scenario if you want it to be. Or it could be a nusance race. It's all up to the Gamemaster...

At the moment it is up to you. The fuller the picture you can put together the more useful it will be to another GM.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

The Dasii represent Henlien verison of Starship Trooper (It's been years since I read his book). When designing my area of space, the Dasii had just started spawning, therefore they could be stopped before their population got out of hand.

At the begining of the war, my government (Because of comminucation lag between worlds was slow to react) made an attempted to recover those worlds without the use of Weapons of mass distruction (Twilight 2300 scenario) but as they got deeper into their space this became impossible. The Nuclear option was used (same scenario as the end of WW2).

Finally, the Dasii are actually a genetic survival techniques used by a race know as the Ogo. One of their ships crashlanded on a planet and only a few females survived. They were able to genetically alter the females (queens) to produce more offspring but by the time they had accomplished they deevolved.

One day when I get the chance, I'll post the Ogo.

The reason I did not state this in my orginal post is, I don't tell people how to run their games. I put the Dasii out there because it can be used by someone wanting to run that sort of campaign.

 

[Andrew M]

The Dasii represent Henlien verison of Starship Trooper (It's been years since I read his book). When designing my area of space, the Dasii had just started spawning, therefore they could be stopped before their population got out of hand.

This all sounds rather fine.

One day when I get the chance, I'll post the Ogo.

The reason I did not state this in my orginal post is, I don't tell people how to run their games. I put the Dasii out there because it can be used by someone wanting to run that sort of campaign.

I would not worry about telling people how to run their games. Most folks are capable of taking the ideas they like and putteing them into their own games. OTOH those that don't have the confidence or the time to do this will welcome having this work done for them. I think the more details you put in the more clearly you put accross the core ideas.

Please do post the Ogo too

 

[Ulsyus]

...it wouldn't matter if their homeworld was in the Imperium, way outside it or just cinders. You have bunch of seed ships, that could turn up anywhere anytime.

I did this in one setting, having successive waves of bug vessels moving in to try and establish nests on habitable worlds for food cultivation/husbandry purposes

When you use a horror race it is good for them to have some obvious vulnerabilities. Then you can pile on the angst when people realise that this nightmare could have been easily avoided. Also, ship to ship combat could never match up to a desperate tunnel crawl.

The lot that I worked on had also reverse engineered their FTL from a visiting scout, and their tech wasn't high enough, due to socio-cultural limitations, to support too much innovation. As a result their vessels had no spinal or bay beam weapons, but plenty of pulse laser turrets and SWARMS of missiles. That made for some scary moments in ship combat.