The Precursors and the Inheritors

[Golan2072]

Disclaimer: IMTU is NOT the OTU; there are no Droyne or OTU-Ancients in it.

I'm trying to develop two races (or groups of races?) for MTU: one is a small group of races, nicknamed the Precursors, who had a high tech (TL 14-15; mind you, IMTU Human technology tops at mid-late TL12) society (actually several competing empires) in a region to the trailing and rimward from known space about 500,000-1,000,000 years ago. The other race is the Inheritors, who developed on one of the precursor worlds after their demise, and make certain (though limited) use of Precursor technology (their technology peaks at TL13, with the occasional TL15 artifact).

The concept of the Inheritors is inspired by a Larry Niven and Jerri Pournell (sp?) novel called "Footfall", though my idea of the race is very different from this novel's aliens.

I have no idea how to design the precursors (4 races, I think), but I see the Inheritors as Eaters, filling a similar ecological role to rats on Earth (though this doesn't mean they are biologically similar to rats, only ecologically); LBB3 generation gave them an avarage weight of 50kg, Teeth as a weapon and Jack as an armor (scales? thick skin?); native terrain is Ruins. They might have been semi-sentient (think somewhere between a raccoon and a chimpanzee in Earth terms) before the precursors' demise, and the rapid environmental changes created by this demise caused evolutionary pressure towards sentience. Early technology was probably scavanged from bits and pieces of the (heavily eroded) Precursor ruins, and later technology was based on crude reverse-engineering of certain Precursor items.

LBB3 generation gave me these four races as a basis for the Precursors:
- Siren, 200kg, attack as Broadsword, no armor; native terrain is Marsh.
- Killer, 50kg, Claws+1 and Teeth+1, no armor; native terrain is Broken.
- Gatherer, 400kg, Thrasher, no armor; native terrain is Beach.
- Intermittent, 25kg, Teeth, no armor; native terrain is Forest.

 

[Ran Targas]

^ I have a similar situation IMTU; 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation civilizations.

The 1st generation is all but gone from this galaxy or has lost interest entirely in the workings of minor races. Their technology is akin to magic.

Although few in numbers, the 2nd generation civ's still hold to the philosophies of their 1st generation masters, locked in an interstellar cold war using the 3rd generation civ's as foot soldiers and pawns.

The 3rd generation has no real records of the dozens of wars and skirmishes that happened in their collective pre-histories, only legends and fables, and are left wondering how things got the way they are.

IMTU, the Droyne and Hivers are 2nd generation. Hivers uplifted humans first and used them as avatars. The Droyne met humans in the employ of the Hivers and liked what they saw; a species with numerous potential uses, from weapons to biological factories. Driving deep into Hiver space, the Droyne captured Terra and began creating their own strains of humanati, as well as uplifting the Vargr. Along the way, the Droyne also discovered and uplifted the Aslan for use as shock troops. Hivers responded to the Vargr and Aslan by uplifting the K'kree and manipulating their deep seated hatred of carnivores for Hiver advantage. The Droyne countered by developing the Zhodani who infiltrated as humans and sabotaged whole Hiver fleets. The war escalated until both sides struck at the other's homeworlds with doomsday weapons, removing the means and desire to continue fighting.

All in all, the end was marked with both sides in retreat, leaving behind isolated pockets of the highly adaptable humans (some of which managed to survive) and very specialized strains of Aslan, Vargr, and K'kree (of which most went extinct). Since, Hivers have continued to manipulate their former servants, encouraging the Hiver view, and the Droyne are still in recovery, unable to retake their previous holdings out right but unwilling to give up claim to them without a fight.

Yeah, it sounds a lot like Babylon 5, but so be it; consider it an homage to JMS, he deserves it.

 

[Whipsnade]

Footfall. The title of the book is Footfall.

I like your Inheritor ideas. I especially like the idea of the Inheritor's ur-species being something that infested ruins. Pretty neat when you figure how many ruins the Precursors left!

Check out another Niven/Pournelle book, The Mote in God's Eye, for more ideas in this vein. The Moties have a sub-species evolved as a feral, urban ruin dwellers. The humans catch a glimpse of them in the Mote Prime 'zoo' and are told they fill an ecological role similar to rats. In the sequel, The Gripping Hand, humans get a closer - and deadlier - look at them.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Golan2072]

My general idea of Inheritor technology is that their space tech (ships and such) is about one or two TLs above their ground tech, as the most intact Precursor artifacts they've found so far were starships (as these were not subjected to atmospheric conditions, they decayed much more slowly). Ofcourse, there WAS ground technology on them, but on smaller proportions.

So they'll have TL13 ships (organized the very few TL15 artifact cardres), with TL11 (or early 12) ground vehicles. I'm not sure they'll initially be hostile to Humans, though (except for border skirmishes, that is, unless, ofcourse, an Inheritor faction will ally itself with a Human faction and join it in war against another Human faction). Ofcourse, they'll have VERY interesting trade goods to offer

 

[Golan2072]

One thing that should flow from the Inheritors' original habitat: they should be pragmatic, adaptive creatures; they survive by improvisation, by opportunism. I'll probably be aiming at something a bit similar to the OTU Vargr in terms of cultural and political flexibility and instability. Alot of courusity (sp?) as well - think about rats and their tendancy to check out new foodstuffs, as opposed to less oppotunistic animals.

 

[robject]

Sounds like the Engineer subtype from Mote in God's Eye.

 

[Golan2072]

The "clockmaker" one? (sorry if I got the term wrong, I only read the Hebrew translation and even that a long time ago).