Taurhai

[Everett]

So, has anybody already done a conversion of the Taurhai from Way of D'era for CODA, or should I make my own? If somebody else hasn't already done the work, I'll post whatever I work out for review, comments, and advice.

[black campbellq]

i did one, but i didn't use the way of dera description; bascially created my own look for them.

that said, i can try and dig it up for you when i'm back home.

[Everett]

That would be useful. I made my own attribute modifier conversion based on the ICON/CODA conversion doc, but coming up with appropriate species abilities based on the description in Way of D'era has been tricky, and I'm still not done with it. I've got plenty of time to finish it, since I don't plan on the players encountering them for a while yet.

[black campbellq]

TAURHAI

Personality
Taurhai are technophiles and idealists. They are dedicated to the advance of knowledge and technology. Similar in philosophy to the Federation, the Taurhai differ in the rightness of their ideologies and actively seek to export their culture. They are interventionist, attempting to right perceived injustice, by force if need be.

Physiology and Appearance
Taurhai are a humanoid race, similar in size and abilities to humans. They have dark gray to black skin, white hair, pointed ears, and eye color ranging from red to gold. They reproduce sexually, with the female carrying the fetus to term in nine months. Their blood is a metalic gray, using selenium instead of iron for oxidization. They prefer sulfurous and salty foods.

Homeworld
Chi’tan is a Class M planet bordering on Class N. The atmosphere, while rich in oxygen, has a higher concentration of sulfur and carbon dioxide than similar planets. The world is geologically active, with tectonic plates that cause frequent earthquakes (usually just temors.) The planet has a hydrosphere of 72%, is mountainous, with a variety of climates, but no arctic climes.
The planet was long ago tamed, and most lifeforms are domesticated flora and fauna. Extensive cities and infrastructure dominate the planet, but war with the Romulans in the early 2300s led to massive ecological and infrastructure damage when the Romulans attacked in the 2330s. The Taurhai have mostly recovered from the conflict and are once again beginning to be active in interstellar affairs.

History and Culture
The Taurhai developed tens of thousands of years ago on their world. Several major cultures and nation-states rose and fell over their cultural development, but the Taurhai Unity grew from a small city-state that stressed egalitarianism and individuality in a corporatist structure, into a planetary power.
Central to the success of the Unity was the idea of taurite (pronounced tor-ree-TAY): that a person should work to be the most productive, skilled, enlightened they could be. Taurite roughly translates into “excellence” and is similar to the Greek idea of arete. Duty and personal responsibility is considered essential to taurite, moral obligation is considered the block to avarice and pride.
The Taurhai experienced many wars in their history, and though they are mostly peaceful, elements of the competitive search for excellence abound in the popularity of sports, pageants, and intellectual awards. The height of this is the government system, which is a meritocracy. The ultimate goal of a bureaucrat is to be elected to the Council of Worthies, a 100-person council that oversees the overall governance of the Unity.
Taurhai science is extremely advanced, on par with any of the stellar cultures regularly encountered, and more advanced in some areas like gravity control and physics.

Language and Names
Taurhai. The language has a complex, contextual system of verb tenses and a syllabic symbology for their writing system. Their names tend to be flowing and onomatopoeic.


Favored Profession
Scientist or Starship Officer. Many are drawn to science or engineering.

Species Adjustments and Abilities
The Taurhai quest for excellence has crafted an intelligent and thoughtful people. +1 Intellect.

ROBUST The selenium-based blood of the Taurhai allow them to metabolize many impurities in most Class M and N worlds. Stamina rolls versus fatigue or poisoning gain a +2 to the test.

SKILLED Taurhai gain either a +2 to one skill in character creation, or +1 to two skills.

TAURITE Taurhai are raised to refuse to fail. They gain an extra courage point and receive a +5 to any task when spending a courage point.

[Tricky]

Hey, they sound a bit Drowish, but without the institutional evil

[black campbellq]

Yeah, they do, don't they? I think I had a visual in mind when I wrote them up. What the hey...Vulcans are the "elves" of Trek, after all.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Yeah, they do, don't they? I think I had a visual in mind when I wrote them up. What the hey...Vulcans are the "elves" of Trek, after all.

Wouldn't that make the Romulans the Drow?

[black campbellq]

Dang it, don;t confuse me with appropriate comparisons!

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Personally...

I'd steer away from making them too federation-ish good-guy-like. Perhaps successive failure makes them insane, or they require success/failure ratio to undergo audits at the annual Assembly of Examination or something, accounting for every behaviour they've engaged in, and having to follow a rubric which determines their capability and position in society.

EDIT: Ooooh... and make them total cowards in combat. Their supposed benevolence is really a front to get other species to fight for them.

[Phoenix]

The Tauhari are anything but cowards, from the ICON source they were kicking the living snot out of the Romulans for some 30 years. Not the border war stuff, were talking all out fleet battles (not quite like those seen in the Dominion War, but larger than any other engagement sense the battle of Cherion for the Romulans). The Tauhari didn't stop their very successful invasion until a Romulan war fleet sacrificed themselves annihilating the Tauhari Homeworld, forcing an amices - not a treaty, no neutral zone, no ambassadors - just a very long delay...

Going by my maps, the Romulans lost some 20 (2D map) sectors of space to the Tauhari. FYI when I thought of the Tauhari's description and personality from the Romulan Box Set, I immediately visualized Babylon 5's Minbari. They're the species I've used to fill in some of the gaps left over from the Box Set and information on the ISC (Starfleet Battles)

[Tobian]

Yep that's the thing about the taurhai. They seem nice. If a Federation ship were to meet one they woud probably seem very nice, ask them over to dinner and even offer to send in ambassadors.. then things would go very wrong for the Federation!

The Taurhai are extremelly technically advanced, quite a bit moreso than the Federation and Romulans.. The Romulans only beat them because they threw their lives away in their thousands, to overcome unsurmountable odds. It is proffered in the Romulan books that the reason the Romulans became so much more advanced over the intervening years was exactly because of their war with teh Taurhai.. an arms race.. The Federation was not as much of a threat because while both had similar ideals 1) the federation was not aggressive and 2) they were at a much weaker level of development, and ALLOT less technically potent than the Taurhai. They have ships which are extremelly large and travel by manipulatin gravity waves, literally falling forward at high speed. They also generate huge subspace funnels to travel through, giving them a huge tactical advantage over the Romulans, especially early on when they had fairly weak warp drive capabilities as it was, let alone trying to counter ships which could jump tens of lightyears in moments, out of nowhere!

It's a good analogy to compare them to the Mimbari, relative to early Earth spacefarers encountering them, especially in terms of the technology.. the Taurhai have been highly evolved for many years, the Romulans jumped up from nowhere in a few hundred years, radically outpacing their old technology, but still facing formidable odds. In their case however 'the line' was taken to the taurhai planet, and they won

It's debateable if the Federation could easilly cope if the Taurhai discovered them and they decided to take them on as a pet project, though I suspect they would have the Romulans in such a war, as an ally

[Everett]

For my game, I'm looking at them as basically much like the Federation with their emphasis on personal achievement, but with a Prime Directive of their own: "Interfere with those at a lesser stage of development, it will be good for them." This should bring the player's ship into direct conflict with a Taurhai vessel as they try to prevent interference with a primitive (19th or 20th century equivalent) society they both encounter at about the same time. This is going to set up the whole Taurhai/Romulan war, since the Taurhai will discover the Romulans between them and the Federation. Since I'm running my game in the Movie era, that war hasn't started yet, according to the various timelines.

I'm putting the finishing touches on my own version of the Taurhai (incorporating a couple ideas from black campbellq's version), and will post it here when I'm done.

[black campbellq]

I'm intro'ing them in a few eps. they're not the good guys, but they're not bad guys, either. In keeping with the moral equivalency nature of Trek they are an advanced race who thinks that their version of modernity (if you will) is best -- notions of freedom, equality, and technology. They are -- for us -- the Federation, but without the wishy-washy "we can't get involved" attitude. These are gung-ho "okay, we screw up from time to time, but we mean well" types.

In the 24th C world of Trek, they're horrific. Had they been encountered in the TOS period..? they might have been good prospective members.

But being alike, don't mean that they'll work and play well with the UFP. The intro adventure has a gung-ho Taurhai captain trying to do first contact and "save" an early information era culture (say, ~20/21st C Earth) from a nuclear war. Starfleet will try to interpose, limit the damage, and wind up having to play foil to them.

Then again, my version of the UFP has Starfleet being the guys that are interested in notions of personal excellence, but the general population are "leisure class" getting from the state and sitting on their backsides doing bad art, going to adult education classes, or watching the vids. Starfleet pulls the people who haven't succumbed. The Taurhai attitude is like the Greeks -- do everything well and with gusto. Or the 19th C Americans' bootstrap mentality...do for yourself and others.

[Tricky]

I always wanted to see the FED run into a similar power with different motivations.

The Dominion was a step in the right direction; an autocratic gov't dedicating to inforcing order on the Quadrent, but then they kinda just became a 'destroy the solids' kinda thing.

It's would be nice to see Kirk, Picard, Sisko, or even Janeway try to argue the finer points of the PD with their counterpart from this other power:

"Yes, we could use our technology to repair the damage to their biosphere and help them generate power without more pollution or going to war over those dwindling fossil fuel deposits. But we believe that it is wrong to interfere, that every culture must progress naturally without interference!"

Alien captain: "Well, that is a good idea. However, if you allow every information age culture to wipe itself out at this critical stage, then what's the point of studying them anyway? So, we're sending down the Fusion generators anyway!"

[black campbellq]

I always wanted to see the FED run into a similar power with different motivations.

The Dominion was a step in the right direction; an autocratic gov't dedicating to inforcing order on the Quadrent, but then they kinda just became a 'destroy the solids' kinda thing.

It's would be nice to see Kirk, Picard, Sisko, or even Janeway try to argue the finer points of the PD with their counterpart from this other power:

"Yes, we could use our technology to repair the damage to their biosphere and help them generate power without more pollution or going to war over those dwindling fossil fuel deposits. But we believe that it is wrong to interfere, that every culture must progress naturally without interference!"

Alien captain: "Well, that is a good idea. However, if you allow every information age culture to wipe itself out at this critical stage, then what's the point of studying them anyway? So, we're sending down the Fusion generators anyway!"

BINGO! Thanks, Tricky, that's exactly the argument I'm using. Even more than that, the alien captain's response: "We have a moral obligation to aid them..."