"Incorporating Kzinti into the Star Trek: The Next Generation Role Playing Game"
by Allen Shock

    One of the major sticking points for Star Trek fans when determining for themselves the "canonicity" of various sources is the presence of the Kzinti in the animated episode "The Slaver Weapon" by Larry Niven. Niven wrote an episode of the series based on one of his "Known Space" short stories and thus the Kzinti became part of the Star Trek universe...or did they?

    When Gene Roddenberry began Star Trek The Next Generation, it was apparently decided to disavow the animated Star Trek series, based partially on the fact that the production values were not up to Gene's standards (and to be fair, while some of the stories were good, the animation was generally poor and I can see Gene's point). Sometime in the eighties, Niven licensed the Known Space setting and characters to a computer game company; he then turned around and licensed Chaosium to produce a Ringworld RPG, which they did, until the computer game company threatened to sue, and thus the Ringworld RPG vanished to become a highly sought after collectible. This is speculation, but similar legal concerns could have been the reason why the Kzinti are not considered part of the Star Trek universe today...Paramount's legal department has always been rather cautious in some respects. In any event, except for certain key elements of the episode "Yesteryear" by D.C. Fontana, the Star Trek animated series is no longer part of the continuity, and is not included in the Star Trek Chronology or Encyclopedia.

    This is all well and good, but of course Narrators running their own campaigns are not bound by such issues. However, the Star Trek TNG game does use the timeline and continuity provided in the Chronology. Fitting the Kzinti into this framework does create some problems. The Kzinti are stated to have had four wars with humanity, losing each one, until they finally were made a Federation "Protectorate". The animated series has been assumed to occur during a "fourth season" of Star Trek, the fourth year of the five-year mission. However, the way the timeline is now set up, this cannot be the case. Kirk takes command of the Enterprise in 2264, but the first season of the show is not until 2266-67. That means that roughly the first two years of the five-year mission, which would have had Gary Mitchell as First Officer and before Doctor McCoy joined the crew, were never shown. Now you COULD fit the Enterprise's encounter with the Kzinti somewhere in that time period..except that from the episode, the look and feel of the Enterprise, and the crew members involved, were clearly intended to be from later in the series. The five-year mission ended in 2269. Thus, if they happened at all, the events of the animated series probably occurred in 2269, after the events of the episode "Turnabout Intruder" and before the Enterprise returned to Earth at the end of the mission.

    So when did the Star Trek version of the Man-Kzin Wars occur? Well, it was most likely within a period between 2261, when the UFP was founded, and 2264. In the excellent adaptation of the Slaver Weapon by Alan Dean Foster, it was stated that Uhura had fought the Kzinti in battle; this was most likely in the fourth and final of these conflicts. Before the founding of the UFP, humans were busy with this little thing called the Romulan War. What I then propose is that the Kzinti "Wars" (which are likely considered wars mainly by the Kzinti) were fought between 2161 and 2264; during the first wave of expansion after the establishment of the Federation, Federation ships ran into the Kzinti in a star cluster near the area of colonization. Kzinti likely raided shipping, attacked colonies and so forth in four major "waves", defeated easily each time by Starfleet owing to better technology and the infamous Kzinti impulsiveness. It is doubtful that Starfleet needed more than a large task force to defeat the Kzinti space navy, although ground combat against the Kzin warriors certainly was no cakewalk. By 2264, the Federation finally decided to put an end to this; they crushed the Kzinti fleet, took over the homeworld, and set up a "protectorate", stripping the Patriarchy of their ability to wage war and limiting their spaceflight. This was most likely a hotly debated topic for the Federation Council at that time. This allows Uhura to finish her tour of duty and then transfer to the Enterprise when a position opened there around late 2265.

Where is the Kzinti Patriarchy located? Given the fact that the Federation was quite a bit smaller in those days, probably not terribly far from the core worlds of the Federation; I favor a location somewhere near the area where the Klingons were first encountered, mainly because I remember the Kzinti-Klingon battles from the old Star Fleet Battles game. I would say they would likely be in a fairly close grouping of stars, as there are 12 worlds in the Kzinti Patriarchy, and their warp drive technology was probably never that great; a Star Cluster makes sense. It was also fairly close to Sirius, since that's where the treaty that set up the Protectorate was written and signed. Wherever they are located, it is highly doubtful in my mind that they pose much of a threat by the time of the TNG series. I would even go so far as to suggest that by 2370, they may well be Federation members and thus members of Starfleet (they'd make great Security personnel), and the Kzinti Patriarchy is a thing of the past. They probably get along well with Ferengi, owing to similar attitudes about females, although if I were a Ferengi Merchant, Rule of Acquisition #403 would be "Cheat every other race in the galaxy...but not a Kzin." You probably find Renegade Kzin in the Orion Syndicate. They probably still don't like Vulcans very much. Kzinti and Klingons probably get along pretty well now; two warrior races in a galaxy where warrior races are vanishing...their cultures likely much more similar than they are different. They would be very nice to have on our side during the Cardassian-Federation conflicts, or the war with the Dominion. And finally, a chilling thought...Kzin Borg...

AUTHOR'S NOTES
    Some of this article was based on the article "The Kzinti Have Landed" by Jon Slobins from the December 1985 issue of Dragon Magazine.


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