Brinn
| Brinn | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Base Information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classification | Carnivore/killer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Status | Minor Race | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Locomotion | Walker | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Terrain | Rough | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Body Form | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Confluence | Non-humanoid | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bio-Identenoid | Alien | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Size | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 1,250 kg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Culture | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Languages | Native Language | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Social Structure | Captive Government | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technological Epoch | TL:7-9 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Psionic potential | Standard | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Origin World | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Homeworld location | Divad (Corridor 2238) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UWP | C8C0885-9
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| Primary Star | M5 V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Atmosphere | Insidius | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Off-world presence | No | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zoetic individuals | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Source | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reference | "The Brinn." The Travellers' Digest 12 18-24. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Canon | No | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Also see | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Brinn of Divad (Corridor 2238) are a Minor Non-Human Race with a non-humanoid appearance and technologically competent sophonts.
Description (Specifications)
The Brinn are a xenophobic pseudo-arachnoid Minor Race confined to Divad (Corridor 2238). They are one of the most unusual races known to scientists of the Third Imperium: the Brinn are descended from carnivore/killer stock. Among the hundreds of sophont species known to Humaniti, only a handful can lay claim to a similar heritage.
Physiology & Environment
Physically, the Brinn are a very large race, with adults massing an average of 1,250 kilograms each. In appearance, they look something like Terran crabs or spiders, but having ten limbs. As in a spider, the limbs are angled upward as they leave the body and then turn back down toward the ground after the joint. The Brinn limbs are much thicker in proportion to the body than those of Terran arachnids.
Evolutionary History
Prior to their evolution of intelligence, the Brinn hunted by hollowing out areas beneath the surface of the planet and waiting for prey to pass by. When the vibrations in the ground about them indicated that a creature was passing above their dwelling, they would spring out and strike in a manner which has been likened to that of a trap-door spider on Terra.
Increasingly harsh weather prompted the early Brinn to evolve intelligence as a way of overcoming their harsh environment and violent climate. Being methane breathers who find temperatures of -60C (213K) to be uncomfortably warm, the Brinn are not typical of the ranks of Imperial citizens.
See: Divad, for more information about the environment of the Brinn homeworld.
Locomotion
The six hindmost limbs are used for locomotion. Each of these ends in a strong set of six grasping claws. While useless in combat, they provide excellent traction on the rough terrain amid which the Brinn evolved.
Manipulation
The leading four limbs are manipulators.
The first pair of arms is slender and terminates in manipulatory hands, each of which is made up of four fingers and two thumbs. These are similar enough to human hands to permit the use of many pieces of human equipment without modification or unusual difficulty. The remnants of claws can still be found on the fingers and thumbs, but these serve no purpose.
The second set of limbs is heavier than the first and ends in a trio of sharp talons. In melee combat, these are the primary weapons of the Brinn. The talons are quite sharp and the great strength of the arms renders them deadly. The body of a Brinn is not hard like that of a spider, but is covered with a tough, leathery, black skin. The brain is at the center of the body, surrounded by a protective bone case. Two major nerve stalks, known as the dorsal and ventral columns, leave the brain and run to clusters of sensory organs on the back and belly.
Senses
A large bump, known as the dorsal sense cluster, rises from the center of the back, and serves as the primary sensory organ. It has six eyes located around it which provide the Brinn with a full 360o field of vision. Brinn eyesight is far more sensitive to infrared radiation than that of the average human, but is very limited in the so-called "visible spectrum." In fact, Brinn are wholly unable to perceive many higher-frequency colors, such as green, blue, and violet.
The dorsal cluster additionally contains the Brinn's sense of smell. Air which is headed for the lungs passes along several membranes which sample it for trace elements in a manner not unlike that of a human olfactory system. The Brinn sense of smell, however, is not very acute.
On the underside of the Brinn is a smaller group of sensory organs, the ventral sense cluster. A small set of photosensitive spots encircles it, but these provide only a general sense of light and dark. In practice, the Brinn all but ignore the input from these "eyes."
Of far greater interest is the vibration sensor, which makes up the outer surface of the cluster. While similar in some ways to a human ear, it is far less sensitive in the air. But when placed against the ground, it becomes an important sense organ. Except for the faint impressions of sound which the vibration sensor can pick up, Brinn are deaf.
Respiration
Also located in the dorsal cluster is the intake for the Brinn respiratory system. Air is drawn in through an opening atop the cluster and into the creature's lungs. Here, the vital methane is extracted and passed into the blood stream for distribution about the body. Also, the dry air is filtered for any traces of liquid (mainly hydrogen cyanide) which the body needs to survive. In this manner, the Brinn are able to survive on a world with almost no hydrosphere.
Reproduction
The Brinn have a very complex system of reproduction.
Genders
When one takes into account the fact that they have four sexes instead of the far more common two, Brinn become even more unusual.
The four genders are:
- Nulls, immature youth (children).
- Male fully mature adults.
- Female fully mature adults ("Alphas" or "Alpha-fems").
- Female fully mature adults, Beta-females ("Betas" or "Beta-fems")
- Nulls: The first of the sexes are actually just Brinn children who have not yet attained maturity. From birth until the age of about nine standard years, all Brinn are nulls. It is impossible to tell which sex a child will be when it matures until the change actually occurs. All nulls are dark grey in color. The first sex are given a status roughly equal to that of non-adults in most other cultures.
As the young near what the Brinn call the 'time of progression,' they become lethargic and listless. At this point, they must decide which sex they will assume as adults. All evidence collected by Imperial scientists to date indicates that the change is totally up to the individual. Once the choice is made, the youth enters a state of hibernation which is very near death and the body begins to alter itself. After seven to 12 days, the changes are complete and the Brinn awakes as a fully mature adult.
- Males: Males, the second of the four sexes, are off-white or light grey in color. In reproduction, the males supply the sperm which fertilizes the eggs and allows them to begin growth.
- Alpha-females: Alpha-females (often called simply "alphas" or "alpha-fems") are the egg producers. They are black or dark grey in color and tend to be somewhat smaller that the other sexes, averaging only 1,200 kilograms in mass.
- Beta-females: Beta-females (often called simply "betas" or "beta-fems") receive both the sperm and the egg from their mates and store them in their bodies until the eggs mature enough to survive on their own. This takes an average of three months. Betas are light grey on their dorsal surfaces, fading to black on the underside.
Gestation
Once the egg can survive on its own, it is expelled from the Beta's body and placed in a nursery area which provides incubation for all of the eggs in a given community. After another two and a half to three months, the egg hatches and the child is born.
Culture
Mainstream Brinn follow a religion known only as the Truth. The Truth states that the Brinn (and all other lifeforms) were created by a single divine being of an unfathomable nature.
Language & Letters
Being almost totally deaf by human standards, the Brinn have no spoken language. In its place, they have developed a communication system which is based on vibrations induced in the ground beneath them.
Two Brinn converse by settling upon their ventral clusters, bringing their vibrational sensors into contact with the surface below them, and then thrumming the ground with their powerful legs. Words and concepts are expressed by the number and duration of vibrations (in a manner similar to Morse code) while emotion is imparted by the intensity.
As might be imagined, two Brinn having a heated argument can engage in a great deal of stomping and pounding. In many cases, the evidence of a past conversation (deep foot prints, broken stones, and damage to the ground beneath them) may be obvious for several days.
History & Background (Dossier)
The Brinn have had a long history, during most of which they held an antagonistic relationship with Humaniti.
Discovery of the Brinn
During the Vilani expansions which led to the eventual founding of the First Imperium, explorers came across the Kateri system and its unusual natives. At that point, the Brinn had only just begun to mount a manned space program and reach out to the worlds around them. Vilani traders opened negotiations and soon began to develop a mutually beneficial platform of exchanges and economic intercourse. When the Ziru Sirka (or "Grand Empire of Stars") was established in -4045, the Brinn were eager to accept membership.
Brinn & First Imperium
With the help of the First Imperium, the Brinn quickly established a system-wide society that thrived on the exploitation of its asteroid belts and Jovian worlds. Under the beneficent rule of the Vilani, the Brinn culture prospered and grew.
Brinn & Solomani
In -2207, shortly after the advent of the Rule of Man, things began to change for the Brinn. Their good relations with the Ziru Sirka government didn't carry much weight when the Solomani took power. After a series of military exchanges, which went largely against the Brinn, the Kateri system fell.
The Solomani quickly established a military government to keep the natives under control. Brinn culture began a stagnation that was to last for almost 3,000 years.
First Occupation & Rape of Kateri
The next five centuries saw the rape of the Kateri system and the violent subjugation of its people. Almost without fail, the military rulers appointed by Terra were despots and tyrants. The few exceptions made no change in the deteriorating state of Brinn-human relations.
With the passing of the Rule of Man and the onset of the Long Night, the Brinn managed to drive Humaniti from their system. Long forgotten was the kindness and co-operation which had existed between the Brinn and the First Imperium. Now, Humaniti was remembered only as a race of sadistic slave masters and economic pirates.
Brinn Expansion
As the Long Night ground on, the Brinn expanded their society and moved outward from their system. When the Terran dictators were driven out of the Kateri system, the Brinn captured much of their equipment and were able to assemble a formidable space fleet. One by one, human settlements in neighboring systems were located and attacked. In a matter of years, the Brinn overran three nearby worlds and instituted a policy of genocide unmatched by any other known civilization.
Because the Brinn find the environment of the worlds on which mankind settles inhospitable, they rarely engaged in long and costly ground battles for control of a system. Once the defending space fleet of a human system was overcome, the Brinn simply began to bombard it from orbit. The attacks were horrible and effective. Small asteroids were diverted to fall atop major cities and nuclear weapons were employed without concern for the ecological havoc which they would bring to the worlds. The Brinn did not wish to enslave the humans they found, only to destroy them.
For nearly a hundred years, the Brinn expanded outward. As they moved, they brought death to numerous human worlds and outposts.
However, the endless warfare cost them heavily.
Brinn Decline
The starships which they had claimed from the fallen Second Imperium began to fail beyond repair. While the Brinn could maintain starships, they couldn't build them.
Centuries later, when Cleon Zhunastu began his campaigns to forge the Third Imperium, the human cultures around the Brinn had united against them and driven them back into their home system.
Second Occupation & Rape of Kateri
The Pacification Campaigns (76-120) forced the Brinn, via military actions, to join the Third Imperium.
For the second time in their history, the Brinn found themselves under the hand of an unwelcome human government. Economic and political programs established under the rulership of the Lentuli Dynasty were little more than vengeance for the Brinns' genocidal campaigns during the Long Night.
Brinn Revolt of 600's
As the turmoil of the Civil War shook the foundations of Imperial control in the 600s, the Brinn attempted to throw off their human masters in a violent but unsuccessful rebellion. Although they did manage to reclaim their own system, they were unable to hold it against the subsequent counterstrikes which quickly decimated their makeshift war fleet.
Third Occupation & Rape of Kateri
When the Imperium regained control of Kateri less than a year later, it was found that the Brinn had once again embarked on a program of genocidal warfare against Humaniti. Every single human who had been trapped in the system when the Imperial troops were forced to withdraw had been slain by the Brinn.
After the fires of the Civil War had cooled, the Brinn were once again subject to retribution for their actions. Although an official policy of Imperial Absolution was granted by Arbellatra for all military actions fought in the course of the Civil War, the Brinn were returned to a state of military rule and forced to accept unusually harsh socio-economic restrictions again.
Early on in the rule of Strephon, the Imperial Military Government of Kateri was ordered to assist the natives in the formation of a civilian government. After ten years of negotiations and political arbitration, the Brinn established a civil service bureaucracy to govern the planet.
Brinn Aftermath
Despite their new liberties, the Brinn were still almost wholly under the thumb of the Imperial Military. Every new ruling made by the government had to be cleared by the military before implementation, and the Brinn are forbidden to raise any form of military other than a local system police force.
Social Organization
Three of the four sexes are treated with complete equality in Brinn society, which judges all of its adult citizens by their physical and mental fitness alone; the first sex consists of the young only and are given a status roughly equal to that of non-adults in most cultures.
Government & Politics
The Brinn live under the control of an occupation government run by the Imperial Military and have been forced to accept an unusually harsh regimen of socio-economic restrictions.
Divad is ruled by a civil service bureaucracy known as the Grand Dominion. Under Imperial guidance and control, the Dominion has been restoring a limited form of self-rule to the Brinn after centuries under a military government imposed by the Imperium. The Dominion is made up of over three dozen councils, each of which is charged with the control of one area of society. The more important councils are those of Wealth (economics), Truth (religion), Knowledge (education), and Service (public welfare). Each of these is composed of 15 members (known as Dominators) who are grouped into three internal councils, approximating the functions of the judicial, legislative, and executive branches.
For example, the Council of Wealth is wholly in control of the Dominion's economy. Five of its members set down the laws which govern society in such matters, another group controls those portions of the planetary police force which enforces those laws, and the last team of Dominators passes judgment and hands out punishments to violators.
Members of the various councils are selected by the Grand Council of Dominators. This group is made up of the senior members from each of the various ruling councils and serves no function other than to select replacements for those who die or retire from government office.
The Grand Council also has the power to decide that Dominators are unfit to continue in office; it can order them removed from government. The head of the Grand Council is the Grand Dominator (the senior member of the group) and it is he who adjudicates all ties in the council's decisions.
The nature of this arrangement is such that older, more conservative members of the government tend to be in posittion of greater power than younger, usually more liberal, citizens. The overall result is that the Grand Dominion is somewhat resistant to large scale changes in governmental or social programs and generally supports the status quo.
Technology & Trade
At one time, the Brinn managed to get ahold of TL–10 to TL–11 technologies, but they were unable to master those technologies so the starships they once captured from the Imperium slowly became decrepit and non-operational as parts the Brinn could not produce fell into a state of disrepair.
Today, the Imperial Occupation Government, actively discourages or puts a stop to technological progress by the Brinn, and the Brinn themselves find their control over advanced technologies waning. The Brinn, in current times, have manged to maintain a TL-9 to 10 society with great difficulty since the Occupation Government forbids the teaching of advanced technologies.
Rumor has it that a Brinn underground, both figuratively and literally, is conducting secret scientific education and research away from prying Imperial eyes.
Interstellar Trade
The Imperial Occupation Government had forbidden all interstellar trade and travel to the Brinn.
Military & Intelligence (Force Projection)
The Brinn are forbidden by the Imperium to raise any form of military other than a local constabulary, or system police force.
They previously had a powerful army and navy.
Astrography
This race is primarily located in the following areas:
Charted Space:
Homeworld
The homeworld of this race is:
World Listing: 1105
Significant communities of this race are known to exist within the following systems and worlds:
References & Contributors (Sources)
- Gary L. Thomas. "The Brinn." The Travellers' Digest 12 (1989): 18-24.
- William W. Conners. BARD CARI 9002
- EXTERNAL LINK: The Brinn IMTU by Admiral Savage
- EXTERNAL LINK: Nest class Cruiser by Admiral Savage
- EXTERNAL LINK: Truthmaster class Heavy Cruiser by Admiral Savage
- EXTERNAL LINK: Wing class Transport by Admiral Savage