Brinn

Xenophobic minor race confined to Divad (Corridor 2238).

The Brinn are one of the most unusual races known to scientists of the Third Imperium: they 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.

Description

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. 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.

The leading four limbs are manipulators. The first pair of arms is slender and terminate 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.

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 360^o 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.

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.

Lastly, the dorsal cluster contains the Binn’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.

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.

Reproduction

Being methane breathers who find temperatures of -600 to be uncomfortably warm, the Brinn are not typical of the ranks of Imperial citizens. When one takes into account the fact that they have four sexes instead of the far more common two, they become even more unusual. 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 fourth sex consists of the young only and are given a status roughly equal to that of non-adults in most cultures.

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. 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, 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 (often called simply “alphas” or “alphafems”) 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 (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. 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. Betas are light grey on their dorsal surfaces, fading to black on the underside.

Background

During the Vilani expansions which lead 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.

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. 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 did not 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.

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.

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.

The starships which they had claimed from the fallen Second Imperium began to fail beyond repair. While the Brinn could maintain starships, they could not 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.

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 Brinn’s genocidal campaigns during the Long Night. 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.

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 being 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 the Kateri system 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.

Despite their new liberties, the Brinn are still almost wholly under the thumb of the Imperial Military. Every new ruling made by the government has 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.

Brinn Homeworld

The Brinn homeworld, Divad, circles around the main sequence M5 star Kateri in the Corridor sector, By astronomical standards, it is a very unimpressive star and was not considered a likely candidate for life-bearing worlds prior to its exploration by Vilani scouts in -4576. Kateri has an absolute bolometric magnitude of 10.2 and a luminosity of only 0.007, making it much fainter and weaker than Sol. It is roughly one-third the size and mass of Terra’s star and has a surface temperature of only 2,8000 K. There are five orbits about the star which are occupied.

The innermost orbit, at a distance of roughly 15 million kilometers (0.1 AU), is filled by an unusually dense ring of asteroids. When the Brinn first began to explore their system (less than fifty years before their first contact with humaniti) they found a treasure trove of ores in these rocks. To this day, a population of almost 35,000 prospectors works amid these mineral-rich planetoids.

The third and fourth orbits, at 0.32 and 0.48 AU, are occupied by Jovian worlds similar to Assiniboia in the Regina system or Jupiter in the Terra system. The innermost of these two is 150,000 kilometers in diameter and has been named Kleslin in Galanglic. It has 11 major moons, five of which are currently home to various Brinn installations, and a pronounced ring of ice.

The outer of the two gas giants is Galidesh, and is only half the size of its sister world. It has only 6 major moons, two of which are occupied by the Brinn. Although Galidesh has its own ring system, it is much fainter and far less spectacular than that of Kleslin. The farthest occupied orbit in the Kateri system is 0.72 AUs from the star. Like the inner most orbit, it is home to an asteroid belt. This one, unlike the first, is sparse and geologically average. It has seen some exploitation by the Brinn during their history, but is normally home to fewer than 5,000 prospectors at any given time, In the second orbital position, at a distance of 0.2 AUs, is the Brinn homeworld, Divad. In human terms, a less hospitable world would be hard to find. If it were not for the need to oversee the native race, it is doubtful that the Imperium would ever established any form of colony or outpost here.

Divad is 13,120 kilometers in diameter with a rocky core. Its density is only 0.76, giving it a mass of 0.82 standard and a surface gravity of only 0.78 gees. Divad turns on its axis every 36.7 hours and circles Kateri every 12.28 local days (18.78 standard days). Divad’s axial tilt is 16”, while its orbital eccentricity is 0.02. Divad has no moons. The atmosphere which shrouds Divad is a mixture of hydrogen (70%) and methane (28%). The remaining 2% is made up of various elements which are non-toxic to the Brinn, but quite deadly to humans. The atmospheric pressure is 1.9 standard. There is very little precipitation on the world and only 4.7% of the surface is covered by liquid. In almost all cases, this is hydrogen cyanide which, although vital to Brinn metabolism, is quickly lethal to humans (and most other oxygen-breathing races known to the Imperium). Because Kateri is such a weak star, Divad is a cold world despite its close proximity. On the average, the surface temperature is almost -100 C. On the poles, this can fall to as low as -170*. Regions near the equator have been known to reach temperatures of -55 during the height of summer, Unlike worlds with molten cores, Davao’s crust is not broken into multiple tectonic plates. In fact, geologically it is quite stable and has been for a very long time.

Source: TD12

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