This ad is one I remember very vividly for the way it attempts to draw you into the Third Imperium setting and its unique elements. Arguably, the advertisement is a bit too wordy to be effective, but I've always liked it, precisely because it goes into some detail about the three species who are the subjects of the Alien Modules available at the time. Plus, the fact that it's the K'Kree rather than, say, the Aslan who are the most dangerous of the three just tickles the world builder in me.
This is one of my earliest memories of Traveller, which never took off among my friend group. The depth of thought into the races really made me want to interact with the imperium, but none of us had any grounding as teens in the early 80s with the inspiration material. Instead we noodles with Star Frontiers and then glommed onto the WEG Star Wars system.
ReplyDeleteKind of underplaying the dangers of the vargr there, since most of them aren't dumb enough to rely on their teeth and the ones you're likely to run into outside their own territories are often experienced raiders and mercenaries. They also don't tend to fight one on one, so you can expect their pack mates to pile in when some big strong ape picks a fight.
ReplyDeleteAnd gods help you if get between an aslan and a patch of real estate he's decided to claim for his own, especially if there aren't any older, wiser (and preferably female) aslan around to keep him from doing something stupid and impulsive. They may have lost a lot of wars against humaniti, but their young folks are always keen to take another stab at getting a win.
K'kree are dangerous and hostile, but they're also big and awkward and don't like fighting without a lot of backup. They can't maneuver well in spaces designed for people the size of humans, and they're downright cowardly when they don't have a numerical edge. Even in the open where they have room to maneuver they can't take take cover worth a damn, and they're easy targets for any decent marksman.
In short, they're all dangerous in the right (or wrong) situation, and underestimating any of them could get you killed.
Maybe this is more head-canon of my own than something really implied or included in canon, but my conception was that the K'kree were the 'most dangerous' because they had the capability for large-scale organization/mobilization, and for long-term planning ('strategy'), which the cats & dogs lack.
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