Skaarj

The Skaarj are a reptilian race of power hungry, warrior-like predatory aliens. They fight and enslave any new race they encounter.

PHYSIOLOGY
The adult Skaarj grows to be around 8 feet (240 cm) tall, weighting as much as 375 lb. A Skaarj can be easily recognized by the two curved tusks to the sides of its mouth. The Skaarj are very strong, astonishingly fast and agile, very independant and overall very intelligent and cunning combatants.

The Skaarj have glowing eyes either yellow, green, red or blue in color. Most Skaarj' hides are colored green, with some known varieties of blue, brownish, and other tones.

The Skaarj breed in a manner similar to humans.

PSYCHOLOGY
The Skaarj are known as a very agressive and power hungry race. They do not tolerate weakness, not in other races nor in their own. Such displays of weakness and/or incompetence are punished severely. Some evidence suggests that the Skaarj may decapitate, or maybe even neuter a member of a slave-race who has been incompetent in his field of work (although this information is wildly innacurate, and may be totally false).

The Skaarj have been known to use severe torture and experimentation on unwilling prisoners, and other brutal tactics.

SOCIETY
Although the Skaarj organization is often reffered to as The Skaarj Empire, this name is slightly misleading. Although they do have a single Emperor, The Skaarj are in fact divided into many tribes and clans, that are often in internal conflict with one another. Still, they might occasionally cooperate to achieve a certain common goal that is very important to their race.

Each Skaarj warrior has tatoos on his body, signifying the clan he belongs to. The Clans are also conservative, and love tradition to a significant degree.

The Skaarj are in the habit of enslaving alien races. Some of these races, such as the Krall and Izarians, are forced to wield weapons and fight for the Skaarj. These races often carry purposefully weakened versions of Skaarj weaponry (so that they would be less of a threat in the case of rebellion), and are usually relegated to guard duty and such - never on assault or offensive positions. They usually fight in homogenous packs - the Skaarj never fight along with other slave-races, and it seems that the various races generally do not mix. Races which are deemed too weak to serve the Skaarj in that capacity (such as the Nali) are either used as cheep labour (Tarydium miners, in the Nali's case), or simply ignored and/or opressed altogether.

Although the Skaarj often use brutal, inhumane tactics, they are not unintelligent, nor overconfident. They carefully monitor their slave races for signs of rebellion. In some cases, races which are suspected as being prone to rebellions are given the illusion of relative freedom, to discourage the population from rebelling.

TECHNOLOGY
In combat, the Skaarj use various weapons, including missiles, and both projectile and energy weapons. Some Skaarj are issued power armor of different size and mobility, the heaviest of which tend to completely negate the Skaarj' natural agility advantage.

COMBAT TACTICS
The Skaarj seem to operate in large groups called 'War Parties' (led by WarMasters) and smaller 'Hunting parties'. They favour ambushes as the primary form of combat. The basic weapon of all Skaarj are the wrist blades - a dual retractable blade mounted on each wrist. All Skaarj wear it, and use it effectively in close combat.

Additionally, Skaarj boarding parties have been occasionally known to use ventilation ducts to infiltrate different parts of a ship.

There are many different roles and combat varieties of the basic Skaarj, but two major groups are usually identified. These are the Warriors, and the Troops.

The Warriors fight naked, or very lightly armoured. They use wrist-mounted energy projectors and their retractable blades as their primary form of attack. They rely on their agility to get out of harm's way. They have strands of thick hair-like growths on their head, and long, thick reptilian tails.

The Troops, on the other hand, wear highly advanced combat armor. They carry hand-held weapons ranging from small projectile pistols to heavy rocket-launchers to sniper rifles. Both their 'hair' and tail are cut short.

SPACE ASSETS
Little is revealed about the spaceships the Skaarj use. It is known that they have space fighters and 'scout skimmers', as well as a large, powerful class of ship identified as a 'mothership'.

NAMES
Examples of names of individuals, locations, clans etc. etc. from the Skaarj language: Ssja'Rath, Rrajigar, Ssa'Rath, Duk'choroth, Chakti'Nrrj, Ssa'Nrrj, Shrk'Tajji, Ess'Tajji.

Their guttoral languge of growls and roars makes pronouncing these names easy for them.

HISTORY
The Skaarj once fought a war with man kind. This war was initially perpetuated as a conflict over the planet of Na Pali, a planet rich with valuable Tarydium deposits. The war ended in 2216 when after 7 days during which the Skaarj fleet was hovering in a siege above Earth itself, elite NEG commandoes managed to board and destroy the Skaarj mothership from the inside, causing the Skaarj forces to retreat in dissaray and ending the war. Still, after this siege, the damage to Earth was great, and many cities were in ruins. The Humans earned the Skaarj' respect though, and this feeling was mutual.

The war with the Skaarj has made the superiority of the Skaarj in ground combat quite clear. The Liandri corporation, with the approval of the New Earth Government, engaged in genetic experiments with captured Skaarj. By combining Skaarj and Human DNA, the corporation sought to create hybrid soldiers that it could use in combat, and which would be far superior to human ones. Those hybrids were eventually bred, and tested in the great Liandri Tournament, where they proved to be a sucess.

The Hybrids, being Liandri property, were devoid of any rights. When the Skaarj Empire demanded explanation for their existance, Liandri refused to provide them. As a result, a Skaarj fleet was sent to Gorgon, the planet on which the Liandri corporation was based. Liandri was forced to give the hybrids full freedom and rights. The hybrids were gladly accepted as full members in the Skaarj Empire, dispite the Skaarj' typical conservative stances.

Years later, the Skaarj clans cooperated to retrieve the pieces of an ancient artifact of untold power, fighting some human forces in the process, but failed.

Not much more is known about the Skaarj history, other than this brief period which overlaps human history.

Record 474 - group - Last update 28 Mar 2007, 23:05:45

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