Task Force Tolkien

General Data

*SIM Type: UFS Mission

*Production number: UFS-001

*Initiated: 140109

*Year: 2412

Navigation

*Forum Thread: Task Force Tolkien

Credits

*SIM Concept: Nora Gerhadsen

*Historian: Kinney Randt & Kermie Mistwallow

Stardate: 140109

Relos IV is under Nausicaan rule. They long for freedom, and to join the Federation. While the old Nausicaan Governor-General was content to allow the Relosians some freedom (even including sending one of their own to Starfleet Academy), a new Governor-General, Kovolok, came to Relos IV with a different ideas. He would like to seize the planet as a power base and then turn his forces on the Nausicaan homeworld. Over the past months, he has cracked down on freedoms, imprisoned unruly Relosian politicians, and sent certain dissidents back to Nausicaa for summary (and very public) execution.

Lately, one of Relos IV's favorite daughters, Nora Gerhadsen , returned for shore leave from her duties as a Starfleet Officer. As she was boarding her shuttle to return to the USS Veracruz, she was arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and then sent to Nausicaa for execution. The Governor-General then made an impulsive mistake: he attempted to attack the Federation consulate on Relos IV, hoping to keep them from reporting the missing Starfleet officer to the Federation. The crew of the USS Veracruz managed to find liberate Lieutenant Commander Gerhadsen before the freighter carrying her reached Nausicaa. News of her liberation emboldened the Relosian resistance, led secretly by the Nausicaan-sanctioned Consul, Tomet Breem.

The Consul has requested intervention from Starfleet. The Federation diplomats are safe for the moment under the Consul's protection, but war rages in the streets and in the countryside of Relos IV. Kovolok has, in the meantime, declared himself the rightful ruler of the Nausicaan dominion, catching the thinly-stretched Nausicaan fleet entirely off guard. What will Starfleet do?

Mission Episodes

Pre-episode: Prison Ship Break

Rescue of the Kin'Li Federation crew member from Nausicaan deportation and execution

Episode 1: Cloak and Torpedo

Encounter with a Nausicaan heavy cruiser

Episode 2: Your Presence is Required

Disposition of the captured Nausicaan heavy cruiser; Meet Tomet Breem; Breem formally requests admittance to the Federation, and Federation help.

Episode 3: Evac Denied

Recon around Relos IV; insertion of Marine team at Terat, Khoon Province by way of USS Lionheart; rescue of Federation diplomats' families, though the Ambassador and other staff stayed behind to be the Federation representative to the Relosian Republic (and the Lionheart didn't have enough room anyway). Lionheart and team engaged Nausicaan forces in Terat, and withdrew back to the Veracruz.

Episode 4: Passing the Stick

USS Veracruz goes to Pathfinder to transfer prisoners; Nausicaan Ambassador Tepindra meets them there to negotiate Starfleet's involvement in retaking Relos.

Ships Assisting: USS Veracruz, SS Pathfinder

Supplementals

Relos IV is home to two sentient races: the Kin'Li and the Gul-Ku-Ren. The Kin'Li are short-statured (typically well under four feet tall) and distinguished by green spots on their bodies and pointed ears. The Gul-Ku-Ren are entirely green, and are extraordinarily tall -- up to four meters or more in height. Prior to contact, Relosian technology was pre-electricity, equivalent to perhaps the eighteenth or nineteenth century (or the fourteenth). They did not have firearms. The Kin'Li were largely an agrarian people, and in some areas still are. For instance, Westglen Province is famous for still being mostly pre-electricity. People there live largely traditional lives. The first Starfleet Science team to encounter the Kin'Li dubbed them the "Hobbits of Relos".

The Gul-Ku-Ren, with their much larger stature, are much more warlike. Prior to Contact, the two species were natural enemies (and various Gul-Ku-Ren states fought among themselves). The Gul-Ku-Ren would regularly hunt the Kin'Li as slaves or even food. However, the Kin'Li are not without their own traditional, natural defenses: on the one hand, they can be very good at hiding. On the other hand, they share an empathic bond with what they call their "cows". These animals, which do indeed serve as cows for the farmers, are called "Relosian Fangbeasts" or "Relosian Razorbeasts" by Federation scientists. They stand six feet tall at the shoulder, have six legs, huge sharp teeth (for eating hard root tubers), and large spines on their joints, their heads, and along their spinal columns. Non-Kin'Li sentients on the farm will send the cows into a rage, causing them to attack. This is even true today. No non-Kin'Li has ever been able to visit a working Kin'Li farm.

(And I don't want to see this powergamed by people who decide that the cows cannot see them empathically. They can still *see* them. Besides, they work off the Kin'Li attitudes as well as directly seeing the non-Kin'Li there, so if a Kin'Li sees a non-Kin'Li approaching, the cows will go berserk even before they see the intruder, and even have some idea of where that intruder is and what he or she looks like.)

Other native lifeforms on Relos IV are similarly deadly, including the eela-bunny, which is about the size of an Earth jack-rabbit, but which has a very large mouth filled with four-inch-long razor-sharp teeth, as well as spines over much of body, half-hidden by fur. They hunt in packs, and can quickly obliterate a much larger creature (think piranha that walk on land).

The Nausicaans made contact 428 years ago. Since then, they have run the planet like a colony. They use the Gul-Ku-Ren as shock troops in their campaigns, while the Kin'Li have become scientists and engineers. The Relosians have some degree of autonomy -- they are free to elect a Consul and Senate, as well as Provincial governments. However, a Governor-General appointed in Nausicaa has the final say, and keeps a significant security presence on the planet and in orbit. Both Relosian species, now at peace with each other for hundreds of years, would like to shake off their Nausicaan masters and join the Federation.

Kin'Li characters

Players who want to be NPC Kin'Li resistance fighters or civilians can use normal Linden shapes to represent the race, but should be extremely short (no more than 4' 6" when editing one's shape with Firestorm). They have green spots on their chests, backs, sides, legs and arms, and have pointed ears. They otherwise look like normal humanoids, albeit small. For spots, I use the "Madd* Faun Tattoo" and the "+AH+ Spotty Faun Tattoo", and tint both green. Other spots tattoos may be suitable.

Gul-Ku-Ren characters

Players wanting to be NPC Gul-Ku-Ren resistance fighters or civilians should get giant mesh avatars from BigAvs or similar. For my own Gul-Ku-Ren avatar, I use the BigAvs 2.0X size. Anything larger than this is really too big. The 1.5X size may also be suitable for a smaller Gul-Ku-Ren. A normal Linden avatar is not large enough. Their skin is green, and can be spotted orange, brown or red at the discretion of the player. Male Gul-Ku-Ren have pronounced ridges or horns on their heads; females have humanoid black hair.

Kin'Li Glossary

Taeloo Tree

A tree that grows on Relos IV. They reach immense heights, even more than a kilometer in height, and a up to one hundred meters in trunk diameter at the base. Their root systems can reach kilometers in all directions from the trunk. Kin'Li farm the tubers of the taeloo by encouraging the roots to grow through their gardens. The tubers are a popular food among Kin'Li.

Chee

Farm animal that is raised principally for its meat. Most chee farms are messy, smelly affairs where the chee are kept in pens permanently

Chee-ingur

Used as a slur, this is a person who ruts with with chee

Tualafa (pronounced tu-a-la-FAH)

Insult term (a slur), used to describe a person. "that tualafa doesn't know his left from his right"

Thwingleu treatment

A non-surgical (telepathic) lobotomy performed on a Kin'Li for the purposes of re-education. Basically a personality excision. It leaves the victim more or less a drooling idiot.

Skyhead

A pejorative term for tall people (who are also called, less pejoratively, "tallfolk"). "So tall that their heads are up in the sky - can't see the ground, can't make sense."

The Maker

Principle God of the Kin'Li religion; similarly, Making is considered a holy act, and is any creating, building, growing, farming, maintaining, repairing, healing or having children.

The Unmaker

Nemesis deity in the Kin'Li religion; similarly, Unmaking, which takes the form of murder, destruction, or other sorts of tearing down is usually considered a bad thing.

• We Kin'Li are of the Maker. We Make. We create, we build, we heal, we maintain. We are not really destroyers. This is not the Kin'Li identity. That is the province of the Unmaker. We will Unmake when we need to... In order to Make, build, heal, maintain, or create. But we do not Unmake for its own purpose. Only the evil do that.

feneel

Tracking animal used by Kin'Li as essentially a bloodhound: "A feneel is a bit like an Earth dog. They're a bit larger, and they have six legs. They're a lot stronger than dogs, and their teeth are a lot larger. We use them for some of the same things humans used to use dogs for -- they chase prey, the protect the houses in case the cows don't, and we use them to sniff out buried taeloo tubers."

Eela-bunny

Sometimes just called an eela; a small, cuddly-looking fuzzy carnivorous predator that has enormous sharp teeth in a mouth much larger than the overall size of the animal would suggest. Eela are about the size of an Earth rabbit, and do have long fuzzy ears. They hunt in packs, and have been known to take down cows and larger animals. They have long, sharp spines interspersed with their fur, so touching is not recommended.

Relos IV Calendar

The months:

The Relos IV calendar is derived from Kin'Li reckoning, as the Gul-Ku-Ren did not have much use for dates prior to Contact. There four kinds of months, denoting different cycles of creation, maintenance, and destruction; as well as a fourth "odd" cycle. The months Bekli, Huyli, and Hrumi celebrate creation; the months Kidosh, Vadosh and Gamosh celebrate maintenance ("keeping the Unmaker at bay"); the months Fenroek, Ghalek, and Vlesek are sometimes called the "months of fear", or "months of destruction". The months Ogrut, Eyla and Ukal, which curiously enough are the only months whose names begin with vowels, are just called the "odd months". Different traditions treat those months differently.

There is a Kin'Li horoscope based on when in each month one is born. Being born in in a creation month is considered auspicious; being born in one of the "months of fear" is either a bad sign, or a sign of great potency (being Made in a month favored by the Unmaker, therefore thwarting him). Birth dates in maintenance months and "odd" months are considered less auspicious; some days in the "odd" months are thought to produce curious characters indeed, including people like artists and visionaries.

• Bekli: the first "creation month": 32 days. 1 Bekli is the Kin'Li New Year's day.
• Kidosh: 29 days
• Ogrut: 28 days
• Gamosh: 30 days
• Huyli: 30 days
• Fenroek: 30 days
• Eyla: 30 days
• Vadosh: 30 days
• Ukal: 30 days
• Ghalek: the longest month, also the greatest "month of fear": 36 days
• Hrumi: a "celebration month" in the midst of the months of fear: 30 days
• Vlesek: 30 days

Relation to Earth's calendar

• 1 Bekli = December 20 (New Year)
• 1 Kidosh = January 21
• 1 Ogrut = February 19
• 1 Gamosh = March 19
• 1 Huyli = April 18
• 1 Fenroek = May 18
• 1 Eyla = June 17
• 1 Vadosh = July 17
• 1 Ukal = August 16
• 1 Ghalek = September 15
• 1 Hrumi = October 21
• 1 Vlesek = November 20

Nora's rez day is 27 Ukal

Bekli 1-5 are "First Days" -- holidays for the Kin'Li. They are the start of the year, and so the beginning of new things.