Nausicaan

The Nausicaans did not come to dominate the world, wind-swept world of Nausicaa until late in their development. Its giant predators, and vicious insects preyed on them for millennia, dining on the Nausicaans as often as the converse. Nausicaans developed innumerable weapons and techniques to deal with these threats, and often only the most vicious behavior kept them alive. The Nausicaans finally gained the upper hand during their industrial age, and the slaughter began.

The Nausicaans hunted many of the planet's largest beasts into extinction, poured massive quantities of poisons over the planet to battle the insects, and destroyed the habitats of every dangerous creature they could. Now Nausicaans do indeed dominate their homeworld - for what it's worth. Pollution covers its surface, and visitors cannot help but remark on their crowded, dirty and dangerous communities, many of which are domed off with barely-functioning life support systems. Few wild areas remain, and most of these serve as hunting preserves for the very wealthy.

Personality

The Nausicaans earned their reputations as vicious, brutal thugs., Short-tempered, irritable, and generally unpleasant, Nausicaans typically find themselves in the midst of fights, altercations, and arguments. The Nausicaan tendency toward violence is so pronounced that it's a galactic stereotype, and just the mention of Nausicaans often brings knowing winces.

Even among their own kind, Nausicaans show little in the way of family or friendship ties. They do sometimes build bonds of loyalty to strong leaders or battlefield brothers. Their sense of kinship is weak at best, and nonexistent where other races are concerned. Nausicaans have no concept of "cute" or "pitiable" - anything that looks weak or harmless exists to be used or eaten.

A conversation between two friendly Nausicaans often begins with loud, over-enthusiastic greetings and quickly turns into a game of one-upsmanship. They brag about recent deeds, their family's success, their own strength, romantic conquests and the like, growing louder and louder the entire time. By the time they end these conversations, most leave determined to add even more exploits to their list of real and imaginary achievements, by whatever means necessary.

Physiology

Nausicaans loom over most Federation races, a hulking, ominous presence wherever they go. Averaging well over two meters tall; they enjoy using their size to scare people out of their way and for intimidating others into doing what they want done. Their wild manes of hair add to this effect, as do their bony faces and sharp fangs. These prominent teeth have little effect in combat, but their very appearance helps the Nausicaans bully people around.

Nausicaan flesh ranges in tone from pumpkin-like orange to dark brown. Most have dark-colored hair. Some Nausicaan ethnicities also exhibit a set of bony mandible-like structures around the mouth.

History and Culture

The Nausicaans never had much in the way of "culture" - instead, their evolution stressed tremendous strength and vitality, an ability to respond immediately to deadly force, not a lot of long-range thinking. While Nausicaan intelligence enabled them to develop some technology, they never proved very far-sighted in its use. As a result, the Nausicaans became sort of poor cousins to the galactic community - just clever enough and tough enough to work as thugs and mercenaries, while they squandered their own world's resources and lacked the ability to compete with more widespread or intelligent species.

Even when moving into space, the Nausicaans had little sense of self-development. Instead of colonizing new worlds or exploiting available resources, they took to simple banditry and thuggery. Nausicaan pirates became a common scourge of the spacelands by the 22nd century. These deep-space buccaneers proved a real bane to interstellar commerce until Starfleet and other organizations took control of the situation. For many Nausicaans, the age of piracy remains the race's golden age, and tales of ancient derring-do (grossly exaggerated) still stir the Nausicaan soul.

That the Nausicaans would so glorify such a violent era, and hold up as heroes people they knew functioned as much through terror, backstabbing and treachery as anything else, says much about their species. Their height and brute strength means they physically look down on most other species, adding to their cultural conceit. The ability to look down on others means a lot to the average Nausicaan. Given the chance to interact with species that are markedly smaller and weaker than themselves, Nausicaans become very aggressive - a throwback to their evolution, as a means of showing their dominance over environmental competitors. Though tall by most races' standards, Nausicaans felt dwarfed by the massive beasts that once ruled their planet. Intelligence developed as a survival mechanism, and the smartest and strongest bullied the others into taking all the risks for them. The Nausicaan ancestors stayed nomadic for thousands of years, fleeing foes who proved too tough and exploiting the ones who did not. Agriculture and permanent settlements only became common when some Nausicaans managed to dominate others into doing the work for them.

Society

Nausicaans still respect those who show strength, but that does not impress them nearly as much as do those who can use their strength effectively. Throughout history, many of their leaders lacked dominating physical strength but knew how to use theirs and their followers' to best effect. Nausicaans constantly seek any kind of edge they can use on their opponents, even if they already have the foes beaten.

This means cheating is not a cultural taboo but a cultural imperative. Most Nausicaan games and sports have very few rules, allowing players a great deal of leeway in how they act and how they win. Nausicaans takes great pleasure in winning by hook or by crook, whether playing against their fellows or against aliens. Anyone who seeks to play a Nausicaan in dom-jot should keep an eye out for magnets and other deceptive stratagems - and physical sports will be very rough.

Of course, Nausicaans also respect such actions in their foes. Cheating them back might start a fight, but Nausicaans bear a great deal more respect for a fellow cheater than someone over whom they can ride roughshod. Even in a fight with someone they respect, Nausicaans still do whatever it takes to win. Cheap shots, hidden weapons, distractions... all of these find a place in every Nausicaan's arsenal. Thanks to the Nausicaan emphasis on strength and victory, the typical Nausicaan will appreciate an opponent who takes such opportunities, and follow the leadership of one who fights or plays well with such tactics. Those Nausicaans who leave their homeworld often do so in the employ of some of the most vicious people in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, and this has boosted their reputation as violent enforcers, happy to break legs for money.

What other races consider the Nausicaans' barbaric manners and violent ways, their own society praises as realistic and pragmatic behavior. Those who most effectively use threats, blandishments, and violence rise to the top. More peaceful or meek ones need to leave or they become stepping stones for the strong. Once a Nausicaan rises to power, he does everything he can to hold onto it. Keeping other Nausicaans beneath him becomes an obsession, as does overthrowing the ones above him.

Social mobility requires all the dirtiest tricks Nausicaans learn growing up, and most find any movement at all impossible. Those at the top do their best to ensure that movement happens slowly, and those underneath know that moving too quickly makes them appear a threat needing elimination. The smartest find new and unique ways to seize power, preferably as far from established power structures as possible. For instance, during the golden age of piracy, many Nausicaans focused on alien races, establishing secret bases on distant asteroids from which to make their raids.

In their search for power and status, Nausicaans spread throughout Federation space and into frontier areas. Some ended up on Deep Space 9, and an ambitious few might even have made it through the wormhole. Wherever they go, they seem as likely to work for criminal and other unethical enterprises as they are to engage in legal work. Many employers use them as strong-arms, bouncers, bodyguards and enforcers. In these jobs, their viciousness becomes an asset. Of course, not all Nausicaans follow an illegal path. Even those who stay on the straight and narrow often use their less-reputable traits in order to get ahead.

Predictably, Nausicaans speak their own language, graakh (generally called Nausicaan by outsiders). An especially harsh, guttural language, it's often difficult or even painful for humans to pronounce its words and spit out its many insults. Those who do master the language, however, find themselves with a wealth of invectives and vile slurs to use against their enemies. Graakh is a combative language by nature - it has few dialects; Nausicaans are quick to bully others into following their linguistic conventions along with their leadership. This cause no end of frustration for linguists, simply because the language doesn't always develop among "natural" lines.

A Nausicaans family name precedes his given name, but they run together quickly. Federation Standard has a hard time dealing with these names and separates them with apostrophes. For instance, the family name Gukya and the given name Faska combine into Gukya'Faska. Not all Nausicaans take family names, and some Nausicaans distort their own family names to give them special, individualized meaning. Tracking Nausicaan lineage by distinctive name roots is a futile task.

Reference(s)

• Bridges, Bill, et al. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 5: Aliens, Decipher, 2003. ISBN: 1582369070.