 June 1, 2011 - 8:24pm | Why were the tetrarchs named the tetrarchs? Question is asked from the sense of someone who lived in the setting and worked on Laco, digging at the Tetrarch ruins chose the name Tetrarch. So why was that? 1. Sometimes things get named erronously- Queen's chamber in the Great Pyramid is one such- no queen was interred there but the name stuck. 2. Could be that an expert intuitively chose an apt name based off what he was seeing in the ruins on Laco. Either way, there is something on Laco that prompted the name Tetrarch. Name means litterally rule of 4 and was used as a political title when Alexander the Great's kingdom was split up between his 4 generals, also used by 4 roman emperors under the Tetrarchy, and was used as a military title. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 30, 2011 - 9:09pm | holo screens are very popular with s'sessu while travelling the Frontier. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 31, 2011 - 8:05am | Not sure the S'sessu would get dissected. The Sathar kill themselves but usually not destroy the body. They aren't one of those aliens or vampires which go up in a puff of ash when killed. There are plenty of Sathar bodies lying around to dissect. Surprisingly most beings are not trigger happy experience gathering PCs and do not kill even if pressed. That is why PCs have to go to the rescue so often. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 December 31, 2011 - 6:00pm | Perhaps I should have said "autopsied". I figure that some specimens would be rounded up and experimented with and then autopsied. I could even see some groups of "scientists" (led by politicians) conducting whole series of secret experiments reminiscent of the Nazi experiments on death camp inmates. Sort of like modern day alien abduction cases...just in reverse. Anybody see where that anal probe went? As far as trigger happy PCs go, they aren't really the ones the S'sessu should be nervous about. It would be those skittish people on the frontier who already feel isolated and on their own. Though I do recall two characters that I played who were trigger happy and could easily defend (in their own mind) the shooting of a S'ssesu. One of the gems of SF is that you don't accumulate xp based on how much you kill. That permits role players to play a munchkin as apposed to a munchkin who role plays. |
 December 31, 2011 - 7:00pm | A witness states, "It looked satharian, I mean, that's the only wormy I know of." A spokesbeing for the UPF says, "It was not a sathar, rater a s'sessu bioconstruct like the ones found on Volturnus. We have intelligence these bioconstructs are used a riders on the dreaded cyberdragons." |
December 31, 2011 - 7:06pm | S'sessu believe the Tetrarch are gods and worship them to this day. They know little more than the UPF does. Their holy archives were destroyed many years ago. Roaming monks can be found, they hold the knowledge and keys to Tetrarch society and technology. Finding them is our highest priority, with this knowledge we can defeat the sathar threat. |
 December 31, 2011 - 8:52pm | Monk of the Order of the Tetrarchs. Interesting. Could the Tetrarchs have actually been monks? Conspiricy theories abounding. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
January 1, 2012 - 7:31am | Tetrarch=rule of four What did they rule over? four subject species. Who where these species: well whether the klikk are part of that or not the sathar/s'sessu genetic strain aught to be as well as vrusk (they resemble klikks) and dralasites (if you squint really hard they can resemble worms). Something happened and the tetrarch's grand experiment got out of hand. one race to rule them all, one race to find them, one race to bring them all and in darkness bind them. This was the klikk race, recreated in the image of the new vision in the mind of its tetrarch who had become envious and competitive with the other 3 tetrarchs. Two tatrarchs sought to hide their species, the vrusk and the dralasites. These two tetrarchs were the female entities among the tetrarchs. Unfortunately, the two male entities turned to aggressive competition. But the final tetrarch recrafted his race (the worms) to oppose and defeat the klikks. He, like the tetrarch that ruled the klikks broke faith with the ancient compact of the tetrarchs and programed the resulting sathar to destroy the klikks but again something went wrong with this as they often attempt to destroy other star faring races. The s'sessu are a by product, un-intended. They believe that the they and the sathar must be reunited and re-integrated genetically for both races to reach their true potential in the ancient master plan of the tetrarchs. To that end they have sought out the UPF in effort to topple the sathar leadership so they can take it over. Note: The sathar have an overmind that runs/controls its clans and planets. This overmind is an imprint/corrupted copy of the mind engrams of the tetrarch that created and ruled the sathar ages ago. In one sence it is a tetrarch. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 1, 2012 - 7:45am | RE: my previous post the female tetrarch entity that attempted to hide the vrusk and guide them to higher development became a female gendered hive-mind/god to the primitive vrusk only vaguely remembered today. perhaps the vrusk were strongly matriarchal in their hive structure and only just recently in history have male CEOs approached the same numbers as female CEOs. Does this entity still exist? possibly. As for the dralasites- their tetrarch ruler chose to transition and dispersed her mind into the race she ruled. every dralasite living functions as a cell in the brain of this "tetrarch" Over 10,000 years ago, Laco was a lush beautiful planet called Garden in the languages of the four species. It was of course destroyed in the conflagration that ensued and was abandoned. The Overminds of the sathar (its actually several overminds all corrupted copies of the first) controlling the sathar invaders during SW1 recognized the pyramids on Laco and they will never stop seeking to bring down the UPF and reclaim Garden. Klikks- they're still out there bent on destruction, males rule the society and females are kept as drones, chattle and canon fodder. they pathologically hate the sathar, and something in them makes them want to dominate and or destroy a vrusk. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 1, 2012 - 9:21am | Quick note the word you were looking for is vivisection not dissection. Dissection is done on the dead. Vivisection is done on the living. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 1, 2012 - 8:03pm | That's a pretty elaborate depiction. However, it's easy to connect everything to the Klikkinati conspiracy, because it's so broad. But where do the Yazirians fit into that? Another Klikkinati conspiracy has the Yazirian cult at the top of the Klikkinati conspiracy. Their secrecy makes them prime candidates for all manner of conspiracy theories. Have any of us ever seen a Klikk? Of course not, so how do we know they were involved at all. Better yet, how do we know the Klikk aren't themselves the tetrarchs? Many say the Tetrarchs are still around, pulling the strings from behind the scenes, manipulating governments like New Pale and even the UPF itself. I mean, you note how convenient it is that the UPF just happens to get involved AFTER an economy collapses, and not before. Clearly, there's something going on there. Or what about how Pan Galactic and Streel seem to be into everything in the galaxy, often times overlapping and cooperating. That smacks of a higher hand that could very well be the Tetrarchs. And the Sathar seem to be awful convenient, showing up when the corporations were at war with each other and the Pirates are running rampant, or when a massive financial center like Pale collapsed under a socalled "blue plague". It's mighty convenient that the blue plague has been eradicated and yet worlds are still quarantined. Clearly their populaces are being herded, perhaps even experimented on, or at the least kept isolated from the rest of the Frontier for whatever secrets they bear. This is precisely what we could expect from the Tetrarchs. Hidden overloards playing with our minds and our DNA. Toying with us for some nefarious design. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
January 2, 2012 - 6:36pm | Well you can't always wrap every thing up in a neat bow. Rule of four and four races, someone gets left out. The yazirians "entered" the frontier after the first three races met so I typically leave them out as well as humanity for a similar reason tied to my view of humanity's home world. Just makes more sense that yazirians are left out. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 6, 2012 - 6:31am | Thanks Rat, that is exactly what I was trying to say. Somedays it seams that not even a strong pot of coffee can jolt my mind to function. |
 March 18, 2015 - 8:27pm | I know this is an old thread... but I am finally got some time to look over Star Empires and lo and behold: "Holrachian Tetrarch" "Kolthumnx Swarm" sounds like an Insect Empire Insect & Amoeboid Races There is a rather strange timeline with Terra ultimentally being involved in huge wars, having a huge Empires of various sizes and governments and finally it all collapses of course, the present in game time it is set in a time after all the wars have happened and no one even knows where Terra is and various other HWs... so everyone is out trying to explore and build empires... but it is interesting to see repeating ideas. Some fun ideas: Not sure what race the "Moltrvrrz Empire" was, listed as oldest Empire but had 20% of their empire plus Home System destroyed, durring the Tri-Mind War. A "holy war" occurred to cleanse the Galaxy and convert all races to the faith... Sect of the Hand Period of Shame: Terran & Kpithumhnx Empires try to wipe each other out in a War of Extermination by using automated devices designed to seek out life and destroy it... que collapse of all civilization across the galaxy and a nice long Dark Age. Blackmoor & Star Empires had a cross over (Blackmoor ended up a quarintined planet as all the aliens kept getting killed on it) as SE had unpublished RPG rules they tried out. Just find it interesting Tetrarch is in both games... "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 March 19, 2015 - 5:37pm | Zeb's guild expanded timeline: "10,500 p.f. Last remnants of the mysterious Tetrarch Societie(S) die out" Which seems to indicate that Frontier scientist found evidence of at least four major "precursor" races in the area of the Frontier. "Tetrarch" by definition would indicate a "co-ruling" status, but could just as easily indicate four seperate "empires" that occupied the same space until they died out. (Clickk's were a later forerunner race which could have been a possible "subject" race of the Tetrarchs who filled in the empty space of their predecessors before they too disappered. In my SFU they are part of the "start" of the Sathar due to their expansionist, aggresive, and slave-using nature. In my SFU while Humans are from "Earth" {via the Starship Warden} it won't ever play a part in the story and its doubtful the SF humans will every discover the fact. Since it's "societies" I would be inclined to think there's enough evidence that the were cultures and not individuals and I have none of them "connected" with the Frontier or Rim races though they have a tenous link to the Sathar through the Clikk) What's "Star Empires" btw? Randy |
March 19, 2015 - 6:42pm | SE is an early sci-fi tactical empire building game of TSR. It has strange little bits of info that latter reappear it seems in SF such as the Tetrachs (they just don't give a lot of info... btw humans wiped the Tetrarch empire out before the Galactic Dark Age & could explain the Sathar attacks, oh crap it's humans & bugs remember what those jerks did over thousands of years last time... quick attack), SE was suppose to have an unpublished RPG aspect, also gave birth to several D&D modules based around crashed space ships in D&D fantasy worlds... St. Stephan in D&D is a Space Human from SE who genetical engineered the Frogmen for example in a fantasy world. Oh the twisty trail of TSR R&D I think I will use the name Holrachian for a mythic planet no one believes in or can find ;) "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
March 22, 2015 - 3:58am | or it could be 4 separate entities with the entities being quasi "Q" like beings (Q as in TNG) These near god like beings recreated them selves into an image like that of a primitive race that they "uplifted" Laco was the Olympia or Valhalla of these beings and they brought sample populations there from across the galaxy to serve them and to experiment with increased enlightenment. At some point the Judas tetrarch turned on the others and war broke out forcing the others to fight against him. but a world altering weapon had been prepared and Laco was left in waste. The 3 good tetrarchs thought that they had killed the 4th but he had already hidden seeds of his servant population and downloaded his personality engrams to a super computer. Whether it was the act of killing 1/4 of their continuum or grief over the destruction of the eden and their subjects the other 3 began to fade from contact with the corporeal world. One has completely dispersed itself in a pantheistic manner such that its spirit permeates the galaxy but it cannot really rouse itself to direct action. The other two have wandered the galaxy and in a less intrusive manner have manipulated the evolution of some species but they too have less direct physical contact and have not chosen to live amongst a species as gods. Unbeknownst to the two active tetrarchs is that the mind of the 4th lives on (refered to as the overmind by the sathar) and directs the activities of his subject race a race known as the sathar to some and sylar to others. It had been the plan of the tetrarch that their 4 subject species would inherit the galaxy. dralasites, yazirians, and vrusk have all managed to become space faring species and appear to be on the path to that destiny without the direct involvement of the tetrarchs. The sathar have grown large and fat in 10,000 years and could eventually take over the whole galaxy. The unexpected wild card is humanity, two of the tetrarchs are aware of humanity and surprised at a wolfling race that rose above brutality and barbarism to gain the stars. They take a watchful stance over the activities of the core four in the Frontier. Mysteries to be discovered by PCs: 1. world altering weapon/tech used by the Judas tetrarch. Probably contained in an artifact that might as well be magical for the inability of Frontier technology to work out its workings 2. the story of what happened to the tetrarchs 3. the truth behind the sathar and the overmind I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 22, 2015 - 9:07am | I do like your take on them...  "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
