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obviously, ds9 slowly introduced the breen with the end intention to have a race that would join the dominion at the end of the series. I noticed the same about the T'Zenkethy.......but they never did anything with it......anyone know or heard what they may have intended for the Tzenkethy to do or be?

The Breen have actually been around since TNG, long before The Dominion.

I'm pretty sure the Tzenkethi were just a one note people. The DS9 Companion doesn't mention any plans for them.

T'zenketh was mentioned at least 3 episodes since season 2 just like the breen, but I don't remember the Breen in any previous shows?

The Breen are mentioned in TNG's Hero Worship.

The Breen were a 'pull out of the arse, last minute villain' for the good guys. The odd thing is they were never considered a threat in their entirety, nor were they ever built up as a threat. Sisko beats off Breen privateers with apparent ease in the Defiant in one season 4 episode. They're not mentioned for most of the Dominion War, then in the final bullshit arc they come out of nowhere and wipe out a Federation fleet (while taking back the Chintoka system).

I hate the Breen. The Tzenkethy too.

jubjub27 wrote:T'zenketh was mentioned at least 3 episodes since season 2 just like the breen, but I don't remember the Breen in any previous shows?

On DS9, the Breen got mentions in To the Death, For the Uniform, and The Magnificent Ferengi and then appeared in Indiscretions, Apocalypse Rising, and By Inferno's Light.

The breen where also mentioned in ST Generations in a list of races who used a certain type of disruptor.

jubjub27 wrote:obviously, ds9 slowly introduced the breen with the end intention to have a race that would join the dominion at the end of the series. I noticed the same about the T'Zenkethy.......but they never did anything with it......anyone know or heard what they may have intended for the Tzenkethy to do or be?

The T'Zenkethy are supposed to be the Kzinti. A race created by Larry Niven and used in his Known Space stories. Niven wrote a series of books about a war between Earth and the Kzinti called the "Man Kzin Wars". These books have absolutly nothing to do with Star Trek. However Larry Niven wrote an Episode for Star Trek TAS called "The Slaver Weapon" which featured the Kzinti. Since then the Kzinti have found their way into Star Trek products, most notebly the game Star Fleet Battles. For copy-right, legal, and other reasons, Star Trek can no longer use the name Kzinti outside of SFB, so the name was changed to T'Zenkethy.

That sucks. But it gives me an idea for a new thread in OSF...

Lord Pounder wrote:The breen where also mentioned in ST Generations in a list of races who used a certain type of disruptor.

Forgot about that.

Anyway, we should be seeing the roots of the Tzenkethis War - as well as Sisko's experiences - when the new batch of Lost Era novels come out in 2005 (the other confirmed book at this time deals with Picard after the destruction of the Stargazer and what drove him to accept command of the ENT-D).

ok, well tell us more about them, are they normal humanoids or what is special about thier empire,.....any special technology etc.

jubjub27 wrote:ok, well tell us more about them, are they normal humanoids or what is special about thier empire,.....any special technology etc.

Got mentions on DS9, but never apperances. We know they are formidable enough to wage a brief, but heavy war against the UFP.

yea, i think it safe to assume they had the fleet large enough (like the cardassians) to take on the federation. but they never win, not now anyway the federation is too strong. maybe 100 years ago, but not now.

jubjub27 wrote:yea, i think it safe to assume they had the fleet large enough (like the cardassians) to take on the federation. but they never win, not now anyway the federation is too strong. maybe 100 years ago, but not now.

The Tzenkethi Wars were fought offscreen during the early 2360's, when Sisko was still on the Okinawa with Leyton (The previously mentioned new Lost Era novel should give us a better idea of why Sisko chose to transfer off the Okinawa and onto the Sarratoga).

JME2 wrote: Got mentions on DS9, but never apperances. We know they are formidable enough to wage a brief, but heavy war against the UFP.

We know they fought the Federation, that doesn't make them formidable, remember the Talarians also fought the Federation and a GCS could walk over their ships with 3 to 1 odds against (as could the Okinawa against three Tzenkethi ships of unknown power).

The Kzinti always attack before they are ready. Their trade mark "Scream and Leap" tactics make canon Klingons look like tactical geniuses (Let this be a warning to you. Do not genetically engineer yourself to resemble heroes of ancient sagas.) Why would the Star Trek version be any different?

The Kzinti may be 'scream and leap' warriors, but they put the Klingons to shame. Especially when Speaker-to-Animals/Chmee always used ranged weaponry.

Speaker to Animals was not exactly your typical Kzin. He earned a name and questioned the direction that the Kzinti had taken. The Klingons are at competent (by Star Trek standards) at starship tactics and the Kzinti "Scream and Leap" and lack of prepardness extends to that arena as well. Although to be fair, at least the Kzinti are grossly physically superior to be people they attack with knives.

Lord Pounder wrote:The breen where also mentioned in ST Generations in a list of races who used a certain type of disruptor.

They were also mentioned in the Voyeger episode Scorpion.

jubjub27 wrote:ok, well tell us more about them, are they normal humanoids or what is special about thier empire,.....any special technology etc.

The Breen live in very cold enviroments and cant survive in Earth like enviroments. They are one of the rare sentinent races in Star Trek that did not evolve on a M class world Hence they wear a special suit and mask in these kind of enviroments to protect themselves. The Breen use biological starships. Although not very powerful they carry a special dampening weapon capable of disabling starships.

Imperial Overlord wrote:The Kzinti always attack before they are ready. Their trade mark "Scream and Leap" tactics make canon Klingons look like tactical geniuses (Let this be a warning to you. Do not genetically engineer yourself to resemble heroes of ancient sagas.) Why would the Star Trek version be any different?

hey do have a tendancy to attack before they are ready, but their strategy is not merely "scream and leap". Let's be clear about that. The only time in an actual Niven story that the phrase is used is in the first Ringworld book, where Speaker to Animals commented that the challege Louis Wu made against him in the returant where they made wass too verbose and the proper way to challenge a Kzin to a fight was to "scream and then leap". The phrase got picked up for the back covers of Man Kzin books and certain authors, but never in Known Space did that encompass all of the Kzinti's strategic arsenal. For instance, in Ringworld, Louis thinks to himself that the village that Speaker was attacking was lucky it was just them, because had it been a Kzinti combat team they'd have burned down the whole village with lasers as a matter of course.

It has been ages since I read Ringworld and I can't remember the incident (not that I am claiming it didn't happend). But:

1) The Kzinti still love to leap and attack things with their knives. It happens in a lot in the Man-Kzin Wars. Beowulf Shaeffer also hacked one down with a power axe during his brief military service.

2) If hand-to-hand with Kzinti didn't happen a lot, then there wouldn't be much point of having a hellfire tattoo. Since they are a big deal, it has to happen a meaningful amount of time.

2) We are talking about the Trek version of Kzinti. Given Trek's love of HTH, the Tzenkethi are going to be doing it a lot.