The Zog home world is somewhat smaller than Terra, with a gravity approximately 77% that of Terra. The atmosphere is an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, but with a much lower pressure (.24) and an oxygen content of only 3%. Zog Prime has no oceans and a limited hydrosphere, which largely consists of extensive shallow lakes and streams. The new Zog Prime (a very early Zog colony site) is very nearly identical to the old Zog Prime.
The Zogs are egg-laying crustacean-type creatures that appear, to human eyes, to be large, heavily armored land-based crabs. A fully grown adult Zog has one very large claw, usually called a “battle-claw” and almost always located on their left side. There are some Zogs with the battle-claw located on the right side, however, from time immemorial such Zogs have been ostracized as oddities or mutants. The adult Zog will also possess a smaller grasping claw on the other side of their body, and two additional appendages located adjacent to the major claws. The additional appendages have, instead of claws, a mass of slender tentacles that can extend for short distances to grasp and manipulate relatively small objects. Typically a Zog will hold larger objects in one of their two claws and use their manipulator appendages to work on the object.
For mobility, the Zogs have numerous thick tentacles that emerge from the bottom of their shells and provide adequate locomotion, if somewhat slow. The tentacles are thick and heavily muscled, and are sheathed in a thick leathery hide that protects them almost as well as the shell protects the main body.
Immature Zogs have two eye-stalks, while adult Zogs boast four, two of which are large and flexible enough to have a near 180 degree viewing ability. The adult Zog’s armor is thick enough to make it nearly invulnerable to any predator, and indeed, since the earliest days of the Zog race’s ascension to intelligence and their concurrent elimination of the few other animals on their home planet that preyed on them, they have feared no threats. This invulnerability has lessened with the advent of high technology, as their armor is not proof against high energy or armor piercing weapons, however, their basic psychology was formed in an environment where they had no real worry about personal safety. Even fights against other Zogs usually ended in one or the other tiring of the battle and losing interest, rather than mortal injury.
Zog society is largely based on extended families and loose organizations based on familial alliances. Larger city, national, and international organizations are almost always just extensions of these lower-level groupings and tend to be relatively fleeting. Largely because of the fact that throughout most of their history individual Zogs were mostly invulnerable to other Zogs, there was little fear of or resort to forceful compulsion in organizing large scale organizations. This typically meant that individual Zogs and even larger groups would voluntarily associate to achieve commonly shared goals, and then disassociate either when the goals were achieved or when priorities changed. Even when modern technology became widespread, along with more powerful weapons, this aspect of Zog culture hardly changed. This meant that governments could fall in a day, usually bloodlessly, if many or most of the supporting organizations or individuals decided that it wasn’t achieving their goals. This fall was usually, but not always, bloodless. Occasionally a government that was loosing support but which possessed some fervent supporters would succeed in physically resisting collapse, forcing compliance for a time, but this has almost always resulted in a larger and usually more violent collapse later on.
Because of this, Zog history, for the most part, has been a bewildering maze of apparent power struggles, revolutions, coups, and broken governments. This instability grew as the size of governments grew, and at the planetary level few governments lasted for more than a year. Quite often completely conflicting political theories will succeed each other, sometimes one after another, as one school of political thought gains adherents from the failure of another. It is important to note that while all of this appears chaotic to humans, for the Zogs this is more or less normal and hardly seems to affect the day-to-day lives of most Zogs. Wide and sweeping changes on the national level never seem to reach down to the local level, and the base, lower level Zog society seems to have been stable for a very long time. Ruling parties, philosophies, and national goals might change but the society that these things are built on never seems to alter or change. It is almost as if the Zog society has based its long-term stability on short term instability, and while this would never work for humanity it seems to have worked more or less fine for the Zogs. Of course, this instability has resulted in the Zog race’s inability to sustain long-term action towards larger goals, and has indeed proved to be a detriment to its peaceful coexistence with other races.
By the time the Terran Empire contacted the Zog race during the first interstellar era, the Zogs had been in space for over three hundred years. By the point of contact they were more advanced than humanity, but they had never discovered interstellar travel. Contact with humanity precipitated the collapse of a rather long-standing (for the Zogs, at least) government and coincidentally, a war with humanity. The war was sparked when a Zog ship commander fired upon an Imperial embassy ship in an attempt to seize it and discover the secret of interstellar travel. Humanity, not understanding that for the Zogs this was nothing special and certainly nothing personal, went to war. The Empire sent several fleets to the Zog system; however, they were beaten back each time. At first the Empire lost because the Zogs had better technology, but soon the Imperial advantage in population and productive might overshadowed the steadily shrinking Zog tech advantage. Unfortunately, just about at the point where the Zogs would have been inevitably defeated they found an ally through their home system’s other warp point. This ally, the Xanti, decided to assist the Zogs in the fight against the Empire as their own first step towards building their own interstellar empire. In the end the Xanti negotiated a tenuous peace with the Empire, although both sides anticipated future hostilities when the two realms came into contact elsewhere.
Under the Xanti Protectorate the Zogs outwardly prospered. They established multiple colonies and built up a significant fleet, second in the Protectorate only to that of the Xanti. Because of the threat of the Empire the Zog retained a single government throughout this period, something almost unprecedented in their history. This caused large amounts of internal dissent, something that the Xanti actively suppressed. This suppression, originating from the outside as it did, and its consequent support of the existing government, was fiercely resented by many Zogs, who became quite discontent during this period of time. In fact, at the time of the Collapse nearly every Zog colony was home to a wide-spread separatist movement, and indeed Protectorate Intelligence was predicting that a major rebellion was considered likely within a matter of months.
The Collapse threw off all calculations. In the Zog home system the unnatural extension of the lifetime of the original Zog government led to a massive civil war, during which every Xanti and non-Zog on in the system were wiped out. This civil war was quite bloody, and in its own way was as unnatural as the government that preceded it. The war culminated in a large-scale nuclear strike which pretty much eliminated all life in the Zog home system. A few scattered outposts survived, as did a few ships, but the Zog civilization in the home system was shattered, and would not recover, at least not in this geologic era.
Revolution was near universal throughout the main Zog colonies after the Collapse. The leaders of the oldest colony were fairly certain that the home planet was due for a devastating blowout that would in all likelihood be sparked by the Collapse, and shortly after the Collapse they re-designated their planet as Zog Prime, just prior to their own fall from power.
The general wisdom on the new Zog Prime was that the stresses which led to the destruction of the home system (well, presumed destruction) were caused by the colonization of other systems, and were exacerbated by uncontrolled contact with other races, primarily humanity and the Xanti. There was some realistic basis for that view. Every colony had a significant independence movement, only kept in check by the threat of Imperial Terran might and constant Xanti meddling. The lesson was clear to the rulers of the new Zog Prime. Building a colonial empire was impossible for the Zog race. Any such colonies would inevitably seek independence and would just as inevitably gain their independence, given the fleeting nature of most Zog central governments. Once independent, the former colonies would competitors for resources. Therefore, the successive governments of the new Zog Prime began planning for the interstellar era to come, which their scientists assured them would happen within one to two hundred years. The plans were largely based around the assumption that they would avoid forming new colonies at all costs, but instead establish remote mining colonies to supply the home system with the resources it needed. In addition, the Zogs, being a inherently paranoid race, decided early on to eschew the use of jump gates, which could be used against them by an enemy fleet.
Zog Fleet
The Zog Fleet is based on small, fast vessels equipped with either missiles or torpedoes. The primary Zog offensive missile is twice as large as their standard anti-missile missile, much smaller than those of either the humans or the Xanti from the first interstellar era. While their missiles are subsequently less capable, to the Zogs this is a good trade off as the missile’s small size means that the small Zog ships can mount a reasonable number of launchers. Zog fleet planners are very aware that they will likely have to close through an enemy’s missile engagement envelope and in fact, most of their planning is aimed at dealing with that reality. The Zog fleet engagement concept is essentially to close through an enemy’s missile barrage to within their own missile engagement range, and then use their missiles to slow the enemy and reduce his numbers so that their torpedo ships can move into range and finish the enemy off. To this end the Zogs have fielded a large number of Area Defense Cruisers to protect their fleets while they close to their own missile range.
Like the Zog government itself, the Navy is composed of long-service individuals who persevere regardless of the near constant changes in policies and leadership. The Zog race long ago learned that there must be some continuity if they were to maintain a functioning government, and the same goes for a military force. The net effect is a Navy that is essentially insulated from the near constant change going on around it, but also subject to the results of that change in the form of new policies that are usually imposed when a new government takes over. It should be noted that while the bulk of the Navy is relatively insulated from the changes, the upper ranks of the military are, as they are in most races, primarily political in nature, and thus tend to become a part of the ongoing change that marks Zog culture. There have been many military dictatorships in Zog history, and many other governments that came to power with military support. Zog admirals and generals have proven to have no more staying power than any other rulers, and their governments are generally just as fleeting.
