The Tsihor

The Tsihor are a space-faring species connected by eight spacefolds to the Eastern Reaches. Their bodies are about 1.5 metres tall and covered in short, blue-black fur. Their upper limbs are featherless, heavily-ribbed wings suitable for gliding distances of up to about 20 metres and strong enough to support their bodies, freeing their lower limbs for use as hands. The top of their torsos are a heavily boned collar with eyes and ear-holes on the side. Inside the collar sits the mouth, with nostrils above it, both mounted on a neck that can lunge out for about twice the length of their bodies. Inside the mouth are three lines of teeth and the sexual organs. If necessary, the mouth and neck can be contracted so that only a thick, bony ridge is exposed.

Although light for their size, the Tsihor are fierce fighters in personal combat. Besides their teeth, they use their legs for kicking, and their wings for beating. In addition, the neck can be used as a whip and the top of the head for butting. In addition, the Tsihor are extremely quick, especially in lunging and changing directions and have piping voices that terrify and confuse their prey.

The main reasons why the Tsihor are not more of a danger to other species is that they regard total warfare as dishonorable and that their planets are sparsely settled due to their biological and cultural preferences. Due to often demonstrated incompatibilities (see "Relations with Humans" below), they have a cautious and reserved reaction to Humans, but will interact and trade with them under controlled conditions.

Biology and ecology

The Tsihor have not revealed the location of their home planet to humans, although some scholars believe they have extrapolated its general location by observing Tsihor traffic in and out of known spacefolds. However, the planet is believed to be human-class, at least so far as basic chemistry and biology is concerned, but with a much great proportion of ultra-violet light, which the Tsihor can see much better than humans. By contrast, the Tsihor are completely unable to see the red end of the spectrum.

The Tsihor are descended from small arboreal carnivores that leaped and glided between branches and the ground. Due to the complexity of this environment and the fact that, although predators themselves, they were also prey to larger species, they were subject to extreme evolutionary pressure. Learning to hunt in packs, they developed a piping language, and eventually became the dominant species on their home planet.

Originally, the Tsihor lived in packs of 20-30. However, since they developed a spacefaring culture, their packs now number as many as 200. This difference is explained as the number of individuals who can be personally controlled by a dominant alpha pair before and after advanced technology came into use. Each pack maintained its own territory against the other packs around it.

The Tsihor are a two-sex species, but resemble terrestial marsupials rather than mammals. The females bear live young, which the males keep in natural pouches inside their mouths until they can fend for themselves. Once young Tsihor are too large to be kept by their fathers, they are raised communally by the pack, with both males and females assisting. Both sexes also participate equally in combat except for gestating females or males with cheek pouches full of young.

Before they developed sentience, only those close to the top of the hierarchy bred. However, with the development of Tsihor civilization, this practice is somewhat relaxed. Still, in most packs, breeding rights are an honour awarded for outstanding service to the pack, especially in its border skirmishes with other packs.

History and culture

Even more than most sentient species, the history and culture of the Tsihor is a conflict between their biology and their intelligence. Although the Tsihor have a recorded history nearly twice as long as that of Humans, their technological development and expansion to the galaxy is slightly behind Humans' in almost every aspect except warfare.

Imperial scholars suggest several reasons for this difference. For one thing, civilization has channeled much of the Tsihor's ancestral aggression into ritualized forms of combat. The best known of these rituals is counting coup: proving yourself superior to the enemy by getting close enough to steal possessions or weaons, or dealing the enemy a non-fatal wound without being wounded yourself. Counting coup has assured that aggression is contained most of the time, but at the cost of making most Tsihor today obsessed with personal status. Moreover, the concept today extends not only to combat, but to most endeavours, including education, research and even daily work. Too often, this quest for status takes the place of actual achievement or long-term goals.

For another, while the Tsihor packs have learned the advantages of exchanging information, individuals do so reluctantly, always concerned not to give away anything that might endanger their pack or their status within it. This caution has likely impeded scientific progress by preventing the free exchange of ideas. Some Tsihor have in effect abandoned the packs into which they were born to live and work in packs based on scientific, technological, or educational purposes for the entire species, but these efforts are far from universal.

Many Tsihor frankly consider the members of such artificial packs insane, but others honour them for helping the species as a whole. And when the member of such a group makes a discovery that other intelligent species have yet to make, he or she is considered to have counted coup on behalf of Tsihor everywhere. Some Tsihor believe that the key to their future is encouraging the growth of such groups and developing broader recognition of their accomplishments throughout the culture.

Another problem with Tsihor culture is that an inordinate amount of time is spent by each pack defending its territory. Although actual warfare, as opposed to individual combat, is relatively rare, throughout history, the Tsihor have still spend considerable time taunting their neighbors and engaging in ritual displays of scorn. Even now, these ritual displays are seen as an art form among the Tsihor, and are second only to hologrammic records of successful and difficult hunts as a popular form of entertainment.

However, the trouble is that this concern loses productivity and has prevented the Tsihor from ever establishing a planetary government or multi-planet state. A few packs have occasionally managed to dominate surrounding packs, but these nascent empires have always been destroyed by temporary alliances of other packs, or else have not survived the death of the individuals who inspired them.

Tsihor scholars acknowledge the problem with a mixture of pride and despair. However, Tsihor culture as a whole has not solved the problem. Instead, it has evaded the problem by the habit of having only one pack per planet. Except in rare systems with multiple inhabited planets, this custom has largely halted the ritual aggression. But it has done so at the expense of communication between packs and of a shortage of labour resources on each planet. Moreover, hunting rather than warfare has now become the main outlet for aggression.

The more intelligent Tsihor are aware of technical solutions to some of their social problems -- at least in theory -- but simply lack enough individuals to put the solutions into practice as soon as they would like. For Tsihor leaders, the act of governing is that of juggling scare labour to meet the demands on it.

Another problem of the typical Tsihor settlement pattern is that, while it seems to have allowed the species to dominate a large number of systems, the low populations of these systems makes them vulnerable to attack unless reliable computerized weapons are available. The Tsihor have become experts in such weapons -- in fact in all sorts of weapons -- but even they have to admit that, should another species such as the Crucians attack, they would likely fare badly by themselves.

The Tsihor Today

For all their technology and expansion, the Tsihor remain a pack-oriented society. Each pack remains fiercely proud of its own traditions and genealogy, and all members learn the names of their past chieftains.

Pack identity is marked by complicated tattoos and body-painting, much of which is invisible to human eyes. In addition, each Tsihor's coups are recorded by the complicated dying and tattooing of their lower limbs and torsos. In some clans, teeth successfully plucked from enemies are worn in strands around their lower limbs.

Apart from counting coup, the Tsihor have little concept of the personal accumulation of wealth. Rather, all wealth belongs to the pack. One of the chieftain's main functions is to distribute the pack's good to ensure basic survival of members and to award those who demonstrate bravery or extreme loyalty to the clan. Chieftains who are seen to be unfair, or, even worse, to horde goods for themselves, tend to be devoured by the pack. Some human traders initially believed that this social arrangement meant that individual Tsihor would be easy to bribe, but they were amazed when such offers were angrily refused. If nothing else, hoarding individual possessions is almost impossible in Tsihor culture.

Individual Tsihor rarely leave their pack. Exceptions sometimes occur when a Tsihor marries into another pack, or searches for a planet on which to found his or her own pack. Even when Tsihor visit the area of the home planet where their ancestors lived -- a visit that each Tsihor wishes to make at least once -- the journey is not a personal one, but one made with other members of the pack and a celebration of the group.

Until recently, chieftains have rarely been known outside their immediate areas. Now, as some have seen the value of cooperation to present a united front to other intelligent species -- especially humans -- a few have achieved greater prominence. The best-known is Rendibile of the Razor Ridge pack and planetary system, who is the elected leader of a working group of chieftains that is exploring ways to increase cooperation with Humans. More than any other Tsihor, Rendibile speaks for his species, but even he only does so after careful consultation. He is opposed by Horharendal of the Lyal Pack, who is known for her hatred of Humanity and her wish to unite the Tsihor against the possible threat of Humans.

Relations with Humans and other Species

Humanity's first contact with the Tsihor occurred at a small space station in the Rolorib system in Imperial Year 6509. While exploring an uncharted spacefold, Tondra Hightower, a member of the Inlooker clan, requested emergency assistance for her scout ship shortly before it was boarded by members of the local Tsihor pack. Within minutes, Hightower's crew and three of the Tsihor were dead. Since the meeting was being beamed back to Hightower's base, war seemed inevitable.

However, remote negotiations (and, rumour has it, experiments with condemned criminals from both species) soon revealed the problem. In their evolutionary history as pack hunters, the Tsihor hunted species of roughly the same mass as humans, and developed an almost uncontrollable urge to attack creatures of this size whenever they detected the first signs of fear.

Since few humans can look at the Tsihor's natural armament or hear their hunting cries without being nervous, face to face contact is almost certain to result in an attack. Some humans can control this fear through meditative exercises, but, faced with the Tsihor cultural habit of counting coup -- in this case, of rushing humans and stealing their weapons, clothes, or personal effects as trophies -- such control is apt to falter. And when human governments hear of the massacre of their citizens, diplomatic protests and shows of strength inevitably follow. Since Tsihor fear human numbers, and regard them as barbarians because of their willingness to kill, they have a strong incentive to avoid such incidents.

As a result, even though a few humans and Tsihor have enough control to meet face-to-face, both sides have learned that fewer diplomatic incidents occur when the two species are kept apart. Most of this remote contact is through the Spacer clan and takes place on specially designed space stations or by using existing systems of airlocks.

To prevent incidents, Human and Tsihor systems are now clearly acknowledged by both sides. In some cases, Human and Tsihor governments have agreed to remain two or more spacefolds away to minimize the chance of direct contact. When the two species must meet, the Human representative is generally an Inlooker or occasionally a Spartan, and the circumstances of the meeting are carefully negotiated whenever possible.

Trade has proved beneficial to both species, although many humans question the wisdom of trading technology with the Tsihor, arguing that with a complete range of advanced technology the Tsihor would become a threat. The spectre of the Tsihor, who are deficient in genetic knowledge, learning to modify themselves is seen as an especially nightmarish possibility.

As it is, the Tsihor are widely famed as arms manufacturers, and their newest designs are eagerly sought. In return, the Tsihor find all kinds of human music irresistible, and possess an insatiable appetite for the latest compositions and concerts. Because of their own love of ritualized hunts, some also appreciate holograms of the public ceremonies of the Spartans. Some Tsihor would like to arrange live concerts featuring leading human performers, but, so far, no one has figured how to ensure the performers' safety without prohibitive cost.

Because of the Tsihor's continual problem with a lack of local numbers, labour-saving devices are also popular trade goods. They are specially eager to obtain artificial intelligences and automated devices that require little or no supervision.

Whether the Tsihor as a whole have an awareness of most other intelligent species is unknown. At least one pack is known to have encountered the Ferrets, but, with the help of Humans, the meeting was remote and occurred without major disasters. Some Tsihor have hinted at knowledge of other species on the other side of their realm of influence from Humans, but this claim could be an intellectual form of counting coup, the intent being to get Humans to believe a well-told lie.

The Tsihor will never be close allies of Humans, the way that the Ferrets are. However, the two species have a grudging respect for each other, and the resulting trade is valuable to both. Moreover, even if relations with Humans are not completely satisfactory and sometimes frustratingly slow because of the need for mutual caution, the Tsihor are aware that, in the event of intergalactic war, their weaponry and Human numbers and organization might prove an unbeatable combination. For such reasons, prominent members of both species acknowledge that they have a mutual interest in retaining cautious ties.