The TribeA vast organisation made up of bipedal lizard people from various planets. Lizards vary in appearance much more than humans—there are wiry metre-tall lizards and hulking, muscular two-metre-tall lizards. The Tribe is a strict meritocracy, and merit is usually determined through combat—although reformers are attempting to introduce non-violent contests for other fields of expertise. Lizards are ruthless in their drive to out-compete each other (and their alien enemies), and they do many things considered by others to be beyond the pale—poison, mass extermination of colonies, or cheerful experimentation on their own zygotes or other sentient creatures. Some consider them to be utterly amoral anarchists, but they do have some mores and laws governing their conduct—they just seldom recognise non-lizards as equals to whom these protections apply. Lizards believe in giving fair warning when it is appropriate to do so and in limiting the bounds of a contest if the purpose of the contest is to test a particular premise or if excessive permanent damage to contestants is undesirable. For example, guns would not be permitted in a duel to determine the superior unarmed combat method, and the best two warriors of the Tribe would not be permitted to kill or maim each other. No-holds-barred fights to the death are relatively rare, since such waste of resources is frowned upon—but some feuding bands would settle for nothing less. Band divisions within the Tribe are fluid—alliances are shifting all the time. Bands tend to be centered on charismatic individual leaders, and seldom outlive them, although some dynasties exist. Sometimes bands simply dissolve when a leader dies, but if he or she is soundly defeated by a particularly impressive rival, the rival may suddenly earn the allegiance of many new followers. Lizards don't consider any field of knowledge to be prohibited—they are following many lines of research which are considered abomination by the Empire. They have had limited success with the production of intelligent machines—they mostly create unmanned drones and shipboard computers. Cybernetics are also more commonly seen among lizards—the most popular are optical implants and long-range communicators. Lizards who need to replace limbs prefer to have them regrown, but those who opt for prosthetics tend to favour extremely ostentatious models with built-in weapons. |