The Kan are a conquered client species of the Turian Hierarchy, originating from Kendatha, in the Oculi system. Conquered in the year 1879, after they activated their star system's relay, and were discovered by the Turians who proceeded to punish them for activating a relay.
The Kan have the undeserved reputation as a cowardly species, when they surrendered to the Hierarchy after they had established orbital control, when they determined they had no chance of victory against the vastly larger species despite their protection from Turian orbital bombardment. Ever since that date, hundreds of thousands of Turian citizens have been killed, assassinated, lynched, or murdered by the dozens of Kan terrorist groups that target Turian worlds, the most recent being the Massacre of Junipa when Kan extremists killed 50,000 Turian's of all age groups and sex in a few hours, completely killing the colony despite a heroic resistance by the Turian Militia.
The Kan are a burrowing ambush predator. Omnivorous, with scavenger tendencies and engaging in cannibalism if necessary, they are the ultimate omnivore, able to digest any form of organic matter, whether Detro or Levo amino acid. A trait only shared by the humans. They are around 5 feet tall, with their most distinctive features being their long sharp burrowing claws, and a bony head plate that's more protective than Turian carapace, able to stop mass effect fired pellets. Their entire body is well protected against blunt force trauma to protect against tunnel collapses and predators. They are remarkably durable; resistant to radiation, pain, and internal injury thanks to a robust physiology. This is at expense to their extremely poor eyesight which is made for dark environs and short range. However they are noted to have excellent night vision, and are often used by the Turians as shock troopers, tunnel fighters, and Thresher Maw hunters.
Their burrowing abilities cannot be understated; dirt, sand, and even soft rocks are no match for their abilities, with them penetrating even specially treated concrete given enough time. Making them a devastating surprise to most enemies.
Kan Culture:
The culture of the Kan is a complex series of allegiances. When born they imprint themselves with their immediate family, and are the highest authority overriding all other social or political responsibilities to protect them. Their next ring of loyalties is their clan, friends, and clan leader. The next after that is the tribe, nation, and social group(regiment, economic class, co workers, ect.). There are nearly a dozen rings of allegiances that can be put into effect, with their allegiance to the Turians at dead last.
Cultural ceremonies among the Kan are intensely private, with several stages of life being marked with a challenge or responsibility among their rings of allegiances. The most well known is the Rite of Passage for military service, where the individual must show remarkable courage and strength when faced with pressure and stress, and is their final step in military training. The next most well known is the Challenge of Adulthood, where the juvenile must go and prove themselves by gaining employment, establishing a social circle around them, and living on their own for some time until they have established these goals, this can last anywhere from a few months to decades as the Juvenile must be satisfied they have accomplished the goals before returning, or risk returning in shame and dishonor.
Interspecies relations is rocky with most. They have excellent relations with the other Turian client species, but as of recently are at a very hostile phase with the Turians after the Kan's part in the NEG-Turian war. Their relations with the Salarians and Asari are neutral officially, but most are Kan intensely displeased with their governments, believing them to be self serving species who abandons others when they even have a hint of hardship for themselves, citing the abandonment of their species to the Turians, and the exile of the Quarians. However they admire the resolve of the Asari Maidens who go out for hundreds of years, and the Salarians desire to prove themselves with mere decades to live.
Associate relations are relatively mixed.
They view the Batarians as barbaric cowards, too weak to do their own work, and too stupid to evolve.
Volus are well liked among the Kan for their bravery in traversing a galaxy that most atmosphere's would kill them without their suits.
Hanar are viewed as too isolationist to bother, and are viewed by most Kan as shy introverts.
Elcor are viewed as too boring, with their lumbering speech and slowness, and their large size unsuited to survival on their planet, translating into a base instinct to want to hunt the Elcor. Thankfully there has been no incidents of the Kan eating an Elcor.
Non Member Species
Quarians: They admire Quarians for their strength and capabilities, and dismiss other's views of the Quarians as them doing whats necessary to survive. They have indeed fallen in love with the Quarian idea of Pilgrimage, and the senior producers for the hit turian movie, "Fleet and Flotilla" were active supporters of the Turian director and helped establish the Quarians in a more neutral light.
Vorcha: Seeing the vorcha as a hardy if short lived species, the Kan have no real care for the Vorcha.
NEG: The relationship with NEG is decidedly Mixed. On one hand they just fought a war, assisted known terrorists, and NEG is an intensely intimidating presence, but on the other hand, the Federation were only defending themselves in a similar circumstance to the Kan being conquered, faced off against the galaxy's formerly most powerful military force and beat them handily, and are also politically supporting them against the hierarchy. It will take time for their relationship to be decided.
Economy: Kan enjoy the status as unparalleled miners, with a natural sense of underground direction, and uncanny ability to predict extremely complicated variables when it comes to digging and mining, their government has grown rich by the Volus, being the leaders of the Turian economy, assigning them all the mining contracts.
Government: Their government, The Independent Kannate Republics, is a loosely organized web of political alliances with hundreds of members some as large as planets, and others as small as islands. The government is generally laizzai-faire, and rarely interact with their constituent members without reason. Acting more as a diplomatic body than an overarching administration, they are the face for the galaxy.
Military: "The Kan military, is the Turian military. And we'd have lost without them." Turian General Ixphastus, on the battle of New Zhaozhi. Despite their reputation, the Turians know to value Kan support thanks to the Kan's adaptive and unique abilities, being a much more flexible force than even the Turians. Their use of Shock troops and tunnel fighters in the NEG-Turian war was devastating to the NEG in the early stages of the war, with several strategically vital Turian wins won solely by the Kan when the Turians were getting wiped out regiment by regiment. The Kan trooper eschews shields for armor, shields being useless in the hand to hand combat of tunnel fighting, they were more protected against Human weaponry. The Kan preferring high caliber explosive propelled weapons, much like the humans prefer, were more effective than the Turian's Mass effect driven rounds.
The Kan's poor eyesight is what originally gave rise to the Inferno Trooper armor optics, when it was found that poor eyesight among Kan lead to higher survival and sanity rates.
Kan wars on their homeworld were short affairs that rarely lasted years, elite military's would square off in battles, and the winner who breached and threatened the homes and families of the other were the victors generally. Because of this the Kan military is a highly elite and specialized force, made for taking out the enemy as swiftly as possible, and in the short ground war against the Turians in the war against them was a resounding tactical victory for the Kan, wiping out an army group of a million Turian conscripts on their landing fields in a world wide ambush, before the Kan were orbitally surrounded and they determined victory was impossible.
Armored warfare among the Kan is vital for their doctrine of "Piercing lance" Similar to Blitzkrieg, the goal is to hit with all your force in the weakest point of the enemy's flank, and then to rapidly move to completely destroy all enemy supply lines, then immediately form underground bunker systems and wait for more enemy supply trains to move past and ambush them, this second phase is called, "Patient Hunter". With broken supply lines, enemy forces would have to either secure their rear lines and try and uproot the Kan forces to continue on and hope they can make use of what supplies can be air routed to them and found, all the while harassed by Kan ambushes, commando strikes, and their air support whittled away by advanced SAMs and Mass Effect ground cannons. Both choices are fatal, as the Kan would train up reserves and then eventually counter attack them in decisive ambush battles, or the enemy would starve and die away as they try and advance, resulting in a devastating counter attack by trained up reserves.
Recent history, Turian-NEG war, AKA the War of Sorrow by the Turians.
Kan support for the war was nonexistent, and Kan leaders were kicking and screaming as they were drawn into the war, threatening to withhold all military support from the Turians's War. Only the direct overriding of the Kan government, in violation of the Turian Treaty for Client Species, were they drawn into the war. The immediate Kan strategic reserves were drawn up, and the current Kan army of nearly 1 billion soldiers were deployed to Turian Expeditions in search of human worlds. With the destruction of hundreds of ships, killing tens of thousands of Kan for no benefit, Kan leaders petitioned the Citadel Council for an end to the war, or at least a motion to force the Turians to end the Kan's involvement in their "Petty war".
This process was repeated by the Kan, and many client species government throughout the war, but most loudly and frequently by the Kan.
Hierarchy losses were over 70% Turians, with 30% being their various client species. However half of those losses were Kan, as the Kan were ever increasingly thrown forward against Human positions as shock troopers to try and break the Human positions, rightly believing the Kan were a more effective species to send as the first wave. The only reason the Kan's losses weren't higher was because the Kan were so few in number. Their increased use as "Meatshields" by the Turian military, was met with increasing scorn by the Kan public, lowering overall Kan Morale across the Hierarchy and resulting lessened returns from Kan run mines, impacting the Turian war machine by a noticeable 5%.
The use of Kan shock troopers resulted in nearly all of the Turian's vital strategic wins. Further study showed the Kan's poor eyesight allowed them to either bypass or reliably take on NEG terror weapons, with the Kan's optic assistance filtering out the terrifying monsters and allowing them to either take them on a more even footing, or to bypass the creatures by going underground and creating deadfall traps, the one reliable way of slowing down or even very rarely defeating Engels. Combined with unique Kan advantages, the Kan managed to damage Human defenses enough that Turian follow up battalions exploited the breakthroughs and secured victory. For propaganda purposes, Turians often marginalized or completely excised Kan involvement in these battles to try and raise Turian public morale. Further angering the Kan, who's culture demanded that those who do good, are recognized for doing good, forming a direct insult to the entire Kan species.
Punishments against the Kan for their lessened productivity resulted in a downward morale spiral for the various client species, and its estimated by the end of the war poor morale among the client species resulted in 25% decrease in Turian productivity, with a further 10% loss due to deliberate sabotage or inaction by Client species when NEG raider fleets attacked.
It almost resulted in a civil war within the Hierarchy when Kan terrorists joined forces with human Raider fleets to completely destroy several Turian colonies to the last child, and destroyed hundreds of Kan mines. The Turians accused the Kan government of treason, and aiding an enemy of the hierarchy, citing the Kan Garrisons refusal to engage the raiders, and the humans use of Kan mercenaries and terrorists to fight the Hierarchy. It was only kept from open civil war when the Asari directly interfered and hosted negotiations that delayed the entire affair that lasted until the end of the war, when the Kan threatened to assist the Volus and work together to secede from the hierarchy, with the Kan acting as the military arm, and the Volus as the administration and economy. Faced with a war on two fronts, and unable to allocate forces to properly quash the Client Species threatened betrayal, the Turians were forced to capitulate.
Post war relations have been outright hostile, with the Kan maintaining an army and political alliances that could potentially take on the Turian's reduced warmachine, especially the Turian fleet, the one thing that made the Kan surrender in the first place. And the humans willing to interfere on the Kan's behalf to, "Prevent a Turian Hitler."
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Mythos Effect
AdventureA crossover between Mass Effect and Cthulhutech. Humanity has won the Aeon War and has since expanded and thrived. How will the galaxy fare with this new power? This story is not mine at all.
