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The Kzinti (singular Kzin) are a fictional, very warlike and bloodthirsty race of cat-like aliens in Larry Niven's Known Space series. The Kzinti were initially introduced in Niven's story "The Warriors" (originally in ''Worlds of If'' (1966)) and "The Soft Weapon" (1967), both collected in ''Neutron Star'' (1968). A Kzin character, Speaker-to-Animals (later known as Chmeee), subsequently played a major role in Niven's Hugo and Nebula award-winning ''Ringworld'' (1970) and ''Ringworld Engineers'' (1980), giving considerably more background of the Kzinti and their interactions with human civilizations. Following ''Ringworld'', Niven gave permission to several friends to write stories taking place in the time following "The Warriors" but before "The Soft Weapon"; these stories (including a handful by Niven) were collected in a number of volumes of ''The Man-Kzin Wars'', which eventually reached thirteen volumes, the first published in June 1988. Kzinti also appear in ''Juggler of Worlds'' (2008) and ''Fate of Worlds'' (2012), novels within the Fleet of Worlds series (cowritten with Edward M. Lerner). == Background and history == Kzinti evolved from a plains hunting felid on a slightly colder, drier planet than Earth. The Kzin word for their home planet translates as Homeworld. The world is often known as Kzinhome by the Kzinti themselves. The Kzin home world is the third planet orbiting the star 61 Ursae Majoris. The Kzin civilization was at an iron-age technological level when an alien race called the Jotoki landed and made stealthy first contact with a tribe of primitive hunter/gatherer Kzinti. The Jotok were interstellar merchants looking for a species they could use as mercenaries. Once the Jotok had taught the Kzinti how to use high-technology weapons and other devices (including spacecraft), the Kzin rebelled and made their former masters into slaves, as well as the occasional meal. The crest of the Riit (Royal) family appears to be a bite mark, but is in fact a dentate leaf, with the words "From mercenary to master." written around it in Kzinti script. Kzin society is extremely male dominated. The leader of the race is called the Patriarch, which is a hereditary title. The Kzinti call themselves "Heroes" or the "Heroes Race" and because they believe themselves to be "heroes", their society places a very high value on "acting Heroic" and behaving in a heroic fashion. To Kzin society, "heroic" means being honorable and having integrity. Kzin honor, called ''strakh'', is similar in many ways to the samurai code of Bushido. ''Strakh'' serves as almost a sort of currency or favour system, since they do not use money in their culture.〔http://destinysforge.com/destinysforge/teaser_4_2.asp〕 For example, if the Patriarch gets meat from a seller's market stand, the seller gains considerable ''strakh'', which will bring honour to the seller allowing him to get better customers, in turn leading to more ''strakh'', giving the seller a higher status within the community. Once Kzinti gained access to genetic-manipulation technology, they started manipulating themselves in order to bring out the most "heroic" qualities and recede undesired ones. To this end, because females are not valued except as bearers of children, the male-dominated Kzin society bred (most of) their own females into sub-sapience. Kzinti are often described as anthropomorphic tigers, but there are significant and visible differences. Kzinti are larger than humans, standing around tall and weighing around . These tiger-sized bipeds have large membranous ears, a barrel-chested torso with a flexible spine, and large fangs and claws. One human gave an apt description of Kzin as "eight feet of death". Unlike some popularly depicted anthropomorphic animals, Kzinti stand on two legs like humans do; they do not have digitigrade or "backward-bending" legs. Their hands end in three fingers and an opposable thumb, all with retractable claws. Kzinti are covered with a thick coat of long fur that comes in various combinations of orange, yellow, and black. Full black coats are rare. Kzinti tails are naked and are similar in appearance to a rat's tail, and their noses are black. Kzinti ears have fur only on the outside of the ear and only about half-way up the ear itself, usually appear pink, and are shaped liked a segment of a Chinese parasol (or cocktail umbrella; they are also sometimes described as "bat-winged"); they can fold back flat against the head for protection during a fight. Kzinti speak in a hissing language called the ''Hero's Tongue'', which in its written form resembles commas and periods. Kzinti cubs are tested by the Black Priests. Females are tested for intelligence; the ones who flunk their tests by revealing too high an intelligence are killed. Males are tested for telepathy; the ones who exhibit telepathic ability are forced into addiction of a drug derived from the lymph of an animal called a ''sthondat''. Sthondat lymph extract significantly increases telepathic ability, but it is addictive, and is toxic with long use, causing muscle atrophy and thinning fur. The black-fur gene and the telepath gene are exclusive; no completely black-furred Kzin is telepathic, and all such cubs are taken by the Black Priests and raised within their cult. Telepaths are tolerated by the warrior class due to the specialized use of their skill, otherwise they endure a low-caste position in society, just above the status of slaves, with the occasional slave being considered of a higher social status. Telepaths rarely, if ever, earn a name, and are legally forbidden to breed. Most Kzin females (''s.'' Kzin''rret'', ''pl.'' Kzin''rretti'') are sub-sapient, with a vocabulary of fewer than a hundred word/sounds and primarily instinct-driven behavior, and are treated as chattel by males (''s.'' Kzin''tosh'', ''pl.'' Kzin''toshi''). This was not always the case: archaic Kzinrretti were sapient until the Kzin used Jotoki biotechnology to drive them to their current state while boosting the martial prowess of the males. Kzin society explains this by stating that the Fanged God removed the Kzinrretti souls as punishment for an attempted rebellion against him shortly after he created the Kzinti. Even by the period of the novels, certain bloodlines still produce sentient females, as do some, if not most, primitive tribes. These tribes, long isolated from the Patriarchy, avoided the genetic modifications. At least two sentient females exist on Wunderland, and a population also exists on the Ringworld. The Kzinti are the first on-going alien contact that humanity has met within the Known Space universe. The first contact with humanity ends the human golden era of peace, where even history has been rewritten in a non-violent whitewash; organized violence was virtually eliminated, being reduced to roughly 1 in 1000 people, and interpersonal violence was unknown, except occasional outbursts in the asteroid belt where both medical and psychological care were spread thinly. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kzin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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