Kzinti in Star Trek

Star Trek Animated

Kzinti Councillor “The Time Trap”

The first canonical appearance of the Kzinti can be found in the episode “The Slaver Weapon” [MA]. Within this episode several facts about the Niven Kzinti are introduced:

• Naming Procedures: The leader of the renegade Kzinti bears the half name Chuft Captain [MA], among his crew are Telepath [MA], Flyer, and Slaverstudent (plus a fifth member as per animation error).
• Female Kzin semi-sentient: The Kzinti don’t care for Uhura, forgetting that Human females are capable of thinking of other things than eating and mating.
• Disarmed Species: Kzinti not allowed to carry weapons as per the Treaty of Sirius [MA].
• Carnivores: It is mentioned that none of Chuft Captain’s crew has ever tasted Human meat.

Also a dating for the Kzinti wars is given: 200 years before the episode. Problems arise, because even though this would place the first four invasions from the Niven universe close to the discovery of FTL travel, it is impossible to incorporate other aspects of the Niven universe, namely the almost 200-year-old colony on Alpha Centauri [MA]. Maybe Niven was in the believe Star Trek would be as far in the future as his stories. If he only knew “The Squire of Gothos” [MA] or “The Omega Glory” [MA] this would be possible. Furthermore it is interesting to note that the above mentioned chronology places the events of The Soft Weapon just 40 years after the end of the last war.

Kzinti are also mentioned as a side note in “The Infinite Vulcan” [MA] when Stavos Keniclius 5 [MA] argues for the need of genetically engineered Humans. Kirk replys there was peace for the last 100 years. A Kzin [MA] was also part of the Elysian Council [MA] in “The Time Trap” [MA].

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Cat Woman aka. Kzinretti

Another possible appearence of a Kzinti could be the felinoid dancer [MA] on Nimbus III [MA] in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier [MA]. Some sources call her Kzinretti. However it is entirely possible she was supposed to be a Caitian [MA].

Star Trek: The Next Generation

“Conspiracy” star chart

Kzinti appeared once more in a background note in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Several stars on the chart were labelled with planets from TOS and TAS, including Kzin [MA], the homeworld and Beta Lyrae [MA], where Spock, Sulu, and Uhura met the Kzinti.

In the known space universe homeworld orbits a star called “Father Sun” by Kzinti and known as 61 Ursae Majoris [MA] by Earth astronomers.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Several sites reported that the Tzenkethi [MA] which first appeared in “The Adversary” [MA] are replacement species for the Kzinti. This is most likely related to a rumour being first confirmed on The TrekBBS forums and additionally fed by reference as “feliform” in “Infinite Bureaucracy” one of the fan submitted stories of Strange New Worlds VII [MA].

Recently the rumour could be refuted, when author Christopher L. Bennett [MA] asked episode writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe [MA] about his intentions: “[...] I suspect I did my usual and combined a couple things. Probably Kzinti and Tsankth. But when I picture them in my head, they weren’t big cat people.” ¹

Star Trek: The Lions of the Night

Author Jimmy Diggs with a Kzinti model.

Around 2003 Star Trek: The Lions of the Night was the concept by writer Jimmy Diggs [MA] to produce a movie era CGI animated Star Trek adventure. He described the plot the following way: “... Captain Sulu takes command of the Enterprise-B and must stop a Kzinti invasion of Federation Space.” Artist Court Jones created several sketches to depict a new concept of Kzinti that were looking more dangerous as well as a concept of how the Kzinti assault fleet would look like. The project was turned down, but parts were recycled for Star Trek: Enterprise, also see entry for Magazines.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Kzinti cruiser concept

Kzinti were to re-appear in Star Trek: Enterprise Season 5 as the main villains of the fifth year. An introducing story “Kilkanny Cats” was written by Star Trek veteran writer Jimmy Diggs [MA] who previously tried to pitch Kzinti-themed stories for Deep Space Nine and Voyager. The story was based on works of Neal and Jana Hallford, and edited by D.C. Fontana [MA] and André Bormanis [MA].

Jimmy Diggs revealed about the script that “... Captain Archer encounters the Kzinti after an 80 year period of no contact with the Federation. Larry Niven loved it, D.C. Fontana and Andre Bormanis both story edited the script and signed on the final draft.”

Glitchwerk Studios presents the concept CGI model of the Kzinti cruiser Dark Stalker. The design for the Dark Stalker is based on Court Jones’ sketches created around 2003 for Star Trek: Lions of the Night, a movie era episode in feature length by Jimmy Diggs. The design is losely based on the shape of vessels from the Star Fleet Battles game (hence three nacelles), but with more emphasise on creating a believable warship. The 2150s version combines aircrafts and submarines of World War II.²

The artist, Josh Finney, said that he was “... commissioned by writer Jimmy Diggs to design an ‘Enterprise’ era Kzinti cruiser as part of an overall pitch to Paramount.” He further said “As for my ship design, truth be told, Paramounts people would’ve probably re-designed it a billion times before it hit the screen. But, still, I would’ve at least provided the starting point for the concept.” ³

Footnotes

1. ↑ Robert Hewitt Wolfe on Tzenkethi at Ex Isle Forums:
   “Errr... uh... damn. I can’t freaking remember. I mean, yeah, I basically made them up. And yeah, I named them. But I can’t remember if I was making a purposeful homage to Niven or not. If I had to guess, I suspect I did my usual and combined a couple things. Probably Kzinti and Tsankth. But when I picture them in my head, they weren’t big cat people. I thought of them as more like the Hakazit. And that’s the best I can do ten years later.”
   (Note: Tsankth is a maritime god of rapacity and piracy in the RPG Glorantha; Hakazit are from Jack L. Chalker’s Well World series: in the fourth and fifth books they are three-meter tall T-rexes, while a later triology describes them as large mosquitoes. Wolfe however didn’t know they became mosquitoes.)
2. ↑ Email from Jimmy Diggs to me dating 2006-11-15:
   “There are elements of a German U-Boat (note the conning tower just aft of midships), a Curtis P-40 ‘Warhawk’ (note the bow), a Stuka dive-bomber or F4U Corsair fighter-bomber (note the cannards on the bow), the shuttlebay on the belly is inspired by the supercharger intake of a Mustang P-51. Even the placement of the hull markings has a 1940’s sensibility. These were all instructions that I gave Mr. Finney. And when he didn’t get them right, I had him redo them until he did.”
3. ↑ The full email is retrieved from Image talk:Kzinti vessel c2150s.jpg:
   “Okay, well first I’ll admit that the facts stated about Kzinti and season five are a bit over simplified. Basically, I was commissioned by writer Jimmy Diggs to design an ‘Enterprise’ era Kzinti cruiser as part of an overall pitch to Paramount.
   Jimmy had been a long time writer for Star Trek, and was looking to add his contribution to the Enterprise series. We were in our third round of talks with the producer when the show got canceled.
   With the show taking a new direction, and paying more homage to the original series, they were very interested in reviving old-school favorites such as the Gorn and “original’ Klingons. The Kzinti was being seriously considered as part of this revival. As for my ship design, truth be told, Paramounts people would’ve probably re-designed it a billion times before it hit the screen. But, still, I would’ve at least provided the starting point for the concept.
   -Josh”

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