Diary of a Flagritz Officer (Warrior Caste) The creature is in pain and this seems to trigger gag reflexes, interesting. I shoot it again, this time in the other upper appendage to see if it will vomit again. It doubles over, tries to support itself against the wall, fails and slides down panting in exhaustion. I wonder if humans have gastric evacuations in their space suits. I'll have some slaves check through the captured helmets. As an afterthought I shoot it once through the head, terminating it. The slaves run in to tidy up the remains and prepare them for the evening meal. The salt levels are quite high though when washed down with plenty of ferment they are reasonably palatable. The concubines complained of intestinal gases when human were first served. I remember Flanishin of the Xenos order clacked on and on about it. I don't know why I entwined with a Xenos. While I agree that humans smell, secrete water from their entire bodies and have strange bony appendages that causes them to contort ridiculously just to reach certain parts of their body, they are not the greatest threat to the Empire ever spawned. Any organism that doesn't have bio-caste dedicated to conflict will always be inferior to one that does. Still at least she is not always insisting that we should be trying to empathise and join with them like Co-ilsine. Thankfully she isn't an exclusive mate. I don't think I could cope with her right to bring all her drugged slaves in our brooding-chamber.

If I'm honest with myself I am quite glad that the lot of them bar Xanim are back on Primoridium. Xanim is warrior caste, like me. The brooding is rough and often fails on account of our hardened sphincters, but at least you can concentrate. Relaxing the probile tendons is impossible with all that banal chatter.

Tomorrow we drop on a new world that has a modest human component, hence my interest in their reaction to pain. Xenos get some strange thrill out of making them suffer because they can, see who can cause the most damage before death and other such games. Personally that has no appeal to me. They are simply slaves that just don't know it yet. An integration caste would probably add, 'so what is the point in spoiling the merchandise.'

Of this world, I believe that their primary point of defence has been scouted, a starbase, and we will be engaging this first. Once it falls, we will then move out into the civilian population, breaking them for the arrival of our civilians. As with all newly conquered worlds, the first wave of civilians will be mainly War Order just to keep the civilians under control.

The battle proves fiercer than I anticipate. We have a much higher complement of mercenaries in our forces than I expected. Not just mercenaries, alien mercenaries! Who thought that would be a good idea? Cost cutting exercise, no doubt sanctioned by the Trading Order. We have lost more than a third of our force for very little gain. I lost contact with Xanim some time ago. She was close to the mercenary faction so I suspect that she is dead. Bextrin her oldest is near maturity and has started to get a little boisterous. Declaring him son should be a suitable honour as he has no uncles and I am sure that he doesn't want a slaver as a father.


Day five of the attack, we have been reinforced twice now and I am surprised that I am still alive, more by chance than either planning or skill. It is just a case of mopping up the defenders, currently holed up in a retreating ground force. No doubt we will be carpet bombing them from orbit as they move through the surrounding urban sector. This suits me fine.

I never found Xanim, though I have spent the past couple of nights with Zoalan. While Xenos Order, having fought side by side against the humans, I find myself sharing some of her hatreds. This is probably just post combat feelings. We are currently barracked in a burnt out factory and it has snowed continuously for days. Still, at least the meat is both plentiful and remaind fresh though what I wouldn't give for a decent slave chef. I heard Wimbles cook very nicely though this was something of an ambiguous comment.

My petition to recognise Bextrin and enlist him on colonisation detail to this world has been accepted. This means I am able to claim Xanim's slave entitlement in our joint names as well as my own when we stamp the brand of the Empire on everyone we find in the surrounding urbanised regions.

We move from dwelling to dwelling. Resistance is minimal, mostly it is shooting civilians in the back as they flee up the streets. They have been warned. We can't make it any simpler - stay in your homes and await the arrival of the branding squads.

I step through a door into a room. There is a human, female I think. She glances to my side, giving me enough notice to open fire in that general direction, gunning down a would-be assassin. This causes her to shriek at the top of her voice, so I subdue her with the handle of the branding rod and she falls to the ground. I pin her to the ground while I activate the brand. Curiously she seems to be reaching for the hand of the corpse. Aliens, who can understand them? Personally I prefer laser branding on the face or close to eye sockets for ease of recognition though I often back it up with a vital organ anchored resonance plate. I have been caught out by aliens that shed their skin and carapaces before now. The pain makes her to pass out, though she does not vomit. The organ tag however causes her to sit bolt-upright and again scream. This startles me enough to knock her across the room and through a door, scattering a few podlings that were lurking behind it. I decide to tag the small humans as well as I presume they are her offspring. She will be easier to control through them. The first suffers an internal rupture and starts its death throes. I had left the organ tag setting to high. I adjust and move onto the rest - brand to the face and a blast with the organ tag. I consider taking the dead offspring back to camp, it might taste better than the adults but decide against it as I have a few more homes to check. All in all a very successful day and I am feeling about as sentimental as a warrior can - Xanim would never approve.

Flagritz are born both hermaphroditic and without bio-caste. It is only as they gain maturity that they start to develop their gender and bio-caste. There are two genders, male and female and three bio-castes. The bio-castes are warrior, reservist and integrator. These presumably have their roots in hunter-gathering society. It is also an unconfirmed rumour that the flagritz were not the exclusive sentient species native to their world.

There are factors influencing maturation that regulates relative populations of bio-caste within a society. A lack of warriors within the population such as following a war will cause more flagritz to mature into warriors, as will the occasional 'vanishing' by a Xenos Event. There are other social factors such as media influence and peer pressure.

Politics
The bio-caste phenomenon strongly slants politics such that, despite name changes over the centuries, there are always three political parties. These currently take the name War, Peace and Xeno, though historically, the Peace party has been known as the Trading Party, the Party for Peaceful Integration amongst others. While each Order or Political Party is almost exclusively made up from the appropriate bio-castes, there are exceptions. There have been times when warrior bio-castes have achieved some degree of power within the Xenos Order resulting in a heightened policy of aggressive control of slaves and client species and the closing of borders. When War had a few integrator bio-castes amongst its elite, the Empire expanded, crushing opposition and expanded its borders, vastly increasing its access to slaves. More often though the Orders are at odds over one thing or another and two factions will only join forces temporarily either to undermine the power of the third or to achieve a mutual goal.

Social Structure
The social structure is also quite unusual as compatible-fertility amongst Flagritz is very low and exceptionally so between members of the same bio-caste. As a consequence non-exclusivity between partners especially between bio-castes is normal throughout society. Paternity does not play a role in the raising of children. For the initial years it is generally down to the female side of the family with only satellite involvement of all the potential fathers until the child matures into one of the castes. At this stage there will be a greater involvement of one of the uncles depending on bio-caste. For example, a concubine may have two children to seven fathers. Each of these fathers may see the children, individually or all together until the children become adolescents, though most often they take no part. At some point however if only one becomes warrior bio-caste a natural bond will form between the child and one of the satellite fathers or uncles who is also warrior bio-caste. As the fathers and uncles often have multiple spouses as well there is always some degree of favouritism and competition both amongst the fathers and the children when it comes to bonding. Quite a lot of historical media (novels and myths) revolves around bonding. From a biological point of view, the heavy involvement of the uncles offers a greater degree of certainty regarding the passing on genetic material - though most flagritz will reject this notion, instead declaring the bond as superior to genetic material.

There are occasional anomalies in society, typically amongst reservists where members only take spouses from members of the same bio-caste. Amongst humans this might be described as a cult, in which members reject society and attempt to remove themselves from it. These are known as a 'Xenos Events' as the vast majority are funded by members of the Xenos Order.

As historically they have proved to be a challenge to the Flagritz Empire on account of eventually forming a full complement of bio-castes and their own rival Orders, a Xenos Event often results in a hue and cry followed by assertive reintegration.

Inter-species Relations
The flagritz have a tendency to treat other sentient species as cattle, using them as both labour and food. They see no obvious distinction between meat taken from a sentient corpse and that taken from an animal. They do not however eat it raw and will often to to extreme lengths to flavour meat from all sources. They do not however consume flagritz flesh. This may be more to do with its extremely unpalatable flavour (few animals can stomach flagritz meat).

Physiological and Psychological Differences
Warrior castes are slightly larger with tougher dermal layers. Their eye sockets are more recessed giving better stereoscopic vision. They have significantly lower empathy levels, allowing them to resist combat shock. When working with other aliens this can cause friction as they see little issue with terminating non-combatants.
At the other end of the scale are the integrators. They are the smallest and most adept at understanding alien perspectives, though this does not immediately equate to empathy.

Xeno are somewhere in-between, though their interests are purely along the lines of self-preservation (extending to flagritz as a whole). It is thought that this bio-caste would at one time have been the workers though flagritz penchant for use of slaves has meant that these tend to be the bio-caste most likely to deal with keeping the slaves productive. These are therefore often seen as the most cruel of the bio-castes - a combination of lack of empathy and willingness to experiment with conditioning techniques.