LUREN TALES
Who am I and who am I talking too? That is the question. Whoever you are, these are the last words of a dying race. A dead race. The story is terrible to tell, but I feel as if I owe it to my Pride, and my valiant crew, to tell it. My ship is dying, and with it the last of my race. As I stare death in the face, I welcome it. I died months ago, when those Evil Hordes destroyed my Prideworld, my mates. The battles that I fought and the countless lives that were lost fighting those Demons of Darkness were all for nothing. The Luren are no more, and I, K'Stin am the last surviving officer of our once glorious Empire. How did this happen you might ask? Only the Little Gods know and they have abandoned us to our fates. The air aboard ship is becoming bitterly cold, the oxygen low so I will relate my tale quickly.
The Luren were a proud and victorious race, climbing up the evolutionary ladder to become the most dominant predator on our once lush Homeworld. Our long fangs and claws, combined with our luxurious fur was the envy of many races (editors note: white tigers?). Our aggressive nature was also almost our downfall, our desire for blood nearly our bane. Even though we left our Homeworld and established individual Prideworlds, we still fought each other bitterly. These Pridewars increased our technological growth dramatically and we spread out to the stars quickly. As time went on and our technology progressed, each Pride began to specialize in certain technologies. My own Pride for example became specialists in higher energy states, developing the powerful Fusion Rooms that allowed our ships to travel farther with fewer engines and allowed our weapons to be made more compact. My Pride, the K'Gaga, also developed the fantastically effective anti-laser armor, but too late. Those Soulless Hordes who attacked our Empire viciously used devastating laser weaponry for which we had no match and our invention of the laser armor was far too late.
The continued expansion of our Empire led to contact with many alien races, most of whom fell under our claws. Several races however proved useful or too difficult to beat in battle and were allocated a certain status within our vastly expanding Empire. Two of those races, the huge rock humanoid Branx and the diminutive Korel fought by our side when the Sons of Death discovered us. Our cowardly gas giant aliens, the Mibrannu, hid from them and abandoned us, Kalki-ma take them!
We, the Luren, fought many Pridewars amongst ourselves but when a large alien empire was discovered eighty yaregs ago, we came together as a race, led by the Seven Great Prides. These Great Prides, including the Castagi, Panth, and the D'Shanna, forced the abandonment of our individual Pridefleets and adopted the dreadnoughts and heavy cruisers of our fleets into the Imperial Fleet. These aliens, the reptilian Shern destroyed several Pride colonies without even attempting to communicate and it was war. Ah, war is glorious and our battles with the alien Shern were glorious. They utilized small attack craft against our warfleets but we built up a massive Fortress Ring within our Empire to withstand their attacks, which took up nearly a third of the total defense budget to maintain. This impenetrable barrier became the foundation of our defenses but was simply pushed aside when those Demons of Darkness came for us from the outer reaches. The battles with the Shern were epic, and I too fought in them, quickly reaching the exalted rank of Admirashk. Although we, the Luren, are a short-lived race, we fight. I was fourteen yaregs when I fought my first battle with the Shern. We never took prisoners, and neither did the Shern but it never was really a fight to the death, just a war of glory, of battles, of strength. At the same time our Empire became aware of a vicious genocidal race bordering our two states. Calling themselves the Shraix, these feathered aliens launched brutal attacks against both our empires. This was their death.....
We and the Shern have never stopped our fighting even as we destroyed the alien Shraix. Maybe that is why the Little Gods turned against us, turning their backs on us. We showed no mercy to the Shraix, and none was shown to us when those Unstoppable Fiends came for us. At this time we also began production of a new class of warship. These newly built “monitors” were huge, larger than any other known warship and would have given us a substantial advantage had we been able to deploy enough of them. One class, the Death from Above, with heavy capital missile batteries, would have made a significant impact on the course of the war. Who knows, maybe we could have been able to stop those Insufferable Beasts if we just had more of these vessels.
And now I will speak of those Foes of Light, those Destroyers of Prides, the Evil Ones. They came out of the darkness, attacking all and sparing none. Our intelligence services began picked up disturbing reports of Shern movements....away from the our front lines. Our listening posts and survey fleets began reporting unusual activity at this time as well. A major security threat was obviously on the scene. The Shern ambassador met with the Seven Great Prides, asking for a armistice. He was reportedly turned down and Fleet headquarters immediately sent dispatches to every major fleet concentration in the Optima Thule Combat Region, where I was stationed with the 31st Warfleet. Our orders were to move against and occupy as many Shern planets as possible. I was stunned at the news but obeyed. We, the Luren, had never been able to significantly invade and hold any part of the vast Shern Empire but now their border fleets were gone and I personally supervised the occupation of sixteen Shern planets. Our elite Orbital Drop Commandos rapidly seized the starports and ground forces were quickly moved in. We triumphed....or had we?
At this point, I exalted in the new-found territories we had conquered. Our non-sentient females would have a place to raise our litters, and new glory was found for my Pride. A few Shern light forces were left in these systems but my task force, which consisted of twelve superdreadnoughts, three dreadnoughts, twenty heavy cruisers, and twenty five destroyers blew them away with little damage to my own units. My crews were gaining valuable experience in combating the system defenses and the combat made the blood run hot in my veins. Finally, we were overcoming our enemies but a slow dread filled me. The absence of an single Shern capital ship in these important border systems gave me pause, for which I am grateful because the following months proved to be a nightmare.
The Shern Empire was dying a grisly death from two different directions. Our Branx and Korel allies provided planetary garrisons for these newly captured worlds, the Branx proving especially useful as they came from high-gravity worlds. Our intelligence services was unable to discern who the Shern's new enemies were. Facing adversaries on two fronts, the Shern were rapidly collapsing. I held my command in a strategic Shern system, the Roaa System, as my forces mopped up the last of the large space stations and bases orbiting the four T-worlds in this system. The Roaa System was a great prize, one that I would hold for my Pride only, or so I thought. A few weeks after we had taken control of the system and exterminated the Shern populace, we discovered what the Shern were fighting, and the discovery was horrifying.
On the fifth day on the holy month of Hannik'as, I was shocked to discover a superhuge alien spacecraft had stealthily moved to within 60 light seconds of Roaa III. This titanic warship must have had some kind of stealthy coating or stealth field to be able to sneak up on my ships without being picked up by our sensors. Immediately the alert was sounded and my command ship, the Bonecrusher, began to pry from this ship it's secrets. Using a very advanced engine system, it was moving towards us at impossible speeds and it was a titan! One of the most important aspects of our race was development of new technology and we had the fastest engines in known space, always pulling ahead of the Shern when in combat but these aliens, these Dark Devils, were impossibly fast. Larger than even one of our newest Monitors, this vessel had the audacity to challenge my command area....but I soon learned, to my shock, that just one of these vessels was more than enough to destroy any conventional fleet.
As my escorting destroyers closed on the enemy and opened fire with a heavy missile spread, the alien vessel launched small warships from the surface of the mammoth ship. Hundreds of these vessels began to close and detonate near my escorts, damaging them little. Apparently the Demons of Darkness noted the same results and began ramming my now desperate destroyers. The huge alien vessel also savaged my lighter vessels with a heavy laser fire, quickly burning though my forces best antilaser armor. With impossible speed and devastating results, my escorting destroyers were overwhelmed and I burned in anger at their loss. Hundreds of Luren, many from my own Pride, had just died at the hands of these unknown aliens and my grief was overwhelming. I had never faced a loss like this in my entire military career; we were totally outclassed. I ordered my heavy units to open fire as soon as the range closed but was stunned to see the enemy vessel open up a heavy missile spread from far outside my own missile range. And the missile launchers those Soulless Hordes used fired twice as fast as my own! Shock reverberated through the combat information center as annihilation devices began detonating against our shields! Although long theorized, no one had ever used antimatter warheads before and the ships under my command began taking deadly hits from incoming missiles and small ramming warships filled with these warheads!
Although I had three of the new Greater Death-class superdreadnoughts under my command, which not only had heavy lasers and capital graser mounts, but also a fantastically destructive capital graser spinal mount, I also had a total of three Bloody Fang-class dreadnoughts which concentrated missile fire on the huge enemy warship. We did little damage to our foes armor and shields, and then it returned fire. It was my fault, I should have retreated once I saw the annihilation devices in action, and the destruction they caused. Ship after ship died under hellspawned fire and my own command ship was heavily damaged by ramming vessels. Impossibly, that impregnable titan shrugged off our extensive missile salvos with ease.
Our flight in retreat to Optima Thule was one of despair, and dark thoughts assailed me. Over half my total tonnage, eight superdreadnoughts and twelve heavy cruisers, had been destroyed by just one of these alien ships. I hated these Demons of Death, hated them for killing my littermates, my crew. I sought the refuge of Optima Thule, which was part of the massive Fortress Ring and took my command to the Sector refit yards for much needed repairs. At this time my major warships received the latest weapons, the Capital Missile Pods, micronized tractor beams, and an automated rapid-deploying minedropper system.
As I pondered our recent defeat, I knew that time was against us. My elite crew's moral was crushed by our grinding losses and the Sector Governor refused to release us back into battle. He sent my ravaged task force to help our allies, the Korel. The Korel Empire Collapse came at a critical time for our Empire and I was badly out of place when the attack came to Optima Thule. I remember the arrogance of the Governor, of how many dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts he had amassed from the high-population Innerworlds, and his cruel treatment of me and my crew. Only their unswervingly loyalty to me kept me in command, for which I was grateful. I had fought and died and bled for my crews, and everyone of them knew that.
The eighty dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts were not enough and the Optima Thule Combat Region fell amid a massive invasion of Soulless Hordes. They were unstoppable. Chaos reigned as the Sector Capital fell; that had never happened before and the military chain of command was badly disrupted. I learned that my arch-foe, B'Shant had rallied the remains of the Fleet and fought a desperate retreat across the Sector, abandoning world after world to those Demons of Darkness. I choked on the success of my nemesis but only the Empire mattered.
The governmental apparatus, long accustomed to the security of being far behind the lines was paralyzed by indecision...all but Prime Minister J'Dawn. He summoned all available fleet forces to the Homeworld. We moved quickly to reach the planet, desperate to join in it's defense and we drilled with our new Missile Pods and constantly ran battle damage tests as we raced through warp point after warp point. I feared being too late to save our Cherished Home from destruction. In the heart of every Luren is the love of the Home, it's proper place at the center of our 180-world Empire. It had it's own massive defensive fortress ring but reports out of the disaster at Optima Thule indicated that the Servants of Death had used a unique engine system that totally bypassed conventional warp point defenses. Indeed, the most spectacular thing about the Unstoppable Fiends was this strange engine system, which allowed a much greater mass to pass through the warp point, and spit it out randomly at great intervals, far from the warp point.
At Kessendra I loaded several new missile types, including the newest Lamprey Missiles and the area-effect x-ray laser warheads, both of which I hoped would be effective against those Soulless Hordes. At Snowhi, the Planetary Governor briefed my command staff and I while we were topping off for reactor mass. Luren Intelligence was learning about these Demons of Darkness. Apparently they were techno-organic creatures unlike anything we had ever seen before. In fact, they were so unlike Luren that our battle-hardened eMarines actually panicked at the sight of these floating, crawling, tearing beasts. Their damnable missiles and small boarding craft were extremely efficient and capable of out-ranging most of our missile ships, including the Bloody Fangs. At Toth Base, I acquired a newly completed Death from Above monitor, vastly increasing our firepower. My crew was heartened at this, although it spread our overall crews thinly. I was urged by my chief-of-staff and Capistan K'Stan to shift my flag to the more survivable monitor, but I refused.
It took over six weeks to reach the Homeworld and massive refugee fleets blocked the way. My own forces were held up for nearly twenty hours at the Karego-At warp point, awaiting the panicked commercial vessels to pass through first. This attack on the Empire had brought the Prides together as no other had, as I saw when we arrived in orbit of the Homeworld. Traditionally neutral, the Prime Minister had abdicated his authority to GranAdmirashk Kale, one of the Imperial Fleet's most honored officers. He ruthlessly drilled all the ships under his command and I was assigned an outer sector to defend, near the moon Hur-At-Hur. Massive planetary defenses circled the Homeworld and elegant Orbital Beanstalks lifted it's traffic into space, one of which connected with the Empire's largest spaceport, R'Kassi Station.
We were ready, but my soul said we weren't. I had done my best, as had GranAdmirashk Kale , and the Fleet waited. The Foes of Light came. Fleet Command HQ detected incoming warp signatures, fifteen of them and them were massive!!! Deep range scans confirmed it was those Bringers of Death. I learned to hate their annihilation devices with a passion. If we only had enough time to develop them we might have stood a chance, if only. I was not afraid of Death, and neither was my valiant crew. No, they wanted the fight, sought it, and we fought as one when it came. Fifteen of those stupendous, unstoppable titans. I felt like a mouse before a lionesk, sure to be squashed under foot. GranAdmirashk Kale sought to meet the Enemy and the Battle of Hur-At-Hur began. Nearly seventy dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts waited in orbit as they came, and then they stared to die. I put on my neurohelmet (it was little more than a headband) and began thinking commands.
I recall little of the battle, it's surrounded in a grey fog. Parts stick out though, including the destruction of dreadnought Grey Death, my littermates command ship and the destruction of R'Kassi Station by those damnable missiles and then the orbital beanstalk falling into the atmosphere of the Homeworld and I knew, just knew, that hundreds of thousands of our people had just died when it impacted the southern continent. I remember giving the command to fire the Missile Pods and prayed that these Unstoppable Hordes would pay in blood. Astonishingly, large black globes came up and shielded these Insufferable Beasts from our overwhelming Missile Pod spread, making it totally ineffective. I had used my best claws, and lost. At this time the Unstoppable Fiends deployed their latest weapon, the dis warhead. A total shock to a already shocked fleet, this missile warhead was built out of disassembling nanobots which immediately began to disintegrate organic matter, all organic matter, including living flesh. These nanomachines broke down matter at the molecular level, turning it into undifferentiated grayish goo. Would our terror never end? The annihilation devices were deadly enough, destroying ship after ship under my command and now this???
The GranAdmirashk was dead and command had devolved to the Prime Minister, who was out of contact with our forces. Chaos reigned and, unthinkably, ships began to flee for the closest warp points. Half disassembled warships crept away and even that coward B'Shant fled with a remnant of the Fleet, abandoning our Homeworld to these Destroyers of Prides. I wouldn't flee, and neither would any of the ships under my command. Those titans continued firing their horrible missiles at us and our grasers tore back into them. Our pinannces and cutters rammed these titans by the hundreds, and they responded in kind against my own ships. Then, impossibly, two of these Demonic Titans exploded and then the Clawed Glory was on fire and out formation, lifepods spewing from its sides. The dreadnought Pouncer broke in two and the Ribreaker exploded under a massive spread of annihilation missiles. The superdreadnought Flesh Render died, eaten alive by dis. The battle-ravaged hulk Death from Afar was rammed repeatedly by dozens of small Devil warships, and the monitor exploded with heavy loss of life. The Bonecrusher took many hits, but survived. A direct hit amidships by that demonic laser fire damaged Fusion Room One, which went into emergency shutdown barely in time. The bridge was a wreck, CIC a shambles, and acrid smoke flooded the command deck. I was severely injured by white-hot flying battlesteel and could only watch in hated horror as the Soulless Horde opened fire on my Homeworld. The pain was excruciating and mercifully I blacked out.
I became conscious in the sickbay, and asked how the battle faired. The Surgeon, L'Ris, told me that the Fleet had been routed, the Homeworld lost. White hot anger tore at me and luckily I was in restraints. The rage soon passed and bitterness and dark thoughts clouded my mind as I lay in recovery. I knew that Capistan K'Stan would regroup and take us to the nearest Fleet Base for repairs, I knew him that well. The Bonecrusher was badly damaged and my crew lay on gurneys all around me, tore and ripped and suffering. This was my darkest hour. After several hours of consoling my wounded crew, I demanded and received a situation report from my intelligence officer, the only surviving member of my staff. My task force had taken heavy losses and only a few heavy cruisers had survived and escorted as away from the battle. No capital ships had survived, other than the Bonecrusher. I lay numb, shocked at our extremely heavy losses. Many Luren ships had tried to ram those Unstoppable Fiends warships but they quickly became encased in impenetrable black globes, foiling the attempts. We were limping towards B'Shalli'La, the major Fleet Base and repair yards in Orrimy Sector where Capistan K'Stan would seek additional escorts and battleline units. I despaired, however. Our best ships and crews were gone, the Homeworld even now being assimilated into Mindless Hordes and B'Shant, ah B'Shant the coward. He had fled, taking the Fleet with him and I knew where he would go: his Prideworld.
The following weeks were a nightmare, shrouded in hated memories. The Disaster at the Homeworld crushed my crew's morale and even I suffered from the same heavy weight. We arrived at the Orrimy System, only to find the Fleet Base stripped bare of ships and only a skeleton staff. Falling further back into the Empire was our only hope, trying to buy time for our Prides. I ignored the Sector Governor's all-ships order to rally at Praunce, the Sector Capital, and I headed home. I had had time to think, and I knew the Empire was dying. Nothing I could do could save it, no mere mortal could. The Fleet was gone, our morale dissipated, and our hope dead. I formulated a plan however to save the Empire, at least a part of it. My Pride would live, if I sought the safety of the Unknown Territories beyond the Frontier, and I would do anything in my power to do just that. Confiscating ship after ship from the commerce lanes, I readily built up a small transport fleet, which was capable of lifting several small colonies of Luren to safety.
Hain Sector fell, then Llannedd and I knew that those Soulless Demons were following behind us. Desperation filled my mind and I left six heavy cruisers behind in Angkor Apeiron to harry our foe. They were equipped with long-range missiles and advanced boarding sleds and I hoped that they would do some damage to our implacable enemies. They were ordered to survive if possible and regroup with us at Novotny, or ram if badly damaged.
Transiting the warp point at Yone's World, we stumbled into the Servants of Death, and my beloved Bonecrusher was lost to me. A high-population world deep within Praunce Sector, Yone's World was supposed to be a refuge for us but the three titanic Monsters in orbit of the planet proved otherwise. They were assimilating the orbital forts and responded ponderously as I fired my Missile Pods at long range, destroying forty escorting Devilships but then my light task force was overwhelmed. Their small ramming ships came at us and my superdreadnought was unable to outpace them, taking hit after hit until all was lost.
I am not sure how I survived the battle, although I revived in a escape pod several hours later. One of the civilian ships that I had ordered to disperse at the first sign of the Enemy, picked me up, and continued towards my Prideworld, which was now only twelve warp points away. I have never thought about the loss of my command ship, the pain is too great. They had been with me for five good years and proved to be an excellent crew, above and beyond what any battlefield commander would want. I salute them....
The heavy cruiser Pride of Was'hain became my command ship, and Capistan Yuan received me graciously. I quickly became acclimated with the Pride's crew and found them most capable, and Capistan Yuan highly professional. The Pride was one of the Fleet's newest warships, with rapid-fire missile launchers and cloaking capability. Finally, as we orbited my homeworld, I wept. Kin'Galli's World was lightly populated and I knew that I could only rescue a few of my Pride from their impending doom. I was an officer, bound by duty to protect these people, and I couldn't. My rage filled me.....Capistan Yuan saw to the evacuation, with priority given to my crew who had littermates on the planet below. My own Clan was brought aboard, my bondmates and latest cublings as well and I rejoiced over them, licking them and holding them until I fell asleep with them surrounding me.
Leaving my Prideworld to it's fate was the most difficult thing I ever had to do. Although I had planned on staying on Kin'Galli, Capistan Yuan insisted that I oversee the Evacuation Fleet's retreat, citing my overwhelming experience and leadership. Only after several hours of arguing with him and finally by the order of the System Governor, I reluctantly agreed and tallied our forces. Seven heavy cruisers and twenty-eight transports was all that was left of the Luren Empire but a resolve had formed in my heart.
Three more weeks and we reached the last Luren world along the Frontier. Poweet was a small colony and we picked up provisions for our long journey. With Capistan Yaun's agreement, I dropped off the last of our Battlesats, hoping that they and the small space stations could defend the planet against those Insufferable Beasts. I doubted it though but had to make the effort. The vast Unknown Territories lay ahead and I was hoping to keep those devils far, far behind us. We entered the Unknown through warp point two and began our journey.
Months passed and our colonists were getting frustrated. I wanted to establish our new Luren colony far from the Empire to ensure it's survival and several times we played cat and mouse with those Demons of Darkness through warp point after warp point. And the it happened. Coming into a Blue Giant system, we began a standard survey, knowing that this system would yield many warp points to escape through. My greatest fear is that we were running in circles, or that we would end up moving back to the direction of the Empire. Our surveying was rudely interrupted by several warships erupting from a warp point very close to the Blue Giant, and my command!
I sounded the battle alert but it was too late. Several battlecruiser-sized Demon warships emerged after their smaller cousins, all intent on destroying us. The small escorts screamed in on my command and the heavy cruisers Kimdiss and Grinder, as well as three colony ships, were rammed and destroyed in brilliant balls of annihilating matter. We began dumping Missile Pods out and firing them, hoping for a lucky kill as the Devilships shields tried to stabilize. We managed to cripple the lead Devilship and my crew roared! I ordered the colony ships to head to the nearest warp point, which we had discovered just a few moments ago but not yet surveyed.
The battle was desperate, and we, the Luren, were losing. Those Unstoppable Hordes began firing at my command, and my ships died. The heavy cruisers K'Galli and eNerrup were destroyed by missile fire even as the first colony ships transited the warp point, a mere 50 light seconds away. The Pride was hit over and over by missiles and laser fire, but we continued on, desperate to reach and escort the colony ships to safety. L'Rowl and Hannow Glory were reduced to burning wreckage by devastating laser fire as we retreated to the warp point and then only my ship faced these Demonships alone. The warp point was close and we passed through it while bracketed by laserfire, nauseated by the violent transit and then sudden destruction came upon us!
The Pride's shields went down after being battered by some unknown force and gigantic thudding was heard throughout the ship. The main viewscreen focused and I realized we had inadvertently stumbled into our death. The warp point had emerged right in the middle of a asteroid field and the drifting hull plating and dispersing energy informed me that our last best hope had just died. All the colony ships that transited the warp point were dead, destroyed by the dreadful battering that the Pride had just taken. I watched as Demonship after Demonship emerged from the warp point and were destroyed by immense boulders. But we were dead.
The main Fusion Room was so badly damaged that we drifted out of the asteroid field with no power. My main engineer tells me that the life support unit has been destroyed beyond repair and there is no habitable planet in this system for refuge. The engines are inoperable without the Fusion Room. I had done my best but bitter tears streaked my fur and white-hot anger burned within me as I realized my failure. My race was dead, my crew dying, and it was my fault, my inability to think us out of these hated situations. I hate the Little Gods for abandoning us to our fates! And you, you who hear this testimony, I hate you also! I hate you because I am now dead and you are alive, my race long gone and yours thrives. But most of all I hate the fact that you will dissect my beloved ship, disturbing our tomb, our resting place. May Kalki-ma take you....and may the god of grace, May'eskor watch over you if you ever stumble across those Destroyers of Prides, those Unspeakable Fiends, those Unstoppable Hordes.....fair well.
*Discovered by survey ship TNS Fearless on 1/12/65
LUREN WARSHIP CLASSES
Bloodied Claw-class dreadnought (Gr)
Bloody Fang-class dreadnought (Rc)
Bloody Grimace-class superdreadnought (Rc)
Bonegrinder-class superdreadnought (Wa)
Clawed-class battlecruiser (Wa)
Crushing Glory-class superdreadnought (Wc)
Death From Above-class monitor (Wc/Wa)
Fang-class battlecruiser (Gr)
Fleshrender-class superdreadnought (Gr)
Fur-class heavy cruiser (Gr)
Greater Death-class superdreadnought (Grc/Lhv/Grc-SpM)
Grinder-class heavy cruiser (Lhv)
Hunter-class destroyer (Gr)
Little-class destroyer (Wa)
Mane-class battlecruiser (SLED2)
Mauler-class battlecruiser (Pod)
Pouncer-class dreadnought (Wa)
Pride-class heavy cruiser (Wa)
Ribreaker-class battlecruiser (Wc)
Scent-class destroyer (Dz)
Swift Death-class dreadnought (Wc)
SEVEN GREAT PRIDES
Castagi
Darnelli
D’Shanna
Grointh
Jab’ezz
Planth
Zal
LUREN OFFICER RANKS
Gran’Admirashk
Admirashk
Na’Admirashk
Capistan
Commanesk
Gres’Letenesk
Letenesk
Les’Letensk
Ensesk
ADDITIONAL NPR CHARACTERISTICS
One of the problems I have run into in the Starfire game is that NPRs seem a little wooden. It seems like every NPR is either stuck up or everyone's friend. So instead of me just guessing(and possibly being inconsistent when the number of races gets bigger), I came up with some more characteristics to help define a NPR.
RACIAL EXPANSION: (1-100). Just how willingly(badly?) does the race want to expand? Combined with the RM it will tell you what lengths they are willing to go when looking for more room to expand.
RACIAL LOYALTY: (1-100, initially). This number is the base number and is the value used for each race it meets. The number will be modified by actions and events between the two races. When the going gets tough, does he stick with you or jump ship?
RACIAL TRUST: (1-100). How willing is the race to trust another race. Will they believe what you say? This will be modified by the actions of the other race. It will go up when words and actions match, and down when they don't.
RACIAL AGRESSIVENESS: (1-100). How aggressive is the race. Are they willing to push a situation or not? Will they tend to go beyond what would seem prudent? How willing he is to back up his words with actions? This number is also used to determine how much of his fleet a NPR is willing to commit outside of his home system.
LUREN STATS
The Luren race apparently has the following racial statistics:
RC 30
RM 88
RD 83
RE 77
RL 44
RT 21
RA 91