Agragon

			Intelligent Lifeform Index

Agragon
Four Letter Code	AGRO
Federation Status	Hostile
Planet of Origin	Unknown, Raytas Sector, Gamma Quadrant
Encountered	Encountered by USS Athena while exploring Raytas Sector.
T/E Rating	T0/E0
Current Tech Level	N-
List of Named Agragons
Full ILI Gallery • Permitted Species Gallery

Introduction

The Agragons are tall, standing between seven to eight feet, with bony ridges instead of hair, longer limbed, bi-pedal, intelligent but not brilliant as they rely on strength of force to take what they lack.

Both their homeworld and armed forces are based on a military/warrior caste system. The only natural resources the homeworld has is the materials to build starships. There are no more resources for anything else (food, medical, etc.). With a breeding cycle of 4 months, their planet is over-populated. Both male and female Agragons are given equal combat training. They expect (and need) to lose people when they go attack.

There is no known diplomacy with them. They don’t care for and don’t need to. Their entire life is about taking (by force), anything and everything, to be consumed, to be turned into medical equipment, further advance their ship construction design, etc. Other species, ship crews, are sold as slaves in the open market worlds.

Their ship construction, defense and offensive capabilities are on par with the Federation (see Agragon Jump Drive for technological differences).

Government

Ruling from Agrag, the Emperor (currently Emperor Tzkah, of his name.) is the leader of the political caste, and always selected from the top caste structure. The Empire currently consists of 3 core worlds, 5 slave worlds, and approximately 10 starbases. These starbases are largely around the core worlds, with two being deep space launching platforms - service positions on these are considered a dishonor, and may lead to half caste down. The infighting in the court effectively means that the average Marshal serves for only a few years before demotion or disappearance, and the Lord Marshal rules for life. High Marshals often have a long career, but must be careful of political infighting. As resource allotment is tied to caste and rank, though, the constant jockeying of power continues.

• The Emperor always adopts his family name on ruling. This does make chronological history confusing, but non Agragons usually don’t care, and the Agragons simply don’t care.

• The slave worlds are conquered species, although the brutality and practice of selling them into slavery means that two species are effectively dead, and the other three will soon follow. These worlds were deemed unfit for Agragon resettlement - excluding Kzhk, formerly, Sssiarllyian,- and are being strip mined for all of their resources.

Technology Information

Agragon Jump Drive

Unlike most species known in the galaxy, the Agragons did not develop warp field theory but instead figured a way to enter sub-space and use it as a tunnel. This “Jump Drive” is virtually undetected by those not familiar with the technology giving the Agragons the ability to appear in system.

The Jump Drive is considered a shutter-drive, in formal FTL terms, because it takes a charge and jumps to a fixed position. While it does take some time to calculate the jump (in Terran terms, to calculate where the horizon of the Einstein-Rosen bridge is), this time is less than it takes to charge up. In practice, the current limiting factor is the charge time.

The advantages to such a drive is that without carefully tuned sensors that are typically not carried on most ships, no one can detect the emergence or heading of the ship - only an increased subspace energy in the area. Better sensors would be able to detect the size and heading (see, though, the notes on speed of the Jump). It also can function in areas that conventional warp drive cannot work.

The disadvantages to such a drive is the aforementioned charge time, as well as the fact that it also will not work where slipstream doesn’t work. In addition, while it uses similar mechanics to a slipstream, the Jump drive has a limited amount of space it covers in a Jump enabling the illusion of the Jump itself being instantaneous. (The speed of the Jump drive is approximately 90% of slipstream at the current tech level of the Agragons.)

Agragon Weapons

Having struggled to create efficient energy weapons, the Agragons opted for a mixture of fighter support, long range fusion-tipped missiles and kinetic shells for medium range engagement. For short range, they use fixed point gamma ray pumped lasers that can be described as vicious and destructive. What they lack in sophistication they make up for resilience.

Agragon Shields

Due to their struggle in developing energy weapons also came the difficulty of effective shielding. At present, the Agragons use a form of projector shields that are tough but unable to protect 360 degrees. Though the majority of their flanks have emitters, there can be noticeable gaps. They make up the lack of protection with armored hulls utilizing an energy deflection matrix embedded across the ship. These combinations of particle shielding and energized armor help balance their vessels in combat. However, these energized hulls more resemble uprated examples of the NX01 hull rather than the ablative armor of the Defiant class.

Subspace Traps

Knowing that their ability to travel above the speed of light was unusual and that other races have the more advanced and versatile warp drive, the Agragons designed the subspace trap. They learned how to manipulate pockets of space making warp travel impossible to act as sticky places to capture unwary vessels.

Some in their government have asked why not adopt warp travel but the resounding response was that Agragons put too much time and effort perfecting the method they have than to give it up for an alien's design.

Common Tactics of the Agragon

Bull and Horns Tactic

Resembling the tactics of the Zulu, the Agragon raiding parties often have a Battleship style vessel as command and control equipped with a ‘Tarkesh’, a device that emits a bubble collapsing all subspace tunnels (excluding Jump and Slipstream) within a 125 million km radius. This vessel and a few support ships Jump in after the first wave, attacking the planet and it’s orbitals. Between the two, they effectively stop all traffic and prevent any escape (unless they have an ansible or similar device) or warning. For major targets, there is usually a third group that hangs back and Jumps in half way through as reinforcements. Raids at that level are rare as Agragon Raiding Command often is overtasked and hitting multiple targets at once.

Fleet Doctrine

The best way to describe the Agragon fleet doctrine medium size ships and fighters using a swarm technique. Though the race does have large battleship style vessels, they are rare in combat due to the expense of building them and the amount of work it takes to field them.

Fighters are used as a distraction and harassing force allowing the cruisers to field their missiles and kinetic shells. The idea is that there are too many targets for an enemy to focus on so that they can amass the firepower to overwhelm them. This tactic has worked well in the past defeating enemies of larger and more advanced classes.

Rank Structure

• Lord Marshal - Highest Rank in the Agragon Military.
• High Marshal - Starfleet Admiral
• Marshal - Starfleet Captain
• Commander - Starfleet Commander
• Altern - Starfleet Lieutenant.
• Acolyte - Starfleet Ensign

All those in enlisted are called soldiers and they receive a battle tab and a pay raise for each year of service. Seniority and authority is based upon time in service.

Misc. Information

Ship Naming Conventions

The Agragons are not attached to their ships like many other races are and so do not sport any individual names from their culture. They are assigned a prefix code and their production number. Only one vessel holds a unique name and that is the flagship that bears the Emperor.

Prefix Codes (From Large size to smallest)

• B - Battleship Class - Equivalent length of a Federation Sovereign Class
• C - Cruiser Class - Equivalent length of a galaxy Class
• D - Destroyer Class - Equivalent length of an Intrepid Class
• F - Frigate Class - Equivalent Length of a Nebula Class
• P - Patrol Class - Equivalent length of a Defiant class.

Suffix Codes

At times a standard hull could be modified for a specific purpose, like a destroyer being modified as a scout or a cruiser into a carrier. Suffix codes go after the production number of the vessel. (ex. C-2983-SC.)

• CA - Carrier
• SB - Spaceborne Weapon - Essentially, a weapons platform. Often used for starbase raiding, as it carries upscaled grasers capable of packing a punch against more stationary targets
• SC - Scout

Common Positions Found Aboard Agragon Ships

• Commanding Officer - The Commanding Officer is the sole authority aboard vessel and is considered the final say in anything it does. Earned through a mixture of merit and political ties, the Commanding Officer’s success or failure dictates their stature among others.

• First One - Equivalent to a First Officer in the Federation, the First One is there to help the captain and is usually hand picked as an apprentice. As the First One is often in the direct succession to the Marshal, it is considered the opening steps to a political career. Due to this, the Preatorian Guard often makes sure that whoever holds the position is loyal to both the government and his captain.

• Praetorian Guard - Assigned to a captain, they are considered the masters of political maneuver and are assigned by the house that the Captain is sworn fealty to. Their job is to affirm the captain’s authority and make sure they don’t do anything that could jeopardize their position.

• Command & Control Officer - Due to the amount of vessels that can be in a fleet, tracking movement of vessels for kinetic locks, and sensory input, this officer is dedicated to collecting it and making sure the information gets to the correct station. The key though is that the CCO improves the performance of the ship and at their death does not cripple a vessel. All officers at their stations are able to compute and collect the data, it improves efficiency to have a dedicated position.

• Information Analyst - Rev. engineering, data mining, etc.