Thraddash

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Template:Infobox Star Control race

Description

The Thraddash are a fictional race of beings featured in the sci-fi Star Control computer game series. They joined the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za Hierarchy of Battle Thralls after the Ur-Quan Slave War.

In general the Thraddash are an aggressive lot, respecting brute force over most things, smoking their cigars and making much more noise about themselves than they would be wise to. With little real might, they are seemingly ready to do battle at the slightest provocation. Combat and aggression practically defines the race.

History

The Thraddash history is a series of sequentially numbered cultures. Each culture is eventually overthrown in a violent manner by a new one that considers itself somehow superior. When Captain Zelnick first encounters the Thraddash, they are going at Culture 19. It has been suggested that the Thraddash are actually extremely capable creatures and that they have the potential to become extremely advanced if they could kick the nasty habit of bombing themselves back to the stone age. Each culture prior to 19 has ended in a revolution, every time setting them back at least five hundred years (or as in the case of Culture fifteen, "Two, maybe three hundred years, tops.")

Starship

The Thraddash Torch is a relatively weak, yet interesting ship. Its primary weapon is a four megawatt "Mark 6" blaster that fires low-damage projectiles with a moderate range. The secondary weapon a Reeunk afterburner, named after the Thraddash engineer who "invented" the effect when he accidently stuck his cigar into the aft fuel valve of a Torch vessel. This afterburner allows the Torch to travel faster than any other ship in the game while simultaneously leaving behind a "vapour trail" of superheated gases that will damage enemy ships upon contact.

Because of its great speed with the afterburner, the Torch is capable of beating almost any ship in the game in a prolonged fight (while costing very little, resource wise). A strategy used by advanced Torch pilots is to draw out a conflict and use the gravity well of a planet to predict the course of a ship's flight path and lay down a "wall" of afterburner in its way. With the combination of this technique and the ability to do extremely fast "drive by" shots, a patient Torch pilot is capable of very long, very tactical fights against any other ship, even if they are stationary.