K9

{{Subrace
 * subraceOf=Dog-folk
 * inheritTraits=Yes
 * hasSetting=Psypher Universe;
 * hasDescription=K9 genesis

When humanity traveled through the stars to get to Eden they had a huge variety of animals, especially dogs. During the Exodus, riots and other incidents reduced the remaining races of dogs to one: Pugs. How on Eden did these survive where others didn’t? I’ve not even the slightest clue. I mean, look at them…

Personal conflict apart lets start with the basics. So the humans arrive on Eden, they establish themselves and everything. But lab rats, they don’t reproduce anymore, in fact, no animal from earth save, cows, horses, pigeons and pugs adapt to the new environment. Cows and horses are used for meat and dairy so that leaves pugs and pigeons to experiment on. Since the birds are not really useful when examining mammals, the scientist start mass breeding the dogs to a point where they become somewhat of rodents. Some escape in the forest and are now known as the Grugs, a feral kind of pug that mutated into an aggressive beast.

The ones that stay become perfect company animals and lab ‘’rats’’. They are experimented on but nothing much is advanced. That is until dwarves explain the crystals to humans. Skeptical they start experimenting on the dogs. They tests range from muscle expansion, to limb and organ regrowth, to mental augmentation.

Then one scientist, Tchesare Meelan, has the brilliant idea to mix human and pug DNA, he tries to create some kind of loyal super-soldier. Problem is he succeeds. He creates a hybrid 7 feets tall with a muscular mass of a bodybuilder. The hybrid has advanced mental awareness, can talk and communicate through barking and is trained in all kind of military theory.

They send the super soldier alone in the forest with no equipment and the only thing they tell him to is to go spy on a nearby bandit camp that started attacking convoys between cities.

When, 3 days later, they go to retrieve what they thought would be his body in the middle of nowhere, by tracking his gps chip; they find him alive, surrounded by death. He bare handedly took out an encampment comprised of the 30 most dangerous outlaws in the region and barely got hurt.

The psych eval that was made public tells us that he suffered massive post traumatic stress disorder but even so, breeding of the next generation of hybrids started right away. They were dubbed K9 by Dr.Meelan. While it took a couple of genetic manipulations to succeed, he was able to remove remorse potential and increase ruthlessness of the K9s tenfold. That was the beginning of the end.

The problem that I was referring to when I wrote earlier that he succeeded is that, when removing the remorse gene in the future generation of K9s, he also removed the loyalty gene inadvertently at the same time. The hybrids bid their time and 2 years after the breakthrough they were enough that they rebelled, killed all the scientist, burned the compound down to the very last parcel, and escaped in the hills.

Now imagine this, a civilisation made entirely of 5000 cold-blooded killers. Things could have gone much worse than they did. Armed to the teeth, they could have cause so much damage. Instead they got even wiser, they captured a small town in the outbacks near the mutant wastelands and held the civilians hostage. When the nearest town came to pay for the hostages the K9s also told them to send everyone a message. If ever anyone needed mercenaries, they knew where to find them.

What a mess…

K9 society
The closest thing understable to the K9’s society is the valor system. One single K9 is the Alpha and everyone else are considered beta. There is some kind of known but secret ranking between the betas but, sadly, since that info is communicated by barking exclusively it is unknown or, at least, not up to date.

The strongest specimens fetch for the highest price when they sell their services as mercenaries and there aren’t any K9 weak enough that they can’t find employment. The top of the food chain in their society has been occupied by one single person since their rebellion and that has been The Grand Kaiser Chubbs.

While Tchesare Meelan was head of the project with the K9s, it was actually Dr. Makoto Iwata that was in charge of the education of the hybrids. She was a very avid of Old Earthen german culture and most of the terminology in the contemporary K9 culture is a result of that biais.

The Alpha is the Kaiser, the strongest betas chose the name of mythic figures in german mythology like Jormungandr, Siegfried, etc. The first K9 hybrid was actually named after the mythic dog Fenrir, but all trace of him was lost after the massacre.

As of now, K9s pledge no allegiance to either faction. They augment themselves with robotic and crystal implants but tend to try to keep as much as themselves ‘’pure’’ as possible.

There are sadly no female K9s in existence, which makes so that each death they suffer is devastating. Out of the 5000 that escaped their old situation, around 3500 are still alive.

Thanks to the arrival of the Psypher, they have never been as busy as of right now. }}