Felini Society In the days before the arrival of the conquering Flagritz to their homeworld, the felini were primitive. Their technology was little better than Stone Age. Their culture was largely nomadic based on oral traditions though they did have a written language that they carved into rocks and trees. They built bridges, and erected seasonal settlements and occasionally feuded. Their legends were enacted in their operas. Though many non-felini can stand the long high-pitched wailing which account for the vast majority of the play the acrobatics in the final scenes are always spectacular and worth watching. The invasion was fast and brutal. Claws and spears were no match to the advanced technology. Strafing of felini hunting parties from the air, destruction of their ancient sites and wholesale slaughter of the larger and more organised prides quickly brought the entire species to its knees. It is estimated that more than five million felini were killed during the first year. As the apex predatory species on the world, their population was less than fifteen million at the time.

The entire species was enslaved but in order to make them useful to the Empire, they needed to work the imported machines and build the urban and industrial zones for the newly arriving Flagritz population. For this they needed educating.

As the felini became tech savvy they started underground movements, coordinated and discovered many things about the universe, especially the method by which the Flagritz arrived – a wormhole. This wormhole however opened and closed at six month intervals.

For years they prepared and millions more died at the hands of the Flagritz but eventually they were ready. When the wormhole closed, they attacked. The battle was hard won as the Flagritz used both biological agents and nuclear weapons in a desperate bit to turn the tide. In many places the felini refused to revolt. It is now thought that in these locations integrator caste/peace factions controlled the slave populations and as such the populations were better (if not well) treated despite being always under threat of what might happen. Even now there are many that believe that a peaceful liberation may have been possible and the ecological destruction of the world could have been averted.

By the time the wormhole was again open, the felini had control of starbases on the world and even a few outposts off-world. During the next few years the fighting was brutal though the felini gained the upper hand simply due to numbers and access to resources.

It is thought that the Flagritz attempted to open an artificial wormhole directly from their homeworld in order to bring in an armada and their vast army though something went wrong. Both the armada and army of Flagritz Empire was largely destroyed along with a fair chunk of the Flagritz homeworld.

After this the felini spent years rooting out and executing every last Flagritz from their home system.

Post Emancipation
While there were a few proponents of returning to the old culture it was never seriously going to happen on their homeworld or for that matter any other. Education and technology forced onto the felini had become a way of life. They could no longer return to their nomadic, hunter-gatherer life style. They relied on transport, industry, medicine and cultivation too heavily to give it up (also reflected in their increased longevity and birthrate). The world could no longer support their population. Most of the native fauna had been killed in the war and the world was a wasteland. The felini lived in urban environments, supplemented their previously meat diet with ever increasing amounts of vegetables and grains and alcohol consumption had for many become a way of life. For better or worse, the felini way of life was changed forever.

Matriarchy
Society is based on a dominant male and his extended harem. This may be because females outnumber males by around six to one by the time they reach adulthood, though in childhood they the ratio is closer to three to one. What happens to the males? Females live more than three times as long as males and can recover from damage that would permanently cripple a male. A crippled male will invariably undertake voluntary euthanasia. Females, though only taking one partner at a time and then generally until death, may well, over their lives produce cubs from three or more fathers.

Cubs are raised by the extended family though by the age of ten have largely reached maturity at which time they tend to move away to complete their education or learn a profession. It is around this time that males form their large groups and gang fights are quite common both within cities and out in the wilderness. This accounts for a lot of deaths amongst the male population. Living fast and dying young is a way of life for the felini. Few males live beyond thirty years and rarely ever enter academic professions. There have been historical exceptions with a few notable venerable professors. In these cases though it has been noted that they have been smaller than average and never established a harem.

Upon the death of the dominant male, the harem will generally split. Quite often there is a period of negotiation between the females of other harems as to where they go though new males will invariably make themselves known (sometimes even before the old male has died).

Opera
One of the few aspects of their ancient culture to survive the transition to their current way of life is their appetite for live drama in the form of operas. They have little time for media as entertainment, even media presented using cutting edge virtual reality. Only on distant worlds with small felini populations will a media substitute be tolerated.

The Clans The operas combine oral tradition of storytelling though heavily embellished to the point determining the slither of truth from the fantasy is a practically impossible. There are long drawn-out acts where the prima donna (they are always full female cast) can take the stage for more than an hour. Highly edited versions can be found for aliens on multi-special worlds. These are rarely more than the acrobatic scenes and a few voice-over explanations as to how the plot arrived there. They rarely make a lot of sense to non-felini. The first felini encountered by the rest of the Peripheries (with the exception of the Flagritz) were called the Clans. These were encountered in the Cluster Periphery. They were technologically advanced and had a history that revealed their ancestors had some centuries ago been removed from their primitive homeworld and uplifted. There are a few unsubstantiated stories relating to their use as troops for the uplifting alien abductors. The war that destroyed the Dewiek Nation is thought to be instrumental in their history, leading to their free will to determine their own fate. The Clans and the Felini have differing cultures in many areas, though from an outsider’s perspective they can appear similar. The most notable distinction is the role of the male. Males within the Clans live on average more than a decade longer than those from the homeworld – something both cultures are proud of for very different reasons. The males in the Clans also play a greater role in civilian government and technology.