Batarian
A race of four-eyed bipeds native to the world of Khar'shan, the batarians are a disreputable species that chose to isolate itself from the rest of the galaxy. The Terminus Systems are infested with batarian pirate gangs and slaving rings, fueling the stereotype of the batarian thug. It should be noted that these criminals do not represent average citizens, who are forbidden to leave batarian space by their ubiquitous and paranoid government.
Despite several disagreements with the Citadel and simmering hostility toward humans, most batarians prefer profitable pursuits such as drug running and slave grabs to out-and-out warfare. They have a reputation for being shrewd businessmen and merchants, though in more lawless regions of the galaxy like Omega, negotiations with a batarian are likely to be conducted at gunpoint.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Batarians are an anthropoidal race like humans and asari. Their faces are covered with short, fine hairs that grow longer and thicker around the mouth. A flat stripe of ridged cartilage runs along the tops of their skulls and down the backs of their necks. They have ears pointy at the upper end, though on occasion along the edges as well. The part of their faces commonly associated with the nose among humans and asari is instead an inverted flat triangle symmetrically ridged vertically. Compared to humans, batarians have a deep, guttural voice. Batarians' mouths are filled with dozens of sharp, needle-like teeth.
Batarians exhibit a wide range of skin tones and colors. Most batarians have a dark brown hue with pale facial ridges. General batarian complexions include reddish-brown, greenish, yellow-greenish to yellow-brownish, light brown, and teal. Some batarians possess striped colorations on their heads. Observed patterns include multiple chin stripes, a single strip running from the lower lip, or a thin dagger of color above the nose. These patterns are usually colored blue, black, or red, while the nose pattern is invariably red. At least one, Balak, has what appears to be a black and yellow striped pigmentation at the temples with light green facial ridges.
Batarian blood has been observed to be red.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Batarians need certain symbiotic organisms to be in peak health. They can survive without them, but going for protracted periods of time without them results in a range of minor-to-moderate health disorders. As a result, much batarian food has 'parasites' in it - they're more like a health supplement.
Food and drink includes:
B'garn (like Terran pasta)
Ba'egek: A form of cheese, popular among the old Terminus Merchant Colonies, apparently goes well with fresh bread and a cup of jereta.
Er’thak (which may be served minced)
For'Sheh Tea
Gora'va Sauce
Goro Root
K'nar Cream
Keron Pie
Kruottolk, an exotic dish resembling balut in nature, made from Qlygh eggs.
Larmo fruit; like a large yellow grape, but less tart. It's a standard household favorite in certain regions of Khar'Shan, for members of every caste.
Lek'sha meat
Oo'lin (a spice)
Paak (a spice)
Raksha
Ri'ka (a spice)
Sharamik Eggs
Talan candies
Thurai, a meat. Refers to a specific cut from a large, stupid aquatic animal commonly used as livestock.
Tsyplionok (poultry)
Va'shanosh dal (as a seasoning)
Yora: A tiny blue fruit with a subtle sweetness
Batarians have sharp, obviously carnivorous teeth. Predatory, they're omnivores but eat a great deal of meat. There are theories among batarian scientists, made public since the fall of the Hegemony, that their evolutionary ancestors developed an instinctive urge to resort to inflicting pain to keep their prey under control while they killed it. Batarians didn’t hunt the human way - shooting animals with an arrow or spearing it with a sharp stick and then following it until it bled to death. It’s a generally-accepted theory that they ran their prey down, and overpowered it physically.
Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Their most distinctive physical feature is their four eyes, an uncommon trait among other races. One pair is set wide in prominent bony sockets protruding from the corners of their face. The second set of eyes is smaller and closer together, set higher on the face, just beneath the middle of the forehead. The eyes are uniformly dark orbs, with no discernible irises or pupils.
Civilization and Culture
Major Organizations
The rest of the galaxy viewed the batarians as an ignorable problem. Their government, previously known as the Batarian Hegemony, was hostile to the United Federation of Nations, but beneath the notice of the powerful Council races. It is not known what the average batarian thinks about their enforced isolation, as the Department of Information Control ensured that only government-approved news entered or left batarian space. Given the batarian government's oppressive nature, it was speculated their supreme leadership was autocratic or totalitarian in nature, although the batarian homeworld of Khar'shan remained divided into various competing nation-states at the time.
The batarians blamed humanity for their troubles and claimed they were forced to fend for themselves, despite the fact that their exile was largely self-imposed. This has resulted in humans receiving the brunt of batarians' antagonism in the form of scams, slave raids, and terrorist attacks, incidents which the Hegemony covertly supports but was always quick to publicly distance itself from.
Despite their isolation, the batarians still provide up-to-date glossaries and linguistic rules to the rest of the galaxy, though it is suspected that this is only so they can continue exporting propaganda. Batarian languages have become "lingua franca" in the Terminus Systems due to the prevalence of batarians in the region.
After the Reaper War and the reestablishment of interstellar communications, the UFN demanded that the Batarian Hegemony surrender Balak, a batarian terrorist with multiple acts of violence against humanity. in response, the Hegemony elevated Balak as the highest authority in the Batarian Hegemony. the UFN declared war and after a quick and decisive victory, the Batarian Hegemony was dismantled and Balak was incarcerated for his crimes. A new government with more lenient and amiable policies was established as a sector of the United Federation of Nations.
Major Language Groups and Dialects
Batarian communication is an extremely subtle art, beyond that seen with most other species in everyday speech. Virtually all batarian languages and dialects encompass the fields of both spoken and body language at once to convey very specific messages.
Body Language:
General
Head tilted left: Respect and admiration
Head tilted right: Disrespect and contempt
Top set of eyebrows raised: Interest, curiosity
Head tilted forward, eyes looking up towards conversation partner: Suspicion
Despite the previous government wishing it were so, there is no one batarian language. The Hegemony was a collection of nations, and each nation had its own dialect (which pre-galactic contact were seen as separate languages entirely). These have been diluted a lot with international and then intragalactic mixing, but they form the core of the "batarian language".
Culture and Cultural Heritage
Batarians are hierarchical; their strict caste system and the legalization of slavery by the late Hegemony reinforced this. Some speculate that this has its origins in an instinctual feeding order. Batarian society, culture and social structure are frequently said to hinge on trying to look like one is better off than they are. A person is literally defined by who's above them and who's below them in a real or perceived social, military and economic hierarchy. If you have nobody beneath you, you need to elevate yourself in the eyes of your peers. Naturally, people frequently resort to drastic measures to gain status.
Family is unsurprisingly important to batarians. In particular, the second son is favored, and many families try for two boys; the second will frequently be given the name "Goronak", literally meaning "second son", in honor of the auspicious occurrence.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
Merequat (approx.transcr. [merekwɒt] ) is a traditional batarian martial arts style with a millennia-long history.
The first mentions of merequat date to as early as the time of clan wars preceding formation of the first kingdoms on ancient Khar'shan, the period of the first class-stratified societies.
"Merequat" literally means "Twenty Blades" in one of the classical batarian languages.
Ancient batarians equipped their armors with 20 blades (20 being a multiple of 4, therefore one of the "lucky" numbers) and utilized them in melee combat extensively. Two blades were placed on each shoulderpad, one on each boot's toe and one on each kneepad. Two wristblades, that could be switched between defensive and combat positions. Finally, ten smaller blades on combat gauntlets, five on each.
Style
A human observer would most likely compare merequat to a ferociously efficient mix of Terran muay-thai and kickboxing, featuring grappling (wrestling, takedowns, submission holds, throws) and faster-paced moves - short powerful punches and kicks with small amplitude, active knee-work and elbow work, as well as blocks with the use of legs and shoulders, often followed by brutal counter-attacks.
Merequat has seen some changes over the course of history, but all of the main principles remain, the revisions being simply adaptations to technological changes. The style remains in active use to this day, be it by the military police, the regular army, SpecOps and even the former Special Intervention Unit. Additionally, merequat gave rise to several derivative styles, adapted for different purposes, priorities and even bladed armor types. For instance, many batarian vanguard-type biotic combatants employ such a style for close-quarters combat. While visually different, it is based mostly on merequat principles.
A classic form of tchopethek - public execution for criminals - was designed by merequat practitioners: som'hesh, "head peddler".
Kalashak is an ancient batarian game of strategy and betrayal dating back to a period of warring kingdoms and intermittent alliances on Khar'shan.
The board is shaped like a five-pointed star, with an open playing area in the center. Each player starts the game allied to the two players next to them on the board, opposed by the two players sitting across the board. Each player begins with five game pieces on the point of one of the stars, usually simple and distinguished by color although fancier sets sometimes use figurines or novelty items to represent different "armies".
Archaeological evidence indicates that kalashak may have developed from a two-player precursor, the details of which have since been lost. Several two-player variants seem to have developed independently, and may be more closely connected to the original game than the popular five-player edition.
Each playing piece can be moved one space once per turn by its owner, and pieces are captured when surrounded by three or more pieces of opposing colors. There is no regulation size for kalashak boards, but popular wisdom holds that a board with more spaces is a board that permits grander strategy, while smaller boards allow for a faster pace and more exciting games. Variants of the game exist in which pieces are distinguished from one another and feature different movement patterns or methods of capture, but none of these is as widely recognized as the core game.
Players can be defeated in either of two ways: If they lose all of their pieces, or if an enemy piece reaches the tip of their starting point ("capital") without the victim having taken an opponent's capital. Capturing a capital consumes the piece making the capture, but grants the conqueror three more pieces as well as the ability to deploy from the captured capital. If at any time a player controls no capitals, their pieces are removed from the board and they have lost the game.
Kalashak is notorious for the bargains struck between players, upon which no rules or restrictions are placed, as well as the betrayals which inevitably follow. Due to its nature as a team game with a single winner, every alliance established during the game is at some point broken, knowledge of which does not lessen the impact of treachery by a beloved sibling or parent.
History
When the batarians achieved spaceflight, they discovered concealed Prothean ruins on Bira, a moon of Verush, that allowed them to develop FTL travel. It is a batarian point of pride that, since the ruins were damaged by earthquakes, they had less information to go on than other spacefaring races. The Citadel Council granted the batarians an embassy on the Citadel sometime after the volus did, approximately a century after the batarians and Council had made first contact.
Despite being welcomed into the galactic community, batarian aggression provoked several crises in galactic relations over the years. Sometime around 1785 GS, a batarian fleet bombarded the salarian colony world of Mannovai; in 1913 , the Batarian Hegemony annexed the independent asari colony of Esan; and in 2115, Citadel forces skirmished with batarian forces on the planet Enael.
In the early 2360s, humans began to colonize the Skyllian Verge, a region the batarians were already actively settling. The batarians asked the Citadel Council to intervene and declare the Verge an area of "batarian interest". When the Council refused, the batarians closed their Citadel embassy and severed diplomatic and economic relations, becoming an inward-looking rogue state.
Money and weapons funneled from the batarian government to criminal organizations led to many brutal raids on human colonies in the Verge, such as Mindoir, culminating in the Skyllian Blitz of 2376, an attack on the human capital of Elysium by batarian-funded pirates and slavers. In 2378, the Federation retaliated with a crushing assault on the moon of Torfan, long used as a staging base by batarian-backed criminals.
Common Myths and Legends
Batarians are noted for having four eyes. Four eyes is an apex evolutionary trait on Khar’shan -- only predators at the top of the foodchain exhibit them. Batarians are very considerate of the eyes, as each of the four is seen as a physical representation of the soul (zayn’ir), which is split into four pieces. Without all four eyes, a soul is considered disunified, and if the eyes are removed from the body after death, the batarian can’t make it to the afterlife. “Lesser” creatures with only two eyes were considered permanently disunified.
Mind (“Li”) - upper left eye, mental strength and intelligence.
Body (“Nava”) - lower left eye, actions and expression.
Heart (“Anya”) - upper right eye; compassion and faith.
Self (“Ziku”) - lower right eye, achievement and confidence.
According to certain batarian religious traditions, the soul can be unbalanced by the four parts being ‘out of sync’ -- this is common, as very few batarian souls are completely in sync, either through choice or through circumstance. Disunification is common in victims of trauma and veterans of especially gruesome battles. Should a batarian loose an eye for whatever reason, a special pilgrimage must be made, and a replacement made from one’s own hands (in wood or glass) with all other pieces of the souls unified in Sight. Cloning and cybernetics are both common in modern times, and acceptable in most places, but strict followers often see them as ‘fake,’ and believe that the soul is partially destroyed in this way.
When a batarian dies, his soul leaves the body through the eyes. Treatment of the corpse is considered unimportant, unless the eyes have been removed by an enemy.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Batarians have a habit of looking at aliens with all four eyes simultaneously, making it difficult for a binocular species to know which pair to focus on during conversation. The inability to maintain eye contact is disconcerting for most other species, and the batarians always try to exploit this advantage in situations involving bargaining or negotiations. Focusing on someone with all four eyes is actually a part of the complex batarian body language and simply means that the person in question is very interested, which tends to go along with the secondary meaning, that they’re suspicious but confident. If a batarian is looking at you with his lower eyes but is flicking the top set all around the room, it means either you’re boring him or he’s uncomfortable. However, briefly glancing at other things with the higher pair while looking at you with the bottom pair isn’t necessarily rude. It might even mean that the batarian in question is trying to be polite, depending on the situation.
Lifespan
80-100 Years
Average Height
1.6-1.9 Meters
Average Weight
42 - 130 kg
Related Organizations
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