#yehat

Collection of WiPs for @fgsshinyhoard

I’M GLAD PEOPLE ARE ENJOYING THESE i could talk about this game all day, I swear (again, you can play it for free!)

It is very hard for the Yehat to face you again after they’ve joined the Ur-Quan, but there’s a bit of a story leading up to that, haha.

The Yehat have sort of a Braveheart thing going on… but anyway, the Yehat are pterodactyl-like birds of prey that congregate in clans, and for a long time on their planet the clans were constantly feuding and warring with each other in a history they describe as bloody, hideous, and barbaric. Finally, a queen made it to the High Perch of Caer Zeep-Reep and established the Veep-Neep dynasty, which united all the clans in peace for the next two thousand years. Her one promise was that under the Veep-Neep rule, the Yehat would NEVER be defeated. After so many countless generations of bloody warfare, peace was a huge and welcome relief to everyone.

Things went well until the current Yehat queen, who, some claim, gave command of starships and clans to Yehat nobles (”dandies” some say), made a lot of questionable decisions, and felt that the illusion of keeping her promise was more important to her than real honor, something which is super important to all Yehat. This tension came to a head at the end of the war, when the Chenjesu, Mmrnmhrm, and Earthlings had all been enslaved. The Ur-Quan were advancing on the Yehat, who were going to make a stand with their children, the Shofixti, in the Shofixti home starsystem. Out of nowhere, the Yehat queen told all the ships there to make a full retreat…. which would essentially mean abandoning and dooming the Shofixti, since without the Yehat they wouldn’t stand a chance against the Ur-Quan. All the captains were baffled by the order and didn’t want to follow it, but they couldn’t disobey their Queen. The eyes of the Shofixti as they abandoned them to their fate still haunt some Yehat, but even without support, the Shofixti did not give up. They fought against the impossible Ur-Quan odds alone, while the remaining Yehat watched as they left the star system.

Then, those Yehat watched while the Shofixti detonated a massive bomb in their sun, sending it nova and incinerating not only almost the entire Shofixti race, but thirty percent of the Ur-Quan fleet. This brave sacrifice only made what happened next that much more painful for the Yehat. The Ur-Quan descended on the Yehat home world… and their queen told them that they’d be joining the Ur-Quan as battle thralls. Serving the Ur-Quan is shameful and dishonorable enough to the average Yehat, but it stings even more knowing that their brave Shofixti children chose death instead. When you talk to them, they’re clearly tormented by their queen’s decision, and sometimes they’ll let you go instead of attack like they’re supposed to because they’re so consumed with guilt. Their unhappiness and discontent is simmering pretty openly… with the right trigger, you can cause a huge Yehat civil war between Royalists loyal to the queen and Rebels who want to overthrow her, where you’ll have a 50/50 chance of encountering one or the other while flying through their space.

Obviously, the Rebels will be friendly towards you and the Royalists will be rather peeved. One nice detail I like is that the Royalists will explain why they’re siding with the Queen and why the rebellion is a terrible idea in pretty reasonable terms, so you can see where they’re coming from. It makes it a bit more complex than just black and white. Both sides are also upset at the loss of Yehat life in the civil war, which I also appreciate, and the Rebels are even a little fatalistic about finding a new queen, afraid that the Yehat have plunged back into murderous inter-clan warfare that will never end until they wipe themselves out.

As an example for how the Yehat talk…

HOOT! Human, what are you doing back here!? Are ye totally off yer perch!?We have sympathies fer yer cause, tis truebut we must obey the orders of our Queen, however much we may disagree with them!

Yip! Are ye DAFT human!? Have ye not heard our words?You and yer kind are slaves, just as webut you humans have been confined within a shield of slaves!To be found outside this selfsame shield is surely yer own doom!It is NOT a permitted thing fer ye to be a-travelling through spaceand now, we must be conforming to our Queen's oath to the Ur-Quan.We must be getting about the business of killing you!

Human! I am beginning to think that ye are touched, fer sure!Ye tempt fate and our sympathy too much, I think.This time, perhaps we cannot be as much yer friends as ye would like.

BRAAK! A greeting to ye, Captain!We hope yer battles have been fierce and yer enemies, HOOT!.. are left in ruin.Now what can we be doing fer ye?

So you get the idea, haha. The Yehat value honor and courage extremely highly, and take pride in being fierce warriors. They are very closely tied to two different races - the Shofixti and the Pkunk. The Yehat basically found the Shofixti and, in admiration for their brave warrior-like culture, vowed to protect them from outside influence and uplift them into the stars personally. They love the Shofixti dearly and losing them in the war grieves them terribly.

The other race is the Pkunk, an off-shoot of the Yehat species that broke off at some point, maybe a thousand or so years ago, it’s not clear. The Pkunk are pacifists and hippie types, and the Yehat HATE them. They think of them as cowards and embarrassments to their species, and drove them from their stars a long while back. If you tell them the Pkunk are still alive, they get extremely upset and want to finish the job. The Pkunk, in return, want nothing more than to reunite with their Yehat siblings and show them the power of love, so relations between the two races is a bit strained, you could say.

One other interesting tidbit about the Yehat is that they achieved spaceflight on their own, which is not something most races do. Many are uplifted by another race, such as with the Yehat and the Shofixti. But the Yehat did it on their own, and they have a lot of respect for humans for doing the same.

They’re described as a mix between a pterodactyl and a bumble bee in the strategy guide I think, and lean more towards the bird end of things in what they reference (nests, eggs, perches, beaks). I still don’t know if the Yehat have legs and if they don’t how are they staying upright…? Mysteries. Also their wing formation is confusing to me, since the Yehat in the back and the Yehat in the front have their wing bones set up differently. BUT DETAILS.

I had forgotten how extra the Yehat theme music was

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Another Secret Theater dub. Took longer than I’d prefer and some of the races came out less than ideally, but it’s the kind of “less-than-ideal” that has more to do with the restrictions of my vocal range than anything else (or, in the case of the Spathi, being unable to figure out how to speak that fast and remain comprehensible).

Particularly happy with the Pik and the Druuge; the latter gave me a fair bit of trouble.

Original post

Game Music Now - Yehat by Riku Nuottajärvi for Star Control 2 (PC/3DO)