Clan Fire Mandrill: Monkey Talk

[Sjhernan3060]

Any opinions on the mandrills use of the chatter web? Due to their fractured and resource poor state I gotta think that would use it a lot ( and not just to harangue and troll
Rival kindraa!)

I guess my non joking question is: how aware of the other clans were the mandrills? It seems they essentially hated and scorned all but did that also mean everyone was beneath their notice?

[Alan Grant]

This added to my confusion about what you were asking. In framing your word choice you seem to be connecting "awareness" of the other Clans with "attitudes toward the other Clans" and those are separate concepts in my head. But to be clear, yes they are aware of the other Clans, and yes they are generally prickly toward the other Clans. the Book Warriors of Kerensky in the Mandrill section says they feel a lot of contempt for the other Clans. Only having good relationships with the Diamond Sharks and then the Blood Spirits toward the end.

But we know they sent Khans to the Grand Council and we know the Mandrill merchant caste was put to work a lot as mediators to get things done. The Mandrills also shared worlds with other Clans, so they had neighbors n the next enclave over who were of the other Clans.

Contempt doesn't equal lack of awareness, or even lack of communication (or tendency toward isolation), to be clear. If you've ever been on a team, joint project, committee or anything like that where you had one prickly person who was tough to get to know and get along with, not a great team player, that's the Mandrills (in the generic sense at least). But that person is still certainly aware and communicating with everyone.

[Sjhernan3060]

This added to my confusion about what you were asking. In framing your word choice you seem to be connecting "awareness" of the other Clans with "attitudes toward the other Clans" and those are separate concepts in my head. But to be clear, yes they are aware of the other Clans, and yes they are generally prickly toward the other Clans. the Book Warriors of Kerensky in the Mandrill section says they feel a lot of contempt for the other Clans. Only having good relationships with the Diamond Sharks and then the Blood Spirits toward the end.

But we know they sent Khans to the Grand Council and we know the Mandrill merchant caste was put to work a lot as mediators to get things done. The Mandrills also shared worlds with other Clans, so they had neighbors n the next enclave over who were of the other Clans.

Contempt doesn't equal lack of awareness, or even lack of communication (or tendency toward isolation), to be clear. If you've ever been on a team, joint project, committee or anything like that where you had one prickly person who was tough to get to know and get along with, not a great team player, that's the Mandrills (in the generic sense at least). But that person is still certainly aware and communicating with everyone.

Sorry about that poor wording! I just had ankle surgey and posted that in a fog… to clarify, what I was asking was if the mandrills really cared about the other clans at all? Or did they see their true rivals/threats as other kindraa?

[Alan Grant]

Hope you have a quick and smooth recovery from your surgery.

Those aren't mutually exclusive concepts. They do care about what is going on with the other Clans, and they are also very focused on what the other Kindraa are up to.

Often the events in the Homeworlds do affect them. Some Kindraa also intentionally target the other Clans, particularly for genetic material (looking at Sainze and Payne). In the margins of their section of FM: CC you can see their prevailing attitude toward each of the other Clans, and they do have one, and its mostly a negative view for many of them. They even go so far as to suggest in the Clan Wolf one that Clan Wolf could have avoided the schism between Clan Wolf and WiE had they settled their Crusader/Warden differences as the Mandrills would have, via internal Trials. So they have some contempt for most other Clans and even some almost Falcon-like arrogance that the Mandrill ways are best.

The Sharks and eventually the Blood Spirits aside, it just seems like most activity with the other Clans takes the form of Trials against those other Clans (as opposed to more diplomatic negotiations/politics). There are Trials against the other Clans, such as Trials of Possession, there are hints of that scattered throughout Mandrill history. So yes, they care. Yes, they are keeping informed about what's happening beyond their Clan. After the Smoke Jaguars were gone, the Mattila-Carrols scrambled to contest Pahn City on Huntress. The Vipers and Mandrills were fighting on Marshall and the Coyotes and Mandrills were fighting on Atreus (FM: WC). That's just a few examples, there are plenty more referenced in various books. Trials for territory, resources and genetic material.

But also, yes, that Kindraa rivalry stuff (which rises to the level of a feud or vendetta quite often and is likely felt on a very personal level for many Mandrills) is very much at the forefront a lot of the time. It probably dominates the day-to-day for most Mandrill warriors for much of the Clan's history. The Mandrill preference is to settle every difference within the Clan via combat. Even Khan elections are handled via Trial of Possession. With all of this internal fighting going on at the intensity of a feud/vendetta, it makes sense that there have been long stretches of time when the average low-to-mid ranked Mandrill warrior felt like whatever was going on with the other Clans was mostly background noise to the Kindraa feud/vendetta that was fueling them most days.

[Sjhernan3060]

Hope you have a quick and smooth recovery from your surgery.

Those aren't mutually exclusive concepts. They do care about what is going on with the other Clans, and they are also very focused on what the other Kindraa are up to.

Often the events in the Homeworlds do affect them. Some Kindraa also intentionally target the other Clans, particularly for genetic material (looking at Sainze and Payne). In the margins of their section of FM: CC you can see their prevailing attitude toward each of the other Clans, and they do have one, and its mostly a negative view for many of them. They even go so far as to suggest in the Clan Wolf one that Clan Wolf could have avoided the schism between Clan Wolf and WiE had they settled their Crusader/Warden differences as the Mandrills would have, via internal Trials. So they have some contempt for most other Clans and even some almost Falcon-like arrogance that the Mandrill ways are best.

The Sharks and eventually the Blood Spirits aside, it just seems like most activity with the other Clans takes the form of Trials against those other Clans (as opposed to more diplomatic negotiations/politics). There are Trials against the other Clans, such as Trials of Possession, there are hints of that scattered throughout Mandrill history. So yes, they care. Yes, they are keeping informed about what's happening beyond their Clan. After the Smoke Jaguars were gone, the Mattila-Carrols scrambled to contest Pahn City on Huntress. The Vipers and Mandrills were fighting on Marshall and the Coyotes and Mandrills were fighting on Atreus (FM: WC). That's just a few examples, there are plenty more referenced in various books. Trials for territory, resources and genetic material.

But also, yes, that Kindraa rivalry stuff (which rises to the level of a feud or vendetta quite often and is likely felt on a very personal level for many Mandrills) is very much at the forefront a lot of the time. It probably dominates the day-to-day for most Mandrill warriors for much of the Clan's history. The Mandrill preference is to settle every difference within the Clan via combat. Even Khan elections are handled via Trial of Possession. With all of this internal fighting going on at the intensity of a feud/vendetta, it makes sense that there have been long stretches of time when the average low-to-mid ranked Mandrill warrior felt like whatever was going on with the other Clans was mostly background noise to the Kindraa feud/vendetta that was fueling them most days.

I think that sums up their inability to long ( or medium ) plan it would take a very rare, strong and far sighted leader to rise above the day to day feuds. So as a follow up: if a kindraa wanted to pull back from the pointless scraps and wanted to build up their resources instead could they even do that without being noticed by the other kindraa?

[Alan Grant]

Wars of Reaving has a good example, page 38. Kindraa Mattila-Carrol starts secretly talking to the Coyotes and making deals with them. The Kindraa got 2 clusters of ProtoMechs out of it, and traded away an enclave on Shadow and the use of the Carrol legacy to the Coyotes for several generations, oh and an electric armor protomech prototype.

It says they increased their forces by nearly half with newly blooded Coyote sibkin. So they got a bunch of warriors and equipment out of it. Eventually the other Kindraa did figure it out somehow and they censured the Kindraa and launched a lot of attacks against Mattila-Carrol and the Coyotes. The other Kindraa were especially angry to discover the trading of that enclave on Shadow to the Coyotes and began relentlessly trying to take it back, but ultimately failed to do so. The Coyotes had deployed a very large and very tough garrison on Shadow to hold it.

So yes they pulled some secret stuff off, but then become the focus of every Kindraa's anger once it was discovered. It's not clear to me if Kindraa Mattila-Carrol ended up in a truly better or worse position than when they started. They definitely had pissed everyone off. But the Coyotes being on Shadow also redirected some of that anger to that Clan instead. If it had 100% been directed at Mattila-Carrol, it probably would have gone badly for that Kindraa. But since the focus was split between Mattila-Carrol and the Coyotes, it split the incoming attacks, which probably helped Mattila-Carrol to survive this chapter of the story.

Outside of that example, purely as a hypothetical, I don't know. It certainly doesn't feel like any of the Kindraa can keep a big secret from the others for too long. They are nosy neighbors all up in each other's business. Yet the WoR example proves that it's possible to some extent.