: Not to mention the actions of the numerous and various other slave units in
: their empire once it was established that they were going down. Many such
: alien slave may well have been as smart as or more intellegent than
: humans, and thus able to possibly devise effective resistances on their
: own.
Definitely. I've decided that (for my concept) massive slave revolts wiped out most of the Pfhor. Survivors either exist on the reservation-type planet, or act as raiders, though they're never more than an irritant to the UESC.
Steve, your had a good point about the mechanism for replacing hive queens, a necessity for any species. But given the great power the Holy Mother Crouched Behind the Throne wielded, and the dependence other Pfhor had upon her, transfer of power might not have been instantaneous. The humans/S'pht'kr would have also probably worked to keep the Pfhor disorganized. Thus, might it be possible that, after the dust cleared, several weaker, localized queens arose in various surviving Pfhor population centers?
Still, I'm trying to go for the 'Pfhor as a dying race' angle, so I might just take your idea of the destruction of the leadership hatchery. A weaker queen would probably still provide enough initiative for the Pfhor to recover, even as a client species.
