Eternal Doctrine

The Eternal Doctrine is the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah's alternative philosophy to the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za's Path of Now and Forever. It stipulates that to eliminate any future threat to Ur-Quan freedom all non-Ur-Quan sentient species are to be exterminated.

The Black Ur-Quan, lacking the subtlety of thought of the Green Kzer-Za caste or perhaps simply finding the Dnyarri-created administrative hierarchy inherently untrustworthy or distasteful, found themselves unable to accept the Path of Now and Forever created by the Kzer-Za following the victory of the Ur-Quan Slave Revolt. A charismatic leader, Kohr-Ah, stepped forward to declare a new interpretation of the Path of Now and Forever that renounced the Kzer-Za's plan to mimic the Dnyarri in becoming slave masters, which the Black Ur-Quan saw as despicable. Instead, seeing the Kzer-Za's altruistic concern for the inferior races as superfluous, they would take the bold step of simply destroying sentient life where they found it.

The first race they destroyed was the Yuptar, a former Sentient Milieu member race, only just freed from the Dnyarri Slave Empire by the Ur-Quan's revolt. After burning the Yuptar homeworld from orbit, they traveled to the homeworld of another of the last remaining Milieu race, the Mael-Num. However, the Mael-Num, having learned of the Kohr-Ah's intention and unable to resist them, broadcast a single, plaintive plea for an explanation. The Kohr-Ah, perhaps still emotionally vulnerable, were so moved by this helpless gesture that they felt compelled to halt their advance and argue the case for their beliefs to the Mael-Num. While they were thus detained the Kzer-Za intercepted their advance and began contradicting their argument, making a case for the original Path of Now and Forever and stating their absolute opposition to the crime of genocide. In the confusion, the two opposing factions broke out into the first Doctrinal War, and the Mael-Num escaped.

This became a defining moment for the two parties, and both saw the Mael-Num's plea, known to them simply as "the Words," as a fundamental challenge of legitimacy to the two doctrines to which both sides were obligated to respond. Such was the emotional attachment to the Words within the two Ur-Quan cultures that many generations later, any repetition of the Words