Doctrinal Conflict

The Ur-Quan Doctrinal Conflict or Doctrinal War is the method by which the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za and Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah decide whose Doctrine (either the Path of Now and Forever for the Kzer-Za or the Eternal Doctrine in the case of the Kohr-Ah) is superior.

The Conflict began when the two Ur-Quan subspecies first started enforcing their Doctrines, immediately following the successful revolt against enslavement by the Dnyarri. The Kzer-Za had already enslaved the Faz and the Kohr-Ah had burned the worlds of the Yuptar. The two great fleets met above the homeworld of the Mael-Num, the last free race of the Sentient Milieu. The Kohr-Ah had come to destroy it and the Kzer-Za to imprison it.

The ensuing battle was long and violent enough for the Mael-Num to escape. The Kzer-Za fleets were loosing and the Kohr-Ah would have won had a mysterious Precursor warship not been found by the Kzer-Za. This vessel, later called the Sa-Matra, turned the tide of the battles. The Kohr-Ah fleets were reduced to a fraction of their original numbers as the Sa-Matra devestated their ranks.

The Kzer-Za, victorious, still recognized that they could be in error and that it was possible that the Kohr-Ah were correct. Because of this belief, rather than enslaving the Kohr-Ah, they sent them out into the unknown of the galaxy and instructed them to carry out the Eternal Doctrine as they orbited it. The Kzer-Za moved out in the opposite direction, taking the Sa-Matra with them. It was decided that when they next met, the two subraces would fight a ritual war to discover the true superiority between the Doctrines. The loser would step aside and the winner would take the Sa-Matra as a prize and use it to enact their will upon the galaxy.

It is during this Second Doctrinal Conflict that The Ur-Quan Masters occurs.