Kaldane

Kaldanes are a highly intelligent (if rather narrowly focused) race inhabiting a small area on Barsoom known as Bantoom and unknown to the outside world. During a great storm that ravaged much of the surface of Barsoom, Tara of Helium became lost. She ended up in the land of Bantoom. After she escaped with the help of Gahan and the Kaldane Ghek knowledge of the race spread throughout Barsoom, and a member of the species could even be found in the royal zoo in Amhor.

Biology and Attire

The Kaldanes appear as over sized blue-grey heads, with six spider-like legs that they walk with when not using a rykor, as well as two symmetrical chelea that they use to eat. Their large bulging eyes are lidless, their noses nothing more than narrow slits, and their mouths round tooth filled holes described as being sphincter-like. To control the rykor they use small tentacles that descend from their underside. Because of their current state they are reliant on rykors for most manual labor.

Lacking lungs they do not have to breath. Like most Martians they have psychic abilities, although more adapted than the other races, (however seemingly not as well developed as the Lotharians), they are able to control rykors and other Martians with their minds, this power seems to be greater in kings.

The Kaldanes have through breeding been able to raise what would normally be instinct into a form of hereditary memory. Every Kaldane is 'born' with all of the knowledge and memories of its ancestors, to the point of knowing what different animals taste like, even ones they personally have never encountered.

Kaldanes live in different clans, each headed by a king. A footnote by John Carter in The Chessmen of Mars however states that "king" is simply the best word he could find to describe the leaders of the Kaldanes, so they are most likely refered to by a different name among the Kaldanes themselves. The king Kaldanes differ from the regular ones; the kings are slightly larger with a more bluish hue. The "king" Kaldanes produce the eggs from which all Kaldanes in their clan hatch. Every thousand or so eggs a new king egg is produced. Many are destroyed, but some are kept so the clan will always have a new king if the old one dies. The new king always uses the same name as the old one, and life in the clan continues as if nothing has happened.

Known Kings

• Moak
• Luud
• Nolach

Religion and Customs

The Kaldanes do not exactly have a religion, but they do have philosophies, goals, and ideals that they follow with religious zeal. Their ultimate goal is to become nothing more than the perfect brain; they consider their physical bodies next to worthless except as necessary to support their brains. They believe themselves all identical; if one Kaldane likes something, supposedly all like it (likewise if they hate something.) Like some other races (the Therns and Black Martians) they have a superiority complex, regarding all non-Kaldanes as inferior creatures to be exploited (if useful) or destroyed (if not), and think nothing of eating rykor flesh despite the creatures' human form.

Notes

Non-Canon

In Marvel's Warlord of Mars series

The powerful Kaldane king Taak performed cruel experiments upon his own people and captured Red Martians, transforming the captives into hybrids by placing Kaldane brains within their bodies and giving them the ability to detach their heads, much lke a normal Kaldane with a rykor. He intended to use these hybrids to infiltrate Red Martian society and conquer them from within. The plot was foiled by John Carter, Tal Tarag, a Red Martian whose brain he had placed within a White Ape,  and a Kaldane outcast named Aard. Taak had placed the brain of Aard's love, Saar, within the body of Tal Tarag's lover, Vala Dia, whom he had transformed into a hybrid. Taak had also used Tal Tarag's original body in a similar way to host an unnamed Kaldane. Unfortunately, Vala Dia and Saar could not be saved and were slain, as was Tal Tarag's Red Martian body. Aard was also killed when he attempted to kill Taak and avenge his lost love. Taak then met his just end at the hands of a vengeful Tal Tarag, who apparently died in the battle as well. John Carter then left Bantoom, disgusted by the Kaldane's cruelty and lack of honor.

In The Wold Newton Universe, Kaldanes are said to be descended from mutated Sarmaks.