Background Material
The Kzinti originally come from Larry Niven's Known Space stories. Niven adapted his story "The Soft Weapon" as an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, "The Slaver Weapon". The episode also mentioned that the Kzinti had fought four wars with the Federation, and lost all of them. The Kzinti have never been mentioned in any Paramount productions since The Animated Series, and by current canon, they do not exist in the Star Trek Universe.
However, the Kzinti were mentioned (if not shown) in a few other episodes and early novels, making them part of the continuity as of the time Star Fleet Battles was being designed. So the Kzinti were included as an extra enemy of the Klingon Empire. In fact, the Kzinti use of drones was used as an initial explanation for why Klingon ships had a high number of phasers that mostly fired to the rear.
Since that time, the Kzintis have seen some changes for the SFU compared to Niven's Known Space universe. While the original episode kept close to Niven's descriptions, SFU art has always shown Kzintis with cat ears and furred tails. More recently it was decided that Kzinti females are sentient (something that had not been explicitly stated either way until the production of GURPS Prime Directive). Finally, there is a difference in grammar: In Known Space, the singular is 'Kzin' and the plural is 'Kzinti'; in SFU, the singular is 'Kzinti' and the plural is 'Kzintis'.
Read more about this topic: Kzinti Hegemony
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