Horta
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The Horta are native to Janus VI in the Alpha Quadrant. It is a barren, rocky world. Little in the way of life forms exist on the surface. The planet is unusually rich in mineral wealth and contains vast deposits of pergium, which is used to power life-support systems of human-like species
Personality
Horta are peaceful, intelligent and cooperative creatures at heart. They do not treat alien species with instinctive hostility, but welcome the presence of life forms unlike themselves. However, they will not tolerate any threat to the continuity of their species, and they will respond to any perceived attack on their kind with ferocity and ruthlessness.
Physiology
Horta resemble throbbing lumps of living rock - and indeed, that's pretty much what they are. They are silicon-based creatures with no appendages or obvious sensory organs. They live underground and secrete a highly corrosive acid that allows them to burrow through rock. Horta move through these tunnels by contracting and extending muscles located on the underside of the body, pulling themselves along. They have no external organs for communication, so they exchange information by physical contact or telepathy.
Horta reproduce by laying eggs. They are hermaphroditic, so every Horta may lay eggs. However, every 50,000 years the entire species dies off except for one Horta, who must then guard all existing eggs until they hatch.
The Horta's sheer physical durability gives them a long life span - about 500 years, on average. Horta attack their enemies by laying their acid-secreting glands against them and allowing the corrosive fluid to do its work. Dousing the target in water will stop this process, but if the attack is successful the corpse will dissolve away until nothing is left of it except fine black powdered char.
History and Culture
The origins of the Horta are lost in the mists of time. Federation researchers have not discovered anything (there is no discernible fossil evidence, as dead Horta literally disappear into the rock), and the Horta themselves have no myths or memories to enlighten them. As far as the Horta are concerned, they have always existed on Janus VI, since time immemorial.
The Federation first encountered the Horta in 2267 when the mining colony on Janus VI stumbled upon their hatchery, the Vault of Tomorrow, at the end of their species life cycle and broke some eggs, not knowing that they contained the seeds of living creatures. The last surviving Horta began striking back at them in defense of its brood. Only the intervention of the Enterprise, which had been summoned to Janus VI to investigate reports of attacks on the miners, defused the crisis. After that, the Horta agreed to help exploit the planet's vast mineral wealth.
Strictly speaking, the Horta have no culture. Although highly intelligent, their lack of appendages and opposable digits make it impossible for them to build a civilization in the sense in which humanoid races understand the concept. Moreover, the overarching life cycle of their species gives them a sense of time that is cyclical rather than linear, so that the concept of building for the long-term future holds relatively little importance for them.
That being said, however, the Horta have a ferocious will to survive, and the need to perpetuate their kind drives them absolutely, all the more so as they approach the end of their cycle of species death and rebirth. Each mother Horta, left alone with her brood of eggs, carries with her a keen sense of awareness that until they hatch she is the last of her kind. For her, defense of those eggs becomes a single-minded imperative that can justify any action, no matter how cruel or desperate it may seem to non-Horta.
While the 23rd century saw the die-off period for the Horta (making first contact a tricky proposition), the 24th century is a time of hatching, and hundreds of Horta swarm about Janus VI. Some have even expressed an interest in learning the flavors of other worlds, and on rare occasions a Horta geologists lends its expertise to Federation personnel.
The Horta communicate solely through telepathic abstractions and they have no language as such. Attempts to communicate with them using the universal translator produce crude renderings of Federation Standard. Since the Horta have little concept of individuality, they do not bother with names.
Reference(s)
- Bridges, Bill, et al. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 5: Aliens, Decipher, 2003. ISBN: 1582369070.