Vidiian
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Vidiians are a humanoid race from the Delta Quadrant encountered by the U.S.S. Voyager on that vessels seven year journey home. They have been affected by a species-wide disease known as the Phage, drastically altering their way of life.
Vidiians primarily stay near their own area of space, since so many neighboring races know of their organ piracy and fight off most of their incursions. Nevertheless, daring Vidiians travel the length and breadth of the Delta Quadrant in search of new organs and, they hope, a cure. Those who travel the farthest from Vidiia tend to be either the most desperate or most selfless. The most desperate go to any extremes to soothe their agony, while the most selfless hope to find a cure on distant worlds. The latter prove far more likely to deal honorably with alien races, though if their disease progresses too far, even they might resort to drastic measures. A few have heard rumors that a group called the Think Tank possesses a cure for the Phage, and they desperately seek any word of this enigmatic organization.
Personality
Driven to horrible extremes by a multi-generational wasting disease, the Vidiians are a cold, aloof, and clinical people. They can and do enjoy art, but rarely waste their time on anything that doesn't directly involve medical research or ways to alleviate their wasting condition. While every once in a while a spark of conscience might manifest in an individual Vidiian, as a whole the race suffers from a terrible morbidity brought on by the knowledge that they are born dying, degenerating, and probably incurably diseased.
Physiology
While Vidiians should be naturally strong and healthy, the Phage leaves their bodies twisted and deformed. Their natural form bears many similarities to humanity's, and, except for a few bony ridges, their skeletal structure is almost identical. The Phage disfigures every part of their being, however. Some humans compare its affects to the extinct Earth disease leprosy, eating away at a person's flesh, bones and organs.
As a Vidiian's body disintegrates, the bones and internal organs lose all protective covering. They become susceptible to thousands of other diseases, and their bodies become horrid infection factories. Every illness imaginable sets in. Vidiian medicine has learned how to deal with most of these, but not all. Vidiians keep a close watch on their conditions and those of the people around them, but most alien races find them unsettling to look upon, if not completely grotesque.
The disease afflicts the Vidiian even in the womb, since their mothers already bear the taint. The disease now passes from mother to child, and their obstetricians never found a way to prevent this. As a result, birth deformities affect many, further disabling them. Infant and child mortality rates still rage, though the Vidiians have taken pediatric care to all new heights. Still, few Vidiians care for the damage the disease causes in them, finding its changes repulsive. While they mature quickly, reaching adulthood by 13, their life spans are brief. Sick and weak for most of their lives, their bodies become a hodge-podge of parts from many sources, artificial organs that choke under the tasks required of them, and limbs that often do not function as they should. They stay together by constant first aid, stolen body parts, and sheer will.
History and Culture
All of Vidiian life focuses around stopping the Phage. Most of their resources pour into research for cures and treatments. The Vidiian implemented many cures; none worked. Attempts to create synthetic organs did not succeed; they proved more susceptible to the Phage than did the Vidiians own organs. Cloning organs also failed. The Phage attacks cloned Vidiians organs with a vengeance, and the cloned organs of other species prove equally vulnerable. Attempts at cloning Vidiians did no good, because the disease became so prevalent that even clones raised in completely sterile environments soon contracted it.
The Vidiians established elaborate societal structures to cope with the disease, including honattas, Vidiians charged with obtaining organs for important members of society. While some would expect physicians to become the ruling class of Vidiians, the reverse was true - every Vidiian, regardless of class, became a physician. Sadly, due to their disease-ridden decline and desperation, the Vidiians have become horribly amoral as a species. Their creative intellect, which fosters phenomenal medical technology and the will to explore the stars, now burns only to find new victims for organ harvesting.
The Phage marks this race's personalities as surely as it marks their bodies. This disease has ravaged the Vidiians for years, turning it from a stable, healthy people to a race of merciless organ thieves. The Vidiian must devote their entire lives to slowing the pace of the Phage, for they have never found a cure. To do this, they harvest organs from healthy members of other species, adapt the organs to work with their bodies, and leave the "donors" to their fates. While they prefer to take organs from the dead, these rarely serve as well as those from the living.
The Vidiians changed from an honorable, charitable race to one of desperate vultures. While their carrion nature bothers many, they steel themselves to avoid pitying those from whom they take organs,, believing that they have no other choice. They can remove another being's vital organs with cold calculation, taking what they need with no concern for its effect on their victim.
Their desperation manifests in many other ways as well. They think nothing of violence if it might serve their purpose. While desperate to save their own lives, they risk themselves willingly if doing so might lead to a cure or a respite from their pain. If they sense that someone might have a way to mitigate the Phage, they pursue that person regardless of the cost.
The Phage has afflicted the Vidiians for so long that it weeded out many personality disorders while creating new ones. Vidiians prone to depression do not last long, committing suicide or giving in to disease early. The surviving Vidiians, while resigned to having the Phage, do not surrender to it. They work together very well, though they exhibit a definite coldness to one another. This defense mechanism keeps them from getting too close to people who might die at any moment. Exhibiting true passion takes an effort from them, though they still feel emotional pain as their loved ones deteriorate and die.
The Phage did not destroy all their old feelings. Once renowned as explorers, teachers and artists, many of these traits still exist, though they became subordinate to defeating the Phage. The Vidiians converted their great schools to medical facilities, their spaceships to abattoirs and their artists to surgeons. Many long for the day they can pursue these old ways, while others fear that the race has lost them forever.
Critical Vidiians point to the rampant spread of slavery as proof that their race is degenerating just like their bodies. Vidiians capture healthy aliens, put them to work doing the hard labor their bodies can no longer handle, and take their slaves' organs when they need them. Many Vidiians express regret over this phenomenon, but they do nothing to stop it.
Once a very poetic language, modern Vidiian bears more resemblance to Gray's Anatomy than it does to Blake's "Songs of Innocence." Many of the terms and phrases that once so beautifully described emotions fell into disuse, replaced by words detailing the most minute aspects of medicine.
Reference(s)
- Bridges, Bill, et al. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 5: Aliens, Decipher, 2003. ISBN: 1582369070.