Antos IV

Antos IV (known as Dorafane to the natives) is the home of a race of benevolent, ancient humanoids considerably older than humans. Although it is Class M, Antos IV's climate is lethally frigid at both the upper and lower latitudes, leaving only an equatorial band that supports life. The native inhabitants have established an extremely advanced culture in this region and have built city structures that seem to defy known Federation limits in design and construction. From space, the civilized central region shines like a belt of light around the planet, owing to the strangely luminescent properties of Antosian metals. Federation contact with the Antosians has been extremely limited, at the request of the Antosian people, and little is known about their culture, technology, or architecture.

Antos IV, while a Federation member, has limited their participation in Federation matters to contact by subspace radio. The reason for such aloofness was long a mystery until Starfleet Captain Garth of Izar, maimed and dying, was forced to make an emergency landing there. In order to save his life, the Antosians shared with him a secret they had kept for untold thousands of years; Garth was given the Antosians' medical abilities, including the power to change his shape at will. They had perfected the technique of cellular metamorphosis and were able to rearrange their cellular structures to imitate any object or being of similar size and mass. This talent was considered by the advanced Antosians too dangerous to be allowed into the hands of other races. Indeed, the process quickly rendered Garth of Izar mad, and he remained so for several years. Only with the introduction of a new drug returned him to sanity, with the resultant loss of his shape-changing ability.

Antos is a yellow giant star system with five planets. Only the third and fourth are capable of supporting life. Antos III is Class K and supports a tenuous atmosphere and some surface water. Native life is limited to only the most primitive of invertebrates and simple plants. Antos V is a gas giant with seventeen moons. The third moon, Sowtha, is Class L and harbors a Federation refueling depot.

Reference(s)

• Johnson, Shane. Star Trek: The Worlds of the Federation, New York: Pocket Books, 1989. ISBN: 0-671-66989-3.