Devidian
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The Devidians are native to Devidia II, a planet in the Marrab Sector of the Alpha Quadrant. The planet, barren and marginally habitable to begin with, sustained severe environmental damage from the punitive strike launched against the Devidians by the Enterprise-D in 2368, but primitive forms of plant and animal life still survive on the surface.
Devidians exist in their own time continuum, so they are always just barely out of synchronization with those who exist in normal time. In normal time, they appear as hazy, insubstantial ghost images. In order to see their true form, beings in normal time must use viewing devices that match the Devidians' synchronic temporal distortion of +0.004%. Devidians can shift their displacement to drop into or out of normal time synchronization as desired.
Personality
To the extent that anyone has had contact with Devidians in their natural form, they come off as cold and entirely amoral. Their only apparent purpose in life is to feed and insure their own survival; anything else has no importance to them at all.
Physiology
Devidians live in a time continuum that is just slightly out of synchronization with the rest of the universe. This makes them almost impossible to detect, but when seen in their natural form they appear as ghostly humanoid shapes glowing silver-white. They appear to wear form-fitting suits of clothing with a mantle draped over the shoulders. They have no noticeable sensory organs like eyes or ears; their only distinguishable facial feature is an orifice on the forehead, used for feeding.
Despite their temporal displacement, Devidians can manifest themselves in the normal time continuum and even change shape to disguise their appearance.
Devidians feed, vampire-like, on the neural energy of other intelligent beings through a technique called neural depletion. They attach the orifice on their foreheads and extract the electrochemical energy from the brains of their victims, killing them in the process. Devidian technology also enables them to remove neurological energy from victims and store it for later consumption.
History and Culture
The Federation made first contact (if one could call it that) in 2368 as a result of Devidians traveling in time to 19th century Earth to feed on the neural energy of dying victims of the cholera epidemic in the city of San Francisco. While investigating unusual finds at a 24th century archaeological dig in San Francisco, the crew of the Enterprise-D traced the cause of a local temporal distortion back to Devidia II. From Devidia II, they traveled back to 19th century San Francisco, where they discovered the Devidians preying on local humans. The Enterprise-D pursued the Devidians back to their homeworld in the 24th century and ravaged the planet with a barrage of photon torpedoes.
Since then, there have been no reported encounters with Devidians outside the normal time continuum. However, the Federation has not been able to confirm that they have lost the ability to time travel altogether. Starfleet therefore has standing orders to watch out for signs of temporal distortions that might indicate that Devidians have taken actions that threaten to disrupt the flow of history.
Devidian Society
Devidians organize themselves into loose foraging parties of anywhere from two to ten individuals. They move stealthily through the normal time continuum, thanks to their time travel and shapeshifting capabilities, to find and prey on sources of food. No higher authority coordinates their activities, although foraging parties may communicate with one another in order to share particularly ample food sources. Apart from that, Devidians have no apparent social organization, and ties of kinship or friendship mean little to them. Even members of the same foraging party show little loyalty toward each other.
Devidians have nevertheless shown themselves capable of the cooperation required to develop truly advanced technology. They are the only species known to have invented a way to manipulate triolic waves, a rare form of energy that distorts the fabric of space-time. This allows them to travel both backward and forward in time. They use an easily concealed electronic device to set up a powerful triolic distortion field in a location (such as a building or cavern). This location then becomes the portal through which they travel.
The Federation considers the Devidians a serious threat because of the amoral disregard for the laws of historical causation that they display when they time travel.
Devidians speak their own language, but Federation linguists know too little about it to analyze its structure or theorize about its development. Devidians, on the other hand, possess an instinctive ability to comprehend alien languages, so that they can communicate effectively with other races while shapechanged.
*NOTE*: In accordance to OF Rules and Guidelines, the Devidians are not a playable character.
Reference(s)
- Bridges, Bill, et al. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 5: Aliens, Decipher, 2003. ISBN: 1582369070.