Iyaaran
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The Iyaarans come from Iyaar in the system of the same name within Federation space. The most notable feature of Iyaaran physiology is their asexuality; all Iyaarans resemble human males in build and facial features. They lack reproductive organs, instead propagating through a process known as postcellular compounding. A parent releases a "natal pod" into a freshwater vat, where it remains for ten months. There is slowly absorbs nutrients and organic material from the water as the fetal Iyaaran develops. The infant emerges fully grown, as a nearly exact copy of the parent, though emotionally an infant. Teachers then educate the "child" to serve a predetermined function in Iyaaran society.
Another curious facet of Iyaaran biology is their complete lack of emotions. They do not understand the concepts of love, pleasure, anger, hatred, and the like. Even the bond between parent and offspring remains mysterious to them. The experiences of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D - in which Iyaaran ambassadors attempted to experience aggression, pleasure, and love - suggest Iyaarans are capable of sharing these concepts; they can "act" angry, pleased, or affectionate, but have yet genuinely to experience these emotions. Federation exosociologists believe the areas of the Iyaaran brain that govern emotions atrophied over centuries of disuse.
While Iyaarans do not experience emotions as other species do, this does not make them perfectly moral beings. Taking efficiency to its logical extreme, they subscribe to the concept of the "ends justifying the means." If an action can be justified as practical and necessary, an Iyaaran will pursue it. In an effort to understand love, Iyaarans had no moral qualms about kidnapping Captain Jean-Luc Picard and subjecting him to an elaborate deception, for example; indeed, they did not understand why their actions were wrong.
Iyaarans possess a prominent bone ridge along the skull's frontal lobe, and possess physical and mental abilities in the human-Klingon range. Iyaarans do not exhibit psionic abilities.
Reference(s)
- Cambias, James, et al. Planets of the UFP: A Guide to Federation Worlds, Last Unicorn Games, 1999. ISBN: 0671040065.