Kelvan
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The Kelvans are a bizarre species hailing from the planet Kelva, in the Andromeda Galaxy. The planet is an immense Class J gas giant, and the center of an enormous empire two million light years from the Milky Way.
Personality
Kelvans in their natural form have no emotions, and can thus seem coldly pragmatic, or even unthinkingly cruel and callous, to other beings. Kelvans evaluate problems and stimuli based on immediately available non-physical information, which their brains process in parallel to remove perceptual biases.
Products of an entirely alien evolutionary and cultural path, the Kelvans can barely be comprehended by psionic beings from the Milky Way Galaxy.
Physiology
Kelvans are enormous balloon-like creatures composed of gas, protoplasm, and mental force. They have hundreds of long tentacles radiating from their saucer-shaped bodies, but no tactile perceptions.
They are amorphous, but cannot squeeze through narrow openings, of course, given their immense size.
History and Culture
The Kelvans believe in conquest as the only rational goal for any species, to expand its available environment by any means necessary. Without emotions, the Kelvans behave quite logically to subjugate other species and, if possible, exploit them to Kelvan benefit. If a species is more trouble than the Kelvans think they are worth, then they will be exterminated. Over the millennia, the Kelvans have built a large, efficient empire covering most of the usable Andromeda Galaxy. Unfortunately, radiation levels in Andromeda are rising (possibly due to chain reactions of supernovae in the galactic core), and within ten thousand years, the Kelvan Empire must expand to other galaxies or die out.
Kelvan technology is only surpassed by the godlike beings such as the Q Continuum. Kelvan devices exist that can immediately translate a humanoid into a small crystalline polyhedron. Other Kelvan technologies include superdense alloys far beyond even Federation chemical theories, powerful psionic devices, self-contained monitor systems that make up for the limited Kelvan senses, and spaceships capable of traveling millions of light-years in only centuries. Kelvans do, however, remain dependent on technology, and their scouts are very adept at upgrading primitive technologies or biologies for Kelvan purposes.
Kelvan names exist as multivariate polynomials expressed in a stochastic storm of psychic impressions. When taking lower forms, they adapt any pleasing set of syllables that seems natural for the given vocal apparatus.
Kelvans have the technology to transfer their life essence into other forms; a ship may encounter Kelvan "Romulans", "Klingons", "Borg," or any other species in the galaxy. These forms have only their native lifespans, rather than the centuries-long spans of pure Kelvans. Kelvan scouts in the Federation assumed human form, and colonized an empty world in Federation space in 2268 after discovering that they could not control their new human reactions, emotions, and sensations.
Such "assimilated Kelvans" have the characteristics of their chosen form, rather than those of pure Kelvans, although they remain extraordinarily formidable on psionic planes of thought and experience. Their reaction to being essentially "trapped" in lower, embodied forms may vary widely, from determination to adjustment, to psychopathic plans for technological superweapons and galactic conquest. If the Kelvan Empire sends another wave of scouts, they may have improved their life-essence transfer devices to prevent such "assimilation" to lower bodily forms. Such Kelvan infiltrators could present a danger far more serious than the changeling conspiracy during the Dominion War.
Reference(s)
- Bridges, Bill, et al. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 5: Aliens, Decipher, 2003. ISBN: 1582369070.