Scalos
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**NOTE: SCALOS IS UNDER UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS QUARANTINE.**
One of the great natural tragedies of the galaxy, the planet Scalos stands as a testament both to the cruelty of fate and to the lengths a desperate people will go to survive. Scalos remains one of the few worlds within Federation borders under full quarantine.
In the 22nd century, the Scalos civilization was both alive, vibrant and existing in normal time. They were a peaceful people with significant cryogenic and medical technology, and considerable mineral resources. After volcanic rifts released poisoning radiation into Scalos’ water supply in the 23rd century, Scalos became a ghost world from the point of view of travelers. Their driving need to perpetuate their species in their hyper-accelerated state made Scalos a menace to any starship that got close enough. During the 24th century, Scalos is a quarantined and dead world. The known properties of Scalosian water makes even archeological missions to the world too dangerous to be sanctioned. And, of course, there are rumors of Scalosian survivors stealing away starships even to that day. While the dangers of the Scalosian environment remain unabated, the Dominion War is a powerful motivator. Starfleet Intelligence (or maybe Section 31) might well send operatives to Scalos, to develop military uses of Scalosian hyperacceleration. Of course, a race as versed in cryogenics as the Scalosians might have a few surprises waiting even after all those years…
Scalos is the fourth planet of twelve orbiting an orange star in the Mutara Sector. Scalos’s presence continues to make the Mutara sector restricted to casual travel.
Climate
Scalos is a moderately warm world, following the tremendous planet-wide volcanic activity which poisoned the Scalosian biosphere. Among many other poisons, the volcanoes released tremendous greenhouse gases, drastically changing the ecology over the time since the disaster. This has caused the extinction of thousands of plant species on Scalos. More tragically, all of the animal and insect life on Scalos has died out, victim to the same tragedy that affected the Scalosian people.
Once, Scalos was a moderately normal Class M world, 60% water, with five continents. Most of the land area was temperate, with some tropical and rainforest areas. However, a shift in the planet’s mantle caused a large number of volcanic eruptions worldwide. The disaster changed the climate considerably, and released an otherwise unknown type of radiation that polluted the planet’s water supply. All water on the planet now contains radioactive factors that cause what the Scalosians termed hyperacceleration. Victims literally are accelerated beyond the frame of reference of normal observers, becoming an incoherent buzz at best. The victim’s metabolic rate is altered so radically that they literally enter a new frame of reference, where normal people appear to be statues, and even a phaser beam seems to slowly creep through the air, easily avoided. During this time, victims of hyperacceleration can perform time consuming tasks in a literal blink of an eye. The approximate ratio of the frames of reference is one normal second to one hyperaccelerated hour.
Note that normal individuals subjected to hyperacceleration have very short lifespans, as their cellular structure is burned out by the increased metabolism. The effect also makes hyperaccelerated victims highly vulnerable to injury. Receiving the antidote to the hyperacceleration developed by the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise will stop this degeneration immediately, allowing someone to recover as normal from fatigue.
Note that the Scalosians have developed a form of disruptor which operates in their frame of reference. This disruptor’s stun setting does not cause the cellular degeneration, and is used to subdue hyperaccelerated outsiders without killing them.
The Scalosians themselves have adapted to their environment, and do not suffer degenerative effects to combat. However, they have suffered a cruel fate of their own. The radiation has made Scalosian females highly fertile, allowing them to give birth to multiple offspring and easily mate with other species… but Scalosian males are completely sterile. Outsiders who are hyperaccelerated are unaffected, making them highly valuable.
Geography
The volcanic activity that doomed the Scalosian race has also made the terrain worldwide on Scalos rough and mountainous. Many Scalosian cities and settlements were destroyed by this activity, but the hyperaccelerated state of the Scalosians allowed them to rebuild considerably. The critical damage done to their biosphere by the destruction of their native fauna was harder to recover from. To this day, huge domed agricultural centers can be seen, with rapid growing crops and fungi becoming the staple of their diet.
Civilization
The Scalosian civilization was a democratic system for generations before the disaster. However, as the acceleration took effect and the Scalosian males became infertile, the Scalosian women assumed the burdens both of perpetuating society and of governing it. A matriarchal monarchy was established, with centralized authority coordinating the trapping of new breeding stock for later Scalosian generations.
The Scalosians were experts in medicine and medical techniques, represented in particular by their remarkable life support technology served to perpetuate the Scalosian race. Scalosians took to using distress calls to lure starships close to their world. They then would adapt the starship’s life support system to place the crew into cryogenic suspension, releasing alien males slowly and mating with them as long as they survived the hyperacceleration. In this way, through strict genetic screening and controls, their society was able to be perpetuated for a time. Naturally, there was only so long the Scalosians could lure starships into their trap before being caught, but with a full year of Scalosian time passing in just 2.4 hours of normal time, their society could continue their ways for many generations before the normal universe caught on.
History
Once, Scalos was a peaceful world, devoted to the life sciences, genetics and the improvement of life. A long tradition of pacifism and coexistence was established, and gentle philosophers and scientists lived among artists and poets. It was an idyllic society, with a driving imperative to survive and better themselves through personal and technological development.
In 2268, all of that changed. Massive volcanic eruptions rocked Scalos, changing the environment and poisoning the water supply with an unknown form of radiation. The Scalosians found themselves accelerated beyond all possible belief. Within scant days, decades had passed, and the Scalosian people had been forced to adapt to their new situation. Orbiting starships from several worlds were captured and used as cryogenic storage, with men of different races being released and accelerated (comparatively) slowly. Each captured man became the father of hundreds of children, thanks to sperm collection and storage. However, time was no longer the friend of the Scalosians, who despite their women’s fertility could scarcely keep ahead of the trials. The ships in orbit, carefully managed, yielded breeding stock for hundreds of Scalosian years and dozens of generations. However, eventually they ran out — eventually being less than forty days from the initial destruction, by the universe’s reckoning. To continue perpetuating their species, the Scalosians took to sending out distress calls and luring rescue ships in. These ships would then be captured as the originals had been, their men carefully rationed to ensure the survival of Scalos. This process was made easier by Scalos’s reputation for peace and tranquility. While the pacifistic society that the galaxy knew had been gone for a hundred generations or more, no one knew that when they received the call.
Sixty-four days after the accident, the U.S.S. Enterprise, under the command of James T. Kirk, responded to this beacon. Kirk and several members of his crew were dosed with the Scalosian water and hyperaccelerated, while the Scalosians adapted the Enterprise’s life support to put the crew into cryogenic suspension. Captain Kirk, along with the hyperaccelerated Commander Spock, managed to thwart the Scalosians’ plans. The Enterprise crew developed an antidote to the hyperacceleration, which allowed most of the accelerated crewmembers to be safely returned to normal. The Enterprise then informed Starfleet of the Scalosians’ real intentions, and a planetary quarantine was put into effect on Scalos, with the Scalosians returned to their world to live out their lives.
This, of course, was a death sentence to the Scalosian race, who were unaffected by the antidote. Even if Starfleet had interceded, no aid or research would reach Scalos within the four to six days it would take for every Scalosian to die of old age. Scalos remained a quarantined, abandoned world after this.
Or so it is assumed. After all, the Scalosians are masters of cryogenic technology. Who is to say that an automated cryogenic facility does not hold the Scalosians in suspended animation, waiting for a landing party or away team to come to their world once more. One day, healthy stock will return to Scalos, after all, and the Scalosians can emerge from suspended animation… and ensure their race’s survival for at least another day.
Places of Interest
Truth be told, there is nothing on Scalos as interesting as the lakes and waters of their world. Starfleet’s quarantine keeps away any who might try and abuse Scalos’s unique properties, and the nature of those properties are kept classified. Of course, for some, a mystery exists only to be solved…
Reference(s)
- Burns, Eric, Kenneth A. Hite & Doug Sun. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 7: Worlds, Decipher, 2005. ISBN: 1582369097.