Zaranite
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Zaranites come from Zaran II, the second of five worlds orbiting Zeb, a bright, orange, subdwarf star (Type K4 VI). The planet possess a thin, oxygen-argon-fluorine atmosphere, and a cold desert environment of metallic sands.
Personality
Zaranites are gregarious and engaging by nature. Other species fascinate them, and they enjoy spending time with outsiders. They like to hear different perspectives, delighting in philosophical conversations over a meal or debating future events. Zaranites often perform numerological readings for guests and friends, telling them about their past, present, or future.
Their obsession with numbers borders on superstition; Zaranites follow a complex numerology system of felicitous and infelicitous numbers. It can be impossible to get a Zaranite to board a starship with an "infelicitous" registry number, and they usually insist on departing on particular days and at specific times.
Physiology
Standing approximatly 1.8 meters tall, Zaranites are physically non-threatening. However, their distinctive dress and environment masks, covering their eyes, nose, and mouth, help them stand out in a crowd. Zaranites find the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere common to most humanoids to be poisonous. They traditionally wear flowing beige robes that reveal only their bald plates.
Evolving on a dim world gives Zaranites very sensitive eyes, although they lack fine color judgment and discrimination. Most Zaranites wear polarized lenses as part of their breathing masks, because the light common to other species' homeworlds is brighter than usual for them. A Zaranite in normal lighting, without eye protection, is disoriented and suffers from acute pain.
Zaranite spatial sense is noteworthy. Perhaps relating to their brains' ability to process complex information in large quantities, Zaranites naturally experience their environments as a melange of precise sensory data. Instead of focusing on a given sense for input, the Zaranite mind uses each sense to complement the others in determining location, direction, motion, and other properties. Even with their relatively weak sight, Zaranites have a good sense of pressure and mass. This means that, while a typical Zaranite can't read the writing on a wall ten meters away, he's keenly aware of the location and speed of a hostile adversary charging from the side. The change in atmospheric pressure, as well as the motion of magnetic and electrical fields, likewise, is acutely noticeable to a Zaranite.
History
Like the Capellans, the Federation first contacted the Zaranites to negotiate a treaty to mine their rich dilithium deposits. Also as with the Capellans, the Klingons were also interested in mining the planet.
When both parties arrived, it quickly became apparent that the Zaranites were expecting them, even to the point of greeting each side's representative where they materialized. The Zaranite leader quickly settled on a deal with the Federation commissioner after predicting that the Federation would win their conflict with the Klingon Empire, and the two sides would eventually become allies. The Klingon operative attempted to assassinate the Tattawanika later in the day, but was foiled by the Starfleet officers present (also predicted by Zaranite mystics). Afterwards, the Zaranites requested, and received, protective status from the Federation Council. They later joined the Federation as full members.
Society and "Psychohistory"
Led by a mysterious religious figure known as the Tattawanika, the Zaranites practice a little understood science called psychohistory, in which all experiences, events and even personalities can be represented by numbers. By graphing the numbers of any system, patterns emerge - sunspot activity, the rise and fall of rivers, and most intriguingly, sapient behavior. Identifying these patterns, the Zaranties are able to foretell the future, uncover facts from the past, or gain insight into the present. They do not attempt to alter these patterns, however, preferring to let nature take its course. Since their introduction to interstellar relations, Zaranites have accurately predicted the expansion of the Beta Antigula star, the end of Klingon-Federation hostilities, and the emergence of a proto-star in sector 218.
Zaranites employ this science like a mystical religion. To them, the Tattawanika is a divine being who understands the fundamental structure of the universe, and so is the best to guide their species through history. Entire monasteries are given over to this predictive science, where clerics formulate mathematical equations by which to understand specific events. When the current Tattawanika dies, a search is conducted to find his replacement. Employing complex equations, a commission of mystics and number theorists pinpoint the identity and location of their next leader.
Generally, Zaranite society is peaceful. There are no wars recorded in their history, though, curiously, they possess countless alternate histories in their libraries, the result of various psychohistorical equations.
Zaranites speak t'titachaka's, a language composed of high-pitched, rapid clicks and trills. Zaranite names are unpronounceable by other species. They often choose mathematical symbols as their names when dealing with other species.
Reference(s)
- Bridges, Bill, et al. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 5: Aliens, Decipher, 2003. ISBN: 1582369070.