The Founders (not them, the other guys)

flash525 · October 2012

The humanoid aliens from TNG: The Chase ~ the same ones that are appearing throughout a number of STO episodes. Was thinking about them earlier, about their 'seeding the galaxy' as they'd not found any other life. That got me thinking about life that would / could have been around.

Obviously these Preservers were the only humanoid species, yet this doesn't discount the Tholian Assembly from still being around back then (assuming they had evolved by that point). The same would go for the Xindi Aquatics (and Insectiods actually). Though the five (or six) Xindi species are all suppose to share some genetics; doesn't quite work out with what we're told about these preservers.

Anyway, getting to the question. These preservers couldn't have been the only species around back then, and I doubt they were responsible for the birth of various insectoid, and reptillian species in addition to the Tholians. Could they have been around at the time of the Iconian; maybe even the Hur'q?

fourthofeleven · October 2012

If the Chase humanoids seeded the first life on Earth, then that means they were active several billion years ago, which long pre-dates any other ancient species. The Hur'q were raiding the Klingon homeworld barely a thousand years ago, Iconia fell a few hundred thousand years ago, even the T'Kon were barely a million years old.

On the other hand, if the humanoids are the same as the Preservers in TOS's "Paradise Syndrome" - and the in-game obelisks are clearly inspired by the Preserver obelisk in that episode, then they were still active only a few hundred years ago, which means they could have interacted with any of the modern species...

For non-humanoid species - there's the Changelings, of course. The Sheliak. Possibly the various non-corporeal life-forms encountered, like the Organians - they assumed humanoid form, but that was probably just to avoid attention, and wasn't necessarily their original appearance.

hevach · October 2012

On the other hand, if the humanoids are the same as the Preservers in TOS's "Paradise Syndrome" - and the in-game obelisks are clearly inspired by the Preserver obelisk in that episode, then they were still active only a few hundred years ago, which means they could have interacted with any of the modern species...

The writer's intent was that they were the same race (STO's gone with that), but they left explicit mention out of the show, and the end result is that it wasn't entirely clear they are the same, since the Preservers were doing a different thing than the aliens in The Chase - those aliens guided evolution, the Preservers prevented dying cultures from disappearing. Arguably they're compatible goals - they seem to have a benevolent view of their creations and it'd be understandable if they wouldn't want to see them disappear, even if it's only by blending with another group of the same species.

As to non humanoid races, even most of them show signs that they may have been partially manipulated to the same goal, or in the case of the Xindi possibly byproducts of the intended manipulations. The Xindi aquatics and insectoids are farther removed from the normal mold than usual, but they're still approximately humanoid. Presumably the avians were as well, though we only know what their head looks like (one of the fan theories on them is that the Preservers had tried to save them, hence the off-world ruins that should have been impossible).

Tholians and even the Undine are roughly humanoid from the waist up. However, the Sheliak are blobs with a roughly defined head but no clearly distinct limbs, and Horta are limbless invertebrates.

centersolace · October 2012

Don't forget, who built the Guardian of Forever?

hfmudd · October 2012

A while back, when I was thinking of writing a Foundry mission (I've since decided to leave that to better hands than I), I did some research on this matter. Let me try to flesh out my notes a bit:

Sargon's people, who were originally humanoid, flourished some 600 thousand years ago, contemporary with the T'kon Empire. (The Iconians were 200 thousand years ago - possibly the "next wave" to arise?)
500 thousand years ago, they destroyed themselves in a civil war, burning off their homeworld's atmosphere. Peter A. David claimed that both this and the fate of the T'kon was the result of meddling godlike beings: Sargon's people were incited to war by the entity from "Day of the Dove", while the T'Kon were being "tested" by the Q later known as "0". Actually, 0 cheated and stacked the deck against them, and destroyed them out of pique when they were about to succeed (despite his meddling) in swapping their dying sun for a new one - this got him banished beyond the Galactic rim.

At the time of their destruction, Sargon's species was on the cusp of becoming fully non-corporeal; they still require material vessels (containment orbs, humanoid or android bodies, starships, etc).

fourthofeleven · October 2012

One other bit of background - the animated episode "The Slaver Weapon" was an adaptation of one of Larry Niven's "Known Space" stories, and brought some elements of that setting into the Trek universe. In Niven's setting, several billion years ago the galaxy was dominated by the 'Slavers', a powerful race of telepaths who mentally enslaved all other lifeforms. Eventually, one of their slave races managed to rebel against them, and the Slavers, rather than face defeat, used their powers to make every sapient lifeform in the galaxy commit suicide.

In the Trek universe, this could explain why the ancient humanoids were apparently the only intelligent life in their era - they could have been the first race to evolve after the Slavers wiped out all life, or had been somehow protected from the telepathic attack.

The Slavers themselves were humanoid, in that they were bipeds with two arms, but other than that didn't look much like humans; certainly a lot less than the hundreds of species all but identical to humans in the modern Trek universe.

hydaspes · October 2012

It was never suggested the Preservers (or Progenotors, or Seeders) were the first intelligent life in the universe. They came from the rimward end of the Orion arm, found themselves alone, at least there, and spread life in the Milky Way Galaxy.

There was certainly more intelligent life when they lived, there were threaths from at least one other galaxy, this is why the Preservers/Progenitors/Seeders placed the Aegis barrier around our galaxy (at least, that is one version). No small feat I would say.

So maybe other lifeforms originated from outside our galaxy, or they evolved less than the odd 2 billion years ago independently.

Most about them can be found on Memory Beta (of course) http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Preserver_(race)

In fact, the Preservers apparently came after the 'Seeders', and wether these are the same species is unknown. The Seeders seeded life, the Preservers preserve it. The Seeders might not even have been humanoid, and they might have created the Preservers and died out a long time ago. The Preservers have been active up to 18.000 BC, popping up in history to interfere with events that threathened humanoid species. It seems (with what STO added to this) that the Preservers exist in cryogenic sleep in several locations, being awoken by certain events, and dissapearing again into cryogenic sleep after they have corrected matters.

Speaking for the Deferi

, we believe the Preservers guard the development of humanoid species for a reason, that there is a master plan or destination, set many millions of years ago, a path the evolution is meant to lead to. The Preservers were introduced to safeguard that plan, something that was neccesary once the Seeders found out there was interference from species outside our Galaxy (and outside their plans or influence). But that is not even non-canon lore anymore :-)

mithril2098 · October 2012

fourthofeleven wrote: »

One other bit of background - the animated episode "The Slaver Weapon" was an adaptation of one of Larry Niven's "Known Space" stories, and brought some elements of that setting into the Trek universe. In Niven's setting, several billion years ago the galaxy was dominated by the 'Slavers', a powerful race of telepaths who mentally enslaved all other lifeforms. Eventually, one of their slave races managed to rebel against them, and the Slavers, rather than face defeat, used their powers to make every sapient lifeform in the galaxy commit suicide.

In the Trek universe, this could explain why the ancient humanoids were apparently the only intelligent life in their era - they could have been the first race to evolve after the Slavers wiped out all life, or had been somehow protected from the telepathic attack.

The Slavers themselves were humanoid, in that they were bipeds with two arms, but other than that didn't look much like humans; certainly a lot less than the hundreds of species all but identical to humans in the modern Trek universe.

a bit more background. in the Known Space setting, the Thrintum (the slavers) cultivated strains of a yeast like microbial life on 'food worlds', which they used to make a cheap food, and later to feed their food animals once the 'yeast' mutated to the point of being useless as food itself.
the Thrint wound up fighting one of their slave species, the Tnuctipun. at the end of the war, the Thrint built a weapon to amplify their psychic power, and they ordered all sentient life in the galaxy to die. the only ones that survived were those in time-stassis fields, were immune to psionics, or were too stupid to understand the order.
after wards all the food planets went on to evolve higher life, explaining why nearly all life forms in the known space setting are biochemically compatible.

of course, this background doesn't really apply to trek, since it wasn't all mentioned in the TAS episode.

i don't know if the premise of the known space story could be kept, though it could work as long as the Thrint died off a few million years before the ancestral humanoids became sentient.. that would also give them plenty of planets with primordial life for the ancestral humanoids to seed with the triggers for humanoid life.

on another 'ancient cultures' note, you have the star trek novels, which are always more willing to explore exotic ideas due to the fact you don't have to deal with a budget. in The Buried age, you find out that 250+ million years ago there was a massive multiracial alliance that was nearly galaxy wide and incredibly advanced, built by a race of 'living universal translators' and diplomats. that same race also caused the downfall of said civilization, by building a device to bridge the gap between our plane of existance and the ones inhabited by beings such as the Q.. while intended to just open communication, it caused all sentient life not protected by time-stopping fields to ascend to these higher planes against their will. which basically depopulated the entire galaxy. caused a lot of stellar disasters too, since the society did a lot of stellar engineering (they were close to being a kardashev Type 3 society).

a great book, lots of cool stuff. the author also posted his Annotations online, with notes on what each of the references were and why he did certain parts the way he did.

The Founders (not them, the other guys)

Comments