Three of What? [Iconians]

flash525 · May 2015

Unless I am mistaken, we've met three individual Iconians; M'tara, T'ket and I swear we've encountered a third, but I don't know the name. Anyone?

Either way, we've never fought an army of them, instead we're left to content with the Heralds. I'm starting to believe that the Iconians behind all of this are very few in number, maybe even a family that escaped the defeat of their species all those years ago.

This then leads to the question; how many Iconians are there?

thay8472 · May 2015

The blue one with the signle head piece we've only seen in the loading screens.

The others are sitting in their sphere going..

Blue Iconian "Lol T'ket lost her arm."
Purple Iconian T'ket... wtf?
Teal Iconian Should of moved noob.
Yellow Iconian Pick up the sword!
Deepskyblue Iconian LOL!
Pink Iconian Don't even ask.

risian4 · May 2015

There's at least 8 of them... according to certain sources.

I do hope there's more of them though. I never liked this 'the Iconians are few in number' since it basically came out of nowhere.
After 200.000 years there should be more of them. Unless they simply can't reproduce anymore, but that would be kinda strange for such an advanced species. Although it may explain what the Elachi are doing... they may be trying to find a way to turn other species into Iconians, just like they currently transform people into Elachi.

Could also explain the Solanae's research / medical experiments.

g0rb4g · May 2015

Well I don't think we've encountered a male Iconian yet, perhaps that's why their numbers are so low....

sennahcherib · May 2015

g0rb4g wrote: »

Well I don't think we've encountered a male Iconian yet, perhaps that's why their numbers are so low....

iconians are maybe hermaphrodite

flash525 · May 2015

risian4 wrote: »

There's at least 8 of them... according to certain sources.

Are they official sources though, or mere speculation?

risian4 wrote: »

I do hope there's more of them though. I never liked this 'the Iconians are few in number' since it basically came out of nowhere. After 200.000 years there should be more of them. Unless they simply can't reproduce anymore, but that would be kinda strange for such an advanced species.

Ever since we saw them in the game, I've always concluded that they're wearing suits. Their whole look seems a tad too metallic in nature, and they've always got this glowiness surrounding them. Maybe they aren't capable of reproduction? Maybe they never have been? Maybe they achieved a point in their evolution by which they created (technologically) their offspring, and said technology was lost when Iconia was bombarded?

artan42 · May 2015

g0rb4g wrote: »

Well I don't think we've encountered a male Iconian yet, perhaps that's why their numbers are so low....

The armless one sounded more male than the gloating one.

g0rb4g · May 2015

sennahcherib wrote: »

iconians are maybe hermaphrodite

I suppose it's possible, I was just going off of the fact that all the ones we've so far encountered have been referred to as "she" (as far as I can remember anyway).

thay8472 · May 2015

artan42 wrote: »

The armless one sounded more male than the gloating one.

Be'lar referred to that one as female.

artan42 · May 2015

thay8472 wrote: »

Be'lar referred to that one as female.

How does she know? I don't think and of the Iconians or their servitors have mentioned their sexes, except for the Preserver referring to M'Tra as 'daughter'. For all we (and Be'lar) know they may all look female and only their voices are different, or their colours or something.

mirrorchaos · May 2015

you got m'tara and t'ket, they are the only two shown so far as far as offical sto canon is confirmed, anything else at this time is speculation until its released on the game.

bernatk · May 2015

Pretty sure they don't need 2 genders to reproduce. Even now we lowly hu-mans (compared to them) are on the verge of genetic engineering each other.

(tho I wouldn't mind seeing those iconians copulate...)

meimeitoo · May 2015

Yeserday it suddenly hit me: the Iconians remind me of the Taelons, in Earth: Final Conflict. Especially when that Preserver said something like "Then make a different choice, my daughter." It recalled to memory the relationship between Zo'or and Da'an (mother of Zo'or). The Taelons are infertile too, btw (it was presumed, in this thread, the Iconians are too).

fiberteksyfir · May 2015

artan42 wrote: »

How does she know? I don't think and of the Iconians or their servitors have mentioned their sexes, except for the Preserver referring to M'Tra as 'daughter'. For all we (and Be'lar) know they may all look female and only their voices are different, or their colours or something.

Well.. Given be'lar's preference.. Maybe she snuck a look?

nadiezja · May 2015

Was the one who wiped out the High Council a different one than M'tara and T'ket? I could have sworn that one had both a different design than them and a male voice...

mirrorchaos · May 2015

nadiezja wrote: »

Was the one who wiped out the High Council a different one than M'tara and T'ket? I could have sworn that one had both a different design than them and a male voice...

http://sto.gamepedia.com/M'Tara

nadiezja · May 2015

Must've been the lighting in the Council chamber or something, then. Because I could have sworn the Iconian who killed the Council had different coloration than the one who attacked New Romulus and killed the Preserver.

Or maybe I'm just insane. That's another possibility.

drreverend · May 2015

meimeitoo wrote: »

Yeserday it suddenly hit me: the Iconians remind me of the Taelons, in Earth: Final Conflict. Especially when that Preserver said something like "Then make a different choice, my daughter." It recalled to memory the relationship between Zo'or and Da'an (mother of Zo'or). The Taelons are infertile too, btw (it was presumed, in this thread, the Iconians are too).

That's my reading on them. Iconians aren't even organic anymore, or are some sort of weird energy-matter hybrid, and can no longer reproduce. Maybe the energies that sustain them are finite or can't be divided, or maybe they're too individualistic to share. Heck, maybe these small number of Iconians are all that left because they fought among themselves for millennia and the others died in the fighting.

Or even maybe there are other Iconians in the Andromeda Galaxy who don't agree with the agenda of these eight and haven't committed their resources to the fight. A renegade Iconian would be a formidable ally.

What will be interesting is if Iconians can heal. T'Ket lost an arm in that fight, and it's possible she may not be able to grow it back or have it replaced. While we puny sacks of meat and water are, ultimately, biological machines and can be repaired with cloned organs, grafts and cybernetics, Iconians may not be so resilient.

Of course, my solution to the presence of an Iconian would be firing the ship's main guns on their position. A few gigatons of antimatter explosives will kill just about anything.

duncanidaho11 · May 2015

bernatk wrote: »

Pretty sure they don't need 2 genders to reproduce. Even now we lowly hu-mans (compared to them) are on the verge of genetic engineering each other.

(tho I wouldn't mind seeing those iconians copulate...)

So why do the Herald all look visibly male? If they're a closely related species then they'll most likely exhibit the same kinds of secondary characteristics (particularly given that those are invariant between unrelated star trek species. Blame the preservers.)

They don't.

If on the other hand they're males/drones in the eusocial iconian hive structure, the binary difference between them makes quite a lot of sense (especially if each receives gender specific technological and biological augmentation to fit them into their roles in iconian society. Males become subservient ground troops. Females become ruling space demons [and all you need to account for the difference in numbers is either high pre-zygotic or post-zygotic selection. Ie fewer are produced or surplus are killed off.].)

This opens up an interesting possibility in iconian society, maybe what we're seeing is just the output of the augmentation process which happens AFTER initial growth and reproduction. IE. Iconian society is structured around protecting a core group of "normal" iconians with very specifically modified servents. The "iconians" we see are just the ruling class designed to preside over the herald and other species. The herald is the bulk of their military power. That leaves the rest to live in a na

rangerryu · May 2015

nadiezja wrote: »

Must've been the lighting in the Council chamber or something, then. Because I could have sworn the Iconian who killed the Council had different coloration than the one who attacked New Romulus and killed the Preserver.

Or maybe I'm just insane. That's another possibility.

They changed the colour of M'tara after the episode came out,not sure exactly when they changed it but they changed it. The one on New Romulus however was T'ket but M'tara turned up at the Perserver Archive.

flash525 · June 2015

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

So why do the Herald all look visibly male? If they're a closely related species then they'll most likely exhibit the same kinds of secondary characteristics (particularly given that those are invariant between unrelated star trek species. Blame the preservers.)

Do they? What basis are we using to define Male?

arachnaas · June 2015

Could always ask the Q to see if they can make more Iconians. As I remember from some previous comments, the Q were fond of them.

Have Q turn lifetime characters into Iconians if people want. Sure you lose a lot of wardrobe options, but they are really snazzy looking.

demonicaesthetic · June 2015

risian4 wrote: »

There's at least 8 of them... according to certain sources.

I do hope there's more of them though. I never liked this 'the Iconians are few in number' since it basically came out of nowhere.
After 200.000 years there should be more of them. Unless they simply can't reproduce anymore, but that would be kinda strange for such an advanced species. Although it may explain what the Elachi are doing... they may be trying to find a way to turn other species into Iconians, just like they currently transform people into Elachi.

Could also explain the Solanae's research / medical experiments.

WHY would a sentient creature capable of living for 250,000 years, and presumably, to all intents and purposes, immortal...

WHY would it WANT to reproduce?

Offspring are continuity for mortal species, you have kids to take over when you die, run the family business, continue the blood feud with the degenerates on the wrong side of the river, etc.

Immortals don't have kids, they don't need more competitors looking to promote themselves into "dead men's shoes" by emptying said shoes first.

Small numbers fits the model perfectly, it's even probable that Iconians, whle willing to cooperate with each other, would quite happily watch a rivals downfall, if it could be arranged so as not to threaten the Master Plan...

"Aww poor Tket... Lost an arm... Shame that mortal with the sharp metal wasn't better, we leaked the intel data to his species for nothing, ah well, better luck next time..."

Three of What? [Iconians]

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