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==Notes==
==Notes==
* The following subsections are from S. John Ross' incomplete and unpublished work for Last Unicorn Games' ''Final Frontiers'', their intended film-era sourcebook.<ref name=Untaken>[http://web.archive.org/web/20061015191803/http://www.io.com/~sjohn/deltans.htm Untaken Treks: The Deltans]</ref>
* The following subsections are from S. John Ross' incomplete and unpublished work for Last Unicorn Games' ''Final Frontiers'', their intended film-era sourcebook.<ref name=Untaken>[http://web.archive.org/web/20061015191713/http://www.io.com/~sjohn/regulans.htm Untaken Treks: The Regulans]</ref>


===Homeworld===
===Homeworld===


Visitors from earth typically describe planet Delta IV as "Mediterranean." Breezy and warm through much of the year, Delta IV gives the impression of being almost entirely balmy, rocky coastline; that's where all the cities are. Thousands of incredibly tall, and mercifully dormant, volcanoes provide a craggy and dramatic backdrop into which the swollen red sun can set. The air is heady with spices and the sharp musk of the sea. The greatest hazard on Delta IV is untamed nature – powerful monsoons and hurricanes occasionally threaten even modern cities like Antos and Tosém, and the Deltan Ribbon Snake and Yellow Tree-Cat are still responsible for dozens of deaths every year. Deadly and beautiful, Delta IV is among the most unusual planets of the Federation.
Regula II ("Dralaph" in the native shanifir tongue) is a heavily-forested world with several dozen small continents and thousands of large islands. The climate is on the cooler edge of temperate; the equatorial regions straddle the line between subtropical and tropical conditions. Nearly every island on Regula II is inhabited, and the world features many fine cities and excellent starport facilities.
 
While unquestionably the Regulan homeworld, Dralaph is only one of more than a dozen long-settled Regulan worlds, clustered across seven sectors of Federation space.


===History===
===History===


Deltans are one of the very few Federation members with no wars in the whole of their species' history. Prior to becoming a spacefaring race in the early 1800's, the history of the Deltans is a languorous, heady cycle of art, philosophy, romance, and Eros. While other worlds advanced in leaps and strides in the heat of conflict, the Deltans advanced gradually, pleasantly, in the warmth of intimacy.
The felinoid Regulans were a sizeable interstellar culture for more than a century before the Federation made First Contact with them, having discovered warp travel at around the same time as humanity. Fourteen systems inhabited by Regulans were as populous as any of Earth's colonies at the time, and each sported a stable, global government. However, Regulan worlds lacked subspace radio. By necessity, each world was an independent entity, most of which fancied themselves the "new center" of Regulan culture and commerce. When the U.S.S. Pardalis first entered Regulan space in 2240, those worlds were locked in a vicious interstellar war.


So unprepared were they for the realities of other cultures, and so oblivious to the dramatic impact their powers of communication might have on sentients unfamiliar with them, the Deltans nearly destroyed themselves – and several other worlds – in the 20th century.
The bone of contention – at least at first – had been the highly limited supply of Regulan dilithium, but the war had sprouted tangles of racist and religious intolerance in that fertile soil. The Regulans – who pride themselves on their distaste for war – found that their distaste for each other was the more powerful force. The Regulans went to war as ashamed as they had been proud, and fought all the more bitterly.


In 1896, the first Deltan warp-vessels encountered the Ghanods, the nearest sentient neighbors to Delta IV. Humanoid, intelligent, and advanced, they seemed like good candidates for friends, and the Ghanods agreed. Trade relations began almost immediately; the two species shared a mutual fascination.
Armed to the teeth and sick with regret, the war had been driven by the petty hatreds of a few key leaders, but developed into an economic fact of life. After a few years, the Regulans had war and starvation as their only pastimes.


It was a romance not meant to be. The Deltans related to the Ghanods as they did to one another – with sexuality as a central component in adult communications. The Ghanods, unprepared for the intense and transforming experience of sexual "conversation" with the Deltans, fell head-over-heels, as it were, obsessed with the erotic wonder of Deltan social intercourse. They began worshipping the Deltans as gods, causing global schisms in their native, sexually-conservative religions. Centuries of Ghanodi repression popped a collective blood vessel, and an entire world went mad with lust and worship. Temples burned, and bacchanals were organized . . . but the Deltans were unwilling participants.
The arrival of the Federation proved a godsend. Although the Pardalis was crippled and ultimately destroyed by a nuclear warp-missile launched by an overzealous Regulan gunner, a core of survivors returned to the Federation with assurances that the missile had been fired despite orders. The initial truce found parties on all sides nervous, but eager to be friends.


The Deltans found themselves, in turn, adored, worshipped, and forcibly kidnapped. In a rage, the Ghanods went to war with one another, fighting over the limited supply of Deltan colonists, who were forced to flee into the wilderness, where they were hunted down.
A lot has been written in the decades that followed about the "Federation Effect" that brought peace to the Regulans, and resulted in the creation of the Regulan Trade Alliance less than three years after the loss of the Pardalis. But most now agree that the Regulans desperately wanted to break the cycle of war – they just lacked the focal event needed to bring them to the table. The Federation provided that, along with FTL radio technology, and enough economic incentives to encourage even the most prideful Regulan to stop shooting for a while to talk. Introduced to their many neighbors via the subspace waves, the Regulans set their talents to the long-term project of building what is now one of the most prosperous alliances within the larger umbrella of the UFP.
 
Leaving hundreds behind to live out their days pawed by maddened Ghanods, the Deltans had no choice but to retreat to their homeworld. With no warp-drive capability (the Ghanods had barely achieved space flight), their new worshippers could not follow.


===Culture===
===Culture===


The Deltans, almost as one mind, wept with horror and grief at the consequences of their contact with others, and foreswore all alien contact. The species suffered a global plague of desperate depression, with several pro-celibacy cults resulting in mass suicides, littering the pale beaches of Delta IV with the dead.
The dangerous racism of their interstellar war is happily abandoned, but the wide variety of coloration, fur type, and body-shape of the Regulan races is still the basis for hundreds of Regulan subcultures. The Regulans are sensualists in every sense, but they put particular store in their eyesight and sense of smell. Each shade of each color carries with it a set of connotations, and an innocently-chosen alien wardrobe might strike a Regulan as comical, absurd, or even mildly offensive, for reasons they're always willing to articulate. Regulans are critical of others, but equally so of themselves, and have surprisingly tolerant, gentle natures, considering their recent history.


The Federation made first contact with Delta IV in [[2262]], at a stage when the Deltans had healed the generations-old trauma of Ghanodi contact, and returned to a measure of cautious curiosity regarding other worlds. With much greater care, the Deltans agreed to come forward from their self-imposed exile...to shake hands.
Regulans prize physically creative artwork above the ephemeral. A Regulan might enjoy dancing as a kind of sport, for instance, but don't really regard it as art unless it makes something permanent that can be touched. Each of the Regulan allied worlds prides itself on local variants of the strovothra, a form of organic-matter sculpture meant to stimulate the nose as well as the eye. A 60-meter column of twisted fruit-bearing vines, bonded by damp clay, was erected as a centerpiece display at a Regulan exhibition in Paris, on Earth.


===Physiology and Psychology===
===Physiology and Psychology===


Deltans prize elegant communication above all else. Their ability to combine telepathic, chemical, and physical modes of communication creates an unparalleled canvas for the Deltan imagination. Their long struggle with the dangers of their natural surroundings, in turn, provides the tension lends Deltan art its genuine passion and range. The Deltans didn't avoid war because they're perfect pacifists – they avoided it by living on a world that supplies every material need in abundance while exposing them to constant mortal threat. Demand never exceeded supply, and there was always room, frequently at the expense of entire cities consumed by storms. "The lovely crucible" of Delta IV (as the 22nd century poet, Bondar, wrote) created a people who work hard to survive disaster, seeking beauty, peace, and pleasure any way they can.
The Regulans are felinoid bipeds with height and weight comparable to humans (some are slightly heavier). Their fur ranges from the short and glossy to the thick and shaggy, with any number of colors and patterns possible, organized by a bewildering variety of races and subspecies.


While Deltan literature, art, and theater (not to mention daily life) include sexuality as a constant theme, and the Deltans consider sex a normal part of any friendly adult relationship, it would be unfair to refer to them as sexually obsessed, in the way some other species can be. The Deltan emphasis on sexuality is proportionate to its physical necessity. Deltan females cannot conceive from a single intimate joining; they require dozens or even hundreds, with the same partner, over a course of years. The result, when combined with the Deltan potential for natural disaster, is a negligible population growth over the past several millennia. Only in recent centuries has technology permitted any real "explosion" in Deltan numbers.
Regulans are born as twins or triplets, a fixed number depending on subspecies (the female Regulans are either double- or triple-breasted, accordingly).


Fortunately, those Deltans who aren't burned, crushed, drowned or poisoned by the dangers of Delta IV can live for centuries, and Deltan children are almost always born to stable, loving couples with a long history – since short-term "marriages" never produce offspring. This contributes, certainly, to the placid nature of Deltan culture.
Regulans are moved by beauty, horrified by violence and anger, and wrestle constantly with their potential for each. On the whole, they are a peaceful people, who turn nasty only when their feelings are seriously wounded.


The Deltans communicate through skin-contact (including sexual intimacy) as easily as they do verbally. Some of the loftier Deltan concepts can apparently only be communicated when the contact is appropriately intense. This communication is both telepathic and chemical, and can include complex (if abstract) concepts and a bewildering range of emotional expressions, the latter mostly via pheromone exchange.
Regulans have blunt claws that can be sharpened as dangerous brawling weapons, but most Regulans find the practice abhorrent and repulsive. Regulan fur is highly sensitive to both touch and temperature, though the Regulans themselves are adaptable to a wide variety of climates.


Studies performed by the Deltan Academy of Communication have proven that Deltan methods of Sexual interplay – including both telepathic and chemical components – are to a limited degree learnable by sufficiently gifted members of other species. This has led to the Deltan assumption that they are simply more advanced, sexually, than other species, just as Tellarites are more advanced engineers.
===Noted Accomplishments===


Their willingness to make their advances available to the Federation is tempered by an almost phobic caution. The Deltans carefully evaluate and license each species they encounter as either "sufficiently advanced" or not, to join sexually with them. Some species – such as Humans, Centaurans and Vulcans – are regarded as primitive but with potential for safe exchange under controlled circumstances, and humans on Delta IV are sometimes invited to participate in communications experiments for the betterment of Federation unity. Other species (notably the Tellarites, Andorians, and Axanari) are fully licensed for relations with Deltans. Starfleet shares the Deltan concern and caution, and requires Deltan officers to file a species-specific celibacy oath when serving onboard starships.
Regulans have achieved minor celebrity in nearly every area of endeavor, from the artistic (shehi pleth's bio-sculptures are gawked-at and sniffed in every part of the quadrant) to the scientific (the Sethessa Project, for example, which advanced the programming of the modern Universal Translator to levels of accuracy undreamed of before Regulan science got hold of it). Their most valuable contributions to Starfleet have been in diplomacy; a well-motivated Regulan is capable of great tact and understanding, and their personal warmth provides a much-needed complement to the cool logic of the Vulcans, especially in the touchy conferences which follow First Contact with new species.


===Noted Accomplishments===
===Noted Characters===


Many combined Deltan-Tellarite engineering teams have advanced civil engineering by decades at a stroke – particularly those methods directly applicable to coastal "storm-proofing" of urban development.
* Pahtrek (2216-2270), linguist and programmer who spearheaded the Sethessa Project.  


===Noted Characters===
* R'moa, the celebrated head chef at the President's Mansion in Paris.


* Unuro, powerful telepathic teacher who has taught thousands of non-Deltans advanced techniques of his species' modes of communication.
* Vandor Shen, heroic commander of the U.S.S. Pardalis-A.
* Gaima Ina (2241-2272), a heroic Deltan colonist on Tranganea II, who saved thousands of lives – both Deltan and Klingon – when he sacrificed himself to appease a powerful alien entity later destroyed by the U.S.S. Eagle.


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 10:03, 26 May 2020

  • see The Federation (FASA), pp15-17 for detailed information on this specific planet/system

Homesystem of the Deltans of Delta IV.

Alt System name: Delta Principius

Notes

  • The following subsections are from S. John Ross' incomplete and unpublished work for Last Unicorn Games' Final Frontiers, their intended film-era sourcebook.[1]

Homeworld

Regula II ("Dralaph" in the native shanifir tongue) is a heavily-forested world with several dozen small continents and thousands of large islands. The climate is on the cooler edge of temperate; the equatorial regions straddle the line between subtropical and tropical conditions. Nearly every island on Regula II is inhabited, and the world features many fine cities and excellent starport facilities.

While unquestionably the Regulan homeworld, Dralaph is only one of more than a dozen long-settled Regulan worlds, clustered across seven sectors of Federation space.

History

The felinoid Regulans were a sizeable interstellar culture for more than a century before the Federation made First Contact with them, having discovered warp travel at around the same time as humanity. Fourteen systems inhabited by Regulans were as populous as any of Earth's colonies at the time, and each sported a stable, global government. However, Regulan worlds lacked subspace radio. By necessity, each world was an independent entity, most of which fancied themselves the "new center" of Regulan culture and commerce. When the U.S.S. Pardalis first entered Regulan space in 2240, those worlds were locked in a vicious interstellar war.

The bone of contention – at least at first – had been the highly limited supply of Regulan dilithium, but the war had sprouted tangles of racist and religious intolerance in that fertile soil. The Regulans – who pride themselves on their distaste for war – found that their distaste for each other was the more powerful force. The Regulans went to war as ashamed as they had been proud, and fought all the more bitterly.

Armed to the teeth and sick with regret, the war had been driven by the petty hatreds of a few key leaders, but developed into an economic fact of life. After a few years, the Regulans had war and starvation as their only pastimes.

The arrival of the Federation proved a godsend. Although the Pardalis was crippled and ultimately destroyed by a nuclear warp-missile launched by an overzealous Regulan gunner, a core of survivors returned to the Federation with assurances that the missile had been fired despite orders. The initial truce found parties on all sides nervous, but eager to be friends.

A lot has been written in the decades that followed about the "Federation Effect" that brought peace to the Regulans, and resulted in the creation of the Regulan Trade Alliance less than three years after the loss of the Pardalis. But most now agree that the Regulans desperately wanted to break the cycle of war – they just lacked the focal event needed to bring them to the table. The Federation provided that, along with FTL radio technology, and enough economic incentives to encourage even the most prideful Regulan to stop shooting for a while to talk. Introduced to their many neighbors via the subspace waves, the Regulans set their talents to the long-term project of building what is now one of the most prosperous alliances within the larger umbrella of the UFP.

Culture

The dangerous racism of their interstellar war is happily abandoned, but the wide variety of coloration, fur type, and body-shape of the Regulan races is still the basis for hundreds of Regulan subcultures. The Regulans are sensualists in every sense, but they put particular store in their eyesight and sense of smell. Each shade of each color carries with it a set of connotations, and an innocently-chosen alien wardrobe might strike a Regulan as comical, absurd, or even mildly offensive, for reasons they're always willing to articulate. Regulans are critical of others, but equally so of themselves, and have surprisingly tolerant, gentle natures, considering their recent history.

Regulans prize physically creative artwork above the ephemeral. A Regulan might enjoy dancing as a kind of sport, for instance, but don't really regard it as art unless it makes something permanent that can be touched. Each of the Regulan allied worlds prides itself on local variants of the strovothra, a form of organic-matter sculpture meant to stimulate the nose as well as the eye. A 60-meter column of twisted fruit-bearing vines, bonded by damp clay, was erected as a centerpiece display at a Regulan exhibition in Paris, on Earth.

Physiology and Psychology

The Regulans are felinoid bipeds with height and weight comparable to humans (some are slightly heavier). Their fur ranges from the short and glossy to the thick and shaggy, with any number of colors and patterns possible, organized by a bewildering variety of races and subspecies.

Regulans are born as twins or triplets, a fixed number depending on subspecies (the female Regulans are either double- or triple-breasted, accordingly).

Regulans are moved by beauty, horrified by violence and anger, and wrestle constantly with their potential for each. On the whole, they are a peaceful people, who turn nasty only when their feelings are seriously wounded.

Regulans have blunt claws that can be sharpened as dangerous brawling weapons, but most Regulans find the practice abhorrent and repulsive. Regulan fur is highly sensitive to both touch and temperature, though the Regulans themselves are adaptable to a wide variety of climates.

Noted Accomplishments

Regulans have achieved minor celebrity in nearly every area of endeavor, from the artistic (shehi pleth's bio-sculptures are gawked-at and sniffed in every part of the quadrant) to the scientific (the Sethessa Project, for example, which advanced the programming of the modern Universal Translator to levels of accuracy undreamed of before Regulan science got hold of it). Their most valuable contributions to Starfleet have been in diplomacy; a well-motivated Regulan is capable of great tact and understanding, and their personal warmth provides a much-needed complement to the cool logic of the Vulcans, especially in the touchy conferences which follow First Contact with new species.

Noted Characters

  • Pahtrek (2216-2270), linguist and programmer who spearheaded the Sethessa Project.
  • R'moa, the celebrated head chef at the President's Mansion in Paris.
  • Vandor Shen, heroic commander of the U.S.S. Pardalis-A.

References

  1. ↑ Untaken Treks: The Regulans
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