Mordan IV Mordan IV was the inhabited fourth planet of its star system . This was the homeworld of the Mordanite s , a spacefaring humanoid species . The Mordanite government was led by a governor . In 2364 , that role was filled by Karnas . History . Traditionally , the population of Mordan was made up of a number of different tribe s , each with its own leader . In 2319 , the leader of one of the tribes was assassinate d by his enemies from another tribe . His son , Karnas , was determined to avenge his father ' s death . To this end he took hostage the 63 passengers aboard a starliner , and demanded weapons from Starfleet in exchange for their release . Two negotiators were sent in by Starfleet , and both of them were killed . Then Captain Mark Jameson was dispatched to Mordan , successfully negotiating the release of the hostages . Unknown to Starfleet , Jameson had given Karnas the weapons he wanted , but troubled by his breaking of the Prime Directive , he also gave weapons to Karnas ' enemies . This caused a bloody civil war between the two factions , which ended in Karnas becoming leader of Mordan in 2359 . Much of the original principal city was destroyed during the civil war , only the tunnels beneath the city surviving intact . The city was rebuilt over the tunnels . Five years later , in 2364 , the Federation ambassador , , was taken hostage by Karnas in an attempt to lure Jameson to Mordan . Karnas blamed Jameson for the forty years of civil war . He initially blamed the kidnappings on terrorists , but Jameson realized that Karnas was responsible . He mounted a failed rescue attempt , and when Karnas requested his life in exchange for the hostages , he agreed . Jameson died in front of him due to an age - reversing drug he had taken , but Karnas was satisfied he was dead , and released the hostages . ( ) Background information . The planet model for Mordan IV was later modified and used to represent Relva VII in and Starbase 179 in . The classified Mordan IV as a class M planet . Mordan IV cityscape maquette . A view on Mordan IV city and its surrounding landscape was proffered from Karnas ' s office , though only barely . The near indiscernible , almost throw - away visual , belied the rather substantial effort , that went into its creation . It was not even a matte painting , the method of choice in the franchise for creating long - view landscape visuals of vistas , but rather a cityscape maquette , combined with a background landscape painting . One of its creators , Mike Okuda has noted in this respect , " " Creating models wasn ' t really our job . We weren ' t set up for model making in the art department , and we were lucky enough to have the services of Paramount ' s effects shop , as well as talented outside vendors like [ professional model makers ] Greg Jein and Tony Meininger . But we tried to help out when the vendors were too busy , or if it was something small that we thought was cool but the budget didn ' t allow . Mostly we painted a few found objects and a tabletop to create a loose impression of a cityscape . I recall that we used a big wok for the dome of one large building . " " ( " " , p . 43 ) In regard to the Mordan IV cityscape maquette , he had further remarked , " " Rick made most of the model city buildings . He used hot melt glue to create some cool sculptural detail on the skyscrapers . Very simple , but it looked good when photographed . I did paint and tape detail on dome structures what were mostly made from found objects . I recall that one big dome was a cooking wok . Later , I borrowed the shapes of the buildings for the animated city map graphic on the main viewer . " " The graphic , Okuda referred to , was the LCARS silhouette display on the main viewscreen of the , consulted by the crew in the episode . The Mordan IV maquette was only the second such model used in the series , after the Farpoint Station landscape maquette , used in the pilot , utilizing the same background painting that was used with the maquette in that episode . Superseded by matte paintings , it would remain so for years , until the season six episode , for which a smaller maquette of a Romulan prison camp was created . ( " " , 3rd . ed . , p . 43 ) Due to the usually large size of maquettes , like that of Mordan IV , they were almost always scrapped after use , this one no exception . Yet on rare occasions , parts of them were re - utilized for use in another capacity . One of the transparent domes turned up as Alexandra ' s toy in Toya ' s quarters aboard the in the later first season episode .