Cheron Cheron was a formerly inhabited planet . This was the homeworld of the Cheron native s , an extinct warp - capable humanoid species that destroyed itself in internecine warfare . The planet was located in the southern region of the Milky Way Galaxy , near the Coalsack Nebula . History . Prior to stardate 5730 . 2 , this planet and its inhabitants were unknown to the United Federation of Planets . In 2268 , first contact was made with this planet ' s inhabitants . But in the course of that year , when the scanned the planet , its instruments revealed large uninhabited cities , extensive traffic systems barren of traffic , and lower animal lifeforms and sand encroaching on the cities . There was no sign of sapient life , and there were vast numbers of unburied corpses in the cites . The civilization had evidently destroyed itself in a war fueled by racism . The " Enterprise " left the last two surviving members of the species , Bele and Lokai , behind on this world , to which Bele had forced Kirk to return him and Lokai . ( ) In 2371 , the location of Cheron was labeled in the star chart Data and Picard were studying in stellar cartography on the . ( " okudagram " ) Appendices . Background information . " CHE - ron " was the pronunciation for the name of this planet , according to the script pronunciation guide for . Other than the guide , however , Cheron was not mentioned elsewhere in the script . According to " " ( p . 66 ) and " " ( " Stellar Cartography " , pp . 32 - 33 , 39 ; " Federation Historical Highlights , 2161 - 2385 " ) , there was a star system named Cheron ( ) , in which this planet might possibly have been located , in the Beta Quadrant . This was either a single star system with a ( " Star Trek : Star Charts " ) or a binary system with a pair of F - class stars ( " Stellar Cartography : The Starfleet Reference Library " ) . In 2160 , the Battle of Cheron , the final battle of the Earth - Romulan War , was fought in this system . According to a map of the Romulan Empire – prepared by the Stellar Archivist Lsel Essik , from the Romulan Master Data Catalog , in 2366 – Cheron was identified as a Romulan system . In 2160 , the Battle of Cheron , the first battle of the Earth - Romulan War , was fought in this system . ( In what possibly might be a mistake , " Star Trek : Star Charts " ( p . 60 ) identified the system as Cheron . ) According to the reference book " " , Cheron was the planet where the Battle of Cheron of the Earth - Romulan War took place . The classified Cheron as a class M planet . Apocrypha . According to the novels " The Buried Age " , " " , and " To Brave the Storm " , the planet Cheron was the fifth planet in the 83 Leonis B star system , and was the site of the Battle of Cheron in 2160 . Cheron was a strategically important planet for the Romulan Star Empire and was occupied with a military outpost at the time . Cheron was also where a Romulan fleet of 81 ships massed in preparations for an all out attack on Earth . The fleet was defeated and forced to retreat by allied starships . After the war , Cheron remained on the Federation side of the Romulan Neutral Zone . In the novel " " , the " Enterprise " briefly returns to Cheron , with scans revealing that Bele and Lokai have now set up bases for themselves on different sides of the planet ; a time - displaced Seven of Nine notes that , even in her era , the Federation avoids Cheron due to the unpredictable power and life - span of the surviving natives . The novel also reveals that the Cherons were destroyed when an attempt by Bele ' s side to create a virus that would destroy only their enemies resulted in the virus being released before it was ready during an enemy assault , with the result that both sides were destroyed ( although Kirk and Seven , temporarily trapped in the past , were unaffected by the virus ) .