Polaran

**Polarans** are aliens originating from the first planet of the OB-749 System, known as Polara. Around 500 years ago, a miscalculated gamma-ray burst, believed to be headed for this world by the Polaran scientists, led to a diaspora of the Polaran people in the form of four, sometimes considered three, groups. The first of these groups to leave were Polarans from a nation on the world who had—by virtue of a crashed ship from an advanced alien species—managed to develop a method to travel into subspace. This group took with them the vast majority of Polaran animal life and a large sampling of plant life as well, leaving behind the Polarans from other nations, with whom they were, at the time, at war. In recent years, they have left the confines of their local subspace pocket and returned to live on their homeworld.

The second (and largest) group of Polarans to leave were the majority of those left behind, forced to make a decision in haste due to the razing of agricultural plots by the fleeing first group. Taking with them what animals and plants they good, they captured abandoned, warp-capable ships left behind by the first group and attempted to leave the system. However, due to lack of understanding of the ships, how they worked, or how to operate them, this group ultimately failed in some form or another, often before leaving the system, and, as far as is currently known, always before reaching another world suitable to support them. The third group—often considered a sub-section of the second—were those Polarans who stole ships and ended up accidentally traveling into the true path of the gamma-ray burst. As a result, none of this group survived.

The fourth (and smallest) group to leave—and also the only group besides the first to survive—were those Polarans from the nation that, while not understanding how to manipulate subspace, had stolen schematics and documentation on the warp-drives of the first group during the preceding wars and thus knew enough about the operation of their stolen ship to successfully navigate away from the Polara system and, eventually, arrive at OB-222, Arborea. Here, they crash-landed on the fifth planet in the system, leaving a group of Polaran descendants on the surface of Arborea V. These Arborea Polarans have since been relocated to Polara once more.

# Appearance

Polarans are larger than humans in both height and build, standing at two and a half meters on average with builds many would describe as "athletic" or "muscular" being common amongst the species. Females are slightly shorter and slighter than males, though they remain larger than the average human. The only Polarans that seem to even approach human heights are those originating from Arborea, who can be much shorter and slighter still, with a particular trend towards this smaller size being seen in children and young adults. This difference is believed to be nutritional, however, rather than genetic due to a variety of factors, the strongest of which is the variation in Arborean Polaran sizes, with some, particularly well-fed Arborean Polarans reaching typical sizes for the species. As such, it is believed the Arborean Polaran children—and the future offspring of Arborean Polarans—will return to the average over time, now that they once again have access to the food and resources of the Consulate.

Besides their builds, Polarans also differ from humans in their skin, eye, and hair colorations. Polaran skin tones can be in a range of purples, navies, blacks, and charcoal greys, though they all tend towards the darker sides. Additionally, their eyes, which are reflective and fully colored, can be either navy, purple, or a deep crimson. Finally, their hair is either silver or jet black, with which color a Polaran would have seemingly genetically linked to their skin color, as silver hair is found on blue and purple Polarans and black hair is found on grey and black Polarans. Contrary to the size differences, there does seem to be a slight genetic drift in Arborean Polarans on the matter of hair color, with many members of the group showing white hair even in their youth. This is believed to be a development of the majority silver-haired original population of Polarans on Arborea, an idea which is furthered by the coincident large majority of blue and purple Polarans among those hailing from Arborea. However, there are relatively rare cases of Subspace Polaran youth having white hair prematurely as well.

The remaining features separating Polarans from other humanoids are comparatively minor. The next largest difference is the perpetually short facial and body hair among the species, with beards and mustaches virtually nonexistent for Polarans, either male or female. Other than this, they seem to be humanoid to the model of the ancient Precursors, indicating they were most likely manipulated to their current form much like the modern Milky Way humanoids were.

Furthering this idea is the Polaran sex dichotomy, with males and females being biologically different in a manner consistent with most humanoids. The sexual organs on Polarans are similar to those on humans and the species are fully capable of interbreeding with humans and, theoretically, other humanoids, though the only hybrid-Polaran offspring currently on-record are a few Human-Polaran children over the years following their first contact with Humans. Additionally, females possess two enlarged mammary glands, which is the second-largest visually distinguishing feature between the sexes, after height.

# History

Originating 200,000 to 225,000 years ago, Polarans are of comparable age to humans as a species. The history of their "proto-Polaran" ancestors, however, is little known, with historical digs having little success beyond the time period when modern Polarans first showed up, and even records of that time being scarce. What is known is that the Polarans outbred and outcompeted the surviving members of their predecessor species to near extinction within the first few centuries of their development, though there is evidence to support that the last "proto-Polaran" didn't die until approximately 130,000 to 155,000 years later, in around 70,000 BCE. Following the origin of the modern Polarans, the next big development shows up around 160,000 BCE, when the first advanced spoken language appeared. Approximately 10,000 years later, the first long-distance trading took place, starting in around 150,000 BCE. However, once again, the prehistoric Polaran culture and technology seemed to stagnate until roughly 90,000 BCE when the period known as the "Polaran Great Leap Forward" started. During this roughly 20,000 year span, the Polarans began developing a more advanced hunter-gatherer culture, with the ritual burial of their dead, the development of clothing from animal furs and hides, the introduction of stone weapons and tools, the development of more advanced hunting methods such as pit-fall traps, and many other developments first started showing on the scene. This development is largely the attributed cause to the final extinction of the "proto-Polarans" in 70,000 BCE which, in turn, is attributed as one cause of the following 30,000 years of cultural and technological stagnation.

This period, lasting from approximately 70,000 BCE to 40,000 BCE and known (conversely to the Polaran Great Leap Forward) as the "Polaran Great Stagnation," saw a cessation in technological and cultural advancements. The prehistoric Polarans of this era are believed to have largely remained hunter-gatherer tribes with little to no competition from others, both due to a lack of fully populating the planet and the recent elimination of the "proto-Polaran" species. However, evidence once again appears for cultural advancements dated back to 40,000 BCE with the discovery of the oldest known Polaran cave paintings. Additionally, some of these cave paintings depict what is believed to be a primitive form of agriculture, indicating that some Polarans may have begun experimenting with growing crops rather than hunting and gathering for food. Despite this, the lack of any major permanent settlements dated to this time suggests the efforts were unsuccessful or deemed inferior to the latter method of survival. It wasn't until 8,000 years later, around 12,000 BCE, that the first permanent Polaran settlements first appear, indicating that this is when agriculture first became a widespread, successful method of sustaining a tribal population. In the intervening time period, judged to have occurred around 20,000 BCE, Polarans managed to spread to populate every continent within the temperate zones of Polara, establishing themselves as the dominant species on the world.

By 6000 BCE, the Polaran Stone Age had ended, with the widespread development of worked tin and copper tools and weapons, leading to what was termed the "Polaran Bronze Age." Just 500 years later, the first written Polaran language appears, and 500 years more, and the first advanced civilization shows up around 5000 BCE, with others developing across the planet over the next 2,000 years, primarily centered on those tribes that first learned how to work out bronze weapons and armors. These civilizations lasted in their current, condensed forms at the longest until around 2000 BCE. Around this time, as more and more groups began to develop the ability to work iron into usable tools and weapons, the Polaran Iron Age began and the consolidation process happened again, leading to core, powerful civilizations expanding further and creating vast Polaran empires, comparable in size and scope to the ancient human Egyptian, Greek, and Roman empires.

The longest-lived of these empires, in turn, lasted for just over 2,000 years, with its fall placed in approximately 200 CE. Following this, the former imperial lands fragmented into many small, feudal chunks and the Polaran society entered into an analogue of the human Dark Ages. However, while this period did see a collapse from the former technological and cultural glory of the ancient Polaran empires, scientific and artistic endeavors didn't end up facing the same dogmatic religious persecution as was the case in the human equivalent and, as such, the period was much shorter and featured a much more gradual form of advancement. Rather than an abrupt renaissance, the Polaran dark ages grew more and more culturally and technologically developed until, in 1,062, the Polarans first invented the Steam Engine and the Polaran Industrial era blossomed.

This era saw the quickest advancement that Polaran history had yet known, sending the people from barely being able to manage trans-oceanic nations to completely breaking free of their planet's atmosphere in less than 300 years. By 1300 CE, a firm smattering of Polaran superpowers had established themselves as the premier nations of the world and each possessed the capabilities to reach space, mainly through similar technologies to human 20th-century rocketry. However, in 1397 CE, this abruptly changed when an ancient, technologically advanced alien ship crashed from high Polaran orbit into one of the superpower nations of Polara. Over the next 200 years, while the other nations technologically stagnated once more in the course of brutal international wars and disputes, this nation worked to reverse engineer the technology contained within their prize. While many of the systems had been stripped from the ship long before, and others had fallen to ruin over the ages, the one that remained allowed the nation to develop working subspace power, transition, and manipulation technology by 1600 CE. Over the next 100 years, this technology further developed, vaulting this nation ahead of the others and establishing them as not one of the, but *the* superpower on Polara, demanding tribute and fealty from all the other nations of the world. Though they "graciously" allowed them to maintain their autonomy, this came at the price that the tributes be paid and treaties signed to never take up arms in rebellion. This culminated in this nation of Polarans fully claiming the space around Polaran, establishing subspace powered orbital defense platforms armed with powerful laser weaponry to shoot down any unauthorized vessels leaving the planet's atmosphere and, in their proudest accomplishment, the creation of a massive space station, modularly built, but fully powered by and submerged into subspace. This station was paired with an array of structures on the surface of the planet to control access to this local pocket of subspace for those other than the nation's military, as civilian ships were not equipped with subspace transition drives during this period.

While this dominance lasted for a good two centuries, and the other nations further stagnated under the heal of this one superpower, it eventually met its struggles in 1900 CE. Early in this year, in an act of unified defiance and desperation, the other nations of the world banded together in a loose alliance to defeat their oppressors, combining military strength and resources, though still remaining politically independent from each other. Though the Polaran supernation had the technological and tactical advantage against the revolutionaries, they still struggled against the vast numbers they faced and saw much of their technology stolen, though it was never successfully replicated in full, and the secrets to subspace technology remained exclusive to them. In a particularly historically important incident of this happening, shortly after developing the first Polaran warp drive in 1917 CE, the subspace Polarans saw schematics and descriptions for their new technology stolen by one of the rebelling nations, though it proved useless to that nation presently due to the lack of a power source sufficient to run the design.

It was five years later, with the war nearing a subspace Polaran victory in 1922 CE, that the landscape of Polaran history most drastically changed. Detecting fluctuations in a nearby start through subspace that indicated it was about to go supernova and shower the system with a gamma-ray burst, the subspace Polarans gathered what animals and plant samples they could find and fled the surface of the world into their local pocket of subspace, razing what crops were left behind in an effort to starve out the remaining Polarans before they could decipher the methods to reach the station and follow their fleeing oppressors. Over the next year, the remaining Polarans on the world discovered what was happening in turn and, by 1923 CE, were starting to take warp-capable ships that had been left behind and flee the planet. Out of the groups that did this, only the nation that had previously stolen the schematics and documentation for warp drives managed to successfully navigate the ship, eventually crashing on Arborea V, with many of the others either dying on the journey through incompetence or flying into the gamma-ray burst that they had misjudged and had meant to be fleeing. Those Polarans that lingered on the planet at this point, though they didn't actually get hit by the gamma-ray burst, were in populations too small and too scattered to survive, and the last of them died out around 1925 CE.

Over the next nearly five centuries, both groups managed to survive, with the Arborea Polarans growing into tribes loosely united under one elder who advised all the other elders on their new desert world and the Subspace Polarans continuing the Consulate, the government that had led the nation they originated from, in their exile, never once daring to return from subspace and growing largely ignorant of their troubled past on their new home. Contrary to this, the Arborean Polarans never forgot their past, though the memories of the horrors they had faced faded and were replaced with only tales and folk stories of their destiny to return and reclaim their historical homeworld, spurred by the ever-present reminder that they came from the stars in the form of their crashed ship, eventually known as the "Star Temple."

Eventually, however, both groups got their chance to return to their homeworld, starting with the Subspace Polarans. In 2416 CE, during a survey of the world, the U.S.S. Kapteyn, under the Command of then Lieutenant Commander Jacob Downy, inadvertently activated the subspace portal system on the surface of Polara, transporting the ship into the local pocket of subspace containing the Subspace Polarans and their station. Shortly afterward, then Commander Jason Scott and the U.S.S. Axalon mounted a rescue mission of the MIA Downy and Kapteyn, which turned into a joint first contact mission as it was discovered the crew was not being mistreated or held prisoner, but was instead informing the Polarans of the situation outside of subspace. This eventually led to the return of the Subspace Polarans to their world (though they maintained a presence in subspace as well) and the redevelopment of structures, settlements, and cities on Polara. Much later in that same year, it was discovered that the sapient species once thought native to Arborea V was actually an offshoot of the Polarans—the Arborean Polarans—and they were, through the efforts of Commander Corwin Meyer and the U.S.S. Atlas, returned to Polara as well for reintegration with the Subspace Polarans and the Consulate.

Over the next two years, 2417 and 2418 CE, the Polaran Consulate underwent reforms and efforts to further their standing in the Outback. The first of these were largely internal, with the confirmation of the Polaran Consulate as the ruling body on Polara and the establishment of several key Arborean Polaran figures in positions of power within this new government to make sure everything remained stable. Following this, the reforms found themselves becoming more and more diplomatic, with a formal friendly relationship being established between the Asheran Union and Polaran Consulate—solidified by a joint project to build a combined subspace gate to the Polaran subspace pocket and Asheran Jump Beacon in orbit of Polara—and a more informal friendly relationship with the Federation and its allies. The most notable factor of this new relationship took the form of open borders for visitation and trade in the Polara system for citizens of the Asheran Union and Federation and an offer to researchers from both factions to take up permanent residence on Polara and assist native researchers in learning more about the world and their history.

Not all went smoothly for the reinvigorated Polaran Consulate, however, with a small but vocal faction within the populace soon emerging that urged for a return to the isolationist ways of the Subspace Polarans. This faction eventually grew into a revolutionary movement, the C'ala Frantax, and plunged the Consulate into a short-lived civil war. While the C'ala Frantax were dedicated to their cause and employed guerilla warfare excellently, extending the fight beyond what their numbers should have allowed, they overall did very little to change public support for the new direction of the Polarans, failed to cause any significant harm to Polarans or the non-Polaran residents of Polara, and were fully eradicated by early 2419 CE. In the meanwhile, the Polaran Consulate had continued their newly expansionist ways and established a colony world in the OB-750 system and even, inspired by the weaponry they saw on Romulan Republic vessels, managed to create a new flagship that departed from the modular designs of older Polaran vessels and featured plasma weaponry siphoned straight from the warp core and shaped and amplified through subspace technology. While not as powerful as Federation, Romulan, or Klingon weaponry, this new ship offered a massive upgrade in survivability and firepower over previous Polaran designs and served as a symbol for the new, bright Polaran future.

However, the civil war proved to just be the first struggle the Polarans would face since returning to their world and, later the same year the C'ala Frantax had been wiped out, the war against the Scourge came to a head. In late-August, 2419 CE, the Polaran colony world was attacked and wiped out by the advancing Scourge threat and, just a few days later, the Scourge were scheduled to arrive in the Polara system itself. Desperate for a solution, and unable to fight back and win, the Polarans contacted the Federation and, with the help of their much more advanced power generation and control systems, the Polaran fleet managed to pull off a transition of the entire planet into subspace, though several ships and the orbital Subspace Gate/Jump Beacon were all lost in the process. Over the next week, it appeared that the Scourge ships wouldn't leave the system until the Jenolan Alliance once again came to the aid of the Polarans, this time in the form of the R.R.W. D'Soria, commanded by Arrain Sokius tr'Kaveth, and managed to utilize a new lure to direct the Scourge vessels out of the system. Unfortunately, however, this ended up leading the ships to the Asheran homeworld, resulting in the loss of the homeworld of the Polarans' recent allies instead. A few days later, Polara was returned to normal space and the process of recovering from over a week without light from their sun began, putting the Polarans out of the spotlight until just a month later.

In October, 2419 CE, when the Federation called all Outback species to lend what aid they could during the defense of Discens Station, First Consul Ha'Ralan—in a widely unpopular decision—refused to provide any aid, citing that the Federation was at fault for the Scourge Crisis to begin with and that the Polarans would be safe retreating to subspace again if it came down to that decision. However, the former Governor of the colony world, Commanding Officer of the Polaran Flagship, and Consul of Foreign Affairs Ka'Saran, refused to accept his orders, having lost too much to the Scourge already. Unwilling to abandon her allies or give up on the dream of her Arborean Polaran people to claim their homeworld again, for good, she raised a crew of like-minded personnel and, at the last moment, arrived in the Discens system to provide her aid during the coming battle. While the Polaran flagship wasn't able to provide much assistance, with the Federation employing subspace dampening beacons that prevented the ship's most valuable trait from being used, the actions of Ka'Saran spurred the Polaran people to her side and, following the eventual victory over the Scourge, the outcry against Ha'Ralan's decision grew to the point that he resigned from his position.

To manage the recovery process of the world, the Consuls stepped into full leadership of the Consulate, though Consul Ka'Saran took the forefront in the decisions that followed, having the support of the people. Over the waning months of 2419 CE, the Consulate went through both a recovery and reformation process, with aid being offered to refugee Asherans, surviving the destruction of their homeworld, and decisions being made about the government of the Consulate going forward. Finally, in early-2420 CE, a vote established a new, representative government, modeled off of that of the Federation, and Ka'Saran was elected as the first Polaran president. The remaining Consuls formed the first half of the Assembly of Consuls, with newly elected Consuls from the rest of the population forming the remaining half. While the open borders and offer of residency to Federation citizens and researchers respectively remained established, the reformed government of Polara decided that any additional treaties and agreements between the Consulate and the Federation would have to be reestablished in the wake of such a drastic change of government and, as such, a formal offer of diplomacy was extended in late-January, 2420 CE. By the middle of February the same year, a diplomatic meeting had been arranged and a series of agreements were settled upon.

The first of these agreements to come to fruition was the launch of a joint mission to investigate the expansion of the purposeful subspace damage that had been done to the space surrounding OB-750 during the initial Scourge attack. What had originally been intended as a several lightdays across destruction of the connections between realspace and subspace to slow the advance of a pair of Scourge ships on Polara from the colony world had since developed into an irregular zone of damage to subspace stretching from one lightyear across at its shallowest up to several lightyears across at the widest. In order to investigate the cause of the drastic expansion of the damages, Polaran vessels joined up with the U.S.S. Axalon and U.S.S. Carl Sagan and, by March 30, 2420 CE, had formulated a plan to utilize a Graviton Catapult to launch the Axalon into the deepest regions of the subspace disturbances in order to investigate OB-750 in the center. By the following Monday, April 6, the catapult had arrived and been tested and a team of Polaran scientists, lead by Chief Scientist Mal'lorma had transferred to the Axalon to advise during the mission.

Launching into the center of the damaged areas of subspace, in close proximity to OB-750 and the colony world, the Axalon encountered periodic tetryon fronts, indicating that there was an open connection between realspace and subspace, despite the planned destruction of the connection between the two realms of the universe. Further investigation revealed that—sometime during the Polaran's original retreat from the world and planned damaging of subspace—a fleet of Scourge had arrived behind the two ships that had started the attack and later journeyed to Polara. This fleet had been disabled, with later observations indicating that they had fired upon themselves.

The cause of the tetryon fronts was quickly identified as the active dark matter singularity core onboard one of the wrecked vessels. Originally, this was believed to have been submerged with an existing subspace rift or tear and the Axalon attempted to close the connection with subspace. However, this attempt failed, though the reasoning quickly became clear as another wreck saw its singularity core activating spontaneously, simultaneously tearing a hole into subspace, indicating that it was the cores themselves that were bridging the connections between realspace and subspace. Eventually, the Axalon settled on firing upon the recently opened core, successfully damaging it to the point the warp field collapsed and left a simple dark matter singularity behind, closing the connection to subspace. Carrying out the same procedure on the remaining wrecks, the potential for future holes into subspace was mitigated and the Axalon departed from the system once the gravitational effects from the lingering singularities diminished enough to allow safe utilization of a second graviton catapult.

While the damage that had been caused still remained, all signs of further expansion have ceased, leading the Polarans to conclude that the Scourge warp fields were somehow linking to deeper layers of subspace and driving the expansion across a swath of the galaxy beyond just the local neighborhood of OB-750. Plans are currently being developed to attempt to repair the subspace damages—at least within the less damaged outer regions of the disruptions—by making use of Polaran subspace technologies, but the process is slow going and provides no assurances of success to any degree.

# Technology

For the 500 years since the Polarans left their homeworld for the first time, the technology among the surviving groups remained relatively stagnant. While the Arborean Polarans developed new—but primitive—technologies to better survive in the harsh desert of their new home, and the Subspace Polarans further refined their skill at utilizing the reverse-engineered technology, the lack of resources and need for survival drove both groups to largely focus only on producing the day to day necessities. Not quite as limited as the group on Arborea, the Subspace Polarans did continue scientific pursuits, developing a robust, if somewhat "second-fiddle," system of theoretical research. Lacking raw materials from the planet they left behind and maintaining only plant and animal life and a self-contained water cycle as renewable resources, their discoveries, unfortunately, couldn't be put to the test, but the advancements did lay the groundwork for the quick advancement of the species once they returned to realspace and resettled their former homeworld.

As such (beyond the subspace transitioning technology and the warp drives these spurred the way towards) the Subspace Polarans were left at a level of technological access similar to early 21st-century humanity. This was seen in not only the modular designs of their spacecraft but also the computer technologies onboard, still making use of standard microcircuitry instead of more advanced duotronic or isolinear technologies. However, they did seem to be better at constructing these modular spacecraft—or at least more capable at combining large amounts of modules together—than their 21st-century human counterparts, with the immense size of the subspace station leaving them with the room to hold a few hundred thousand Polarans as well as the artificial nature reserves to provide food and water for the population and the entertainment facilities to prevent mass-boredom from setting in over the many centuries of near-complete isolation.

The Arborean Polarans, on the other hand, saw a relative digression in technological capabilities over the years. While the nation they originated from had never natively held subspace manipulation technologies, this particular group had managed to steal an advanced ship from the Subspace Polarans and learn how to pilot it. Unfortunately, the ship eventually crashed on Arborea V and, unable to repair the vessel, these skills were gradually lost by the successive generations, instead replaced by a culture of primitive survival, with hunting and defending their camps becoming the primary focus of the Polarans and the tools to do so the primary technologies.

Since the end of the diaspora, however, when the two groups returned to Polara and began recolonization efforts, scientific pursuits and technological advancements began anew. For the Arborean Polarans, this was first noticeable in the survivors of the desert world being brought up to the same level as the Subspace Polarans upon reintegration. Furthermore, for the Polarans as a whole, several industries related to harvesting resources from the natural world returned, primarily mining operations. Once the Polarans once again began acquiring nonrenewable resources, their previous, exclusively theoretical research began taking new life as the means to test hypotheses with experiments once again returned to the scientists of the Consulate, further advancing the Polaran's subspace manipulation abilities and setting the stage for them to begin interacting with other Outback species.

The first of the Polarans' more drastic technological developments with other Outback species came in the form of a large subspace transitioning gate in orbit of Polaran that also included an Asheran jump gate. This orbital facility was the largest subspace transitioning device ever constructed by the Polarans and saw the first mixing of their technologies with the technologies of other species. While it was eventually destroyed, it served as the inspiration for the proposed subspace transition gate/transwarp gate joint project with the Federation. The second notable advancement in Polaran technology came with the development of their flagship in late 2419. While not even matching even the smallest capital ships the Alliance militaries could field, the flagship nevertheless saw great advancements in the Consulate's technological capabilities, serving as not only the first ship that forwent the standard modular design, but also the first Polaran vessel that utilized advanced directed energy weaponry. Rather than relying on high-power lasers, the Polaran flagship vented excess warp plasma from its warp core and, condensing the plasma utilizing subspace fields, constrained this into a tight, energy-dense beam several times more powerful than even their most powerful laser weapons from before. Additionally, primitive antigravity and structural integrity field techniques were developed for trial onboard the flagship, making it not only more comfortable for long-term operation but also more durable at the same time.

Currently, in an effort to repair the damages they had caused to the areas of space surrounding OB-750, Polaran scientists have been incentivized to refocus efforts on further developing their subspace manipulation technologies to reestablish destroyed connections between subspace and realspace and repair damages dealt directly to layers of subspace themselves, though there has, so far, been little luck in these endeavors.

# Politics

While the Polarans on Arborea V live in small villages of 10 to 20 people, led by a village leader, the subspace Polarans live in a much larger community of several hundred thousand, though their station is capable of supporting millions. This makes sense as the Arborea V Polarans were crash survivors, but the subspace Polarans all originated from one of the larger nations, and the most technologically advanced nations, of Polarans, prior to the diaspora.

The subspace Polarans, as such, require a much more complex political organization. Overall, the subspace Polarans are a Constitutional Monarchy. While the government is headed by one individual, the First Consul, both the head of state and head of government, who controls a group of representatives from each section of the station. Each representative, or Consul, works together with the First Consul to determine the laws and management of the station, guided by a constitution. Half of the consuls are reelected every two cycles, resulting in staggered, four cycle terms. However, the position of First Consul is hereditary and changes only when the previous First Consul dies or steps down. Additionally, the citizens of the subspace Polarans who do not hold any government office can sign a petition for referendum, which, should it get the signatures of at least a third of the population, would result in a referendum on the issues raised by the petition, resulting in the capability of the people to directly vote on an issue, rather than rely on the Consuls. However, a referendum vote requires a full supermajority of two thirds of the population to be enacted outright, though a standard majority would require the issue to move into vote among the consuls. Due to lack of contact with other nations over the past 500 years, ambassadors are a foreign concept, and the First Consul was chosen to represent the Polarans to the Federation when first contact was made.

Due to increasing interactions between the Polarans and other powers in the Outback, the position of First Consul has officially been given ambassadorial powers. This has led to the holder of the position serving as the key representative between the Polaran Consulate and any other power, not just the Federation, as is apparent by the recent meetings between the First Consul and the Asheran Union. Additionally, this has led to the other Consuls taking a more direct role in government, as the First Consul has started being busier with other work. This has led to a new rule that allows for the Consuls to directly make decisions without the First Consul's consent, assuming they can all agree to the action that is to be taken. Any dissenting Consul would prevent the decision from being passed. One remaining side effect of this increase in interaction between the Consulate and other powers is the development of a training program for potential ambassadors. The First Consul himself holds these training sessions periodically, using what he has learned from his interactions with other governments to instruct trusted Polarans in ambassadorial duties and skills. This is in hopes of being able to produce a full diplomatic corps for the Polaran Consulate in the future.

# Relations with the Federation

Both groups of Polarans currently in existence have had some form of interaction with the Federation. However, both of these interactions were limited. For the subspace Polarans, contact was made on Stardate 92996.41 when then Lieutenant Commander Jacob Downy accidently activated the subspace rift generators on OB-749 I and his ship, the USS *Kapteyn*, fell into the cell of subspace holding the Polarans. Eventually, then Commander Jason Scott of the USS *Axalon* made contact with the Polarans and negotiated his return. However, following this interaction and the departure of the USS *Kapteyn* and USS *Axalon*, the Polarans closed the subspace rifts and returned to their isolation.

Recently the Subspace Polaran have been meeting with a Starfleet Captain that they have come to trust in earnest attempts to establish diplomatic channels with the federation. Captain Jason Charles Scott of the USS *Axalon* has been heading the talks. and while slow due to their political system the Polaran and the Federation are establishing a baseline of trust and respect for eachother.

The interaction with the Arborea V Polarans was even less in depth, with only one individual, Ki'Tanna, actually interacting with the Federation representatives due to concerns of contamination. However, large amounts of data on the Polarans was obtained from the crashed vessel that had deposited the Arborea Polarans' ancestors there approximately 500 years ago. However, more recently, interactions have boomed, with the Federation even carrying out a relocation effort of the Arborean Polarans back to Polara with the assistance of the Polaran Consulate.

## Social Structure:

The Polaran social structure is divided by the different groups each Polaran belongs to, decided by the general career path that the Polaran chose. (e.g. engineering, food preparation, religious organizations, politics, etc.). Before the point at which the Polaran chooses their career path, which is usually done through various schooling programs during Polaran adolescence, the Polaran lives within the educational group, made up of a variety of general knowledge boarding schools. Prior still to this, the young polaran simply lives with their family members or in various lower level boarding schools or daycares. Due to the divisions between the social groups, most partnerships occur between Polarans of the same groups. However, as children are free to choose which group they wish to move into during their educational phase, and due to the fact that they are encouraged to enter into groups which they did not grow up within (an effort to diversify genes across the social groups), most children end up in social groups different from their parents. Exceptions to this norm are found in religious families and the family of the First Consul, which are both hereditary groups, passed down from parents to children. Even members of the First Consul's family that aren't expected to take the position in the near future through succession are expected to maintain political roles as advisers or even other Consul positions, though it is not unheard of for such Polarans to also take temporary positions in other social groups to more closely provide information to the First Consul regarding each section of the Polaran people.

The Arborean Polarans, however, have a much different social structure (though some have since begun integration into standard Polaran culture). This structure is one of family groups living together alongside other Arborean Polarans in small villages, a tradition that most Arborean Polarans still follow, even after the relocation. Each village is headed by a leader, which is passed on down the family line, much like the position of First Consul within the subspace Polaran government. Each member of the village shares a portion of the work, contributing where they can the most and where their skills are most useful. This form of work sharing was developed due to the need to survive on the harsh Arborean planet on which they crashed. As they have spent relatively little time on Polara, this tradition has also stuck, allowing for the new settlements to be quickly developed.

## Customs and Traditions:

### Arborean:

One important custom of the Arborean Polarans was a rite of passage into adulthood. Polaran children, typically around the age of 16, would advance into adulthood by sneaking up on a Batra nest and stealing an egg away to help provide food for the village. This was typically done over the course of several days, moving so slowly over the sands that the Batra couldn't detect them, allowing them to get up to the nest without being attacked. Successful completion of this rite marked the child's passage into adulthood. Those who died during the rite were oftentimes posthumously considered adults if they showed courage during the attempt.

To go along with this, each household in the village was marked with ticks to indicate the occupants. Adults were marked with full-length ticks, and children ticks of half the length, to be lengthened upon reaching adulthood. This lengthening was done by the child reaching adulthood and another adult of the village simultaneously using a small knife. Deceased members of the household had their tick struck through horizontally, providing a record of how many deceased and how many living members had ever lived or were currently living in the dwelling. This custom of ticks marking household occupancy carried over to the homeworld when the Arborean Polarans returned to Polara, assisted by a master record taken with the group of the ticks for each household.

## Religion:

### Consulate:

While subspace Polarans are not strictly religious, there is a great respect for those of them that do follow the main religion of the Polaran people. Additionally, most every Polaran holds to some degree of spirituality. This main Polaran religion, known as C'ala tul'ka'Amar, or the Followers of the family Amar, Ul'amar being the main deity of the religion, is relatively unique among religions in that the deities are not seen as entities themselves, but rather the representations of the aspects with which they are associated. As such, the religion is more about worshiping the aspects of nature themselves, rather than particular entities, with deities existing only to give perspective to the religion, something to focus the worship on.

The religion is also largely individually based. While the religious families are the heads of the Polaran religion, they rarely call for group services, believing instead that their duties cover every individual of Polaran society collectively. As such, the religious participation of typical citizens only exists in the form of additional prayers that each may feel the need to do in certain situations. For example, if a loved one has died or is dying, a Polaran may pray for the safe passage of that individual's soul beyond death. Prayers are typically sent to the corresponding deity to the aspect of nature under which the prayer falls. Some major deities are as follows:

Ul'amar - Aspect of Death, the Afterlife, and Forgiveness; Main Deity

Kal'amar - Aspect of the Waters, Life, Healing, and Birth

Mal'amar - Aspect of the Earth, Metals, Jewels, and Technology

Hal'amar - Aspect of Love, Protection, Warfare, and Hunting

Dil'amar - Aspect of Righteousness, Defiance, and Individuality

Many other deities are also worshipped, but these five cover the major aspects of the Polaran faith.

### Arborean:

While the Arborean Polarans are not exactly religious, during their time stranded, they developed a pseudo-faith based around the crashed ship that had landed them on the planet. Referring to the vessel as the "Star Temple", it served as a reminder to the Arborean Polarans of their desire to return to the stars and, eventually, their home planet. As such, many stories were built around the Star Temple, and these became the basis for the Arborean Polaran "religion". Told from generation to generation, these stories kept the Polarans looking up to the night sky and into the stars.

Following the relocation back to their home planet, a large number of the formerly stranded Polarans have converted to C'ala tul'ka'Amar, finding the religion of their ancestors appealing and the logical next step, considering how much they yearned for a return to their old home and old ways. However, not every Arborean Polaran converted, and many still continue to tell the stories, more symbolically than anything, now, as they have finally arrived back on the planet of their ancestors.

## Language:

### Naming:

Polaran naming is rather simple, composed of two parts. Every name is three syllables long, with a short, one-syllable personal name, followed by a two-syllable family name. The two names are joined together by an apostrophe. Members of the same family all possess the same family name. For males, the personal name typically starts with the letters "A" through "I". For females, the personal name typically starts with the letters "K" through "T". The letters "U" is reserved for females in religious families, and the letter "Y" is reserved for males in religious families.

When referring to a specific family, the prefix "tul'ka" is affixed to the front of a capitalized version of the family name, standing for "the family".

This naming structure was continued by the Arborean Polarans, despite the separation from the original culture.

The family name "amar" is restricted for the deities of the religion, and is not used within typical Polaran society.

# Biology

## Life Cycle

Polarans live relatively short lives compared to most other species, with none but the very healthiest living past 100. In fact, the species average lifespan is only around 70 Earth years, with the more luxurious jobs having averages in the 90's and the more dangerous dipping as low as 45. Much of this is biological, and, as such, Polarans are considered mature by as young as 10 for early bloomers all the way up to 15, with the average being around 12. The education systems are based on this quicker childhood, starting as young as one year old and continuing past maturity for the higher level education. Following this, Polarans don't seem to experience the effects of aging up until around 10 years before their biological death, at which point their bodies begin to deteriorate rapidly. This results in retirement ages about nine years prior to death for most Polarans, with retirement being a period of time mostly fraught with disease, frailness, and lack of physical activity. However, Polaran minds don't deteriorate as quickly, staying keen up until very close to death. As such, dementia-like diseases are not common among Polarans, and the elders of the species quite often have advisory roles when they can no longer work any physically demanding jobs.

Due to life being relatively short for Polarans, it is common, especially in the more dangerous social positions, for members of the species to find a partner early in their lives and have children rather quickly after finding partners. Additionally, it is not uncommon for Polarans to have multiple partners in their lives, as bonds are formed quickly and, therefore, are not always the strongest. Combined with the general mindset of Polarans to experience as many things as possible in the short period of time they have available and the boarding style education school system, families outside of the hereditary social positions are not as binding as they are in other cultures. As such, marriage is not a common occurrence within the Polaran life cycle, and partnerships between two Polarans tend to be unofficial and easy to leave.

## Vision

Unique, 6-cell retinas: 3 cells clustered over the 'typical' ranges, centered around 10,500 nm (~3 Celsius, "Near Freezing" Peak); 10,000 nm (~17 Celsius, "Typical Temperature" Peak); and 9,500 nm (~32 Celsius, "Body Temperature" Peak). The interplay of these form the typical heat-spectrum vision of a Polaran.

They also have wider-response cells that have wavelength sensitivity centered on 12,000 nm (~-32 Celsius, "Cold") and 8,750 nm (~58 Celsius, "Hot") that trail off into the longer and shorter wavelengths of the thermal infrared respectively with minimal overlap into the main three peaks. These are also less common in the retina. Both of these factor contribute to the 'bookends' of their vision holding less immediate visual acuity beyond simple detection.

Finally, they have an analogue to human 'rod' cells: simple detectors of optical-band light (Peaking ~500 nm and spreading across the optical atmosphereic transparency band of Polara). These fail to distinguish color in the optical band but rather serve the purpose of helping define visible borders to 3D objects that would otherwise be lost in the purely thermal vision of their more acute detection bands.

# References

* A Guide to Aliens: Polaran Edition
* Official Statement of Friendship: Polaran Consulate and Asheran Union
* Arborea mission AAR
* Resettlement mission report
* Kitannas Story
* AAR Arborean Relocation
* Polaran-Federation Diplomatic Correspondence