Hello all and welcome to the Index series where we explore the lore on some science fiction species,
and this time we are looking into the Suliban of Star Trek, most prominently featured in
Enterprise! This species was newly introduced for that prequel series and played a major role
in some early adventures, however, according to the Time Agency of the 31st century,
they were not supposed to. The Suliban’s level of power and involvement
in the future was severely altered by interference from a third party leading to a markedly different
trajectory for their species than it would otherwise have been. However, with the conclusion
of Enterprise and the alterations caused by the Temporal Cold War, they have returned
to a path that was more akin to their original. The Suliban’s history is one marred by tragedy as
in the mid-19th century, by the Earth calendar, their home planet was rendered uninhabitable.
Its location is in the Beta Quadrant, Sector 3641 and the world orbits a dimming red dwarf star.
Their species was forced to desert their homeworld and adopted a nomadic lifestyle,
which already shows that they had achieved warp drive at least 200 years before mankind. However,
with this diaspora, their unity and political structures fell apart with no central location to
seed a government. Without such leadership, they spread out and mingled with other cultures and
species or resorted to salvaging and scavenging to survive. Their level of technology seems not
to have improved at all over this timeframe, which is understandable as they were so spread apart.
We see a similar effect with the Hirogen of the Delta Quadrant,
another species that has spread apart, and although their technology is far more advanced,
it has not been developed in any meaningful way for centuries, with even their quadrant spanning
communications array heavily neglected. Some Suliban managed to settle into other
communities where they were welcomed and managed to reform some semblance of their lives, settling
on the planets Tandar, Tiburon and Vanoben. In apocrypha, after the destruction of Romulus,
the Romulan people were scattered among their colonies and other worlds within the former Star
Empire territories. Sympathetic to the Suliban for their similar situation, they reached out
to them and forged an alliance of sorts, allowing many Suliban to settle on Romulan Republic worlds.
So this pretty much covers the… “natural” history of the Suliban, or what they were supposed to be.
Viewed in this light, with such a future, it is not surprising then that when a temporal
influence reached out to them and provided the means to change their destiny, they seized it.
A faction in the Temporal cold war that was based in the 28th century was able to communicate
through time and used this to grant select Suliban information and the designs for technology that
would have been far beyond their capabilities. These Suliban groups united together, under
the guidance of this mysterious figure and by 2144, they had formed the Cabal.
Those in the Cabal were used as the agents of this temporal faction
as he sought to alter the future to his favour and rewarded those members with not only technology,
but extensive genetic alterations. This led the Cabal to flourish and in the absence
of an official government, it unfortunately became the recognizable face of Suliban society
and its actions reflected poorly on unaffiliated Suliban, worlds apart. When contact with their
benefactor dried up the Cabal eventually dissolved towards the end of the 22nd century, their genetic
modification knowledge lost to them and their advancements passed back to the Suliban people.
I would like to point out, that the benefactor of the Cabal could not travel back in time himself,
only communicate an send information. So while the devices and genetic augmentation
knowledge they acquired was from the 28th century, the Suliban only had their current era resources
and technological development to pull off these feats. So, in a way,
they really did create their own technology, just based off of schematics from the distant future.
So let’s look at these boons that they acquired. In terms of genetic augmentation,
they used a chemical process that supplied the modified genes into the body through
the neck. Interestingly these modifications can also be undone, reverting the genome to
its natural state. This was implemented as a form of punishment by the Cabal,
stripping an agent of their abilities for failure and rewarding new ones for success.
Modifications that we saw included the most common of flexible bones, a climbing ability
and a chameleon effect that allowed them to consciously change their appearance and skin
texture to resemble other humanoids. This effect was precise enough to create a rather effective
invisibility camouflage. They also had increased visual acuity and other senses while their lung
capacity was increased and adapted to process multiple atmospheric compositions. The most
extreme modifications seem to have even made the vacuum proof for a limited time.
The uniforms of the Cabal were skin-tight red outfits that had bio-memetic properties,
meaning that they adapted with the biological adaptabilities of the wearer,
camouflaging when they did and stretching to accommodate their malleable form.
In terms of other technologies, the Suliban warp drive’s power
source was a form of Tricyclic Plasma, an uncommon source for warp capability.
They also developed a cloaking device on par with contemporary Romulan technology and the Cabal made
extensive use of what were termed “Cell-ships”. These were a myriad of small vessels,
ranging in size that could connect together to share their power sources,
forming larger structures. The largest of these structures were attacked to a central pillar-like
station, known as a Suliban Helix. These were used as military bases by the Cabal and in later years,
as homes by nomadic Suliban, such as the one in the Japori sector. These stations held around
3000 people as an average, but with the addition of more cell-ships, that was variable.
These ships included the small, two person scout vessel, which was more or less a sphere
about 3 meters in diameter. These were armed with phaser weapons and the cloaking device
while being warp capable, while internally providing no comfort for the pilots. There was
a larger cell-ship, a cylindrical variety that was larger, on par with a federation runabout.
They also had a freighter, capable or exceeding warp 5 that was a more unique shape thanks to its
storage pods. They also had a shuttlecraft and a specialised Stealth cruiser. This cruiser had a
crew of around 20, and was even more stealthy than their standard cell ships. Presumably.
Suliban names were a single word and they had a written language and it was depicted as a series
of circular glyphs. Unfortunately, thanks to the loss of their homeworld, there is no real
traditional architecture to draw from, and with survival being their chief concern for
generations, there is also little in the way of art and design they can call their
own. There is a high presence of circles in their cultural designs however, from their lettering
to their ships so presumably this has some significance to them, considering there are
more efficient ship designs to go with than a sphere. We see the circle lettering of the Suliban
included in not only their consoles for operation, but as part of the design of door buttons and
making up the designs on hatches and the like as a mixture of signposting an item with its design.
That is about all there is on the Suliban as they were not really a focus outside of Enterprise.
Presumably this is because after the dissolution of the Cabal, they returned to their nomadic and
settlers lives, creating communities where they could. However the Cabal’s notorious actions left
the species with a stigma that pursued them for a time and several formerly friendly colonies
shunned and isolated their Suliban colonists. With time however, this eased,
but they remained a dispersed peoples. It seems that some may have also retained their genetic
modifications, maybe even passing them down though their offspring, but that
is speculation based on the fact that they were still known as shapeshifters by the 24th century,
well after their temporal gifts had ceased. The future for them is not an easy one, but
at least they are no longer the tools of a shady future organisation. So there we go! So, the next
cultural index is going to be on the EL Auriens as I’ve been meaning to cover them for a while
and haven’t yet, so no vote for this week, plus it means I can begin planning the video earlier.
But thank you again for watching! I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you next time, goodbye!