Orions

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BASIC INFORMATION:
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Official Name in Standard:  The Orions

National Name: Shrevashal (name of the homeworld).  The
population call themselves Shrevashalu and the name of the
government is the Valagel Shrevashalu (Government of The Orions).

Title of the Head of State:  Prime Minister
Title of the Head of Government:  Prime Minister

History:  In 1852, the expanding United Rigellian Government
discovered intelligent life on a small jungle planet some 10
light years away from the home system.  A forty-man survey and
exploration team was launched to the world they called Qaras
three years later.

After a twenty year voyage, the vessel landed on Qaras.  The
Rigellians were suprised to find a docile, primitive
green-skinned people on a divided planet only beginning to
experiment with feudalism.  The survey team stayed for nine
months and it was agreed that twenty of the team members would
return to Rigel where the other twenty would remain guests of the
Shrevashal nation on Qaras.

The Rigellians remaining on "Qaras" quickly became involved in a
religious dispute within the Shrevashal Empire.  Tempted by a
vast fortune in mineral wealth and power, the Rigellians used
their advanced technology to set up a proxy religious empire of
their own.  The second ship arrived much more quickly, having
discovered limited warp propulsion, the trip only taking two
years.  The "Star People" (the Shrevashal name for the
Rigellians) by that time were using vast numbers of the
population as slave labor and working on a crash program to raise
the technological level of the new world they intended to conquer.

A bloody battle ensued with the "Star People" rapidly imprisoned
and returned to Rigel by the Rigellians on board the second.
Along with the Rigellian prisoners on the trip were some native
Shrevashal.

The Shrevashal were extremely friendly, and more sexually liberal
than the Rigellians.  The native Rigellians found these strange
aliens fascinating. Since the Shrevashal performed religious
celebratory dances of a highly erotic nature, and as the
Shrevashal emitted a pheremone through sweat that activated the
pleasure centers (an antidote would not be found until several
years later), news spread that the new world, Qaras, was a
pleasure planet, a place where mineral wealth and free sex could
be had for the asking.

At this time in Rigel's history, the space program was at a
critical juncture.  Rigel's mineral resources were almost
exhausted, and there was a need to find mineral wealth elsewhere
or stay trapped on Rigel.  The space manufacturing industry was
operating at peak performance, with almost a third of the
planetary budget devoted to manufacturing.  With several ships
already ready to travel, the populace was not willing to take a
conservative position on Rigellian expansion. Lurid tales of
alien green men and women ready to satify every sexual demand
fueled the popular imagination, and the farseeing government that
financed Rigel's dreams to the stars was turned out of office by
a government with more ominous designs.

Before long, streams of explorers, official and corporate,
flooded Qaras and overturned Shrevashal society.  Rigel had aims
to expand beyond Shrevashal and began clear-cutting the jungle
forests and strip-mining the landscape (the continent of Lalem,
once a verdant paradise, is now a desert continent).  Manpower
was needed to work the mines and supply unskilled labor needs on
Rigel.  The Rigellians passed "Acts of Remission" which
obstensibly allowed the Rigellians to use the Shrevashalu as
slave labor if "peaceful coexistence was threatened".  Hungry for
cheap manpower, this elastic law allowed the Shrevasahal to be
pressed into slavery at will.  The men were worked to death in
manufacturing.  The women became servants, or brothel inmates.

For the next 100 years, Rigel would continue to expand its
empire, but found no other inhabited planets.  The Rigellians
pushed onward through space.  There, they found the Qi'tas, a
border world of the Klingon empire.  The Rigellians were unable
to identify this strange empire, but were slaughtered at the
hands of superior forces.  Attempts to expand in another
direction were halted at Ll'hansre, by the cloaked vessels of the
Romulan Expeditionary Force.  Rigel found itself crowded between
two hostile empires.

Before settling on a third direction, the Rigellians were
contacted instead by the Vulcans before the end of the year 2000.
Rigellian technology was not as refined as the Vulcan scout craft
which landed.  The Vulcans offered peace to the warlike
Rigellians.  After some Rigellian sabre-rattling, the Vulcans
warned the Rigellians that they faced enemies without and now,
enemies within.  The Shrevashal could revolt at any time.  "It
would be wise," the Vulcan representative said, "to listen to the
voice of a friend, rather than to make a new enemy."

Warily, the Rigellians and Vulcans shared information.  The
Vulcans suggested that the Rigellians gradually ease their
restrictions on the Shrevashal and make them full members of a
Rigellian Empire.  When the Shrevashal heard the news that Vulcan
craft had landed, they attempted to revolt in 2034.  The revolt
was brutally suppressed by the Rigellians, with thousands of
Shrevashal slaves executed.  A new solution was reached.  The
Shrevashal still alive on Rigel would be sterilized.  There would
be no Shrevashalu citizens in a Rigellian Empire.  Power would be
turned over to the backward Shrevashal still alive on Qaras, and
the corporate powers of Rigel could sell the occasional slave to
the new worlds the Vulcans would point out.

The remaining Shrevashal named their world after the nation
unfortunate enough to receive the first Rigellian ship.  The
Vulcans tendered peace to the new planet, but the Shrevashal
would not listen.  Revenge was the foremost thought in the
collective mind of the Shrevashal.

Somehow over the next fifty years the Rigellians watched in alarm
as the Shrevashal began arming themselves, fighting the
Rigellians with a fury not to be believed in such a peaceful
people.  Many times the Vulcans brought the Shrevashal to the
conference table, many times were they to be disappointed.
Vulcan did what it could to stop the conflict, and the Rigellians
were preparing to exterminate the rest of the Shrevashal.

In the year 2097, a small group of Shrevashal vessels took the
Agifo Spaceyards.  The Shrevashal had no intention of enslaving
the Rigellians.  The *pieces* of the Rigellians were sent back to
Rigel, and the Rigellian populace looked on in terror.  Rigellian
intelligence confirmed that the Shrevashal were building a fleet,
and the Vulcans could not offer any military aid for a Rigellian
government in paralysis.

There was one possibility:  Rigel had heard of four other worlds
besides Vulcan which might offer aid.  Cygnus, Andor, Tellar, and
a newly discovered world called Terra, the newest of the four.
The Rigellians immediately sent a call for help to sentient
space, with the threats of a new enemy, the Shrevashal, which the
Terrans called "the Orions".  The name stuck, and the "Five
Powers" (Rigel, Cygnus, Andor, Tellar, and Terra) decided what to
do about the "Orion problem".

A combined fleet would be formed, first under Rigellian
leadership.  Terra would step to the front of the conflict, and
the Terrans began to network with a "Security Council" to
determine the best way to end the conflict.  When Rigel's base at
Ana-Eexian was attacked by the Orion Warship EYEWITNESS, the
"Five Powers" sent a peacekeeping force to serve as a barrier.
By the year 2100, each of the Five Powers had signed a document
stating they would take "all necessary steps" to end the fight,
even if it meant taking the battle to Orion itself.

During the five year conflict (2097-2102), the Orions inflicted
heavy losses on the Five Powers.  The Rigellian leadership was
turned out with Admiral James Crowell becoming head of the
Security Fleet.  The Orions were excellent at expansion, but
Crowell realized that the networking of the Five Powers was
yielding new insights in military technology, particularly
greater control in acceleration and deceleration of warp speeds.
Crowell knew that if he could hold the Orion expansion until the
Five Powers were able to implement the new warp advances, the war
could be turned overnight.

It was.  The EYEWITNESS lived up to its name at the Battle of
Hydros IV as the Orion fleet was decimated by a new Corvette
class of escorts, as the EYEWITNESS suffered a SIF failure and
was forced to stand grounded and watch helplessly.  The Five
Powers rolled Orion territory back to the homeworld of Shrevashal
itself.

The Prime Minister surrendered to the Five Powers and resigned
his office.  Eighty percent of the Orion fleet surrendered, but
twenty percent continued to fight on in a losing battle, the
larger ships destroyed and the Orions forced into hit and run
tactics.  Civil War broke out on Shrevashal.  Vulcan offered to
mediate the reconstruction of Shrevashal society, but Andor and
Tellar believed that the spoils went to the victor.  After three
years of Vulcan diplomacy, Andor and Tellar finally agreed to the
construction of a Provisional Government, which was never been
accepted by a majority of the Orions and was turned out of office
thirty years later.

The remnants of the Orion fleet scattered.  The shipyards of
Shrevashal continued to turn out vessels, but only criminal
interests had the capital to buy them.  The Orions became
smugglers, and later, pirates.  The ex-fleet officers and crewmen
were inducted as full fledged members of the Orion underworld.
Until 2360, the Orions served as pirates, and the Government
remained unaligned with the Federation, but not an enemy.  After
2360, the Orions had established themselves throughout the
Galaxy, and the *Prota Canna*, or Orion Syndicate, is feared on
every wealthy world.

The Results of the Orion Conflict:  the ascendancy of Terra.  The
realization that a stronger social union would benefit each of
the Five Powers.  The recognition of the fact that better
diplomacy could have solved many of the problems, and that the
Vulcans were best equipped to settle diplomatic problems and
provide philosophical leadership.  The seed for the United
Federation of Planets had been planted by the Vulcans, but
fertilized in Orion soil.

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GEOGRAPHY/POPULATION
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Quadrant/Sector/System:  Mantrads Sector
Suns/Planets/Planetoids/Moons:  One moon, devoid of life, called
        "Su".  The solar month is 38 days in duration.

Population:  8 000 000 000
Capital City:  Port Shrevas (population 25 000 000)

Race(s) of Native Sentients: 98.4% Shrevashal , 0.5% Rigellian,
        1.1% assorted aliens
Land/Water Ratio(s) of Planets:  30/70
Largest Cities:  Port Shrevas

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ECONOMIC SUMMARY
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Orion's major industries are manufacturing and mining, both
of ores and rare elements such as dilithium.  The most modern
factories are off-world, and heavily guarded by corporate
fleets.  Most of this wealth remains in the hands of the selected
few.

Breakdown of living standards:
        Technosocialist age:  5 percent of population
        Information age:  13 percent of population
        Industrial age:  24 percent of population
        Agrarian age:  58 percent of population

Most of the population -- 72 percent by Federation standards --
lives at poverty level or below, living hand-to-mouth in large
cities or in rural areas.

Agribusiness ventures have never been successful, despite the
verdant jungle growth with covers most of the planet.  This
growth covered 90 percent of the planet four hundred years ago,
but now covers 55 percent of the land mass of Orion.  Attempts to
harvest the biomass of the planet have been sabotaged to the
point that the enterprise has been abandoned.  Only 25 percent of
the planet's surface is suitable for sustained agriculture, the
remaining land either claimed by thick jungle, inhospitable
desert, dense cities, or industrial pollution.

Atmosphere of the planet is Class M.  The major imports of the
planet are datagoods and foodstuffs.  These is a marginal but
self-supporting tourist trade. It is recommeneded that one not
travel far from the tour guides.  The jewels of tourism are the
private estates which are for rent and almost surpass Betazed,
Risa, or Cygnus in their natural beauty.  Rentals of these areas
are expensive, and some of the wealthiest men of the Alpha
Quadrant live on Shrevashal.

The Shrevashal slave trade, unfortunately, still exists.  Over
100,000 Shrevashal a year are abducted by Ferengi, Cardassian,
Klingon, or Romulan slaver ships, as the legend of the "Orion
animal women" prevails.  Another 100,000 Shrevashal sell
*themselves* into slavery, figuring that a life of slavery will
at least provide room and board. Slavery is, of course, illegal
on Shrevashal itself.  No one knows what becomes of the slaves.

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GOVERNMENT/HISTORY
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Member of Federation?  No.  Planetary government since 2036.
Federation Protectorate from 2102-2136, non-aligned power since
2136.

The Model Document (Constitution) of the Orion Government
provides for a House of Representatives and a House of
Jurisprudence, with no executive branch.  The representatives are
elected by direct vote.  The judges must serve in the Orion Civil
or Criminal Court before they can be nominated for a life seat in
the Jurisprudence House.  Executive functions are assumed by the
Prime Minister.

In practice, voting is by "licence" which requires voters to meet
certain educational and civic requirements as well as paying a
substantial fee.  As a result, eighty percent of the population
is effectively disenfranchised.  Most civic control resides in
the hands of the local police (the "Guardians") which keep the
civil order and are paid from the government treasury, or more
likely, the treasuries of local landowners or influential
visitors.  At times, Guardian precincts have fought each other in
armed clashes.

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RACE/SOCIETY/CULTURE
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Shrevashal, the fifth planet of a large solar system with 11
planets is a planet of average Class M dimension with gravity of
1.1 G.  The planet is a hot, wet world with massive plant growth,
with a wide variety of reptiles and insects.  There are few
mammals, and the average Shrevashal diet consists of plant life
and small reptiles.

The average Shrevashal appears as a baseline humanoid.  Indeed,
Shrevashals and Terrans are almost indistinguishable in
appearance.  Shrevashal skin, however, is green tinted, and comes
in several tones from off-gray to darkest green, but is never
white in color.  All Shrevashals are brown-haired.  Eye color is
either brown or green.  Indeed, the variety of "races" among the
Shrevashal is less varied than that of Terra, giving the
appearance that all Shrevashal natives belong to the same
extended family.

The Shrevashal are indistinct anatomically from Terrans for the
most part except for a significant difference:  a gland located
at the hypothalamus responsible for regulating a powerful
pheremone released from Shrevashal sweat glands.  Shrevashal are
immune to the pheremone, and visitors to the planet manage to
overcome effects after massive exposure.  However, momentary
exposure to the pheremone stimulates the pleasure center of most
races.  This pheremone is responsible for the reputation of the
infamous "Orion animal women".  In some parts of the Federation,
Orions are denied visas unless the applicant can prove that the
pheremone is under control.  A drug called verratropine controls
production of the pheremone.

The solar year is approximately 380 days long.  Average
temperature is 32 C on most parts of the planet and 47 C at the
equator.

Traditionally, Shrevashal is a matriarchy.  Most Shrevashal have
a hyphenated surname with the mother's name coming first.  Many
professions are designated the domain of one sex or another.  The
priesthood of the "Great Goddess" is almost completely female and
the Orion military and Guardians are almost completely male.
Females, however, are held in higher esteem than males.

Shrevashal culture is one of the few "tactile" cultures known.
Art that one can touch is considered the greatest of art, and
clothing is valued for its texture.  The society of the
Shrevashal has no concept of social distance.  Shrevashal
embraces are beyond anything found except on Risa, and cross all
sex barriers.  Bisexuality is valued, but the society values
fertility to a greater extent and social organization remains
along heterosexual lines.  Complicated social customs of meeting
and interacting regulate what would seem to be an extremely
libertine society, and sexual intercourse is considered to be a
great social icebreaker.  Like the Greeks, the Shrevashal have
several words for "love", and live in all of the interpretations
simultaneously.

Shrevashal health tends to be poor.  Little is known about long
term Shrevashal health and most only live to be 70 or 80.

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Creator(s)/Adaptor(s):  James Bowman
E-Mail Address:  jrbowman@london2.skn.net AND JBowman489@aol.com


Created for/First Use (if known):  "The Cage", written by Gene
Roddenberry.  Marta in "Whom Gods Destroy" (story by Lee Erwin
and Jerry Sohl) is never mentioned in the script as being Orion,
but is most likely Shrevashal, my synonym for "Orion".

These are the only two appearances of Orions in Star Trek.
"Journey to Babel" (written by D. C. Fontana) has an Orion spy,
but in Andorian makeup.  There have also been a few throw-away
lines in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.

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__ Original - All rights reserved by creator named above.

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