TACRON 49 - Races and Cultures
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Below is an index of the different races and cultures encoutnered by the USS COVENTRY.
The Religious and Cultural State of Bea
Physiological Background
Bea is highly comparable to Earth but with greater surface lands and only three oceans. Beings are genetically cousins of humans and Centaurans, sharing more DNA with the Terran humanoid than the Terran mouse. It is expected that humanoid Beings, Centaurans and Terrans share a common genetic ancestor due to their similarities in DNA.
Beings most resemble Terran humans and Centauran humanoids. Most Beings have the golden skin tone similar to Centaurans. Other Beings have darker amber pigmentation while smaller percentages of Beings have an orange or carroty pigmentation.
The Being genome is nearly identical to the Terran humans, different by less than 10 genes. Noting the Terran mouse and Terran human each have 30,000 genes and only 300 are different, this suggests a common ancestral origin eons ago. BEA is also a comparable world to Earth, home to millions of species of plant and animal life, with the humanoid Beings the only technological species native to the planet.
Humanoid Beings have an average life expectancy of 110 years for males, 125 years for females. Similar to Terran humans, Beings reach adulthood in their late teens.
The Beings evolved from an agrarian people about three thousand years ago after over an estimated one million years of existence as farmers and hunter gatherers. Their path of technological progress mirrors that of Earths and their location within 20 light years of Earth is highly suggestive of interference by a warp capable species, for such a parallel path of technology to develop on two separate worlds within the span of a few hundred years, however, no evidence beyond the circumstantial evidence of groups of geoglyphs, located in a desolate plain along the southern coast of the largest southern hemisphere continent, of about 300 figures made of straight lines, geometric shapes and pictures of native plants and animals from BEA – patterns that are only visible from the air. There is no written history in Being culture explaining the drawings or who created them and no process to determine the age of the drawings. A tribe known as the 'Socos' is recorded as having lived in the region between 900 and 2000 years ago, but nothing in that recorded history references the geoglyphs. In modern history they were first discovered 300 years ago when the first BEING commercial airlines began flying over the Nascent region of BEA. For those 300 years leading up to First Contact, the polytheistic BEINGS considered these geoglyphs to be the drawings of the Socos paying homage to the Being's gods. To this day, that is the interpretation believed by almost all Beings, despite their current knowledge of life on other worlds, and despite the lack of any reference in Socos history to the geoglyphs or their meaning.
First Contact
In the mid 2350's Being scientists began work on developing warp technology, apparently independently and without interference from offworlders. They demonstrated their capability with a warp 2 flight in April of 2389 that attracted the attention of Starfleet sensors monitoring the area. They had been protected from afar for several centuries by Star Fleet, to prevent contamination of their culture by Federation or non-Federation interests. First contact was made with the Beings by then Commodore Milton Vaun, Captain Elian Gonzales and the crew of ODGREEN Fleet's USS COCONINO, in that same month. The BEING Head of State and the government welcomed the Federation openly, and were eager to become a federation member world. The process for admission was laborious in those days, but nevertheless, on March 15, 2396, BEA became a Federation member world.
Normal Rad was the first Being accepted into Starfleet Academy July 30th, 2396 and was the first Being commissioned as an officer in Starfleet in May of 2400. Today there are over 4,800 Beings enlisted in Star Fleet and over 2,100 Being officers in Starfleet.
In 2416, 27 years after First Contact, the Beings are socially and technologically at a level similar to what Earth's was 50 years after its First Contact with the Vulcans.
There are no Being officers in Star Fleet above the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
Religious Profile
The Beings are a polytheistic people. Prior to First Contact, the overwhelming majority held beliefs in a pantheon of gods that lived among the stars. These beliefs are in evidence for their entire recorded history, which dates back some ten thousand years. The First Contact experience was, as might be expected, a traumatic adjustment for this culture. Humans, Vulcans, Romulans and Centaurans are similar enough to the Beings to be accepted as equals, but Klingons, Ferengi's and Gorn are exotic enough to them to be unsettling. While they cognitively understand such species are mortals and not 'gods', emotionally, most Beings are not well suited to the less humanoid species of the Federation.
A small segment of the Being culture do not share the polytheistic belief, but are monotheists, believing in 'one God'. This segment traces its religious roots back some 3,000 years, and has seen its numbers of followers grow since First Contact, but they are still a very small minority, estimated to be less than 3% of the Being population. Although their numbers have grown since First Contact, they reject other world's God beliefs, considering the God's of other worlds to be as wrong-headed as their fellow Beings belief in a pantheon of gods. They reject all of Earth's religions, yet their own religious rituals and beliefs seem to some outsiders to have incorporated some elements of those religions.
All the Beings who serve in Starfleet are polytheists. The monotheists have uniformly refused to swear loyalty oaths to the Federation or Starfleet as a conflict with their religious belief only loyal to their God. They generally exist peacefully with the polytheists despite their differences. Monotheists began to travel, as civilian emissaries, to ecumenical conferences on SB KENAI and SB DELTA, in early 2413.
The House Solice and the Order of H'tranthum
The polythestic majority are known as The House Solice, the head God of the religion is Solra or the High Sun God. The monothestic minority are known as the Order of H'tranthum. The only reference to the H'tranth God is the symbol of an open-bladed sword with a single red star in the blade. They will refer to this deity only as the Will.
