| Kelvan | |
|---|---|
| |
|
Planet of Origin: |
Kelva |
|
Affiliation: |
Kelvan Empire |
|
Environmental Needs: |
M-Class |
|
Life Span: |
500 years |
A Kelvan is a race of non-humanoid aliens from the planet Kelva notable as the rulers of the infamous Kelvan Empire of the Andromeda Galaxy.
True appearance[]
Though in 2268, when the Kelvans made first contact with humans, they looked very human themselves, this was just a form of artificial skin which they wore when encountering "inferior" races, to hide their true, beautiful forms. (TOS: "By Any Other Name")
In their "beautiful" forms, the Kelvans were still humanoid in shape, but looked nothing like humans. Gray-skinned, they were bald, and had four, black, beetle-like eyes above a conical mouth filled with shark-like teeth. Their hands were four large tentacles with suction-cups lining the under side. The females had hair of dread-lock-like tentacles, which functioned as part of their reproductive system. Kelvan blood composition is not known, but it is fluorescent, translucent blue when oxygenated and is poisonous to species with copper-based blood such as Vulcans or Romulans.
In the "beautiful" form, the Kelvans wore black plate armor, which could absorb all levels of phaser fire and could even stop a photon torpedo fired from orbit.
Physiology[]
Kelvan brain functions are very high, allowing them to produce thought, make logical decisions, solve problems and reason at speeds nine hundred times that of Vulcans. Because of their increased nervous system, their heads have very basic auditory/olfactory systems, as well as a conical mouth which leads directly into the alimentary canal. Ironically though, Kelvans naturally lack advanced sensation or emotional receptors in their brains.
Kelvans do not breed as humanoids do. A Kelvan female has a numerous amount of breeding pods attached to her anterior portion starting at where mammaries would be on a humanoid female and going all the way down to the pelvic girdle (or at least, their version of one). During their mating process, the female's head tentacles surround her and the male in a web-like cocoon: within, her pods then receive sperm, secreted directly from the male's skin.
Like the Earth butterfly, the Kelvan has three growing stages: larva, pupa and adult. In the larva stage, the baby Kelvan is a large mass of almost a hundred tentacles, three times the size of a humanoid (such as a Klingon). In the larva state, they gore themselves upon food, using their many tentacles to reach whatever gets close enough. After a period of five to eight weeks, the larva will start to secrete a mucous substance (fluorescent blue) that covers it entirely. This is the pupa stage, for after a time, the mucous will harden and form a rock-hard cocoon. After three weeks of growth in this state, an adult Kelvan emerges.
History[]
Intergalactic conquests[]
According to reports, the Kelvans achieved racial unity on Kelvah some four thousand years ago: this unity was the Kelvan Empire. After its unification, a Kelvan armada was created for one purpose: conquering the Andromeda Galaxy. This was accomplished in three hundred years, after which the Kelvans became an intergalactic empire, spreading throughout the universe. The First Federation, apparently, was the only force of the Milky Way Galaxy that could halt the initial invasion of the Kelvan Empire. During an invasion of the Triangulum Galaxy, the Kelvans first encountered the Relons, the only force to openly defeat them in battle.
- It should be known that the First Federation did not defeat the Kelvan Empire, but the invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy went on for so long that a mutual stalemate was called with an indecisive victory. The Intergalactic Relon Empire actually annihilated the Kelvan Imperial Fleet.
The era of the War of the Four factions[]
The returning armada brought back with it an enemy worse than the Relons: alien bacteria. The Kelvans who manned the armada were by now immune to it, but the people of the Andromeda Galaxy were not. The plague devastated thousands, lasting one hundred years. By the end, the Empire had split into four factions. Civil war broke out, each of the factions vying to survive in a dying galaxy. The Faction of True Kelvans, the greatest of the four, won out through the invention of the molecule restructuring matrices employed onto the buckle of the belts they wore. This allowed them to create paralysis fields - shifting the molecules of air into solids - and to turn living organisms into their base elements.
The dark years[]
With this new technology, the Kelvans eradicated all traces of the traitors. But in doing so, they upset the balance of the Andromeda Galaxy. A mutated form of the plague brought back by the Kelvan armada invaded their galaxy again. The molecule restructuring devices could not stop it, and the Kelvans were dying off. Other races, believed to be inferior by the Kelvans who had built up an immunity to the plague, began to take control of whatever was left of the old Kelvan Empire.
Dispersing across the universe[]
When it became clear that the Kelvan race might become extinct through the plague it brought upon itself through its conflict, the last emperor declared that the best of his people go out into the distant galaxies to colonize and discover new hope for their people.
First contact with Humans[]
See "By Any Other Name"
External links[]
- Kelvan article at Memory Alpha, the canon Star Trek wiki.
- Kelvan article at Memory Beta, the non-canon Star Trek wiki.
- Kelvan article at Star Trek Expanded Universe.