Gorn

Gorn
Ssessekh Gorn male
Planet of Origin:	Gornar
Government:	Gorn Hegemony
Affiliation:	Klingon Alliance (2410)
Russth Gorn male

The Gorn were a reptilian species from the planet Gornar in the Beta Quadrant. Their interstellar government was the Gorn Hegemony.

History

The Gorn began as three genetically similar species from three separate worlds in the Gdhar system of the Beta Quadrant, the Ssessekh, the Dromaeosauridae like Russth, and somewhat evolutionary branched Ssessekh racial variant, the Lath. After each species achieved space travel on their own home worlds, the three races discovered one another and learned of their genetic similarity.

It was later discovered through fossil records that none of the three planets were any of their original homeworlds. Embracing their similarities, the three races joined together in a single political unit called the Gorn Confederation. The new government later migrated en masse to the nearby world of Gornar.

The three races intermixed and eventually became a single species. Their government also underwent significant changes and was renamed the Gorn Hegemony.

After full unification Gorn military forces began a tentative campaign of Interstellar conquest based on "Ussegssirr" which is the Gorn philosophical belief in Manifest Destiny in that all known space should be made into their regional hunting grounds. In their first few decades of attempted interplanetary aggression led to military tensions with species such as the Paravians and Romulans.

However, by the early 22nd century Gorn reached tense relations with the Klingon Empire, as the Klingons and Gorn shared both a similar military and hunter philosophy. Gorn began trading food and some military technology which led to an alliance which lasted for centuries.

Although unconfirmed at the time, the first encounter between Humans and the Gorn occurred sometime within in the 2230s or 2240s, when the colony ship SS Puget Sound was captured and the entire ship's complement was deposited on a planetary nursery.

According to La'an Noonien-Singh's accounts, the Gorn would eat some of their captives alive, while other captives would have their bodies slit open and used as "breeding sacks,” and some captives would be hunted as a sport before being fed to infant Gorn. In accordance with some sort of ritual, the final survivor would be spared, only to be placed in a life raft and abandoned in space.

First contact between the Gorn and the United Federation of Planets took place in 2259 – An attack on colony Finibus III that the USS Enterprise dealt with in that year – but they hardly ever left survivors and were therefore still listed as never officially encountered due to both military classification and the technical fact that no individual Gorn crew was physically encountered or visually communicated with during the entire incident.

It was also seen from this incident that these Gorn forces had Bio-Resin hulled large battleships. However, they did not have the strength, durability, or shield strength for extreme environmental pressures compared to 2250s refit Constitution class ships.

Later in the same year, the crew of the Enterprise while rescuing the crew of the wrecked USS Peregrine discovered the ship was disabled and used again as elaborate bait to attract other ships to use the trapped crews as both reproductive and food stock. The offspring of these Gorn had biological traits similar to Xenomorph physiology with host-based embryo gestation, rapidly developed speed, strength, and intelligence, and the ability to spit corrosive venom. The hatchlings were neutralized by the Enterprises landing rescue party.

This second incident was also classified and Later that year, another Gorn attack ship was identified near the Galdonterre system, causing Admiral Robert April to fear that a war between the Federation and the Gorn was coming.

Augmented Gorn (c2259)

By the end of that year, tensions come to a head as Gorn forces launch a seeming surprise attack in the Parnassus system while the ships Enterprise and Cayuga were posted there for agricultural and supply delivery assistance in another colony world. A small fleet of Gorn Destroyers entered and declared the planet was within a quickly made demarcation line that expanded their territory.

Then Lieutenant Montgomery Scott who was an engineering crewman on a nearby vessel that got caught up in the annexation of the system theorized that due to their Insect like augmentation the Gorn were claiming the system due to nearby changes in the system's star. And like hive insects would expand and maintain their territories accordingly due to weather conditions.

The Destroyer fleet transported most of the systems Human colonists and a small few of the defending ships crews into their Bio-Ships. Due to the fleets sudden advance and no real way to counteract, Starfleet orders the defense ships back to the nearest starbase for regrouping.

Before retreating the Enterprise deposits a radiating beacon placed on a torpedo onto a nearby Destroyer by nearly ramming into it, then retreating. Tracking scans picked up from the torpedo led Starfleet to believe based on Lieutenant Scott's theory of the Gorn acting like hive insects through weather patterns that due to stellar activity from super large solar flares and regions of cascading radiation particles from the systems Binary suns was triggering periods of aggression and hibernation within this Gorn Iteration.

However, the data also suggests that they were at the beginning of a long cycle of Gorn aggression with the attacks signaling what could be a full-scale Gorn invasion of Federation space. The Enterprise after minor repairs urgently returns to the system to rescue both the captive colonists and their lost crew, Including La'an , Sam Kirk, and Erica Ortegas.

As they return they arrive at the Binary stars at the tracked Destroyers last scanned position and see the Bio-Ships use the natural radiation and gravity of the stars as a portal back to their home system, culminating in an entire augmented Gorn armada transporting out from the stars and presumably into either nearby Federation or also close by Klingon space.

At the time Chief Engineer Pelia and Lieutenant Scott discovers that by adjusting the Enterprises older electromagnetic shielding the ship could attract mass amounts of stellar matter around it. Creating an artificial X-class coronal mass ejection that successfully sent the Gorn into a years-long hibernation cycle. At the same time, the captured Starfleet personnel were able to escape and find a bio-computer unit that contained the transporter codes and buffer patterns for the Parnassus colonists, allowing the Enterprise to beam the colonists to safety while the landing party stole a Gorn hunter fighter craft and escaped.

Meanwhile, Spock and Chapel were also able to devise a successful treatment to save Captain Batel from the Gorn hatchlings gestating within her.

While the mission was successful for Starfleet and the Alpha Quadrants survival the massive failure of the newly deployed genetically engineered fleet created a political rift within the Hegemony.

Genomic Schism

The Gorn "Genomic Schism" was the societal and political rift between racial factions of the Hegemony after its entire Xenomorph Augmented fleet goes into a near decade long hibernation cycle, making them a failure in the eyes of the Imperator Fleet Command. For months afterward in 2360, political representatives from Ssessekh, Russth, and Lath planetary regions argued who was to mainly blame for the failure to expand Gorn territory out of the Tau Lacertae system.

The anger out of the failure to make the Gorn the "Ultimate Alpha predator in the galaxy" and a betrayal of Ussegssirr leads to a near full civil war within the species. Their augmented warriors were, similar to Augment virus effected Klingons, ostracized from mainstream Gorn society.

The remainder of Xeno augmented Gorn that weren't killed due to the dishonor of failing to invade outside of the Demarcation line were sent to live on remote satellite colony nations and kept on as an emergency black operations military force only to be used as a brutal intimidation tactic towards occupied worlds, and security for breeding worlds, as they and Egg laying Gorn have a shared need for wide space regions to be used as nurseries.

Meanwhile, Ssessekh forces would be returned to the Hegemony's main defence force. However, small amounts of augmented Gorn technology were kept on such as their biogenic energy shields, transporters and Bio-Phasers due to their higher damage output replacing their basic Disruptor systems.

Post Schism

The first publicly recorded contact was in 2267 when a deployed Ssessekh Gorn defence squad attacked a Federation colony on Cestus III. The Gorn saw the strike as a preemptive move by Starfleet, since they regarded the Cestus system as part of their territory. Due to the intervention of the Metrons, a tentative peace was established between the Federation and the Hegemony.

After decades of relatively peaceful relations between the two powers, including relinquishing the Cestus system back to Starfleet by 2371. Soon mainstream Gorn society integrates itself more into mainstream Federation culture. Including growing their own Fast food chain "Mr. Krada Leg" and several other ethnic trade stores selling Gorn food, clothing and traditional home decor across several Starbases along the remaining Demarcation line.

However, in 2374 the Hegemony was toppled in a coup d'état. The new Gorn leadership then launched a new offensive Federation space, starting at Cestus III. The crew of the USS Enterprise-E managed to end the conflict and convinced the Gorn to join the Federation Alliance in the war against the Dominion.

At some point during the 2380s the Gorn government and military became heavily infiltrated by Undine infiltration agents who began planting seeds for conflict among the powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. In 2384 a Gorn starship attacked the IKS Quv in the neutral space between the Hegemony and the Klingon Empire, killing 207 Klingons and capturing many others. When the Gorn refused to hand over their prisoners, Chancellor Martok broke off diplomatic relations, expelled their diplomats, and ordered Klingon Defense Force ships to the border.

War broke out in 2386 when the Klingons attacked and captured Gila IV, a Gorn colony. Over the next three years hostilities quieted as the Federation attempted to mediate between the two powers, but the negotiations failed and in 2389 open war erupted once more in the Gamma Orionis system. King Slathis negotiated with groups of Nausicaan mercenaries to fight for the Hegemony. Despite this, the Gorn were slowly driven back, and Gornar eventually fell to the Klingon Empire in 2403. Slathis agreed to swear fealty to the Empire and was given a non-voting seat on the Klingon High Council.

In their capacity as a client state, the Gorn took part in the Third Federation-Klingon War on the side of the Klingon Empire. However, not all Gorn stayed with the Hegemony. Some Gorn rebelled against their overlords, staging attacks on Klingon starbases. Another group settled in with the Orion Syndicate on Nimbus III. And yet more would join with the Federation and serve within Starfleet.

Biology & Physiology

Ssessekh internal anatomy chart

Gorn are pseudo Reptilian Mammals. Similar to the Earth evolutionary animal branch known as Synapsida Gorn are capable of mammalian womb birth, egg laying, and as is explained in short for augmented Gorn parasitical embryo host gestation. Presumably Gorn females with breasts are those capable of uterine reproduction. Thus making them more mammalian with the ability to breastfeed their young.

An average Ssessekh or Lath Gorn male weighs about 215 kilograms. Their skin, consisting of tightly connected scales, are naturally strong which serves as natural armor. As it can only be remotely affected by something equal to the force of a gunpowder propelled diamond projectile.

Their physical strength is even greater than their appearance suggests as they possess a great deal of internal muscle mass. Though this is impressive among the males, Ssessekh females are even more fearsome as they can average around 2.5 meters high and typically are 250 kilograms. As such, the females tend to be the stronger gender within their racial variant. Due to this, it is not uncommon to see a large number of Ssessekh female marines and officers within the Gorn military.

Gorn who have the capability of Egg laying place their offspring within a caste system based on the natural biological traits they took on due to nearby environmental factors. Among the hardest to produce eggs were those of the military branches as their biology required specific environmental factors that were very hard to find naturally. Both egg laying and Xeno-augmented Gorn rely on utilizing whole planets with specific environments as reproductive nurseries for the mass creation of specific caste workers.

Upon birth many Gorn have soft white skin which darkens into a pale then deeper green. However, there are racial variants in skin color such as the Lath which are exclusively Red or deep Crimson in color. Or with augmented Gorn their skin can darken into a deep obsidian black. There also exists a scale coloration which is blue-yellowish although incredibly rare. These Gorn are believed to be protected by the Mistress of Fertility for they are nobles and spiritually pure. Those hereditary families that have a large number of blue-yellow scaled Gorn are considered blessed with a symbol of Gorn strength.

Gorn both within the Caste system have differing biological traits. Such as the Technical (Engineering) caste which have multiple stomachs.

Gorn do retain the traits of common Earth reptiles and dinosaurs. Such as a powerful and wide bite radius and are cold blooded, thus they live on planets either in an orbit closer to or within binary or multiple stellar regions. within Earth based room temperatures they cannot be seen in Infrared imaging. However while most Gorn variants do seem to have long spine supporting tails, Ssessekh Gorn appears that their tails are vestigial and probably won't exist within a few more generations.

Known individuals

• Krall
• Rrit
• Skkan
• Slathis
• S'taass
• Xrathis
• Yyzzr
• Drash
• Thraak

External links

• Gorn article at Memory Alpha, the canon Star Trek wiki.
• Gorn article at Memory Beta, the non-canon Star Trek wiki.
• Gorn article at Star Trek Expanded Universe.
• Gorn article at The Star Trek Online Wiki.