Creators (Cetacean Probe)

The Creators were an unnamed race of Cetaceans who created the Cetacean Probe approximately 500,000 years before the 23rd century. Their home world was in the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, on the opposite side of the galaxy from the United Federation of Planets.

The Creators built the Probe to communicate with other Cetacean species who had either reached the same level of evolution as they had, or who had the potential to do so. The crew of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) initially likened them to super-whales, but later realized that the Creators were more like super-dolphins.

At some point in the distant past, the Creators survived an asteroid impact on their homeworld, the aftermath of which they called the First Winnowing. The land based species on the planet died off as a result, and the Creators used their mental abilities to clear the ash that was covering part of the planet's oceans.

Some 193,000 years after the Probe was launched, it had encountered a race of aliens - possibly the Borg - who had heavily damaged the Probe, destroying a large portion of its memory. The aliens used the information they gained from the Probe to find the Creator's home world. These aliens launched an attack on the Creator's home world, which the Creators were able to turn back. When the Creators turned back the aliens, the aliens then turned their attention towards the local star, somehow reducing the energy output of the star. As a result, the Creator's home world entered a new ice age, which was called the Second Winnowing.

The Creators smashed their home world's moon to build a fleet of ships, and abandoned their home world. They left They did not leave any indication of where they were going so that they could not be followed by the aliens who had caused the Second Winnowing. (TOS novel Probe).