Delphine

The delphine were a Dolphin-like species native to Omicron V's oceanic moon Triton II. When offworld they wear a small envirofield generator on their tails to hold a skin of water around their bodies, and made use of levitator pads that allowed the delphine to "swim" through the air. Their language consisted of squeals and clicks, and it has regional intonations and accents. The waving of their flippers was a delphine shrug.

At some point the delphine were accepted into the Federation. However, some members of the species felt resentment towards Humans for what they did to Earth cetaceans in the past, which they considered cousins. They wanted little contact with Humans as much as possible. Contact with other races was a different story.

When they were to discuss business with someone, they usually did it over food. To them food was business and everything else was considered play. Eating before one's host was considered rude.

All delphine were musical to one degree or another, and they had a form of entertainment that was both like and unlike opera. An example of their creative work was the Song of the Twelve, an epic sung-poetic work.

The delphine were useful as navigations-research specialists due to the ability they had of sensing hyperstring structures. This allowed them to know where they were in space without the use of maps or charts.

One member was Commander Hwiii ih'iie-uUlak!ha', an expert on hyperstring structures who was traveling with the crew of the Enterprise. 


 * From the way the novel discusses them, it is unclear if the delphine were a similar species to the dolphin, or if they were just a dolphin cultural group that had populated another world somehow.