Balants were a non-humanoid warrior race native to the rogue Balant planet.
Background[]
Balants had reddish-orange skin with a natural light-yellow bioluminescence. They were about six feet tall, with flat, oval heads. They were a digitigrade lifeform, and their legs had extended metatarsals and three phalanges. Their hands had one thumb and two bulbous digits.
Balants were biologically capable of absorbing phaser energy. Through psychokinesis, they had the ability to levitate and manipulate objects from a distance. Exposure to oxygen was deadly to a Balant.
They had the ability to fly by harnessing wide, invisible rays within a planet's atmosphere. A vast gas cloud surrounded the Balant planet and severely restricted the use of mechanical power, which trapped the Balants within the cloud.
Their skills for invention were limited, though they claimed otherwise. Balants crafted small items for various uses, such as a device which emits intense heat. They were able to adapt energy from native trees to shoot energy discharges from guns, but had little control over the blasts and would only use them as a last resort.
Balants were physically indistinguishable from their neighbors, the peaceful Kalins. (TOS comic: "Skin Deep")
History[]
In 2266, at least 20 Balants attempted to commandeer the USS Enterprise and escape their planet. They first tried to manipulate Captain James T. Kirk into killing Spock. When that failed, they buried Kirk and Spock under a pile of meteorites in a Kalin city. The Balant leader boarded the Enterprise through an airlock, only to be disintegrated by exposure to the ship's oxygen atmosphere. Kirk convinced the rest of the Balants to remain on their planet until they learned how to take the gas cloud with them, and suggested that they make peace with the Kalins. (TOS comic: "Skin Deep")