The Elachi (also known as Shroomies, Mutes, and Vertians) were an alien species native to Gamma Vertis IV, in the galaxy's Alpha or Beta Quadrants. The Elachi entered the astropolitical stage in the 22nd century and returned as a major player in the early 25th century, operating from subspace. (ENT episode: "Silent Enemy", ENT - Rise of the Federation novel: A Choice of Futures, STO mission: "Turnabout")
Biology and appearance
The Elachi are a bipedal humanoid species native either to a dark planet far from its class K star or the Mycelial Network. They are able to see in the infrared range. Most notably, they do not communicate with sounds, although their mouths are capable of producing them. (ENT - Rise of the Federation novel: A Choice of Futures; ENT episode: "Silent Enemy"; STO mission: "Beneath the Skin")
Elachi breathe a different composition of atmosphere that was noxious to typical humanoids like Humans and Romulans. (ENT - Rise of the Federation novel: A Choice of Futures; STO mission: "Turnabout")
It was revealed that the primary reason for the abduction of other species by the Elachi was that these were used as stock to grow new members of their kind. (STO mission: "Devil's Choice")
Culture
The Elachi originated in the Mycelial Network, but later were induced to leave by an outside force. Due to their connection to the network, they have developed a spore drive that is simiar but superior to that used on the USS Discovery or the USS Glenn. (STO mission: "Beneath the Skin")
Their race claimed to serve a mysterious race of Masters and operated as part of their schemes. Individual Elachi often served superiors that were known as the First. (STO mission: "Devil's Choice")
They were shown to view other species as livestock that were required for harvesting. (STO mission: "Turnabout") The reason was because such subjects were placed in incubation rooms where they were converted into new warriors at the cost of the captive's life. (STO mission: "Devil's Choice")
History
Origin
One of the "Shroomies".
Individual Elachi often served superiors that were known as the First. (STO mission: "Devil's Choice")
They were shown to view other species as livestock that were required for harvesting. (STO mission: "Turnabout")
The reason was because such subjects were placed in incubation rooms where they were converted into new warriors at the cost of the captive's life. (STO mission: "Devil's Choice")
Some evidence indicates that Elachi evolved on the sparsely illuminated world Gamma Vertis IV. In the mid-22nd century, they sent ships to capture ships and abduct non-Vertians, whom they did not consider sentient lifeforms. (ENT - Rise of the Federation novel: A Choice of Futures)
However, the JahSepp claim they were originally from the Mycelial Network. (STO mission: "Beneath the Skin")
In September 2151, a vessel from this alien race pursued the crew of the United Earth Starfleet starship Enterprise who attempted to hail the unknown starship but did not receive any response to their hails. Each encounter with the alien vessel led to significant damage to the Earth Starfleet ship. One attack led to the race activating a dampening field on the Enterprise allowing for two of their kind to board the ship to begin invasive scans of the Starfleet crew. Captain Jonathan Archer encountered the two intruders and fired a phase pistol at them but this had no effect on the aliens who departed back for their ship. The aliens would later install a device to overload the power grid of the Human NX-class ship though its crew would later use this to their advantage in penetrating their pursuers' vessel. The damaged alien ship would flee after a torpedo barrage damaged it thus ending its pursuit of the Enterprise. (ENT episode: "Silent Enemy")
In January 2163, USS Endeavour responded to a distress call from an Axanari ship that had been attacked. Shortly after their arrival the silent attackers returned, and Captain T'Pol found herself in a familiar situation. They engaged and forced the vessel to retreat, and reported the encounter to Starfleet Command. (ENT - Rise of the Federation novel: A Choice of Futures)
Amongst the Romulans, there were stories of miners that operated past the Eridan Belt who discovered alien beacons of unknown origins. Furthermore, they encountered alien beings that moved past their outposts magnetic barriers and scan the miners before disappearing. However, little was known of these mysterious aliens except that the beacons left behind referred to them as the Elachi. Despite a Romulan presence on such worlds, the creators of the beacons never appeared and the encounters with the creatures were dismissed as paranoia. (STO mission: "A Day on the Farm")
Unknown to many, the Elachi were considered the messengers of the Iconians and claimed to hold the means to bring the ancient mysterious race. At some point, they approached Romulan officers Taris and Hakeev who were searching for the means of harnessing Iconian technology. The Elachi only spoke to Hakeev and showed him a device which they claimed was capable of bringing back the Iconians. Taris had Hakeev study the device though he claimed it was harmless leading to this incident bringing about the destruction of the Hobus star. (STO mission: "Revelation")
Legacy of Romulus and J'Ula's Discovery
An Elachi by the Iconian gateway.
By 2409, the Romulan Star Empire had fractured following the explosion of the Hobus star which led to the destruction of the twin worlds of Romulus and Remus. In this time, the Tal Shiar rose to be a prominent force that sought the re-establishment of the Star Empire but under their rule but were opposed by the actions of D'Tan who had formed a his own government. At some point, Colonel Hakeev of the Tal Shiar forged an alliance with the Elachi to further their plans. This saw the aliens establish a beacon on the agricultural Virinat colony where it was situated inside a cavern. However, the activity of the machine and its protectors led to the native Khellid hive going aggressive which attracted the attention of the Romulan colonists. They managed to examine the alien technology but were unable to determine its purpose. During the Tapping festival, the Elachi along with their Tal Shiar allies launched a combined attack on the colony thus devastating it. The Elachi later departed though a number of colonists survived and were rescued by forces from the Romulan Republic who drove away the Tal Shiar invaders. (STO missions: "A Day on the Farm", "Virinat Invaded")
Following this attack, they struck at the Reman Crateris colony where they decimated the settlement alongside their Tal Shiar allies. Elachi technology was used to cloak Tal Shiar vessels in the Khitomer system which allowed them to sabotage the diplomatic negotiations with D'Tan of the Romulan Republic. As part of their experiments, the Elachi began targeting ships along the Neutral Zone where the crews of such vessels and left no bodies behind on the ships. They later participated on the assault on the planet Delta Corvi alongside the Tal Shiar but their invasion was stopped when Major Vrimak detonated a Thalaron radiation bomb that scorched the planet. After the discovery of their connection to the Tal Shiar, the Elachi began increasing their raids on known space leading to the abduction of various beings. This led to an attack on the Romulan Rh'ihho Station which was repulsed by forces from the Romulan Republic. (STO missions: "Crossroads at Crateris", "Turning Point", "Bigger Picture", "Cloak and Dagger", "Abducted")
Afterwards, the Elachi raiding forces increased the level of their attacks and harvests. This included an onslaught against the Rhi system but these were repelled by Republic forces. During this time, the Elachi were operating from a hidden base in the region and the Romulan Republic attempted to uncover its location. This led to them attacking one of the alien frigates designated as Target Alpha and use it to uncover the base. This staging ground was discovered to be within subspace at a large facility called Station Alpha. Using Target Alpha, Romulan Republic personnel infiltrated the base which was sabotaged and destroyed as a result. With the help of the Klingon Empire and Starfleet, the Republic successfully defended New Romulus against the Elachi invasion fleet. At Storage Facility Z98, data consoles revealed that the Iconians were the mysterious masters of the Elachi and were deploying them to deal with the various threats to their rule in the galaxy. After the activation of the Iconian Gateway at the Jouret system, an Elachi fleet was dispatched to control the gate but was destroyed by the allied forces. (STO missions: "The Best Defense", "Turnabout", "Devil's Choice", "Sphere of Influence")
When a changed circumstance meant the Iconians no longer needed their service, some Elachi migrated back to the Mycelial Network. Some of these Elachi were later corrupted and driven into a frenzy by radiation emitted by probes shot into the network by the Klingon Matriarch J'Ula. But for other Elachi in the network, the radiation restored their memories of who the had been before being converted into Elachi. This allowed those awakened Elachi to ally and work with members of the Delta Alliance. (STO mission: "Beneath the Skin")
Technology
Support Drone.
Analysis of their technology revealed that the Elachi made use of fungal bio-tech with trace amount of spores present from their presence. They wore suits when outside their native environment that was able to repel phase pistol fire and left their users unharmed. Furthermore, they were able to emit some form of invasive scans that projected from their hands that allowed them to analyze other lifeforms. This procedure, however, was quite harmful on their subjects who were rendered unconscious and unresponsive as they suffered neurological damage. (STO mission: "A Day on the Farm", ENT episode: "Silent Enemy")
In terms of actual weaponry, both ship-based and hand-held, the Elachi preferred to wield a unique form of disruptor capable of firing green, crescent-shaped pulses. These powerful disruptors operated on a unique wavelength known to disrupt shields and ignore some forms of armor. In addition, their ships were equipped with specialized torpedoes that could disrupt subspace at the point of impact without causing permanent damage to it, thus causing heavy damage to and potentially disabling their targets. (ENT episode: "Silent Enemy", STO video game: Legacy of Romulus)
They were noted for deploying a number of beacons for an unknown purpose.) Elachi were able to use powerful passive scanning technology was that was able to disrupt enemy starship operations. When engaging other species, they were known to sometimes deploy a device secretly on enemy ships after boarding them. These devices patched onto native systems where they linked with internal sensors and communications thus allowing the Elachi the means to covertly monitor target vessel crews. Such machines also generated a large amount of energy with this being around 600 megajoules that created overload in the power systems. (STO missions: "A Day on the Farm", "Turning Point", ENT episode: "Silent Enemy")
One capability of the alien technology was the capacity to cloak entire starships from detection through the use of anomalies. They were also able to use smaller rifts that were capable of being formed in the quarters of a humanoid and used these subspace anomalies to abduct specimens. In addition, they utilized subspace as staging grounds for large bases that included Subspace Base 002 and Station Alpha. (STO missions: "Turning Point", "Bigger Picture", "Devil's Choice")
Elachi Shareth drone.
One piece of technology commonly used by the Elachi were drones that were insectile automated machines. These were capable of being deployed on guard assignments where they were at times used to protect the alien beacons from outside interference. A more aggressive use of such drones were deploying them in numbers during their attacks on enemy colonies. The drones floating nature meant that they could fly across their environment and latch on to targets whereupon the subjects were forcibly taken back to their Elachi creators. (STO mission: "Virinat, Invaded")
During their attacks, they were noted to deploy large multi-legged vehicles that were dropped onto the planetary surface whereupon they razed enemy settlements. These large walkers were often sued in onslaughts against planets and were often supported by shuttle craft. Such walkers were typically constructed at their subspace bases. (STO missions: "Cloak and Dagger", "The Best Defense", "Rhi Atmosphere Event", "Devil's Choice")
The Elachi were a spacefaring species able to construct large dreadnought-class vessels as well as battleship-class ships. (STO episode: "Vengeance")
Ground vehicles
- Skittering saboteur
- Shareth drone
- Iggoleth drone
- Hast'oroth assault drone
- Elachi walker
Space vehicles
Small craft
- Oschu-class shuttle
- Monbosh support craft
- Monbosh command craft
Starships
External link
- Elachi article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- Elachi article at The Star Trek Online Wiki.