Name of Species: Sivaoan

Sivao:

• Sivao is a heavily forested planet. Its population lives in semi-nomadic camps spread throughout the temperate regions of the surface.
  
• welcome-home: loud, brightly-colored monkey-like creatures that live in the trees near the Sivaoans’ camps; make a ruckus and throw nuts at people approaching settlements
  
• quickens: mossy-looking, donkey-like creature; long shaggy hair; easily frightened, causing hiccups; fast when scared, will run right inside a tent to escape danger if allowed
  
• grabfoot: chicken-sized, dinosaur-like; sharp teeth; hunt in large packs; very aggressive; can bring down large prey
  
• tail kinker: a popular spice used in food or chewed on its own; very spicy!
• slashback: large predator; looks like a sabertooth

History:
This section is mostly a synopsis of the Star Trek novel Uhura’s Song and contains spoilers. Read on if you want a brief overview of the Sivaoans, but I highly recommend reading the book instead. It’s available in paperback and on Kindle.

Sivaoans have been nomadic for much of their history. They live in harmony with the forests, making as little impact as possible on the planet’s ecology.

Approximately 2600 years ago a nova in a nearby star system caused ecological upheaval. One hundred years later, a city-based culture had developed, bringing massive technological changes and diseases, including warp technology. A number of animals and plants became extinct causing those who had remained in a nomadic lifestyle to exile the city-dwellers.

Sunfall to-Ennien was a bard who left Sivao with the exiles (see section on Eeiaouans). Songs that spoke of the disaster and exile were forbidden to be sung among any but other bards; in this way, the history was passed down, but not shared amongst the younger populations. They only learn of the disaster and exile when they become adults. The cities were left to the forests and the knowledge of space travel was deliberately forgotten. The Sivaoans use some modern technologies, but it is not immediately evident in their camps.

Sivaoan adults harbor massive guilt over exiling their own people and will refuse to speak of it. The exiles (Eeiaouans) carried their guilt through every generation, to the point of being willing to commit suicide rather than reveal their shame to outsiders.

The planet Eeiaou is on the outskirts of Federation space. They experienced a plague which had periodically swept through their planet. They call it the Long Death. The USS Enterprise under Captain James Kirk was sent to give medical aid. While on the planet, they learn that the Long Death is contagious to other species and the planet is quarantined. Dr. McCoy and Nurse Chapel are trapped on the planet, both contracting the disease in the course of treating others.

Aboard the ship, Uhura approaches Spock with the idea that there may be a cure for the disease somewhere. She had long been friends with an Eeiaouan diplomat named Sunfall of-Ennien who had shared man forbidden songs with her, one of which seemed to be a teaching song about the Long Death - it described the symptoms exactly. But the song was incomplete. It implied a cure, but didn’t elaborate. Uhura pieced together info from various songs to come up with the idea that the Eeiaouans were not native to their planet and the cure might be found elsewhere.

On the strength of a song, the Enterprise finds the Eeiaouan’s original home planet, and with the blessing of Starfleet Command, members of the crew beam down to the planet, fully expecting to be breaking the Prime Directive.

They find the Sivaoans to be highly intelligent, but just as unwilling as the Eeiaouans to discuss the past. Kirk decides they’ll stay in the camp, and the crew begins poking around and asking ‘baby questions’. While they appear to live with mostly primitive technology, they don’t seem surprised by any of the Federation’s technology.

The crew interacts with various Sivaoans including a healer and her adolescent apprentice, who both want to help, but can’t; an adolescent who is the daughter of one of the stubborn camp leaders; a bard who takes a liking to Scotty’s accent; and groups of children, one of whom has a childhood disease known as noisy-baby.

Uhura is instrumental in making inroads with the locals, her knowledge of a very old form of the language and her singing making them comfortable with her.

It’s finally determined that the crew will have to follow Sivaoan custom to be seen as adults. They set out with two Sivaoan teens on the ritual Walk to another camp, followed surreptitiously by the bard with a communicator to contact the ship in case they get in major trouble.

The group experiences a few disasters along the way, nearly losing some of their members, resulting in the group being separated for a time. The biggest disaster is when Ensign Chekov suddenly begins to exhibit signs of a particularly virulent strain of the Long Death. It’s impossible that he brought it with him, but the healer’s apprentice doesn’t recognize the disease as presented. Uhura loses hope for finding a cure, but Jinx encourages her to keep trying. They begin going through the teaching song again, over and over until Jinx finally understands that it’s the same as a song on Sivao, but in a different key, which completely changes the meaning. It turned out that Chekov was suffering from a bad case of noisy-baby that he picked up from the local children, and the cure was readily available.

They reach the other camp and get the information they need, then return to Eeiaou with several Sivaoans in tow.

*Since then, relations between the Sivaoans and Eeiaouans have remained somewhat strained. The Eeiaouans find the Sivaoans provincial and backwards, while the Sivaoans see exactly the reason they sent the Eeiaouans away originally. The Sivaoans maintain a diplomatic presence on Eeiaou along with Federation mediators.


Physiology:

• felinoid
• fully furred
• nictitating eyelids
• strong sense of smell (intensely dislike the smell of alcohol
• can smell emotions, but require understanding of species ‘norms’ to interpret
• use smell to help with medical diagnosis - with non-Sivaoan species, it’s mostly recognizing that something is wrong
• prehensile tails can be used to pick up/catch things, can be used in an emergency to catch a falling person, though not strong enough to bear that much weight for long
  
• their fur is soft when they’re young and coarsens as they grow older
• adults have a heavy, tangled undercoat giving warmth and a low level of water resistance, as well as a place for youngsters to safely hook their claws and hang on
• the fur can be licked backwards to stimulate circulation and warmth
• saliva contains antiseptic
• have perfect recall except for information that must be presented visually to be understood, such as in charts and graphs; they can remember spoken words, positions of ears and tails, scents, etc.
• generally athletic and dextrous
• most have perfect pitch; it’s considered a disability to not have it - if a song is sung in a different pitch or key, they may not recognize it as the same song

Culture:

• artistic - they love to dance, sing, play instruments; they hold bards in high regard; consider anyone who sings and shares songs to be a bard
• a ‘hug’ is a fighting position for Sivaoans
• their architecture is organic: buildings, sensors and tools are beautiful as well as functional
• the to- prefix in the name denotes where one goes to celebrate Festival. A Sivaoan is given the name of his/her mother at birth and can choose another at the conclusion of their Walk
• usefuls: long swathes of fabric that are light, but warm; can be used to create tents, swagger lairs, fashion items of clothing; also used to build bridges, pillows, covers...
• most Sivaoans hate to be immersed in water and can’t swim, but don’t mind rain
• most of their structures are tent-like or easily demolished; there is usually only one permanent structure in or near a camp, housing laboratories and study areas for science, technology and medicine
• their religion is called ‘Way of Living’: every camp has its own gods and every plant and animal its own spirit; it’s more of an ecology than a religion: there are restrictions on the number of animals that can be killed in a season, they follow strict guidelines on allowing land to lie fallow; when a camp begins having too much of an impact on the surrounding forest, it’s abandoned and nature is allowed to take back over
• meals are cooked over open fires outside and can last several hours accompanied by sharing news, telling stories and performances by bards
• Cloudshape is a well-known trickster and the subject of many songs and stories
• Rememberers: historians
• prefer food with lots of flavor and spice
• because of their perfect recall, Sivaoans don’t use books; information is passed on in story and song, including medical treatments and cures

Family, Childhood and Adolescence:

• children are spoiled and indulged unless they take it too far; a whopping usually ends any issues
• children will nurse for as long as they can get away with it, only eating solid food when they visit others
• swagger lair: adolescents typically sleep in hammocks hung high in trees called swagger lairs
• there can be strong sibling rivalry between twins, triplets, etc; relationships with half siblings are typically more affectionate
• noisy-baby: a common childhood disease on Sivao; mutated and became much more severe on Eeiaou before spreading throughout the Federation and other worlds

Rituals:

• formal greeting: the arms are raised to just above shoulder height and extended with one an inch or so beyond the other and with extended claws (curved fingers if one does not have claws), then the hands are relaxed and claws retracted
• to request admittance to another’s tent a visitor pokes their tail through the entrance; if there’s no reply, the visitor announces their full name
• the Walk: a group of 4-10 youngsters who are past puberty can go to their camp leader and request the name of another camp that needs their number of adults; they then take about a 5-day journey through the woods to this other camp; they are only permitted a knife, usefuls, a spear and anything else they can make themselves; they only become adults if every member of the group makes it to the destination; an adult will follow, but not interfere; if the Walk is unsuccessful, the survivors can Walk again, but it becomes more difficult to get anyone to go after the first; survivors are considered unlucky
• other trail to adulthood: suicide performed when unsucessful on multiple Walks
• will commit suicide if they contract a terminal or degenerative illness

Expressions:

• limited facial expressions
• ears flicked back sharply: surprise/astonishment
• one ear flicked back: disdain
• corkscrewed tail: happy, laughter
• flicked tail: a little annoyed or angry
• lashing tail: very angry
• whiskers pricked forward: nod/agreement
• prehensile tail wrapped around a person’s waist or wrist: affection
• quivering whiskers: amusement
• bristling tail: concern
• chuffing noise: exasperation; amused disapproval
• turning back on someone: overwhelming emotional distress
• tail-twisting: worry
• shaking tail in one hand: impatience
• ’When I have my name…’: when I grow up
• ’pulling your tail’: joking/teasing
• ’don’t stick your tail in…’: don’t be nosy
• vow/promise/pledge in the Old Tongue: solemn vow, not to be broken
• ’all loops’: all smiles
• ’tell how it happened’: give an accounting of an event, usually word for word and including smells and body language of everyone involved
• ’head is harder than hand’
• ’When two bards meet in one camp, the world can be changed.’
• ’Without children and song, there is no future.’
• ’If you hang your tail from a tree branch, somebody’s going to pull it.’
• ’Better safe than clawed.’

Miscellaneous:

• trouble pronouncing ‘s’ and hard ‘c/k’ sounds
• language consists of lyrical snarls, hisses and yowls; tonal

Eeiaouans

• left Sivao about 2600 years ago
• ‘Eeiaou’means outcast or exile in the Old Tongue
• Eeiaou is not a Federation member - located in the far reaches of Federation space
• highly developed paleontology
• use circular beds
• consider the use of their prehensile tails to be vulgar or uncivilized; Uhura’s friend Sunfall of Ennien apologized for using her tail to keep Uhura from falling once
• use books and do not have the level of total recall that Sivaoans do
• eat bland food

Sources used - i.e Mem Alpha, Star Trek Novel, Conversation between players:
Novel - Uhura’s Song
Frontier IC development