Altamid

Altamid was an M-class planet in the Altamid system, in the Necro Cloud nebula. It was once inhabited by an advanced, space-faring civilization, later called the Ancient Ones. Altamid was characterized by massive subterranean development with little-to-no lifeforms detectable from orbit. However, it had forests and other plant life.

In the 2260s of the alternate reality, information on this planet was located in the Federation database. According to the database, the planet was located in a non-Federation jurisdiction.

History

In 2164, the Federation starship USS Franklin crash-landed on Altamid. Only three crew members survived, including Captain Balthazar Edison and his officers Anderson Le and Jessica Wolff. Unable to contact Starfleet and seeing no sign of rescue, Edison and his crew came to embrace an anti-Federation ideology.

Discovering a cache of technology left behind by the planet's former inhabitants – including advanced mining technology, a drone workforce, thousands of ships and a device capable of extending life by draining energy from victims – the three survivors resolved to make humanity strong again through war. They began to use the technology on the planet to raid unsuspecting ships and drain their crews, becoming Krall, Manas, and Kalara in the process and seeking out the Abronath, a lost weapon native to Altamid. (Star Trek Beyond)

Alternate reality

In 2263, Krall learned that the missing half of the Abronath had been discovered by the USS Enterprise and was currently being transported aboard that ship. He instructed Kalara to pose as an alien whose ship had crashed on Altamid, luring the Enterprise to the planet's system, where it was attacked and destroyed by Krall's swarm.

While the remains of the Enterprise crashed onto the surface of Altamid, many of the survivors were captured by Krall and imprisoned in his compound. Most of the Enterprise senior staff managed to elude capture and soon rescued their shipmates using the transporter aboard the long hidden USS Franklin. The Enterprise crew eventually escaped the planet aboard the hastily repaired Franklin, pursuing Krall to prevent him from releasing the Abronath on Starbase Yorktown and the Federation at large. (Star Trek Beyond)

Planetary features

Altamid featured a diverse topology ranging from craggy canyons to lush forests. Extremely tall trees marked the landscape in one location. Another location was distinguished by golden yellow rocks, another – the area later held by Krall – by blue quarries.

The planet was also host to an array of insect life, including flying insects that reflected the swarm-like nature of Altamid's indigenous spacecraft. (Star Trek Beyond)

See also

• Altamid inhabitants

Appendices

Background information

Altamid was named after the daughter of Star Trek Beyond actor and co-writer Simon Pegg. The planet's name is an anagram of her name, "Matilda". [1]

Star Trek Beyond co-writer Doug Jung noted of Altamid, "We had loftier ambitions about that planet from early on." According to Jung, Altamid was intended to be "essentially a mining colony," rather than a home planet. [2]

On 26 July 2016, Pegg News – a Twitter account moderated on behalf of Simon Pegg – provided a brief description of Abronath which mentioned Altamid, describing it as "an M-class planet in the southern spiral arm of the Andromeda Galaxy." According to the tweet, Altamid was the only planet where the metal known as Abronath could be found. The tweet concluded, "Altamid has endured several mass extinctions due to the presence of Abronath in its asthenospheric crust." [3]

McCoy actor Karl Urban once described Altamid as "an extraordinary planet" and "an interesting character." (Star Trek Magazine Movie Special 2016, p. 60)

Planetary data in background graphics created for Star Trek: Beyond list actual data for the planet Mercury. [4]

External link

• Altamid at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works