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The inhabitants of Cheron were a humanoid species distinguished by half of their skin being white in color, and the other half being black. (TOS: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"; Star Trek: Section 31)
By the 23rd century, the majority of the species was destroyed in a civil war caused by racism. (TOS: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield")
Physiology[]
Inhabitants of this planet had a distinctive physical appearance: their skin was exactly half-black and half-white in color, with some white on the right side and black on the left, and others the opposite. The one Cheronian sub-species had acquired supremacy over the other sub-species, but exactly how this had happened was never explained, and it could be, and indeed was, assumed that even the surviving individuals themselves did not know.
They were an extremely long-lived race, as one representative of them was reputed to have pursued another such representative, an accused criminal from among his people, across the Milky Way Galaxy for over 50,000 years. (TOS: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield")
Some members of the species had brown hair, while for others the black and white coloration included also their hair. (TOS: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"; Star Trek: Section 31)
Culture[]
Bele, Chief Officer Of The Commission On Political Traitors
Those who were "black on the right side" considered those "white on the right side" to be inferior, and had organized a "Commission on Political Traitors" as an agency of the government of which they had acquired control. They subjugated their brethren in what they thought was a gesture of mercy and compassion, but the "whites on the right side" considered it nothing but slavery and oppression.
Attitudes[]
Bele referred to Lokai as "half-white" in a tone clearly meant to disparage; Lokai referred to Bele as "half-black" in a similar fashion. These references were obviously pejorative in both their cases. Both talked primarily in what amounted to clichés about (in Lokai's case) racial equality and/or (in Bele's case) the inherent supremacy/superiority and/or "rightful" subordination/inferiority of any one race over, or to, any other, and there was no real dialogue between the two.
However, from Bele's negative reaction to Kirk's suggestion that his people were once of one color, and both aliens' hostile, contemptuous usages of derogatory phrases such as "monocolored trash" and "monotones," it may be assumed that they both regarded their own dual-colored life forms as being superior to any and all singly-colored life forms. (TOS: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield")
Technology[]
Cheron natives possessed extremely fast space ships with an advanced cloaking technology, and also possessed advanced protective shielding systems on their persons, which could also be utilized to disrupt sensitive computer systems and as weapons against others. Some members of the species could also command advanced technological systems by sheer willpower alone, bringing vessels as large as a starship entirely under their control to send where they pleased. (TOS: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield")
History[]
By 2268, civil war had completely destroyed their civilization, leaving only two known survivors, Bele, "Chief Officer Of The Commission On Political Traitors", and Lokai, an accused criminal whom "Commissioner" Bele had been pursuing since circa 47,730 B.C.E. at the latest, and probably long before even then. The crew of the USS Enterprise believed they would ultimately kill each other due to their hate, thus making the species extinct. (TOS: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield")
At least one other member of the species was later known to be alive in the early 24th century. (Star Trek: Section 31)
In 2381, there was a picture of a Cheron native hanging on the wall of a bar at Starbase 25. (LD: "An Embarrassment Of Dooplers")
Appendices[]
Appearances[]
- TOS: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"
- LD: "An Embarrassment Of Dooplers" (image)
- Star Trek: Section 31
Background information[]
The original story concept did not depict the aliens with bi-colored skin. Fred Freiberger recalled, "Gene [Coon] originally had a devil with a tail chasing an angel." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 74) Episode director Jud Taylor came up with the idea of bi-colored skin shortly before the episode began filming. His original suggestion was that they be half-black/half-white, one color from the waist up and the other from the waist down, but each wearing reversed color schemes. The central idea stuck, but the colors were finally separated along the vertical axis, rather than along the horizontal. (Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, pp. 399-400)
Apocrypha[]
The novel No Time Like the Past describes the Enterprise briefly returning to Cheron, with scans revealing that Bele and Lokai have now set up bases for themselves on different sides of the planet; a time-displaced Seven of Nine notes that, even in her era, the Federation avoids Cheron due to the unpredictable power and life-span of the surviving natives. The novel also reveals that the Cheronians were finally destroyed permanently when an attempt by Bele's side to create a virus that would destroy only their enemies resulted, instead, in the virus being released before it was ready during an enemy assault, with the result being that both sides were destroyed. (However, Kirk and Seven, temporarily trapped in the past, were unaffected by the virus.)