Iconians?

[Harbinger]

I was reading Memory Alpha for a little bit and looked up some stuff on the Iconians. I'm least familiar with TOS but it eems like other than their gateways and some ruins, not much is known about them. It's not even stated what they looked like. Being such a prominent, mysterious race that has been brought up many times throughout the different shows, I was thinking how this could really factor in to the upcoming (that is, if there is another) Star Trek movie. They could take advantage and explore this mysterious race never seen throughout the series and in doing that, would also help to make the Alternate Universe Star Trek's first movie that keeps to the tradition of "exploring strange, new worlds" and "seeking out new civilizations". What have you?

 

[-Brett-]

Being such a prominent, mysterious race that has been brought up many times throughout the different shows...

They're hardly prominent and as far as I recall they've only been brought up twice.

 

[Harbinger]

Being such a prominent, mysterious race that has been brought up many times throughout the different shows...

They're hardly prominent and as far as I recall they've only been brought up twice.

Besides TOS, they had an episode of DS9 involving their gateways and were brought up in TNG and Voyager. They're considered a highly advanced species. While of course not canon, STO established they were behind a lot of conflicts and things that happened throughout the series. I would say they have some prominence in the series. Not a lot, but enough to be mentioned and for plots around them being used throughout at least three different shows.

 

[Darth Duck]

The Iconians weren't on TOS just TNG and DS9.

 

[The Wormhole]

Iconian Gateways were featured in an episode each of TNG and DS9 (Contagion and To the Death, respectively) and there was a throw away reference to the Iconians in the Voyager episode Inside Man. That's the extent of their presence in canon Trek.

Non canon, the Iconian Gateways were the basis of a novel crossover series in 2001, and the Iconians themselves are featured in the STO game.

 

[Harbinger]

The Iconians weren't on TOS just TNG and DS9.

Ok this is another foul for me. I don't know why but I was thinking The Guardian of Forever was an Iconian gate.

But even the fact they were featured a couple times as this ancient, powerful race could still give way to a story in the Alternate Reality only this time, we actually get to see them. It's a long shot but would also make a lot of people happy to have a movie in the series that deals with one of the primary themes of Star Trek.

 

[M'Sharak]

But even the fact they were featured a couple times as this ancient, powerful race could still give way to a story in the Alternate Reality only this time, we actually get to see them.

The biggest problem I see with the idea of featuring the Iconians is that the Iconian civilization was estimated to have been destroyed some 200,000 years before still-active remnants of their automated defense systems were encountered by the TNG crew in "Contagion".

PICARD
(impatiently)
Mister Data.

DATA
No life-form readings.

WORF
All major cities have been
heavily damaged, and the pattern
of destruction is consistent
with large-scale orbital
bombardment.

PICARD
How long ago?

DATA
Approximately two hundred
thousand years.

Even supposing (as some do) an earlier branching point for the alt-reality from the "prime" timeline than Kelvin vs. Narada, or supposing (as others have) a completely separate but nearly identical timeline, those Iconians are likely to be just as thoroughly dead and gone in the alt-reality as in the prime.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Then again, who knows where the survivors could have been hiding all this time and what kind of civilization they (re)built in that place. Assuming they didn't disperse too wildly and thus become too scattered to be of any use to each other, of course.

 

[Harbinger]

Considering the Iconians were best known for their gateway technology, we could assume some of them might have survived. It's hard to believe with such a technology, ever single one of them was destroyed.

There's this from Memory Alpha:

It was speculated that not all of the Iconians perished in the attacks, but rather used their gateways to escape to other worlds. Indeed, the similarity between the Iconian language and the later languages of Dewan, Dinasian, and Iccobar has been cited as evidence of this theory. (TNG: "Contagion"; DS9: "To the Death"

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Never heard of them, but the exploration of the ruins of a long-dead alien civilization is something I would pretty much always love to see, even if I am partial to the post-human scenario. So these Iconians are much more interesting dead and gone than if they were discovered alive. Besides, with the rate of advancement in Star Trek, they would be near Q-like, and I am not very fond of Q-like species. Neither is likely to happen anyway.


Although... With the deep-space mission, setting a totally unrelated story in the ruins of their world might just work. Sounds even more suitable than Qo'noS for creating tension.

 

[publiusr]

I think they play a role in STO

 

[Harbinger]

I think they play a role in STO

They do and they actually look pretty neat. I brought that up earlier in the thread. Would love if the Abrams universe would fashion the Iconians to look similar to STO's version if they ever decide to go that route.

 

[Nerys Myk]

So, not iconic enough?

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Never heard of them, but the exploration of the ruins of a long-dead alien civilization is something I would pretty much always love to see, even if I am partial to the post-human scenario. So these Iconians are much more interesting dead and gone than if they were discovered alive. Besides, with the rate of advancement in Star Trek, they would be near Q-like, and I am not very fond of Q-like species. Neither is likely to happen anyway.


Although... With the deep-space mission, setting a totally unrelated story in the ruins of their world might just work. Sounds even more suitable than Qo'noS for creating tension.

There's no particular reason they would have to be Q-like. Every species is a product of its own circumstances - there is no law that species always progress at the same rate, or even always progress at all. Humans in the 24th century are on an equal playing field with Vulcans, Klingons, etc, etc, despite arriving in space later. Bajorans have an ancient civilization which actually achieved space travel before the Cardassians - but didn't capitalize on that, and eventually wound up ground under Cardassian bootheels due to an incredibly large tech gap.

I'm not sure how canon it is, but there's a lot of assumptions out there about the Romulans having a relatively lower technology level than earth during the Romulan war - despite the fact that the Romulans had the technology to evacuate from Vulcan and found Romulus centuries in the past.

 

[JWPlatt]

Considering the Iconians were best known for their gateway technology, we could assume some of them might have survived. It's hard to believe with such a technology, ever single one of them was destroyed.

Maybe they pissed off a Douwd.