It seems to be most difficult to find the origin of the Privateers, but this is no surprise, since
they like to stay hidden as much as possible. But if you search long enough (or if you have
the Dark Sense), you can find the home of even the most secretive Privateer. The Privateers
are in fact also from "Star Trek" and called originally the "Orion Pirates" or "Orion Space
Pirates".
The classification of this race is so difficult, because the Orion Pirates appear in Star Trek
only twice very marginally: In the old sequel "Journey to Babel" the Enterprise is molested by
a very fast ship, which turns out to be a ship of the "Orions". Furthermore a Meteor Blockade
Runner appears briefly on the computer screen in the new sequel "Mind Poison", when Data
searches the ship's data banks - a clear prove of the Privateers' origin from Star Trek. In
several Star Trek novels the Orion Space Pirates find more attention, for example they play
an important role in the history of the Vulcans (see the novel "Spock's world")."
The race picture of the Orions in WinPlan is a dancing green woman. In fact, the Orion
constellation is famous for its excellent and very seductive dancers which often have a skin
with green color. In Star Trek the Orion Dancers appear in three different episodes. In "Time
Trap" (from the animated series) Devna (long blond hairs, green eyes & lips) serves as a
interpreter on a spaceship stranded in the Elysia Delta Triangle. She becomes quite friendly
with the Enterprise, but refuses to try to escape with the Enterprise and dances an
impressive farewell dance for them. In "Whom Gods destroy" Marta (dark hairs and insane)
is kept imprisoned by Garth (the also insane opponent of Captain Kirk). Marta flirts with
Captain Kirk and is later killed by Garth. In "The Cage" Vina (who is actually a human, who
becomes badly deformed in the crash of the S.S. Columbia) only appears as Orion dancer in
a illusion created by the Talos to Captain Pike.
So the people from Orion (well, the Privateers) not only posses the best starship propulsion
technology and clever tacticians, who can achieve military objectives even with inferior
weapons, but they have also gorgeous beautiful women, who are both very able diplomats
and a true delight to admire. No doubt about it, they are just the best race by far in the entire
Echo Cluster.
Parts of this article are based on information compiled by Christian Erpelding (FIDO:
2:2448/435.18) with the support of Thore Schmechtig.
Contributed by Sirius
<100441.3504@compuserve.com>
to Commander Pirx's Privateer internet pages on June 3rd 1996.