Delving deep here. I had forgotton about this one;
Vidiians
By Dan Gurden and Brian K
Affiliation; Vidiian Soldarity
Homeworld; Unknown
The dreadful phage, the bane of Vidiian existence, drove this once-proud Delta Quadrant race to the desperate measures so often called forth by desperate times. There's nothing so desperate as having your entire species ravaged by a debilitating, incurable disease for over two millennia, with thousands dying each day. Once a proud Delta Quadrant race of educators, artists, and explorers, the Vidiians' response to the phage propelled them to amazing accomplishments in medical technology, and they developed a species-wide ethic of postmortem organ donation. Corpses are not always easy to come by, however (especially when your entire society is dedicated to preserving your species' lifespan), so the Vidiians turned to harvesting organs from living members of other species, their ethics compromised by their desperate quest for life.
Attributes;
Fitness 3 [5] Vitality -1
Coordination 2 [5]
Intellect 3 [5] Logic +1
Presence 2 [6] Empathy -1, Willpower +1
Psi 0 [5]
Skills;
Athletics (choose Specialization) 1 (2)
Artistic Expression (choose Specialization) 1 (2)
Culture (Vidiian) 2 (3)
History (Vidiian) 1 (2)
Language Vidiian 2
Science, Any (choose Specialization) 1 (2)
World Knowledge (Vidiian Homeworld) 1 (2)
Science, Life (choose Specialization) 2 (3)
Or Science, Medical (choose Specialisation) 2 (3)
Typical Advantages/Disadvantages;
Fanatic (Oath); Cure the Phage - 3 (Fanatic), Medical Condion (Phage) -2*, Species Enemy (Most species dislike/distrust them) -5 High Pain Threshold +2, Rapid Healing +1
Fantic (Oath); Cure the Phage
This code is the primary species goal of the Vidians and the cause of their fall from grace. At first it was simply a driving goal of an advanced species turning to science to treat a disease rampaging out of control. As a result leading to the Vidians advancing their medical technologies by leaps and bounds. But the contstant failure of these advances to remedy the problem, caused this driving goal to allow the Vidians to 'justify' their action as neccesary when their attempts at treating the phage made them into monsters...
The Phage
The Phage is a slow debilitating disease, with no cure. If left untreated it will be fatal for the sufferer. However treatment helps to slow this process. Unfortunatly the Phage is highly adaptive and will develop a tolerance for any treatment used.
This requires that Vidiians develop new and innovative means of staving off the disease. It was found that the transplant of healthy organs and body parts also helped slow the spread, but not stop the advance. Eventually the shortage of healthy body parts and organs led the Vidiians to apply transplants from other species, developing advanced medical techniques to ensure compatibility, usually requiring certain ammounts of Genetic resequencing. This resequencing had an unfortunate side effect, in ensuring the Phages compatibility to the transplanted parts, and their eventual debilitation to the disease.
Over the years the sources of legitimate parts began to run dry, and it was simply a matter of time before desperation turned the Vidiians into more than desperate scientists and made them something more, something bad. By this point the extesive use of transplantation had already turned the species into a frankenstein mix of grafted skin and transplanted organs, becomming almost universally ugly by all species comparrisons, but now their attitudes towards other species became as ugly as their visage. At first they were choosy, carefully picking targets for potential in curing the Phage, and to keep their activities secret, but soon they were unable to keep their activities secret and hit targets indescriminatly either keeping their prisoners as slave workcrews until such a time as they could harvest the neccesary body parts, or simply hitting small groups to take a vital body part required urgently... The Phage had caused a once proud and peaceful species into a race of nightmare grave robbers...
*Note: The Think Tank cured the Phage in 2375-76, this will allow the removal of 'Medical Condition; Phage' but it will still take a while for the Vidiians to loose their reputation as butchers and horrors...
