The Haradin are a species mentioned just once in Star Trek, in the episode "E²"; they don't appear, we're just told that Haradin traders gave the NX-01 some improved engine components in alternate future during its trip in the Delphic Expanse. Probably no one would ever remember them at all, it's just one of those random one-off asides that are peppered throughout Star Trek, but I did—because I was the one who wrote their Memory Alpha article! (That's their only canonical mention, but they are mentioned briefly in two books, in similar circumstances as off-screen trading partners.)
I like to have some level of consistency and worldbuilding when playing Star Trek Adventures (I suppose most GMs do), so in my original campaign, I used the Haradin as sort of the generic filler race in the region of space the players were exploring. When they found a couple traders imprisoned by the Romulans in "A Star Beyond the Stars," I made some of them Haradin; when they came across a refugee settlment in "Signals," I made it into a Haradin settlement. I tended to drop them into dialogue periodically in those typical Star Trek lines, the sort of things where people say, "We've had offers from all sorts: the Ferengi, the Orions, the Haradin."
Had I made it to running "Convoy SE-119," I would have made the pirates there into Haradin. I had tentative notes on other episodes I'd've liked to run, and in some of those, I mentioned I'd make the aliens-of-the-week into Haradin as well: "Trouble on Omned III," "Drawing Deeply from the Well," "Ends and Means," "A Cure Worse than the Disease."
Due to this, my ideas about who and what the Haradin were evolved piecemeal. I'd made the Haradin in "Signals" into refugees—so refugees from what? My idea was that the Haradin were the dominant species beyond the Rim of the Starlight, but their government had recently collapsed. Thus you had different groups of Haradin throughout the area, living on colonies now on their own, some no longer able to be sustained. The word "Harad" I intended to describe not a planet, but it was in fact their name for the whole region of space. Most of these ideas didn't come to fruition, of course, because my players only met them twice!
When I started a new campaign, it was in continuity with my old one, set six years later. So I built on what I had been doing; when I ran "Hard Rock Catastrophe," I changed its Saurian colony into a Haradin one. When I finally ran "Convoy SE-119," I kept the pirates as Haradin, and made their new leader General Zotabia, the villain of "Hard Rock Catastrophe." (This was a last-minute idea that ended up unlocking the whole story arc of my second season.) My ideas about what "Harad" was evolved to meet the new setting and some new themes I wanted to explore; obviously the Haradin couln't be from a single region now because this campaign's Ekumene sector was nowhere near the old one's Rim of the Starlight.
My players seemed decently intrigued by what was going on with the Haradin, particularly when they had a very frustrating conversation with some captured Haradin pirates in "Convoy SE-119"; the pirates said Harad had been invaded, and scoffed in disbelief when my players asked where Harad was or who had invaded it. I decided to give them a hint in the first season finale, when the digital consciousness Mercury, who had spent weeks observing the Haradin undercover, gave them the piece of information that in their language, the word Harad meant "universe."
I thus leaned into them more during season two; the players rescued the Haradin pirates from Klingon captivity in the season premiere, and got hints about them during the third episode, all of this leading up to a finale centered on the Haradin. I had to do a lot of thinking about the Haradin to make this happen, so here I've typed up some of my notes and other thoughts.
Species Physiology
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| M'Syrolath, matriarch of Clan Marvek |
(I'm not the kind of GM who thinks about species abilities very much, to be honest; since almost all of my Haradin NPCs were originally NPCs of other species, I just maintained whatever was on the character sheet originally.)
Species Origin and Residence
The Haradin must have a home planet, in the sense that any humanoid alien species must have evolved somewhere, but if they ever knew their origin, it has been long forgotten, and on top of that, they consider it irrelevant. Among the multiple meanings of Harad in their language is "universe"; the Haradin consider themselves residents of the universe. Many Haradin go their whole lives without ever stepping foot on a planet. The majority of spaceborn Haradin reside on the great clan-ships (see below), at least hypothetically; some Haradin traders might go many years between return visits, or live on a space station elsewhere.
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| interior city on a clan-ship |
Over the centuries, however, some Haradin have settled on planets. One particular Haradin colony, for example, is on Ryuku in the Ekumene sector. Some of these colonies are independent; others have affiliations with and are supported by particular ship-clans. There are some groups of Haradin who consider these planetbound Haradin to not be "true" Haradin; see more discussion of this below.
The Clan-Ships and the Ship-Clans
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| Haradin clan-ship |
Most Haradin consider their homes the great clan-ships (traëlin-vurek in Haradin, literally "ships that belong to the clans"), which are typically ten miles in diameter and a hundred miles long. With 40% of the interior volume given over to dense city living, a typical clan-ship has a population of a half billion. They have warp drives, but are rarely used except in times of emergency; rather, they make their way slowly through the deepest recesses of interstellar space. Each ship-clan (vurekin-traël, "clans that belong to the ships") considers one of these its home, and Haradin traders return to them between their journeys. Each of the clan-ships is a hive of activity, with all the various comings and goings. Outsiders are very rarely allowed on board clan-ships. The Haradin do most of their trading with aliens in those aliens' space.
The ship-clan leader is chosen from among the leading families; they are typically women. The matriarch is assisted by a group of ministers, also chosen from among the leading families. Each clan is organized differently, but Clan Marvek, for example, has a Representative Council made up of 794 members (so each representative covers a district of ~630,000 people). The only clan-wide votes that happen are referenda—these can be either called by the Matriarch in advance of a significant decision (for example, whether to relocate the clan-ship), or invoked by vote of a certain threshold of the Representative Council. Before the collapse of Harad, these votes were carried out by members of the ship-clan voting via their communications implants (see below). This also used to be how local district elections were carried out, but since the collapse of Harad, each district had evolved its own procedures for in-person elections.
In order to maintain careful monitoring of imports and exports for tax purposes, matter transportation is strictly forbidden to and within a clan-ship; all approaching ships must dock, and a monorail system is used for movement within the ship's interior.
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| puddle-pig on an interior farm |
The Meaning of Harad and Haradin
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| Beshlor, pirate captain |
However, Harad is also the name the Haradin give to a massive communications network that stretches across the quadrant. Individual Haradin have receiver/transmitters implanted in their brains as adolescents that give them access to the network; it's not interactive like web sites or Twitter, more like receiving a podcast stream or radio feed in your brain. There was a large central transmitter that then broadcast to relay transmitters on clan-ships, which then routed the signals to individual Haradin. This allowed the Haradin to maintain a cultural identity despite their wide dispersal. Though funded by the Haradin government, the transmitter network was managed independently, and thus mostly avoided being caught up in politics (sort of a space BBC or NPR). The transmitter network uses a lower domain of subspace (almost a "subsubspace") that means its transmissions cannot be detected by a Federation starship not specifically configured to detect it.
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| Esha Vortan, Return to Harad recruit |
If in conversation with a Haradin that doesn't know any foreign languages, this overlapping of concepts can lead to a lot of confusion; a Haradin might express surprise that someone else doesn't know what Harad is (because it means "universe" to them) or talk about the "invasion" of Harad (more on that below) or even its collapse in a way that indicates you ought to know about it (because how could you not know what happened to the universe).
The word Haradin is formed from Harad and the suffix -in, which literally means "from"—for example, their word for "human" is Earthin, or their word for "Vulcan" Vulcanin. But it also carries a connotation of rightful belonging, one is Haradin because you belong in Harad. So the Haradin are not just from the universe, but the rightful inhabitants of the universe. As stated above, some Haradin reside on planets, but for this reason there is often a faint sense of suspicion they are not true Haradin, for they no longer live in Harad.
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| clan-ship monorail system |
Conversely, sometimes one may become Haradin even if born of a different species, by assimilating to the Haradin way of life—all you must do is establish your own belonging to the universe. Thus there are pockets of immigrants aboard some of the clan-ships whom outsiders might refer to as non-Haradin, but the Haradin themselves would not make that distinction. For example, there are groups of Orions, Yridians, and Lissepians in Clan Marvek. They make up about 1.5% of the ship-clan population; the one district with a majority non-Haradin population is called Oriontown. There are some hard-line Haradin nativists, however, who would say that once Haradgüi, always Haradgüi.
The Haradin and the Federation
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| Orven Jadrel, history professor |
The first significant contacts between the Haradin and the future members of the United Federation of Planets were recorded in the mid-22nd century in the (former) Delphic Expanse. As the Federation expanded, it encountered the Haradin more and more, but the Haradin always remained something of a mystery to the Federation. The universal translator did not work out, for example, that Harad meant universe, and thus as far as the Federation was concerned, the term referred to a planet. The Federation had heard of the great clan-ships, but no one had ever been aboard one.
In the 23rd century, there was some significant commerce between the Federation and individual Haradin traders, the Federation usually being particularly interested in new knowledge; for example, the Federation acquired a used Orion database from the Haradin that contained samples of many previously unknown languages. Especially on the frontier, Haradin traders were often essential to local economies, but then they would be displaced as the Federation built up its own infrastructure in a region of space.
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| University of Marvek |
The Collapse and Invasion of Harad
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| Vekshari, puddle-pig farmer |
Second was the increasing spread of the Federation; as the Federation fully embraced its post-monetary phase in the 24th century, there was little use for Haradin traders in areas they had previously been essential to.
Third was that the conflicts of the 2350s onward (e.g., the Cardassian Wars, the Galen Border Conflict, the Borg incursion of 2366, brewing tensions with the Dominion) dampened trade opportunities across the quadrant, causing a depression in the Haradin economy that the already struggling, overstretched Haradin government struggled to respond to.
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| Thalera Neshek, transmitter manager |
The most visible negative consequence of this was that the central transmitter of Harad (its location still a mystery to outsiders) ceased functioning or was possibly even physically destroyed; outside historians do not really know for sure. Some planetary Haradin colonies began to struggle without the resources from the government that previously sustained them, leading to a refugee crisis beyond the Rim of the Starlight
This is the event that many Haradin refer to as the collapse of Harad. For those without the frame of reference for what Harad is, this is confusing terminology, and many in the Federation thus believed their planet may have been destroyed.
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| General Zotabia |
The collapse of Harad has given rise to more nativist sentiments among the Haradin, a growing antagonism against the Federation and all other Haradgüi. Many of these use inflammatory rhetoric of "invasion" to refer to the events of the past decade or so, calling the encroachment of the Federation into areas of space previously dominated by Haradin trade routes the invasion of Harad. This is confusing terminology to non-Haradin (a Haradin who buys into this rhetoric would react with incredulity if a Starfleet officer asked who invaded Harad, for example, because how could one not know about the invasion of the universe!), but the "invasion" of Harad is basically the point—about a decade ago—where the Haradin began to realize that it was Federation ships that were dominating the spacelanes, not their own.
The Dominion War exacerbated this, and is considered part of the "invasion" as well. Partially this is because to some Haradin, all aliens are Haradgüi. But also the Dominion War really did eat into Haradin prosperity by restricting their trade routes; they lost access to half the quadrant. Many Haradin have fallen on hard times. Without a central government to manage it, the Haradin economy has continued to struggle.
The Rise of Zotabia and "Return to Harad"
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| "Return to Harad" campaign poster |
In 2377, after the Dominion War, nativist groups began popping up with greater frequency throughout Haradin society, both among the ship-clans and on the planetary settlements. One such group arose on the colony Ryuku, "Return to Harad," advocating for an abandonment of planetary settlement. After a series of terrorist attacks, the ringleader of the organization was exposed as General Zotabia, commander of the Ryuku military. Zotabia was imprisoned, but loyalists liberated him, and he escaped the planet in a battleship.
Zotabia ended up joining forces with a group of Haradin pirates, winning them over with his rhetoric, and using them to form the core of a fledgling interstellar movement. Many outside of the movement refer to it as New Harad, but Zotabia rejects this appellation. It is not a New Harad, but the Harad of old, reclaimed. Zotabia's rhetoric, which demonizes the Federation and other Haradgüi, as well as what he calls the ineffective or even traitorous ship-clan administrations, for the difficulties faced by the Haradin, is increasingly popular among the many in the ship-clans.
Unbeknownst to many, Return to Harad's philosophy is being spread through reactivated transmitter networks on individual clan-ships. No longer managed by the Haradin government, the ship-clan transmitters are now in the hands of Zotabia loyalists, who use them to broadcast nativist anti-Haradgüi propaganda directly into people's brains, slowly radicalizing them through their media diet.
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| Haradin lined up to vote |
A public referendum is being held among Clan Marvek to determine if it will affiliate with Zotabia's movement. Pressure against the existing ship-clan leadership has been growing thanks to their inability to manage an outbreak of the anatid space flu among the plorthik; as the disease originated off-ship, it is only giving Zotabia a further excuse to demonize Haradgüi. Growing anti-Federation sentiment among the Haradin is also creating difficulties out on the Federation frontier in regions such as the Ekumene sector, which does still depend on Haradin trade.
Return to Harad Rhetoric
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| Norex Talven, Supervisor of Elections |
This is a speech by General Zotabia, broadcast over the Haradin transmitter network from the Marvek clan-ship:
Brothers and sisters of the Void, true-born in vacuum, proud heirs of Harad—
I stand before you tonight not as some matriarch groveling at the feet of the Federation. Not as some weak-kneed trader begging for port access. No. I stand as your voice. And I am here to say what they are too afraid to admit.
Our space is under invasion.
They won’t call it that. They use words like cooperation, exchange, outreach. But we know better. You’ve seen it. Ships full of Earthin and Tellarin and Bajorin flooding our orbits. Barging into our ports. Speaking in soft voices while they push us out of our own hangars.
And they bring their rules, their culture, their gravity-choked values. Have you tried to dock at Motherlode recently? Since they joined the Federation, Haradin ships that have travelled that route for generations find themselves turned away for failing “safety inspections.” They are imposing their rules on our Harad. They even banned radiant spice on Kalet IX because it “offends” Andorians!
And they breed, oh do they breed. Families of Haradgüi, five to a berth, living off subsidies, draining our air, draining our power. And our children—our children—are being told in school that Harad doesn’t belong to us alone. That we should share it.
That’s a lie. That’s a crime against our ancestors.
We are Haradin because we belong in space. We were forged in vacuum. Our ship-clans crossed the stars when Earthin were still learning to boil water. And now those same primitives lecture us about “inclusivity”? No thank you.
Let me tell you something. When I’m in command of the high routes—when I seal the outer lanes—we will take back every dock, every relay, every forge from the stinking claws of the Federation, from the Klingons, from the Ferengi.
No more cultural dilution. No more language training for Haradgüi immigrants. No more free berth-rations for alien crews who don’t even know what a flux anchor is.
We will purify our sky.
We will build walls of radiation and steel around our ports. We will fly only Haradin flags from our antennae. And if they say we’re intolerant? Good. Let them say it from behind closed airlocks.
Because this is our space. And I promise you this: We are returning to Harad.
Example Haradin Names
Many Haradin don't use surnames; for these Haradin, their family name is identical to their clan name, which is fairly useless in a population of half a billion that mostly has the same family name as you. (There's no reasons to go by "Beshlor Marvek" if everyone on your street and indeed half your district is also "[Something] Marvek.") But smaller families subsumed within a clan do use their family names as surnames.
Female
- Ero Drallen
- K'manehai
- M'Syrolath
- Thalera Neshek
- T'Rumiak
- T'Rushemei
- Vekshari
Male
- Beshlor
- Esha Vortan
- Kelvarin Dreshek
- Kilexian
- Norex Talven
- Orven Jadrel
- Rhex Marnok
- Zavreth Korranel
- Zotabia
Nonbinary
- Drev Katel
Clan Names
- Marvek
- Tarnavel
Sources and Inspirations
Star Trek Adventures Scenarios
- "Convoy SE-119" by Jim Johnson
- "Ends and Means" by Troy Mepyans
- "Hard Rock Catastrophe" by Christopher L. Bennett
- "Signals" by Ian Lemke
Other Inspirations
- Dark Mirror by Diane Duane (the Lalairu)
- "On the Causes and Consequences of and Remedies for Interstate Malapportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives" by Jeffrey W. Ladewig and Mathew P. Jasinski
- On the Media: "The Divided Dial"
- On the Media: "What the Removal of Navalny's Smart Voting App Means for Democracy Around the World"
- "Speech in Acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters" by Ursula K. Le Guin
All images in this post generated by ChatGPT.
