This is the cultural briefing that the players will receive regarding the Mendovians. The Mendovians are going to be a recurring species in the campaign, and the tensions existing within their culture will provide ongoing stories for the crew. They function similarly to the Bajorans in DS9.

Mendovians

The Mendovians inhabit the 5th largest moon around the 6th planet in the Mendovi System. The Mendovians are a hardy people, and had to evolve into these hardy being in order to survive the harsh magnetosphere of the gas Giant they call Evani. Evani is also the creator god of the ancient Mendovians belief system. We will prepare a separate brief on the Mendovian belief systems.

Evani dominates the landscape and life cycles of the planet itself, although the unique atmosphere of the moon acts as a filter for the harmful radiation. The ambient radiation is still harmful to most carbon based life forms that do not have a natural adaptation to the increased radiation. It is recommended that all starfleet personnel be inoculated every 6-24 hours depending on anatomy while stationed there. The actual treatment regimen is at the discretion of the head of Medical.

The Mendovians and the Federation made first contact ten years ago when the USS Hood catalogued this sector. At the time, the Mendovians were just beginning to make their first steps into the intergalactic community. They had discovered warp drive some four decades before. It is not known who they first made contact with.

The Mendovians, however, have a fractured power structure. Though not all species attain a monoculture before their discovery of space travel, most do. The Mendovians have not, and if anything the competition among the various nation states and corporate entities on the planet for resources has only intensified with the introduction of faster than light travel. Moreover, the concentrated deposits of dilithium and trilithium have attracted the attention of many of the quadrants big players, namely the Klingons and the Romulans. After the Hood catalogued their interaction with the inhabitants and their scans of the sector, the Klingons examined their logs, as per our strategic agreements with the Empire. As the Klingons looked to use their proximity to the Mendovians to their advantage (and as a valuable source of dilithium for their burgeoning fleet), the Romulans have countered with increased influence. From the time of the Hood's arrival, to now, the strategic assessment of the sector has changed.

There are two main states operated within the Mendovian Sphere, the Archanian Combine and the United Mendovian Republic. The Combine were the more aggressive of the two states, and after making first contact with the Klingons, hired out the House of Duras to enforce their claims of dominance over other powers in the region. The Combine is a factional, tribal organization. Each tribe has three votes in the tribal congress, which is relatively representative. Each tribe has the power to levy their own taxes, but the combine declares war and manages ultranational affairs as a bloc.  With the extra firepower of Birds of Prey, the Combine was able to steamroll over several other smaller states that had laid claim over other mining facilities in the area. This enlisted weaker corporations and states to leverage their mineral assets for mercenaries of their own, ranging from the Orion Syndicate, Nausicans, other Klingon houses, and even the Ferengi. In time, the system played out as a proxy war between various Klingon states until the Klingon Civil War resolved these conflicts.

During this time, however, the Romulans had been fostering secret connections with some of the leaders of another, smaller nation state, the so called United Mendovian Republic. The Romulans quietly and covertly supplied the UMR with weapons and training for almost a decade, according to our intelligence reports gathered from Klingon sources. It was not until the defeat of the House of Duras in the Klingon Civil War that Romulus established official diplomatic ties with the UMR. Now the power on Mendovi has been collected by two states (with the exception of a handful of supranational corporate entities), both functioning as a proxy of either the Romulan or Klingon Empires.  

Culture

The Mendovians are a highly independent and self-sufficient people. It must be stated, however, that the nature of an individual Mendovian is quite different from how they interact as a society. On the individual level they shirk aid from others, and view accomplishing tasks and challenges by oneself as necessary to becoming mature. Only when forced by the possibility of death do Mendovians accept assistance from others. This, in turn, results in rampant poverty, with the exception of a small portion of the population. There are no redistributive programs, and they have not created transporter or replicator technologies to fill the material gap between the upper and lower classes. The desire to stay out of poverty has created entrenched classes in some parts of the Mendovian Sphere, but not in all. The Archanian Combine have embraced the Klingon ideals of strength, and have taken the viewpoint that any person or corporation or government that cannot defend itself is not fit to the spoils of labor. The Mendovians were already tribal in nature before Klingon influence in their society; it was their inherent curiosity that allowed them to develop science, history, and learning. Klingon influence on the planet has already exacerbated their libertarian and tribal identities.

However, to contrast this, the UMR has used the tribal structure of their republic, and the concentration of wealth by those leaders, as a way to create a de facto Oligarchy. The leaders who wield the most money and can retain the largest armed forces maintains their power. It is also believed that the Romulans also leverage their support for those in control as well, but are wary about doing it too openly, because if the people of the UMR sense that their leadership may only be puppets of the Romulan Empire, then their state may slip into civil war.