Mintakans

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The Mintakans are a race in the fictional Star Trek universe.

The Mintakans are from the planet Mintaka III. They are Proto-Vulcan humanoids at the Bronze Age level of development, quite peaceful and highly rational, whose evolution closely parallels that of Vulcan. Some live in extended families; another social custom is a woman's precession of her mate in walking. In appearance they follow the Vulcanoid norm, but their brain has a much lower lysosome level. Once cave-dwellers, they now build two-story adobe-like huts, hunt with the bow, weave cloth, use a sundial and have no immediate fear of strangers.

Millennia ago they gave up the belief in the supernatural, a development highly praised by Picard, in one of the most overt displays of Gene Roddenberry's atheism.[1] The supernatural beliefs rejected included an "overseer" god, astrology and the occult — but considered it again when a Federation study team was accidentally revealed to them in 2366; to counter the damage. They thought that Captain Jean-Luc Picard was the overseer, whom they thus called "the Picard". But Picard had their leader, Nuria, beamed aboard the Enterprise, and convinced her that he was a mere mortal with higher technology. In the end the Mintakans were reassured of their rational ways and the post was restored and hidden.