Ocampa
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Ocampa is the fictional home planet of the Ocampans, a fictional race of elf-like humanoids in the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager.
Originally surface dwellers and the dominant species of their homeworld, the Ocampans exhibited phenomenal mental powers far in excess of any similar race in Star Trek canon. Their amazing mental abilities were offset, however, by their extremely short nine-year lifespan, less than that of dogs (This is in marked contrast to the usual practice of making alien races longer-lived than humans).
[edit] History
The development of the Ocampan race was interrupted when an exploratory vessel from another galaxy chose to visit the Ocampan homeworld. The propulsion system of the intergalactic vessel caused an irreversible chain reaction in the atmosphere of the planet destroying the ability of the atmosphere to carry on a rain-cycle. According to Captain Janeway, the planet's atmosphere was "completely devoid of nucleogenics". The intergalactic explorers, upon realizing their mistake, took upon themselves the responsibility of caring for the Ocampans. The Caretakers built a massive underground cavern with access to the only remaining natural water source on the planet, and supplied it with energy via transmissions from a gigantic orbiting station. From this station, the "Caretaker" dutifully watched over the Ocampans, supplying every need and protecting them from every danger. As a result of this life of absolute ease, the Ocampans eventually stopped using their mental powers and, due largely to their short lifespans, eventually forgot about them completely. Over time, the Ocampans became completely dependent upon the Caretakers for all necessities of life.
The Ocampans remained in this state until the only Caretaker remaining on the station began to die. This Caretaker reasoned that only his own offspring would be able to carry on his work of protecting the Ocampans, and so began a galaxy-wide search to find a genetically compatible race through which it might produce offspring. This search consisted of a long series of trans-galactic ship-jackings, which is how the Federation Starship Voyager came to be in the Delta Quadrant. Another starship, the Equinox was pulled across shortly before Voyager was.
During the time of the Caretaker, the planet's deserted surface was inhabited by a subset of the Kazon race.
It is a mystery in the Star Trek universe as to how the Ocampan race has been able to survive for so long, considering that not only do they only get to reproduce once during their lives (meaning that the population would at least halve every generation), but the race has a life span of less than a decade. One theory is that there is a very high rate of multiple births (reinforced when Kes references an Uncle in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager), however, episodes on the show have shown evidence contradictory to this, such as when Kes lived her life backwards showing her give birth to a child (only one, and it was human sized, so she would not be able to hold many children), as well as being born herself (she was also the size of a human baby, and there was no evidence of more offspring being born at the same time). Most have attributed this logical flaw to a detail simply being overlooked by the writers of the show.
[edit] External link
- Ocampa article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.
