Preservers are mentioned in "The Paradise Syndrome" as the mechanism by which the Ameridian people got to the world they are on. The idea has been grasped by the fannish community.
Epiphany Trek[]
Preservers have not yet been totally explained in Epiphany Trek. The Ane are aware of three waves of Preservers
- First Preservers: The Angerthol were a group of people with a great interest in seeing that various points of view and knowledge were not lost. Their archive has been found in the Kliges'chee Implosion Zone.
- Second Preservers: Also noted as the League of Four.
- Third Preservers were the El Aurians themselves. They transplanted examples of cultures from Earth and other worlds that they thought were interesting or endangered to see what would happen. This was primarily an activity of the arrogant Second El-Aurian Empire.
- Other: While most transplants can be traced back to the above three, there are other transplants that cannot. Anomalies by parties unknown that were not in the habit of transplanting, but obviously did some. Miramani's World for example. The time lines do not match the El-Aurians, and the technology of the asteroid defector is out of even their league. Like wise the Language Spock decoded is not theirs. Still an unknown. A second example has not been found that can be attributed to this race or group.
Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile[]
In Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile there are four levels of the Preservers which overlap and confuse modern science
Recall that this is fantasy rubber science -
4 billion years ago a race of humanoids seeds the galaxy with DNA which prefers humanoid forms - this results in millions of cases of parallel evolution where seemingly unrelated species have similar body styles, face styles and kinsetics styles
500,000 years ago: Sargon and the people of Arret venture through space - they transplant many Vulcanoid species. In 2268, Sargon, whose katra is carried by James T Kirk admits to this. Many speculate that the Arretians were an advanced Vulcanoid race.
80,000 to 30,000 years ago: The Rishans are a race whose form seems to change randomly over time (Archaeologists don't last long trying to track down the Rishans). In at least sixty-five percent of all Rishan artifacts encountered the ergonomic design indicates that Rishans were physically identical to humans - however their thought processes were wildly different.
Having a preference for the humanoid form the Rishans recreated Humanity all over the Galaxy, either on duplicates of Earth or near duplicates, the Rishans even created humanoid races from non-humanoid races. In some cases creating humanoids from non sentient species (The Vargr, humanoids created from wolves)
5,000 to 1,000 years ago: A variant race of humans, the El-Aurians roamed space and explored. They transplanted examples of cultures from Earth and other worlds that they thought were interesting or endangered to see what would happen. This was primarily an activity of the arrogant Second El-Aurian Empire.