Created By: Jay P Hailey
Appearance: The Zalla have not yet appeared in any story or game in Jay-Trek
Population:Approximately 7 billion beings, plus a handful of small colonies in their own solar system and on other nearby planets.
Nature of Members: The Zalla are biochemically related to the Andorians. They are not close enough to interbreed or share drugs, but they show definite similarities.
The Zalla are lavender people, with some as dark as purple, others as light as pink. Lavender is the default color.
Government: The Government of the Zalla is a schizophrenic mix of technocratic bureaucracy mixed with various cults of personality.
The Zalla have a King but he is chosen from among a group of nobles by a popular election - so there is a constant campaign of bringing oneself to the public eye and trying to be popular.
The Zalla have a bicameral parliament. The house of Nobles is a mix of the English house of Lords and the 21st century motion picture arts academy. A celebrity has truly made it to the big time when he (or she) is awarded a noble title and a seat in the house of Nobles.
The house of commons is a popularly elected house with MPs and all the happiness of electoral democracy - compromise, controversy, legislation and insanity. The leader of the faction with the most votes becomes Prime Minister
The Combined Parliament must approve all royal cabinet selections.
The house of commons controls the purse strings.
Culture: The Zalla like personalities. They like to be able to attach a face to any given faction, ideology, cause, corporation or political stance.
Because of this the Zalla have developed a class of charismatic nobles who act as face-men and sales people for various causes. Some of these Nobles are cause or ideology driven, some are mercenary, others are driven by self promotion and egotism.
But the Zalla love them and scrutinize them. They keep track of all comings and goings, relationships and affairs of their celebrity noble class.
The Zalla have silver/white hair - they decorate it with strands of jewels, precious metals, sparklies and other material. No high ranking Zallan will be seen in public without either a full-on Hair-do jingling with status declaring spangles - or a well tailored wig which shows this.
Languages: The Zalla are in the last stages of developing a world language. The main language, Zallan, which universal translators are programmed for was the home language of the first Zallan nation to Develop television and therefore began a charismatic based takeover of the world.
Other languages are still spoken on Zalla, but everyone knows Zallan in order to get by.
Economy: The Zallans are transitioning, with the Federation's help to an energy based economy. this is in an evolutionary period where the infrastructure is coming together but the details of the administration of it are not worked out.
Game Role: An encounter for the PCs
World Role: Another group of humanoids to meet, greet and treat with
Relative Influence: On the scale of the Federation, slight. The Zalla are allied but not Federation Members - their military and economic strength is comparable to any other individual world.
Relative Wealth: Average for a trading partner of the UFP
Area of Operation: The Frontier of the Federation - the Zallan Sector is well populated and traveled - but other areas not too far away are not well explored, giving Zallan celebrity explorers fodder.
Headquarters Location: The supreme Palace of Zalla. The nominal headquarters of the elected monarch - and central point of diplomacy for Zalla. A mix of a set for diplomatic balls, parties and summit meetings, combined with a sizable administration complex where workaday Zallan government workers handle all the details.
Public Face: Charismatic people on the move forward into the future
Public or Secret: As Public as they can get and then some.
Publicly Stated Goal: To expand the just and noble Zallan way of life to the stars.
Advantages: A charismatic Zallan is truly charismatic indeed and carries a huge personal magnetism. Zallan Celebrities can and rarely do develop followings on other worlds, among other people.
Weaknesses: The Zallans will tend to lend at least conditional support to anyone who can make a good appearance on a screen, or show some other celebrity grade performance skills.
For instance, a stop over by the Ane musicology/anthropology exploration and performance group "Fuzzy" led to a heated debate in the Zallan parliament about the possibility of offering non-Zallans noble status and seats in the House of Nobles, despite the complete cluenessness of the Ane about Zallan politics or celebrity driven culture.
The debate was not resolved until well after Fuzzy continued on to other planets and performances.
Special Abilities: The Zallans are the best natural talent scouts in all of known space.
Special Disadvantages: The Zallans are suckers for a charismatic con artist - it requires a charismatic prosecutor (Think Perry Mason) to publicly challenge such a con man and shut him down.
Those opposed to them: Pirates see Zallan ships as targets - They largely resent and dislike Zallan Frigates which guard Zallan shipping.
Generic enemies of other people's self determination - see the Zallans as an afternoon’s exciting Conquest - if they could keep the UFP or LUW from interfering.
Those who favor them:
- The UFP - sees them as a friend and possible member
- The LUW - Sees them as a friend and Possible member
- Legit Orion trade houses - see Zalla as a good customer
- Ferengi trade houses - see Zalla as a good customer
- The Bendarri - see the Zalla as flighty and flaky, but not bad sorts all around.
Relations:
- The UFP - the Zallans have an on-again-off-again relationship with the Federation.
The Federation is ambivalent about the Zallan culture because they wonder how representative a celebrity-ocracy really is. The Zallans waffle between pro-Federation Monarchs and genially anti-Federation Monarchs.
Over time the Federation has slowly but surely enmeshed Zalla in the Federation wide trade economy. Zallan bureaucrats know this very well and fear what might happen if the Federation and a popular Zallan Monarch go head-to-head. Federation diplomats usually back down and just shut up when an Anti-UFP Monarch is elected - they know time is on their side.
- The Orions - The first contact of the Zallans with the outside Universe - the Zallans fought a handful of bitter campaigns against Orion raiders and marauders.
Since contact with the Federation 125 years ago, the relationship has stabilized somewhat. Orion traders frequently call on Zalla and Zallan trade ships call on Orion colonies.
The Orions consider Zalla to be so close to being Federation members that there is functionally no difference.
- The League of Unaligned Worlds - refuses to give up on Zalla - they have offices on Zalla and Zallan Celebrities who champion their cause. Many Zallans have a cheerful and friendly distrust of the Federation - Viewing it as a sort of Zallan bureaucracy writ large with no celebrities with which to gain a handle upon it. Some are genially anti-Federation because it's stylish.
The Zallans are treated as members of the League of Unaligned Worlds and even contribute to the organization, but they claim and disclaim membership depending on the opinion of the elected Monarch at any given time.
- The Ferengi - The Zallans have an open trade relationship with the Ferengi. The Zallans have been burned enough to know that the Ferengi need "trust but verification"
The Ferengi are actually working hard behind the scenes to try and un-mesh Zalla from the Federation (They consider the Federation's style of energy economy inefficient and unnecessarily intrusive) But these projects meet at best qualified success.
The Zallans seem to want to have it both ways, and refuse to acknowledge that they can't. So functionally the Zallans are building interfaces between the Ferengi GPL based economy and the Federation's energy based economy.
Individual Ferengi trade houses and merchants consider the Zallans a good asset and work hard to keep good relationships with the Zalla
- The Klingons, the Cardassians the Romulans are all too far away from the Zalla to have specific relationships with them - they all consider Zalla a small-fry federation Ally or incipient Federation member and then leave it alone.
- Bendarri Empire -- The Zalla have some relations with the Bendarri Empire however the Bendarri are stand offish, put off by how seemingly fickle and changeable the Zalla are.
- The Fulcrum -- Zalla have sent trade missions to the Fulcrum Region and are considering becoming participants in the Fulcrum Project.
Notable Members: None established at this time (Excuses for more NPCs of the day write ups.)
Military: The Zallan Military is small, relative to the population. In the past, Zallan empires and nations have been ruled by Military Juntas with popular generals taking over from each other from time to time.
The Modern Zallan Military is based around defending Zallan trade and shipping from marauders and making Zalla herself too spiky to be worth an invasion.
This is boring stuff, and so doesn't attract many Zallan celebrities - at least not for long.
The Zallans have an informal alliance with the Federation and with the The League of Unaligned Worlds. Zallan ships will cheerfully cooperate with Starfleet vessels and Zallans have adopted much Starfleet methodology particularly in regards to combined operations.
Any given Zallan Celebrity may take opposition to the Federation as a cause and appear in diplomatic situations to try and derail the Federation and get him or herself adopted as an alternative means of diplomacy.
Other celebrity Zallans may decide that exploration in the "Brave New Worlds" mode is what their image needs - a celebrity with enough influence can cause the Zallan Military to fit out an exploration ship for the celebrity to, either lead or participate in, lending her fame and influence to as it voyages in search of the unknown.
Media programs where in celebrity explorers describe strange new worlds and new people have periodic resurgences on Zalla and always have a solid base of fans.
History: The Zallan history is long and very detailed - it extends some 20,000 years of written history -with a further 40,000 years of archeology.
The Zallans took a long, long time to achieve technology and a reasonably stable culture. Stable empires tended to be vulnerable to takeover from within by charismatic factions, or to assault from outside by charismatically led raiders and hordes.
Zallan history was also bloody and violent.
The Zalans had achieved technology roughly equivalent to Earth's 21st century by the 21st century as measured on Earth.
Their first contact came from the Orions who traded, brought word of the outside galaxy and poked around Zalla
Then in the early 22nd century Orion Pirate houses launched fierce raids against Zalla, looting for slaves, artifacts, goods and resources.
The Zalla, long a divided, factionalized people unified almost immediately and began to fight back against the Orions.
In the late 22nd century after almost 50 years of on-again off-again warfare, the Zallans were contacted by the new UFP.
With an infusion of technology and war fighting advice from the Federation (Mainly Earth and Andor, although Tellar also had a grudge against the Orions and help the Zallans) the Zallans quickly achieved parity with their tormentors and fought them off.
One would think that this would cement a friendly relationship with the Federation and it does...occasionally.
Incredibly there were pro-Orion factions on Zalla at the time who caused Zalla to waffle and Zalla has been solidly on the fence ever since.