Understanding the Iconians requires knowing a bit about the history of the galactic civilizations.

The Arnor

In the beginning, as far as we can tell, there was the Precursor civilization. For a long while, we had no name for them, but they called themselves the Arnor.

The Arnor came across the primitive Iconians and educated them, nurtured them, and guided them to full sentience. During this time, the Iconians were servants of the Arnor. It is important to understand the vast difference between the Precursors and the Iconians in terms of evolutionary status. The Arnor were as far advanced from the Iconians as humans are from primitive mammals or “beasts of burden.”

As the Iconians advanced, an increasing number of the Arnor objected to the servitude of the Iconians. Of course, like many moral debates, there was a practical side: the Arnor had grown quite dependent on the service of the Iconians. But the Arnor came to a solution: they would replace their Iconian servants with artificial beings. And so came into existence the Yor, whose story is told elsewhere. In time, the great Precursor Empire split in two and warred upon one another. The war dragged on for many earth decades; it destroyed the fabric of Arnorian society and decimated their planet. The group of Arnor that lost the war placed the Iconians in sleeper pods. The Iconians drifted for hundreds of thousands of years until they reached a new world. On this new world the story of the Iconians began.

Colonial Iconians

While Humans were evolving into bipeds, the Iconians used Arnorian technology and began to build a colony, taking a militaristic stance as they knew they could be attacked again.

As they advanced, they built ships and began to colonise the surrounding planets in the system. With time, they developed their own warp drive. By the time Humanity had begun spreading out from its ancient roots and explore Planet Earth, Iconians had colonies on a dozen worlds spread throughout the cosmos.

As is the way, one technology leapt into another. Warp drive became transwarp drive and slipstream technology. Their weapons became more and more advanced, fuelled by the militaristic stance they had first taken. Eventually, they developed a host of energy-based weapon technologies; all were extremely deadly.

As they came into contact with other civilisations, the Iconians began to trade and expand commercially. They embraced the art and philosophy of other cultures while learning and advancing at a geometric rate. Meanwhile, they continued to use the transwarp technology and built transwarp gateways, not unlike that used by the Borg today.

Based from a homeworld near the Romulan side of the Neutral Zone, the Iconians were fuelling their passion for knowledge and expansion, when they encountered the Q. The Q looked favourably upon them and gave the Iconians the Dream Gem.

With the advanced knowledge the Iconian race possessed, they made use of the Dream Gem to develop their Gateway technology. Using this technology, they formed the Iconian Empire, which was spread across space. During the deployment of the network, they discovered the existence of a race of beings that dwelt within the Bajoran wormhole. Out of respect for these entities, the Iconians did not deploy any gateways within ten light years of the wormhole or those worlds that the entities watched over.

Demons of Air and Darkness

The (Iconian?) philosopher Senega, however, warned her people that this disparity of technology between their race and others would become a source of conflict. Her words were proven true when suspicion and fear motivated other species to unite against the Iconian Empire who, because of their gateways, were nicknamed “Demons of Air and Darkness.”

The fear of the Iconians drove their enemies to spread lies and paranoia. More and more worlds succumbed to this thinking until a dozen races were joined in hatred—hatred of that which they did not understand. The Iconians, hearing the rumblings, sent peace envoys to attempt to assure the others of their benevolence.

The attack was carried out by a core confederation of five worlds who were not powerful enough in their own right:

1) The Rakesh, who were a reptilian race. They were quite aggressive with excellent ground troops, but two-dimensional in thinking. They are now extinct after being wiped out by a plague.

2) The Symbiosis Collective, a race akin to the Trill in nature, save for the fact that they completely merged with the symbiote. They started as trading partners before the Iconians conquered them. An ill-fated experiment with transwarp, looted from a fallen Iconian settlement, destroyed a massive quarter of the planet and turned it to waste. They never recovered.

3) The Telmex, who were basically very human-like, they appeared to have succumbed to the ravages of the Osikians after attacking the Iconians.

4) The Osikians’ dual dome heads and slight telepathy made them an interesting race. After they attacked the Iconians, a squabble broke out with the Telmex about the spoils. This resulted in a war which so badly damaged both sides that they never truly recovered. As other races in the quadrant evolved, they both became easy pickings.

5) Last but not least, the Shalikan. A race of once nomadic warriors who specialised in hit and run tactics, they eventually settled on the planet Ico. They then became enlightened, renounced violence, and are a highly evolved spiritual race. Many others worlds treat them with reverence. To this day they are the only race still surviving who attacked the Iconians.

Part 2 is available.