As is probably well known, Tim Wisseman did not invented the races, which he puts at the Players' disposal in VGA Planets, but has borrowed them from famous science fiction movies. The origin of most races is pretty obvious. So it is relatively easy to see, that six races come originally from "Star Trek":

• Solar Federation (originally the Federation of Planets). The home of the good old Enterprise (now a Nebula Class Cruiser)
• The Lizards (originally the Gorn). Captain Kirk had to fight one of these very strong saurians with bare hands
• The Bird Men (originally the Romulans). The White Falcon is for example an early StarTrek TOS Romulan Bird of Prey)
• The Fascists (originally the Klingons). The Deth Specula is a Klingon Bird of Prey
• The Cyborgs (originally the Borg). Captain Picard was assimilated once & one Cube destroyed forty plus Federation ships in the battle at Wolf 359.
• The Crystals (originally the Tholians). Two of their Emeralds entangled the Enterprise in their web.

Two races come from "Star Wars":

• The Evil Empire (the Galactic Empire). The Gorbie Battlecarrier is easily recognized as the Death Star ... the Tie Fighters or the Star Destroyer are obvious too.
• The Rebel Alliance (Han Solo now flies the Falcon Class Escort).

Another two races stem from "Battlestar Galactica":

• The Lost Colonies (Adama's fleeing fleet). The Virgo is of course a Battlestar, but the Cygnus, Little Joe, Cobol, Aries, Sagittarius, Tranquility, Patriot, Gemini and Scorpius were all in the movie.
• The Robots (Cylons). These used the Instrumentality as their principal base ship (Cylon Base Ships).

 It seems most difficult to find the origin of the Privateers, but this is no surprise, since they like to stay hidden as much as possible. But if you search long enough (or if you have the Dark Sense), you can find the home of even the most secretive Privateer. In point of fact the Privateers also arise from "Star Trek" ... they were originally called the "Orion Pirates" or "Orion Space Pirates".

The classification of this race is so difficult, because the "Orion Pirates" appear in "Star Trek" only twice , and then marginally: In the old sequel "Journey to Babel" the Enterprise is molested by a very fast ship, which turns out to be a ship of the "Orions". Furthermore a Meteor Blockade Runner appears briefly on the computer screen in the new sequel "Mind Poison", when Data searches the ship's data banks - a clear proof of the Privateers' origin in "Star Trek". In several "Star Trek" novels the "Orion Space Pirates" find more attention, for example they play an important role in the history of the Vulcans (see the novel "Spock's world").

The race picture of the "Orions" in WinPlan is a dancing green woman. In fact, the "Orion" constellation is famous for its excellent and very seductive dancers which often have a skin with green color. In "Star Trek" the "Orion Dancers" appear in three different episodes. In "Time Trap" (from the animated series) Devna (long blond hairs, green eyes & lips) serves as a interpreter on a spaceship stranded in the Elysia Delta Triangle. She becomes quite friendly with the Enterprise, but refuses to try to escape with the Enterprise and dances an impressive farewell dance for them. In "Whom Gods destroy" Marta (dark hair and insane) is kept imprisoned by Garth (the also insane opponent of Captain Kirk). Marta flirts with Captain Kirk and is later killed by Garth. In "The Cage" Vina (who is actually a human, who becomes badly deformed in the crash of the S.S. Columbia) only appears as an Orion dancer in a illusion created by the Talos to Captain Pike.

So the people from Orion (well, the Privateers) not only posses the best starship propulsion technology and clever tacticians, who can achieve military objectives even with inferior weapons, but they have also gorgeous beautiful women, who are both very able diplomats and a true delight to admire. No doubt about it, they are just the best race by far in the entire Echo Cluster.

Parts of this article are based on information compiled by:
Christian Erpelding (FIDO: 2:2448/435.18) with the support of Thore Schmechtig.
Contributed by Sirius ([email protected]) to Commander Pirx's Privateer internet pages on June 3rd 1996.