Guardians


 * You may be looking for Sphere Builder.

The Guardians, also known as Time Lords, or Alterans, Dom'Kavash or Oq'rat"jahm in their native language, are an angel-like race of beings who became so attuned to temporal mechanics that they evolved into a higher plane of existence, actually becoming part of the fabric of time & space. They are also the ancestors of the far more recent Iconian race. ( & )

Physiology
The actual appearance of The Guardians is unclear. In 2387, when first contact was made, they appeared humanoid, almost like angels; however they stated that this was not their true form. (: "Time's Legacy") Starfleet Captain Puto, a member of the offshoot Iconian race is generally humanoid, but with an extremely long lifespan and telepathic abilities, which suggests the Guardians may have also shared those features.

History
The history of The Guardians dates back to billions of years ago (according to the Guardian of Forever, approximately five billion years ago), possibly much earlier. The Guardians dedicated their lives to science and learned much about the nature of the universe. After the transwarp breakthrough, their civilization expanded across the galaxy, acquiring the knowledge of many civilizations. Eventually they built Guardian Timegates, portals into other points in space-time and later Guardian Timeships which could reach Warp 10 and also travel through the 5th dimension (parallel universes). Their capital planet, known today as Gateway, became the hub for galaxy-wide activity in the ancient Milky Way. Sometime after they began to explore beyond our galaxy, they disappeared. Every Guardian had ascended: evolved into a higher being, existing on a different universal plane; in essence, becoming part of the fabric of time.

See: Guardian Realm

The dissapearance of the founding race of the Infinite Oq'rat"jahm Empire left much of the galaxy in turmoil. This sudden vanishing of a prominent civilization is thought to have lead to the destabilization of the Delta Quadrant and the dissapearance of many ancient Alpha and Beta Quadrant societies unable to cope without the order brought by the Guardians.

The Guardians remained well-known throughout the early galaxy; however most of their portals and ships disappeared. The Borg discovered their advanced transwarp technology around the late 19th century, but were unable to reverse the effects of hyper-evolution and resorted to using a downgraded version of the drive, transwarp conduits.

Spacecraft and technology

 * Guardian Timeships (also known as Timepods)
 * Guardian Timegates
 * Transwarp drive

Background Information
There is a lot more information about the Guardians written in the Star Trek: Pioneer series "bible" which has yet to be fully explored. The most significant of this is the Time War. The following is an extract from the writer's own notes (the information is somewhat sketchy):


 * Before their evolution the Guardians were considered the "masters of time". They were the only civilization in the early galaxy to posses time travel technology. However, during the expansion of their empire there suddenly emerged a species of equal power and time-travel abilities. The Guardians trespassed into this species' territory and they were quick to retaliate. This unknown species quickly destroyed all colony worlds along the border of their two people's space. The Guardians, infuriated and not realising it was their fault this had happened, sent back a single agent through time to prevent the colonies' destruction. Unfortunatly the unidentified species was as attuned to the changes in the timelines as well as the Guardians were and the alternate timeline produced affected only the "lesser species". This incursion into the past was percieved as a great threat by the aliens and so they launched an attack on the closest Guardian outposts and bombarded them with Chroniton torpedoes, both destroying the outposts and rendering time travel impossible there for at least another 3,000 years, beginning the Time War. The Guardians launched a counterstrike and purposefully caused a series of Paradoxes on the alien worlds. Both species then went to all out war across the galaxy using sophisticated temporal weaponry. An important event in the war: the Temporal Incursion of the Guardian Homeworld suddenly caused the entire history of the war to be re-written, favouring the aliens. This was however corrected and by the end of the war and the pivotal Causality Loop Attack on Kellinar Prime forced a treaty to be signed and all temporal paradoxes fixed.

Please note, this information may not be considered Pioneer "canon" as it is yet to feature in an episode.