Denebians are a warp-capable species, though their native technology is a bit behind Federation average. They are native to Deneb V: the capital world of the Deneb Core, with Deneb being near the expelling end of the Alpha Centauri → Deneb subspace corridor.
Denebians are amphibious; while they can function in a typical M-class land environment, their preferred environment is a sort of warm slime. For this reason they usually wear environment suits when dealing with land-based cultures.
While Denebians are members in good standing in the United Federation of Planets, most consider Deneb V's penology excessive: more crimes are considered capital offenses on Deneb V than on any other Federation world. Denebian banks are the most trusted in the Core.
Species Specialties and Skill Penalties
Because of the common genetic ancestry of most of the races of the Milky Way Galaxy...--Hybrid - Memory Alpha
Many behavior/cultural and medical/physiological skills and techniques require you to specialize by species. There is a penalty when using these skills with culture [B23] or physiology [B181] you aren't specialized in. It is assumed you will specialize in your own species, but you don't have to. (Being specialized in other species but not your own requires a plausible background story—a 1 character point Unusual Background Perk).
Behavioral/Cultural Off-Culture Penalties
The penalties for using the behavioral/cultural-type skills – Anthropology, Body Language, Carousing, Connoisseur, Criminology, Dancing, Detect Lies, Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Games, Gesture, Heraldry, Hypnotism, Interrogation, Intimidation, Leadership, Merchant, Poetry, Politics, Propaganda/TL, Psychology, Public Speaking, Savoir-Faire, Sex Appeal, Sociology, Streetwise, and Teaching [B23] – on a species outside your specialty are given in the table below. The Expert Skill (Xenology) skill suffers from the same penalties when used to identify or answer general questions about a species' culture.
| Prevalence | Penalty | Culture |
|---|---|---|
| Common | -1 | Human, Andorian, Tellarite, Vulcan |
| Uncommon | -2 | Alpha Centauran, Caitian, Deltan, Denobulan, Edosian, Klingon, Orion, Rigelian, Saurian |
| Rare | -3 | Arcturian, Argelian, Betazoid, Bolian, Brecon, Coridan, Cygnan, Cygnian, Jidarian, Kaferian, Kzinti, Medusan, Mynieni, Nausicaan, Prellarian, Romulan, Suliban, Trill |
| Very Rare | -4 | Bajoran, Benzite |
| Unknown* | -5 | Ferengi, Gorn |
| Enigmatic† | -6 | Tholian |
* Cultural Familiarity for unknown species costs 1 character point, plus a 1 character point Unusual Background. † Cultural Familiarity for enigmatic species costs 2 character points.
Counseling officers have access to Cultural Adaptability (10 pt) (or Xeno-Adaptability (20 pt)) which allow them to ignore these cultural unfamiliarity penalties for Common and Uncommon species (or all species). The Counseling! wildcard relative skill level bonus reduces these penalties for those skills above that aren't covered by Counseling! E.g. If you had Counseling! at Attribute+1 (36 pt), you would have only a -1 penalty when Carousing with an Alpha Centauran and no penalty when Interrogating one.
Medical/Physiological Off-Species Penalties
The off-species penalties for medical/physiological-type skills are based on the Zorsky Interspecies Compatibility Table [from GURPS: MODULE PRIME ALPHA, pp. 28-29] given below. These penalties can be waived if you can make a Physiology (species) roll for that species first. You may roll against Physiology (species) at defaut; such a roll suffers from the same penalties given below.
Physiology (species)/TL
IQ/Hard
IQ-6, Diagnosis-5, Physician-5, Physiology-off species penalty, or Surgery-5
This skill is covered on p. B213. A successful roll against your species specialty of Physiology temporarily removes the off-species penalty for physiology-esque skills [B181]: Diagnosis, First Aid, Physician, Pressure Points, Pressure Secrets, or Surgery. If you fail this Physiology roll, you feel the full effects of any off-species penalty. While a high Physiology skill with several species specializations can be an efficient way to go for high-IQ individuals and/or those with a wide range of medical/physiological skills, purchasing additional species specialties for particular skills removes their off-species penalty permanently.
| Zorski Group | Description | Default Penalties | Example Species |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | Humans and all species moderately compatible in terms of blood and biochemistry. (Alpha- Centaurians are genetically human.) |
|
|
| II | Species dissimilar to Group I in biochemistry and/or have significant internal organ differences including extra or unique internal organs. |
|
Arcturians, Klingons, Tellarites |
| III | Species dissimilar to Groups I and II in that their blood chemistries are not based on iron, e.g. copper (a) or cobalt (b) based. |
|
|
| IV | Mammalian species with biochemistries moderately compatible with Group I, but which have significant internal and external differences. |
|
Kzintis |
| V | Reptilian species with biochemistries and internal/ external differences that are significant when compared to Group I. |
| |
| VI | Exoskeletal species that are significantly different to Groups I-V and each other. |
|
Jindarians, Mynieni |
| VII | Species that do not have individual internal organs or their equivalents, and include plantlike species. |
| |
| VIII | Species that do not breath oxygen and come from subzero (though not cryogenic, see Group IX) climates. |
| |
| IX | Species that do not breath oxygen and come from cryogenic climates. |
| |
| X | Species that are highly unique and defy classification. |
|
Tholians |
These penalties can be waived if you can make a Physiology Skill roll for that species first, which will of course suffer from the same penalty. If you don't have the Physiology Skill for that species, you can roll against a default: IQ-6, Diagnosis-5, Physician-5, or Surgery-5.
