Breen (Star Trek)
Breen | ||
---|---|---|
Quadrant Alpha | | |
Home world | Breen | |
Language | Breen | |
Affiliation | Breen Confederacy Dominion |
The Breen are a fictional
Production history
The Breen were first mentioned in "
The look of the Breen masks, which includes a "snout", was derived from the visual suggestion that they are a snouted species, like an Arctic wolf.[1] The Breen costumes were problematic for the actors playing them, since they made both seeing and breathing difficult: there was only a single small hole in the beak, about eight inches from the actor's nose, according to stand-in and stunt double Todd Slayton, who played Thot Gor. The costumes also included big, clumsy boots, and the outfits were layered like an armadillo, making movement difficult. The helmets, which were complicated to put on and remove, were held together with magnets, and were prone to falling off when someone bumped into them. The switches for the lights on the helmets were inside the helmets, requiring the actor to remove the helmet to turn the lights on and off. For reasons unknown to production personnel, the nine-volt batteries that powered the lights lasted only minutes.[2]
In keeping with the Breen as a mysterious race, the sounds of the Breen's speech were inspired by the Lou Reed album Metal Machine Music, which the post-production sound staff were instructed to listen to when creating the electronic cackle that served as the Breen's voices.[2]
History and culture
The Breen homeworld is called Breen, according to the 1999
Historically, the Klingons were among the first to discover the consequences of underestimating the Breen. As revealed in "'Til Death Do Us Part", during the Klingon Second Empire, Chancellor Mow'ga ordered an entire fleet of Klingon warships to invade and conquer the Breen homeworld. The fleet never returned and was never heard from again. The Romulans have a saying: "Never turn your back on a Breen". This adage was first stated (and illustrated) in the 1997 fifth season Deep Space Nine episode "By Inferno's Light", in which a captive Breen grabbed a disruptor pistol from the holster of a Dominion guard, whose back was turned to him in a Dominion asteroid prison, and used it to disintegrate two Dominion guards at the same time as one of them killed the captive. The Breen in question had not done anything besides sit quietly up until that point, giving no indication that he would be a threat.
The Breen established the isolated Breen Confederacy in the
, whose ship, the Ravinok, had crashed on the planet Dozaria, which was controlled by the Breen, as established in "Indiscretion".In "Hero Worship" it is mentioned that they have always been politically nonaligned. They later become a powerful ally of the
In the Star Trek: Lower Decks season 3 episode "Trusted Sources," the USS Cerritos encountered Breen occupying the planet Brekka while on a second contact mission. Three Breen interceptors attacked the California-class starship which proved to be no match for them. However, the Cerritos was saved by the automated Texas-class starship USS Aledo which quickly destroyed the Breen starships. In "The Stars at Night," Vice Admiral Les Buenamigo revealed that he was well aware that the Breen were on Brekka and had set up the Cerritos so that Buenamigo would have an excuse to unveil his Texas-class ships.
In Star Trek: Discovery season 5, the Breen have become the Breen Imperium by 3191 and are mentioned to be fighting over a new leader. Captain Rayner of Starfleet expresses concern that the Breen could pose a threat to the Federation. In a possible future witnessed by Rayner and Michael Burnham, the Breen were sold the technology of the Progenitors by L'ak and Moll and they used it to destroy the Federation. In "Mirrors," it's revealed that L'ak himself is actually a Breen and is described as being of royal blood. L'ak, who was considered an outcast despite being the nephew of the Ruhn Primarch of the Sixth Flight, had abandoned his people after falling in love with Moll. For betraying his people, L'ak has an eirgah on him, a blood bounty, and he and Moll hope that the Progenitors' technology will be enough to get the Breen to release the bounty on him. In addition, the Breen are shown to have two forms under their suits: a solid humanoid form that the Primarch claims they have evolved beyond and makes them weak to use, and a fluid form that the Primarch refers to as the Breen's true face. However, L'ak believes that both forms are actually one half of them, and that the Breen are in effect rejecting half of themselves. It's later revealed that six Breen Primarchs, including Ruhn and Tahal, are at war for the Breen throne. L'ak, as the last direct descendant of the Breen Emperor, is a crucial political pawn as whoever controls him hold legitimacy in the war for the throne. It's also revealed the Rayner's homeworld was occupied by forces led by Tahal who killed Rayner's family for resisting the occupation.
After Moll and L'ak are captured by the Federation, Ruhn demands that they be turned over to him while Burnham recognizes Ruhn's dreadnaught as the ship that she saw in the future that had destroyed the Federation. In the middle of negotiations, L'ak injects himself with an overdose of stimulants in order to create a distraction for Moll to escape, but he misjudges the dosage and gives himself a fatal injection despite the best efforts of Dr. Hugh Culber and a Breen medic to save his life. As a result, Ruhn threatens war on the Federation, but Moll, revealing herself to be L'ak's wife, offers up the Progenitors' technology to Ruhn which would allow him to win his war with the other Primarchs by force. The Discovery crew deduces that Moll is hoping to use the Progenitors' technology to resurrect L'ak and is using the Breen to do it, now leaving the Breen and the Federation in a race against each other.
Non-canonical information
In Zero Sum Game, the first novel in the 2010–2012 series Star Trek: Typhon Pact, writer David Alan Mack establishes that the Breen Confederacy is made up of many separate species, all of which wear suits to disguise their appearances and subsume their identities into the Breen name. The known Breen species are:
- The Amoniri, whose bodies have no blood and which require refrigeration in their suits to survive
- The Fenrisal, whose pronounced snouts give shape to the traditional Breen helmet
- The Paclu, who have four-lobed brains that cannot be read by most telepathic species
- The Silwaan, whose appearance is most humanlike of the Breen subspecies
- The Vironat, a gray-skinned multi-limbed species (introduced in the sixth novel in the series, Plagues of Night by David R. George III)
Technology and equipment
In "Scorpion", 1997 the third-season finale of Star Trek: Voyager, Lieutenant Tuvok states that the Breen use organic technology in their ships when discussing the bio-organic starships of Species 8472. Their ships are armed with cloaking devices and disruptor-type weapons, according to "Hero Worship".
In
During the Battle of Chin'toka, a Dominion War battle that occurred in the episode "The Changing Face of Evil", the Breen employ an energy-damping weapon that could shut down all systems on Alliance ships. The Klingons subsequently discover an engine modification that renders Klingon ships immune to this weapon, though it does not work on Federation or Romulan ships since they are powered differently. The Breen used this weapon to great effect, completely immobilizing the USS Defiant, and a fleet of alliance ships, allowing the Breen to destroy them at their leisure.
The helmet of the Breen suits consists of a visor that either glows green, or has small green and red lights on it,[4] and a detachable "beak". The Breen's suits come in two types. The first is a standard suit that is worn by most of the Breen. The second is a more ornate version worn by Thots or other officials that has gold lining and distinctive gold stripes running down the top of the helmet and the "beak", as seen in later episodes of Deep Space Nine, such as "Strange Bedfellows".
In an alternate timeline witnessed in "Face the Strange," of Star Trek: Discovery's fifth season, the Breen were sold the technology of the Progenitors, a race that had seeded the galaxy with humanoid life, and they used it to wipe out the Federation.
In Star Trek: Discovery's fifth season, the Breen have massive dreadnaught-class ships with shields so powerful that they can block the Federation's scanners.
The non-canonical book Legends of the Ferengi claims that the Ferengi were sold warp technology by a Breen they called "the Masked Breen" (because they did not know the Breen all wore masks). In return, they gave the Breen both poles of Ferenginar (the Ferengi homeworld), several comets, and a frozen moon.
Other appearances
A Breen participated in the palio on Deep Space 3, according to "Interface", a 1993 seventh season Next Generation episode.[5]
Breen privateers attacked Free Haven, a Bajoran colony, in "To the Death", a 1996 fourth season Deep Space Nine episode.
A Breen appeared on
The Breen function as a common recurring enemy for the Federation and the
A Breen is one of the main characters in Star Trek: Renegades, a fan film posted to YouTube.[6]
Reception
In June 2014, Charlie Jane Anders, writing for io9, ranked the Breen as the tenth least threatening villains of Star Trek, calling them "one of the bigger letdowns of Star Trek." Anders cited how the race was built up as a supposedly formidable race, with an energy-dampening weapon that disabled enemy ships, only for the Federation to quickly devise a countermeasure to it, after which the Breen's status as opponents faded.[7]
References
- ^ a b Erdmann, Terry J.; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion; Pocket Books; 2000; Page 277.
- ^ a b Erdmann; 2000; Pages 702-703.
- ^ Dr. Bashir establishes this in "In Purgatory's Shadow".
- ^ In the episode "In Purgatory's Shadow", the captive Breen's visor had these discrete lights, but the visor of Thot Gor, seen in the finale arc, glowed entirely green.
- ^ Okuda, Michael; Okuda, Denise; The Star Trek Encyclopedia; 2nd Edition; 1997; Pages 54-55.
- Me-TV. Weigel Broadcasting. Retrieved October 25, 2018.
- ^ Anders, Charlie Jane (June 3, 2014). "Top 10 Least Threatening Star Trek Villains". io9. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved August 14, 2021.