Fall of the Iconian Empire

Some 200,000 years ago the Iconians ruled a vast interstellar domain. Their power rested on gateways, devices able to open a passage to distant worlds without any ship. Their neighbours remembered them with fear as "demons of air and darkness", and their civilisation ended in an orbital bombardment that left their homeworld, Iconia, in ruins.

The legacy proved dangerous long after the empire's fall. In 2365 an Iconian probe transmitted software that crippled the USS Yamato, which exploded, and then spread its malfunctions to the Enterprise-D and to a Romulan warbird. Jean-Luc Picard went down to the planet, shut the system down and destroyed the last working gateway there, while Data recovered from the same contamination.

A second gateway was found in 2372 on Vandros IV in the Gamma Quadrant, sought by renegade Jem'Hadar who wanted to use it for conquest. Benjamin Sisko's team, alongside a Jem'Hadar unit loyal to the Dominion, destroyed it. Such episodes show why Iconian technology remains both an archaeological prize and a serious threat.