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File:D'Arsay pictographs.gif

D'arsay pictograms

The D'Arsay were an alien race who originated in the D'Arsay system 87 million years ago.

During that period they built the D'Arsay archive which was later discovered by the crew of the USS Enterprise-D in the center of a rogue comet in 2370.

The archive contained records of artifacts and personalities from D'Arsay mythology. Using the ship's replicator, the archive transformed part of the ship into the setting of an epic drama involving Masaka, a sun goddess. The archive also altered the positronic brain programming of Lt. Commander Data to portray several characters from the D'Arsay myth. Among the D'Arsay characters portrayed by Data were a D'Arsay boy, Ihat, Masaka, a victim, and an elder who was Masaka's father. The archive transformed parts of the Enterprise-D into an aqueduct, a swamp, and a temple. It also filled a photon torpedo with snakes, and turned engineering into a fiery inferno.

Captain Picard portrayed himself as Korgano, another mythological figure whom he had deduced to be the D'Arsay moon god, in order to convince the archive to return the ship and Data back to their normal states. (TNG: "Masks")

The species was not named in the episode (which merely explained that the probe came from the D'Arsay system). However they were named by the Star Trek Encyclopedia (3rd ed., p . 96), which also claimed that they flourished nearly a hundred million years ago. The entry for the D'Arsay pictograms on the same page specified that they were designed by Wendy Drapanas and Jim Magdaleno, who based them loosely on ancient Aztec and Mayan designs.
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