Bynars

Originating on the planet Bynaus, the Bynars are one of the few cybernetic species known. Unlike the Borg the Bynars are a benign species, and many have served on Federation Starbases as computer experts. The Bynars are heavily dependant on computers, to the extent that their thought processes are as close to binary as is possible for an organic being. Indeed, they are unable to live without the central computer system on their world which inter links them all.

This led to a controversial incident in 2364; the Bynars sun, Beta Magellan, went nova in this year. Having predicted this shortly before, the Bynars knew they would have to totally shut down their computer system to ensure its survival. Desperate to preserve their species from extinction, the Bynars needed a large computer system which they could use to back up their computers to. They decided that the ideal choice would be the computer core of a Galaxy class starship, which was one of the most powerful in existence at the time. Unfortunately, the Bynars decided that they could not risk the chance that the Federation would refuse to help. They therefore decided to hijack the Enterprise-D whilst it stopped off at Starbase 74 for maintenance.

During their upgrading of the ships computer system, the Bynars engineered a weakening of the ships antimatter containment system. The ship was set on autopilot and directed out away from the station, whereupon the Bynars took control and headed for their home world. Unfortunately the Enterprise had been slightly late arriving at the Starbase, and the Bynars did not reach their system in time to reboot their computers.

Having anticipated this, the Bynars had arranged for Commander Riker and Captain Picard to be distracted on a holodeck during the entire affair, and on arrival the officers were able to reactivate the Bynar computer system and revive the species.