Tagorians

Tagorians or Tagoryans (тагоряне) are a fictional, lizard-like alien race from the Noon Universe created by Strugatsky brothers. Their homeworld is Tagora (Тагора), a planet discovered by the end of the XXI century. An official contact with Tagorians, however, was registered in 2122 AD and a full-scaled diplomatic relationship has been established two years later, as soon as human scientists (led by professor "Sugimoto") managed to decode and interpret Tagorian language.

Tagorians are mentioned in "An Attempt to Escape" and "Beetle in an Anthill".

Appearance

Tagorians are a non-humanoid sentient race whose outward appearance resembles that of giant lizards. At the early stages of their lives all Tagorians pass through the larvae phase.

Technology

Tagorians are very advanced technologically although they spend over 60% of their scientific resources to predict all possible consequences of inventing every new technology. This is characteristical for Tagorians to pay greatest attention to anything new (and not only in science). It is known that Tagorians have only public transportation and no aviation but also they have a well-developed wired communication network.

At some point, Tagorians engineered a race of non-sentient "pseudo-humanoids". When Earth's explorers first arrived on the planet, they mistook them for a local sentient race.

Background

It is known that aeons ago Tagorians underwent a global genetic enhancement (hence the larva phase), so in some ways they are not the original Tagorians who were a true product of normal evolution. Some believe that the Wanderers were behind that genetic enhancement, but this was never confirmed.

Tagorians and Humans

Tagorians were the first alien race the Mankind made contact with, about eleven years before the official contact with Leoniders. Although this contact promised benefits for both sides, all diplomatic negotiations were cancelled in 2138 after an expedition to EN-9173 system discovered the so called "Sarcophagus" and the "Stepchildren Case" started. The Tagorians believed that those discoveries indicated that humanity was "tainted" by the Wanderers.

It is mentioned in "An Attempt to Escape" that there is a human resident (or spy) on Tagora. His name is presumably "Benny Durov" ("Бенни Дуров") and he is a progressor working under cover on the planet to study Tagorian technology.