Project Sphex

Project Sphex was a classified research project first organized by the Federation Science Council in 2293. It was formed to find evidence of and research a mostly unknown alien force that had been described by a group of alien refugees who had arrived in Federation space in the same year.

The project was run by independent civilian scientists and reported directly to the Science Council. The project produced very few results between its inception and 2338. But in early 2339, a survey vessel discovered an artifact that was believed to be the first piece of still active technology belonging to the alien force, in unexplored neutral space to the galactic south of the Gorn Hegemony. Upon this discovery, the Science Council immediately authorized the project to deploy four survey vessels to further investigate the area and establish a research outpost to continue studying the artiface.

All Starfleet vessels were provided with a notice that should they encounter any of the survey vessels attached to Project Sphex requesting their help, they were required to provide any assistance necessary, even at the cost of other ongoing missions.