Kreetassan

The Kreetassans are an easily offended humanoid species native to planet Kreetassa, in the Alpha Quadrant. Their skin is grey with a wide band of purple running along the midline of the forehead and chin. They have long hair and elaborated facial ridges.

Kreetassans are hard to please. They consider both eating and mating to be extremely offensive acts, to be done only in private. They will expect any alien visitors to perform actions considered courtesy by the Kreetassan culture, one example being aligning the ship's chronometers with that of the Kreetassan Capital City. The almost unavoidable failure at "being polite" - since Kreetassans don't have the custom of making guests aware of what they consider politeness - usually results in quite awkward situations.

The first two encounters between Humans and Kreetassans both ended awkwardly. In the first meet, in which the Kreetassans visited the Earth starship Enterprise (NX-01), they were horrified at seeing the Human crew eating their meals at the presence of others. In the second one, which happened when the Enterprise visited the Kreetassan homeworld, the offence happened when the captain's pet Beagle urinated on one of the Kreetassans' sacred Alvera Trees. They did end up forgiving Humans, but only after Captain Archer performed a complex apologizing ritual, which involved cutting the tree in pieces with a chainsaw.

Kreetassans are known for being one of the few species to manufacture plasma injectors, as of the 2150s, this being one of the reasons for which the Enterprise was visiting their planet. Despite being easily insulted and having a fairly short temperament, after the Alvera Tree incident and apologizing ceremony the Kreetassans did show enough sympathy for the Enterprise crew to present them with two extra plasma injectors.