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The Mari were a telepathic, humanoid species native to a planet in the Delta Quadrant. USS Voyager visited their world in 2373, initially believing they had made a friend.

They used a currency, the Renn, which came in coins. They farmed waterplums and had access to other fruits as well. They ate supper.

Neelix described Mari women as, "beautiful, fascinating, and very open-minded." Tom Paris assessed them as being pacifists and therefore no match for Voyager.

Mari blood was red. (VOY: "Random Thoughts")

Justice system[]

Mari society was once plagued by violence and crime. At one point, the Mari outlawed violent thoughts and developed a memory adjustment technique to remove the offending engrams from a criminal's mind. After this, crime started to drop immediately, and three generations later, during the 2370s, virtually no crime was left in their society and only a few law enforcement officers remained in their Constabulary. Before an incident in 2374 one of them, Chief Examiner Nimira, had never dealt with a murder.

The Mari considered their penal system to be enlightened because while those who committed a crime were arrested, they were not imprisoned, the idea of shutting people away as punishment being considered puzzling and barbaric. Instead, the violent thoughts were removed by engramatic purge, a quick but somewhat dangerous method, after which the individual was released. Alternatively, extensive neurogenic restructuring, which might take years, might be employed. Furthermore, as it was considered an irrefutable fact that violent thoughts from others could lead to violent actions, a person telepathically passing on a violent thought to someone who then committed a crime might be charged with aggravated violent thought resulting in grave bodily harm.

While Nimira appeared unfamiliar and puzzled by the concept behind Voyager's brig, B'Elanna was later said to be sitting in a jail cell while awaiting her purge; considering the nature of B'Elanna's sentence, her 'imprisonment' on the planet may have been considered her waiting for a medical procedure.

However, Mari society had a dark side as well: by the 2270s; a black market had arisen in which many citizens traded in illicit mental imagery. This remained unknown to the Constabulary when a thought harvested from B'Elanna Torres of the Voyager proved so violent that its hosts became unstable. As a result, one Mari individual was badly beaten and another murdered before the culprits were caught.

Even after this underground was uncovered, there was some question if these facts could be believed, and as Voyager left the planet its captain remarked in her log that it was anyone's guess if the justice system would be reformed.

Tuvok remarked that Mari history was similar to that of Vulcans in that both had dealt with crime as a result of exposure to violent thought, by learning to control their emotions. (VOY: "Random Thoughts")

People[]

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