People of Deneb IV who built Farpoint Station by secretly exploiting a captured spaceborne lifeform able to turn energy into matter.
The Bandi of Deneb IV seemed a simple people when the Federation came to negotiate over Farpoint Station, an impressive facility they had somehow built and powered. Their leader, Groppler Zorn, was eager for Starfleet's business but evasive about how the station worked and why wishes seemed to come true there.
In Encounter at Farpoint, the Enterprise crew discovered that the station was actually a wounded spaceborne creature able to convert energy into matter, which the Bandi had captured and forced to take the station's form. When its mate arrived and attacked the old Bandi city, Picard exposed the deception and the two beings departed together.