Green-skinned humanoids associated with the Orion Syndicate, piracy and trade, seen from the original series to Lower Decks.
The Orions are a green-skinned humanoid people best known in the Federation for the Orion Syndicate, a criminal network involved in smuggling, piracy and the slave trade. Orion women were long thought to be slaves, but Enterprise revealed that they actually control Orion men through powerful pheromones, which affect many other species as well.
An Orion slave woman first appears in an illusion in the original pilot, The Cage, when the Talosians show Vina to Pike as a green dancer. In Journey to Babel, an Orion agent disguised as an Andorian murders the Tellarite ambassador, and in Whom Gods Destroy, the Orion Marta is a patient at the Elba II asylum.
In Enterprise, Orion slave traders appear in Borderland, and in Bound, three Orion women given to Archer use their pheromones to disrupt the crew. In Discovery's third season, the Orion-led Emerald Chain under Osyraa dominates trade after the Burn, and Lower Decks features the Orion ensign D'Vana Tendi.