A technologically superior order of spacefarers who escort the comet they call M'hanit and forbid any interference with what they hold to be an arbiter of fate.
The Shepherds are a spacefaring people devoted to the comet M'hanit, which they regard as an ancient and sacred arbiter that brings life or death to the worlds in its path as it wills. Their ship far outclasses a Constitution-class starship.
They appear in the Strange New Worlds episode Children of the Comet. The Enterprise tries to deflect the comet from a collision with the inhabited planet Persephone III, and the Shepherds intervene, damaging the ship and declaring any touch upon M'hanit a blasphemy, even while a landing party is trapped on its surface.
Pike feigns submission while Spock, in a shuttle, heats the comet's ice so that it changes its own course. It passes the planet and seeds the atmosphere with water. The Shepherds claim this was foreseen, and Uhura's translation of the comet's music suggests they may be right.