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The Beta XII-A entity, so-named for the first location where Federation and Klingon science recorded it, is a fictional being of the Star Trek genre.

The entity derives sustenance from the emotion of hatred being felt by other subjects such as humanoids. In order to further the generation of the emotion, the entity is also capable of expending energy psychokinetically and of acting upon humanoid minds by accentuating latent attitudes and causing outbursts. The entity is also capable of transmutation of objects.

At first recorded encounter, the entity caused the crew of the Federation starship USS Enterprise to believe there was a colony on Beta XII-A, and for both Enterprise and a Klingon vessel (under command of Kang) to hear a distress call. Both ships responded. The entity caused serious damage to the Klingon ship, with high loss of life. The Enterprise arrived and a landing party beamed down, finding no trace of the colony.

The Klingon ship came into sensor range, beamed down its own landing party and took Kirk's party hostage, Kang accusing Kirk of unprovoked attack, since he saw no evidence of a colony. Kang ordered Kirk to bring him aboard the Enterprise, where Kirk turned the tables and imprisoned Kang's people. The Klingon vessel was evacuated of its scant survivors, then destroyed to reduce radiation hazards. Communications with Starfleet continued to be blocked by the entity.

The entity caused the engines to go to maximum warp speed, steering the ship on a course out of the galaxy, trapping most of the Enterprise crew behind emergency bulkheads, and balancing the Federation and Klingon forces at about 38 each. Conventional weapons were eliminated and replaced with swords, forcing violent battle as the Klingons escape confinement. In addition, the dilithium crystals began to degenerate. The Klingons took engineering and tried to cut off power to the bridge (but the entity restored it).

The entity continued to foster battle, making Chekov imagine he had a brother killed by the Klingons some years before, and inflaming Scott and McCoy's latent dislike of the Klingons which they normally restrain. Injured or dying crew were regenerated by the entity at a phenomenal rate, allowing them to return to battle. Kirk realized that they would fly without warp engines for decades in inter-galactic space, fighting over and over. Once they spotted and analysed the entity, Kirk and Spock realized all fighting must stop, and they convinced Kang's wife Mara that this was necessary.

When Kirk and Mara finally convinced Kang, Kirk and Kang were able to order their people to cease hostilities, weakening the entity. They then engaged in good-spirited urging to the entity to leave, complete with mocking and laughter, and the entity left. Control of navigation and engines was regained and the dilithium crystals stabilized.

In the Q Continuum series of three novels, written by Greg Cox, the entity, known as (*), is shown to be an old friend or associate of 0, who summons (*) through the Guardian of Forever approximately 500,000 years prior to Kirk's encounter with the entity. 0 employs (*) in the "testing" of the Tkon empire; after the Tkon are destroyed, the Q seek to arrest 0 and his associates; (*) and Gorgan the Friendly Angel flee into a black hole when the battle turns against 0's side.