Suboids were the poor people of the planet Ix. They had a human body, but they did not exhibit typical human behaviour. The leaders of Ix, House Vernius, treated the suboids as "human robots", trained only for heavy jobs and duties. They typically had freckled greyish skin. The suboids worked in the deepest underground of the planet, where they labored building trans-spatial ships, such as Heighliners, which were eventually sold to the Spacing Guild. They had very little feelings, emotions, fears, creativity, as they were not encouraged to think for themselves.