Given the powerful pheromones di'Taykan constantly emit, how did the teams who first contacted their race get anything done before they finally found a way to prevent the effects?
They probably didn't. That, or it's possible first contact was done by one of the Starfish Alien races, upon whom the pheromones wouldn't work.
It's mentioned that the pheromones work on mammals. The Confederation includes avian, reptillian, insectoid and other weirder species.
In The Heart of Valor, we learn that di'Taykan have no idea about the changes that occur when they shift to qui'Taykan, which seems odd when you consider how otherwise open the species is. However, given that the qui'Taykan are said to be profoundly conservative, it makes sense that they would prefer not to talk about what happens to them.
