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15 of the Most Bizarre Alien Species Featured in 'Star Trek'

"star trek" aliens.

"Star Trek" is filled with unusual aliens, ranging from the humanoid to the crystalloid to the god-like. Here are some of the more unique species from the live-action "Star Trek" series. Please note: We deliberately exclude the more well-known alien races, and limit each of the series to three entries to try to include samples from across the canon. If we missed anything bizarre, tell us in the comments!

1. Salt vampire ("Star Trek: The Original Series," 1966-1969)

The very first episode of "Star Trek" showed promise when it came to weird aliens. An old flame of one of the crew members, Nancy Crater, turns out to be a projection of a sort of salt vampire that soon runs amok on the USS Enterprise. This alien species cannot live long without salt, so it attacks crew members and sucks them dry of essential salts. The creature is eventually stopped in part by a sort of mouse trap that — of course — uses salt. [ What I Learned by Watching Every 'Star Trek' Show and Movie ]

2. Horta ("Star Trek: The Original Series," 1966-1969)

This is a species of silicon-based life (humans, by comparison, are carbon-based) that prefers to feed on rocks. In a moving episode, "The Devil In The Dark," the crew discovers that the aliens are actually intelligent and very loyal to their offspring — but only after the Vulcan alien Spock does a mind-meld with one of the creatures, which is being persecuted by miners angry at the destruction it has caused.

3. Gorn ("Star Trek: The Original Series," 1966-1969)

A member of this extremely strong (but intelligent) reptilian species engages in famous hand-to-hand combat with Capt. James T. Kirk in the episode "Arena." The only way Kirk manages to overpower him is by finding the ingredients for gunpowder on the alien planet on which he is trapped, using his own uniform to help with the ignition. As an honorary mention, we should also include The Metrons, a species that can manipulate energy and matter at will — these are the aliens that set up the fight in the first place, because they are mad at their space being invaded.

4. Q ("Star Trek: The Next Generation," 1987-1994)

Simultaneously terrifying and witty, Q is a seemingly supernatural being who pops up on the USS Enterprise periodically to play tricks on the crew. Some of his memorable actions include giving Q-like powers to a member of the Enterprise (arguing that humans always love learning), and putting humanity on trial for its past crimes while wearing period uniforms from over the centuries. Q, however, isn't all trickster. Alongside his antics, he does warn humanity about the approach of the Borg, which is trying to assimilate all species into a collective. [ The Evolution of 'Star Trek' (Infographic) ]

5. Tamarian ("Star Trek: The Next Generation," 1987-1994)

This species is a tongue-twister for the usual translators that Starfleet officers carry. While the translators can literally tell us what the Tamarians are saying, it's hard to understand what is going on because the species is speaking in metaphors. (Some examples from Memory Alpha: "Temba, his arms wide/open," which means a gift, or "the river Temarc in winter," which refers to the need for silence.) In the episode "Darmok," Capt. Jean-Luc Picard must learn to communicate with a Tamarian quickly before they are both killed by a hostile beast.

6. Crystalline Entity ("Star Trek: The Next Generation," 1987-1994)

This alien goes in the "beautiful but deadly" category, as the crystalline entity was breathtaking to watch in space — it looked a bit like a snowflake, or small and shiny diamonds. However, the entity had a nasty side to it: It could quickly devour all life in its wake. The USS Enterprise finally defeated the entity by sending graviton pulses that eventually broke it into pieces. But sadly, the crew couldn't stop the pulses in time when they realized the creature might be trying to communicate with them.

7. Changeling ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," 1993-1999)

Fans of the series will instantly remember changelings, as their numbers included one of the series' main characters — Odo, the sarcastic security officer aboard the space station Deep Space 9. Changelings were made up of an orange liquid that in the "Star Trek" universe is technically referred to as a "morphogenic matrix." Changelings were able to morph into pretty much anything they wanted to, including inanimate objects or even to resemble humans. [ Love of 'Star Trek' Inspires Highly Illogical Careers ]

8. Jem'Hadar ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," 1993-1999)

Jem'Hadar were one of a few "Star Trek" aliens with very different life cycles than humans. In their case, they were created in "birthing chambers" and were able to reach maturity in just three days. They also fed on a drug called Ketracel-white, which contained an enzyme they needed to survive. That enzyme was deliberately withheld during birthing by the Vorta, who created the Jem'Hadar; this gave the Vorta power over the Jem'Hadar and a captive economy for distributing the drug.

9. Trill ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," 1993-1999)

A main character on "Deep Space Nine" was from the Trill species — Jadzia Dax. Most of the Trill were fairly unremarkable, but there were a small number (including Dax) who lived with a symbiont inside their bodies. This symbiont was intelligent, but required a host organism to survive; it was common to transfer symbionts to young bodies when the older host organism was close to death. This meant that in the case of Dax, the symbiont transferred from an older man to a younger woman, prompting surprise from an old friend, Capt. Benjamin Sisko, the first time he met the younger Dax on Deep Space 9.

10. Hirogen ("Star Trek: Voyager," 1995-2001)

This alien was a brutal enemy of anything in the "Star Trek" universe, simply because the Hirogen consider themselves the dominant species and anything they run across as prey. Their entire culture was focused on hunting down other species, and they had the ability (if required) to break down bones and muscle tissue to eat the prey. Not someone you'd want to invite to dinner.

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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

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10 Best Weird Aliens in Star Trek

From Klingons to Ferengi to Changelings, Star Trek has introduced a wide variety of alien races, but some aliens are noticeably stranger than others.

The following contains mild spoilers for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4.

Star Trek gets weird sometimes. It's almost unavoidable after six decades' worth of Star Trek series and movies and counting. Every now and again, however, the saga takes a hard right into the truly bizarre, and the results -- both good and bad -- are invariably memorable. That especially applies to the various sentient aliens they encounter.

While humanoid species are the norm, their ranks also include numerous strange and unusual creations that help give the franchise its distinctive vibes. Here are the 10 most unusual aliens that have featured in various Star Trek series. Some are classics and some are just memorable misfires, but all of them are uniquely Star Trek.

Balok and His Puppet

First appearance: the original series season 1, episode 11, "the corbomite maneuver".

Star Trek: The Original Series takes a run at the finale from The Wizard of Oz , as a seemingly deadly ship turns out to be run by a benign alien named Balok. His "puppet" -- a sinister-looking alien whom Kirk thought he'd been dealing with -- is designed to scare who he meets in order to gauge their intentions. Balok is famously played by a very young Clint Howard, with the adult Walker Edmiston providing his speaking voice.

Star Trek: Lower Decks ups the ante in its inimitable fashion in Season 4, Episode 9, "The Inner Fight." Balok's puppet is apparently based on a real alien, who is itself so puppet-like that Captain Freeman mistakes it for a phony. That includes speech that fails to sync with its lip movements, and tiny noodle-like limbs hidden beneath his cloak. He even sits on a table, looking like nothing so much as an animatronic bust before Freeman starts shaking him up and down.

Cheron Natives

First appearance: the original series season 3, episode 15, "let that be your last battlefield".

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The Cheron natives, AKA "The black and white guys" have become the poster children for Star Trek's social conscience. "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" is an open comment on racism, and specifically the patent absurdities that racism relies upon. Kirk and the Enterprise encounter the last two members of a species locked in eternal hatred because the dual colors of their skin are reversed.

They come to an ironic end after one of them forces the Enterprise to return to their home planet, only to find their species has wiped itself out in a race-driven apocalypse. Rather than reconcile, they beam down to the planet's surface to continue their conflict. The episode is often derided for its heavy-handedness (and their appearance is far too metaphoric, especially for modern audiences), but they linger in the memory, and their final fate is appropriately poetic.

The Crystalline Entity

First appearance: star trek: the next generation season 1, episode 13, "datalore".

Not every Star Trek alien is planet-bound, as Star Trek: The Next Generation makes clear with the Crystalline Entity. It feeds on electromagnetic energy, and converts entire planetary ecosystems into nourishment. Data's genocidal brother Lore strikes an alliance with the being and leads it to the world of Omicron Theta about 25 years before the events of The Next Generation , where it destroys almost the entire population. The Enterprise-D later destroys it in Season 5, Episode 4, "Silicon Avatar," though other specimens are known to exist.

The Entity plays a central role in Data's origin story as Starfleet officers found him deactivated on Omicron Theta after its attack, which draws extra attention to its weird appearance. A giant interstellar snowflake stands in stark contrast to its sheer destructive power, as does its odd alliance with Lore. "Silicon Avatar" suggests that communication with the entity may be possible, and implies that it feeds out of hunger rather than active malevolence.

First Appearance: Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 1, Episode 1, "Beyond the Farthest Star"

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Star Trek: The Animated Series takes advantage of its format in ways The Original Series couldn't. This happened most notably with the truly strange alien beings the crew encounters which don't require practical effects (or even logic) to appear onscreen. That results in two new bridge officers from distinctly alien races, and while the cat-like Caitians are more or less par for the course, the three-armed Edosians are definitely cut from a different cloth.

Little has been confirmed about them save for their bizarre appearance. Script notes hold that they're a peaceful species that has never known war. The Enterprise officer, Lt. Arex, serves as navigator and utility infielder onboard the Enterprise, and reflects that assessment with a pleasant and cheerful demeanor. (He also plays the lute.) While they vanished after The Animated Series , shows like Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine have mentioned them by name. Star Trek: Lower Decks brought them back in a big way, with multiple Edosians appearing in the series.

First Appearance: The Original Series Season 1, Episode 26, "The Devil in the Dark"

"The Devil in the Dark" is one of The Original Series finest episodes: a tension-laden confrontation with a being known as the Horta suspected of killing workers in a mining colony. Kirk and Spock deduce that the creature is intelligent, and seeks only to protect its eggs which are threatened by the mining operations. The Horta is a silicon-based lifeform with the ability to tunnel through rock, which becomes a huge boon to the miners once the two sides stop being afraid of each other.

The Original Series often stumbled against budgetary limitations, but scored a big hit with the creature here: strange, unsettling, and conceivably capable of anything. According to The World of Star Trek reference manual, Screenwriter and co-producer Gene L. Coon wrote the script around the creature, after effects artist Janos Prohaska showed him the completed costume. The look cements the episode's moral lesson and leaves the franchise with one of its most distinctive nonhuman creatures.

Pandronians

First appearance: star trek: the animated series season 2, episode 2, "bem".

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Star Trek: The Animated Series gets deeply weird for the Pandronians, even considering its other array of strange creatures. They're a "colony creature," consisting of separate entities that comprise a single seemingly ordinary humanoid body. The components can disassemble into individuals (resembling a floating head, arms, a torso, and a trunk with spider-like limbs), which can act independently before re-forming into their joined identity.

The episode -- and the Pandronians -- have an interesting pedigree. Writer David Gerrold created them when he penned the screenplay, after creating the equally memorable title creatures in The Original Series Season 2, Episode 15, "The Trouble with Tribbles." As with most creatures in The Animated Series they disappeared from the franchise before Lower Decks resurrected them in Season 2, Episode 8, "I, Excretus."

The Providers

First appearance: the original series season 2, episode 16, "the gamesters of triskelion".

Despite its impressive visual effects, The Original Series often fell victim to budgetary limitations, and sometimes had to make do with less expensive options. "The Gamesters of Triskelion" is an object example. Its planet du jour is run by a trio of glowing brains called The Providers, bored with immortality, who amuse themselves with a system of gladiator games on the planet's surface. It gives Kirk a chance to play Spartacus when he, Uhura, and Chekov are kidnapped to join their ranks.

The episode itself is grand goofy fun, with silly outfits aplenty and glowing shock collars to keep the "thralls" in line. But the campy high point comes with Kirk (bare-chested and wearing a slave harness) argues moral philosophy before a trio of multi-colored brains in a fish bowl. Lower Decks hasn't yet taken a run at them, at least as of the end of Season 4, but it feels very much like a "when," not an "if."

The "Space Salamanders"

First appearance: star trek: voyager season 2, episode 15, "threshold".

The "space salamanders" are actually a highly evolved form of humanity, more specifically Captain Janeway and Lt. Paris . After Paris breaks Warp 10 in an experimental shuttle, he undergoes a horrifying transformation, then abducts Janeway and dopes the same to her. The rest of the crew find them on an uninhabited planet, transformed into human-sized amphibians with a clutch of juvenile offspring. Chakotay stuns them and returns them to the Voyager, leaving the "children" behind.

The final twist makes "Threshold" the most infamous episode of the series, with the space salamanders serving as an utterly baffling final twist that still has fans chuckling. Ironically, the 40 minutes leading up to it are ripping good drama, with a terrified Paris slowly succumbing to Cronenbergian body horror. It's all for nothing when the reveal is as goofy as this one, leaving the space salamanders one of Star Trek's most lovably bad aliens of all time.

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Sylvia and Korob

First appearance: the original series season 2, episode 7, "catspaw".

"Catspaw" is an obvious gimmick episode: first airing on Oct. 27, 1967, and actively written with Halloween in mind. Kirk and the Enterprise find what appears to be a haunted castle, complete with skeletons, cobwebs, and a shapeshifting black cat. The episode's antagonists, Sylvia and Korob, appear to be the castle's owners: appearing as a wizard and his familiar and wielding extraordinary powers.

They turn into one of the franchise's periodic riffs on The Wizard of Oz , as Kirk destroys the technology that gives them their powers. The castle and its environs vanish, leaving "the man behind the curtain" a pair of tiny blue-and-yellow insectoid beings who quickly perish once revealed. Ostensibly explorers from beyond the galaxy, they grew addicted to the sensations afforded by this plane of existence and delighted in the pain they caused. The franchise has declined to follow up with repeat appearance, though Star Trek: Deep Space Nine includes brief images of the beings on educational PADDs.

First Appearance: Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 1, Episode 6, "The Survivor"

Vendorians are shapeshifters, of which Star Trek has a bumper crop: making them superfluous to the franchise's needs. Their natural form resembles an upright orange cephalapod with a bulbous head, though they can appear as any organic or inorganic material of the same mass. Duplicitous and hostile, they reproduce by laying eggs in living hosts -- including humans and other sentient creatures -- which combines with their transformational abilities to make them extremely dangerous.

The Federation has quarantined their planet, though the Romulans made use of them as spies in The Original Series era. "The Survivor" concerns a Vendorian who hijacks the Enterprise in an effort to reach the Neutral Zone. Lower Decks Season 1, Episode 2, "Envoys" depicts one disguised as an Andorian whom Boimler mistakenly tries to save from an angry mob, and they later make a prominent appearance in Season 4, Episode 8, "Caves."

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Star Trek's 6 Most Ridiculous Alien Races

On paper, Star Trek has always been about exploring a fantastic universe teeming with exotic life. But in reality, the exotic aliens have to be played by actors, usually with something glued to their forehead.

Part of the central charm of the franchise is how they always try to get around these limitations with clever, imaginative writing. But on occasion, they'd just slap something together and call it a day. That's how we wound up with...

6 The Catullans a.k.a. Space Hippies

Appeared in:

Star Trek , Episode 76: "This Way to Eden."

When we call the Catullans Space Hippies, we're not joking. That's what they are. They're also responsible for what is probably the lowest point in Star Trek history, as you'll see shortly.

In the episode, the Enterprise is tracking a stolen spaceship, which they manage to catch up to when the irresponsible layabouts piloting it let the engines overheat. The ship stealing aliens are beamed aboard, and upon arrival they immediately start busting out trippy tunes on their space guitars and rebelling against the Man , rudely chanting "Herbert" at Kirk whenever he tries to talk sense into their thick hippie skulls.

Come on guys, be cool, if you just got to know Kirk you'd realize the only reason he keeps hanging around is because he's hoping for an orgy to break out.

It seems the Catullans are on a quest to find a planet named Eden, and after seducing the crew with rock music and their brazen navel-exposing women, they take over the ship. The Catullans find Eden and beam themselves down, but when Kirk and the crew follow only minutes later they find the Catullans have, predictably, all accidentally killed or injured themselves eating poison fruit or walking on acidic plants in their bare feet.

Oh and by the way, the main hippie who dies from eating poison fruit was named Adam. Get it? Adam? Eden? Consider your mind blown man.

Video Evidence of Catullan Lameness

Which brings us to the video clip, the aforementioned low point for Star Trek as a franchise. Charles Napier in rainbow colored hotpants jamming with Commander Spock? The seamy seduction of Ensign Chekov? Gene Roddenberry was clearly willing to go to any lengths to deliver his important anti-hippie message:

5 The Iotians a.k.a. Space Mobsters

Star Trek , Episode 49: "A Piece of the Action."

Looking to score yourself some bootleg Romulan ale, a few green hookers and the best damn cannoli in the quadrant? Well head on over to Sigma Iotia II, home of low-down dirty space mobsters, the Iotians.

Now you're probably wondering, why the hell is there a planet populated entirely by cartoonish Italian mobster stereotypes? Don't worry, there's a perfectly logical answer.

See, 100 years before Kirk and crew stumbled upon them, a previous Federation ship had visited the planet and somebody left behind that classic piece of 22nd century literature "Chicago Mobs of the 1920s." Upon finding and somehow decoding the book, the Iotians, in a perfectly reasonable move, decided to completely model every aspect of their entire society after it. Holy shit, it's a good thing nobody left them a copy of Lolita.

By the way, this was hardly the only time Trek producers had the crew dress up in stock costumes and romp around some Hollywood backlot. How do you top space mobsters as villains though? Well...

Video Evidence of Iotian Lameness

Kirk goes undercover among the lotians, in a scene that somehow encompasses every single thing there is to love about William Shatner. Observe Shatner hamming it up as Captain Kirk hamming it up as an alien hamming it up as an Italian gangster.

So laugh all you want about the idea of a planet basing their whole culture around gangster stereotypes. We plan on basing our whole culture on William goddamned Shatner.

4 The Xyrilians a.k.a. Shemale Lizards

Star Trek: Enterprise , Episode 4: "The Unexpected."

Sex and Star Trek don't mix. They keep trying; you'll notice the ads for the J.J. Abrams reboot love to show the lady taking off her shirt. But every episode and movie that has touched on the subject has wound up exploring new frontiers of awkwardness.

Even the birds and bees, a subject we trust seven-year-olds to be mature enough to handle, is enough to make the Trek writers lose their goddamn minds. For proof of this we refer you to the Xyrilians.

Xyrilian impregnation requires only minor physical contact, the men carry the children and only the genetics of the mother are passed on. So in other words, a brief brush of the hand with a woman and suddenly a guy is stuck carrying a baby that isn't even his.

So do the males wear full-body condoms 24-hours a day? Why would a male sex even continue to exist if they don't pass on their genetic material? Why would women continue to sport obvious mammalian breasts and childbearing hips under their shiny silver jumpsuits if they have nothing to do with carrying the babies? Gene Roddenberry would have taped that shit down in the name of scientific accuracy.

Video Evidence of Xyrilian Lameness

We could only find this brief trailer for the episode the Xyrilians appear in, but it hits the major notes. Commander Trip Tucker having the hots for an alien that looks to be descended from a salamander, pregnant dudes, people making lots of silly faces and of course the wrist nipple .

You thought "wrist nipple" was a typo, didn't you?

3 The J'naii a.k.a. the People of Planet Lesbos

Star Trek: The Next Generation , Episode 116: "The Outcast."

Alright, so when the Star Trek writers tackled the subject of where babies come from, we got a wrist nipple. Let's see what happens when they take on the complex subject of transgenderism and homosexuality!

The J'naii are a genderless androgynous race, which deeply opposes any kind of sexual activity. Now most men would likely be deterred in the face of overwhelming cultural opposition and a confusing genital situation, but Commander William T. Riker isn't most men.

Once Riker hits the planet and starts spreading his beardy musk around, a J'naii named Soren immediately decides he/she wouldn't mind a ride on his "number one." This brings up the question, are the J'naii actually genderless or are they just a race of aliens with bad haircuts and primitive bra technology? It doesn't help that the Trek producers had women play all the J'naii, making them come off less androgynous, and more like a planet of women's softball coaches.

The episode's message ends up completely garbled. Intended as a condemnation of homophobia, the episode instead comes off as the story of one woman's brave quest for cock in the face of lesbian tyranny.

Video Evidence of J'naii Lameness

From Soren and Riker's least-sexy talk about sex ever at the beginning to Worf's hilarious casual misogyny at the end, these may be the most uncomfortable 10-minutes of Trek ever.

2 The Kohms and Yangs a.k.a. The Hamfisted Political Symbols

Star Trek , Episode 55: "The Omega Glory."

It's common for aliens in the Trek universe to be metaphors created to address contemporary political or cultural issues, but in the case of the Kohms and Yangs subtlety was set on fire, strapped to a dump truck full of dynamite and rolled off a cliff.

The Kohms all look to be Chinese, wear goofy Russian fur hats and are generally a bunch of jerks. The Yangs on the other hand are white, blonde, manly men who love freedom. It doesn't take Kirk long to deduce that the Yangs were once known as "Yankees" and the Kohms were "Communists." The Yangs even worship a replica of the United States Constitution and use an American Flag as their symbol.

So how did these space Americans and Commies come to exist? Time travel? Uh, tachyon rays? M-rays? Some sort of rays ?

Nope, unlike the ridiculous gangster planet up there, apparently this exact mirror of the cold war during the 1960s developed purely by chance . It's explained that this is perfectly plausible due to Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development, also known as Gene Roddenberry's Law of, "It's Friday, Let's Get This Goddamn Script Done so We Can Hit the Links."

Video Evidence of Kohm and Yang Lameness

Kirk's patriotic speech is stirring and all, but he seems to have forgotten he represents the Federation, not the United States, and in fact according to the Trek timeline the U.S. hadn't existed for over 100 years by this time.

It's hard to disagree with the message there. No matter the time, circumstances, race or planet, all people can be united by one idea: the USA is awesome. To think it took a Canadian to remind us of that. Thank you, Mr. Shatner. Thank you.

1 The Greek Gods a.k.a... the Greek Gods

Star Trek , Episode 34: "Who Mourns for Adonais?"

So, it turns out the Greek gods were real. They were a race of aliens that lived on a planet named Pollux IV and traveled to Earth 5,000 years ago to dick around with us. By the time the Enterprise arrives at Pollux IV, only Apollo is left for no particularly well-explained reason (other than a limited casting budget).

If you're expecting a twist, wherein it's revealed Apollo is a fake, don't. The episode plays it completely straight. Apollo is an actual god who can throw lightning bolts, and make giant green Enterprise-grabbing hands appear in space.

That's the Star Trek scientific explanation. He's a freaking Greek god and you were fools to have doubted.

Though as far as gods go, Apollo is kind of a loser. Kirk is less afraid of him than a trip to the dentist and in the end of the episode Apollo decides to end it all because a chick he met a few hours ago rejected him.

Video Evidence of Greek God Lameness:

See what happens when Apollo dares to step to the real God of the Trek universe, William Shatner. Also... aren't togas supposed to be longer than miniskirt length? We think we see scrotum there.

Nathan Birch also writes the far out webcomic Zoology.

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Why Don’t Star Trek’s Warring Alien Races Have Anything Real to Fight About?

After Star Trek outgrew its Cold War context, its fictional planetary conflicts related less neatly to real-life wars.

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Warning: contains spoilers for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds pilot.

The first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , called, aptly enough ‘ Strange New Worlds ’, was about as generic a Star Trek plot as you could imagine – and that proved to be a massive plus. The USS Enterprise arrived at a planet that was technologically not far off present-day Earth, inhabited by people that looked like humans with a new kind of bumpy forehead.

But not everything was well on this planet, in fact they were on the verge of a war fought with devastating weapons of mass destruction, and so it fell to Captain Pike and his crew to bring these aliens to the negotiating table (while bending “General Order One” as far as it can go without snapping).

Now obviously the idea that there is one “true” Star Trek is ridiculous, now more than ever, but the episode still felt like a throwback to a kind of Star Trek we haven’t seen in a while. And yet, somehow it landed a little weirdly.

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The episode aired during a still-ongoing war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine. It referenced the events of January 6, as a prelude to the USA’s “Second Civil War”, which in turn would lead to World War III . ‘Strange New Worlds’ harked back to the grand tradition of Star Trek stories where two warring factions need only get around the negotiating table and learn to see things from the other person’s perspective and learn to compromise to bring about peace.

But Putin’s problem was never that he couldn’t see Volodymyr Zelensky’s point of view. The people who invaded the US Capitol building were not people who could be satisfied by compromise.

This is aside from the fact that the government Pike speaks to in the episode appears to be developing a “Warp Bomb”, a weapon that could potentially make nukes look like firecrackers, against dissidents among its own people. A government planning that doesn’t need to be negotiated with, it needs to be removed with prejudice.

As much as the episode felt like a truly classic slice of Trek, those plot elements feel weird against the backdrop of current events, but the reason for those story choices is tied to the very core of Star Trek , going all the way back to the original series .

Planetary War of the Week: a Classic Trek Plot

‘Planet engaged in a years/decades/centuries-long war that the Enterprise gets caught in the middle of’ is one of the great classic Trek plots. Perhaps the first and most archetypal example of this plot is in the original series episode, ‘A Taste of Armageddon’. The Enterprise attempts to make contact with a planet only to discover that, despite beautiful cities and an apparently peaceful existence, it is engaged in a bloody, centuries-long war with a neighbour.

For society to function in the presence of this ongoing bloodshed, the war is carried out by simulation, with any casualties on both sides notified of their death and ordered to report to a facility to be vaporised. It’s a surprisingly savage bit of satire. The ongoing death of millions of civilians is acceptable, even desirable, but what both, supposedly implacably opposed, governments can agree on is that their war should not damage property.

The simulated war itself, meanwhile, is fought with high-yield interplanetary missiles, echoing nuclear attacks by intercontinental ballistic missiles, because, like a lot of the Original Series, this was an episode about the Cold War. It is a subject that Star Trek ’s original series returns to frequently, with this episode, with ‘A Private Little War’, and its cynical dissection of proxy wars, and sometimes in less subtle ways, such as ‘The Omega Glory’, which features a planet that not only has a Cold War but also independently evolved an American Flag and a US Pledge of Allegiance.

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Faced with the Cold War, and more importantly, the threat of all-out nuclear war between the US and USSR, Star Trek’s ‘Get everyone around the negotiating table and talk it out’ philosophy makes sense. For the majority of its audience, whether the Soviet vision of communism or the US version of capitalism democracy won out was probably less important than whether the Earth would be reduced to a radioactive wasteland in the process.

Peace is the Word

Even early on, however, the metaphor started to show cracks when taken out of its lane. ‘ Let That Be Your Last Battlefield ’ is probably one of the most famous, if least-watched examples of Star Trek’s ‘two warring factions’ plot, where one side is black on the left and white on the right, while the other is white on the left and black on the right. It probably won’t astonish you to learn that this episode was attempting to tell a story about racial conflict.

And it’s not great. We learn that one side oppressed and enslaved the other, that other fought the oppression of the former, even after they stopped enslaving them , and our enlightened, diverse, post-conflict Federation onlookers conclude that both sides are as bad as each other. It is in an episode whose message will probably appeal to some people today, but maybe it shouldn’t.

But while there are a handful of examples of this plot in the original series, when Star Trek: The Next Generation came to our screens the number of these plotlines positively exploded. On board the Enterprise D barely a week could go by without the ship flying off to some peace talks somewhere. The episode ‘Lonely Among Us’ has one such set of peace talks going on as a B plot, and ends with one of the delegates literally eating another off-screen as a comic aside. We see it in ‘Too Short a Season’, ‘The Vengeance Factor’, and ‘Loud As A Whisper’, to pick a few from a very long list.

Often these stories are vague about why the alien factions are fighting. It is simply enough to say that both sides need to sit down and negotiate to achieve peace.

At the same time, the Cold War metaphor was one that was felt less keenly by Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s audience. While the show was on the air the Berlin wall was coming down, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ended, and the USSR came to an end, replaced by the Russian Federation. The wars Star Trek : The Next Generation ’s planetary conflicts stood in for were no longer the Cold War.

Leaving the Cold War Behind

‘The High Ground’ was censored when it was first broadcast in the UK, for citing “The Irish unification of 2024” as an example of a time when violence had successfully brought about political change. The Israel-Palestine conflict is also waved at by various stories. These wars aren’t treated as the potentially world-ending arguments of the Original Series’ nuclear metaphors, but as artefacts that seemed to appear fully formed, intractable, with origins in ancient history, and very rarely with any real, material bones of contention.

By Star Trek: Deep Space Nine there is sometimes not even a metaphor in place. The story ‘Battle Lines’ is almost as archetypical a Star Trek story as ‘Strange New Worlds’. A planet locked in eternal war, where the combatants can never die. We are never really told why they are fighting, and the soldiers don’t seem to know. It has simply Always Been That Way.

It is probably for the same reason that the factions are fighting for in Star Trek: Voyager episode ‘Nemesis’, when Chakotay is unwittingly recruited as a soldier, or the Kyrians’ and Vaskans’ historic conflict in ‘Living Witness’.

It continues all the way through to the Cold War stand-in in the Enterprise episode ‘The Communicator’, or the holy war in ‘Chosen Realm’, where one faction believes the world was made in nine days, and the other believes it was made in ten.

The moral is hardly sophisticated. ‘War is bad’, ‘People fight for stupid reasons’, and ‘People who have been fighting a long time find it hard to make peace’, are common and recurring messages throughout Star Trek . But scratch any holy war and you will find material concerns underpinning it, find any senseless, centuries-old grudge and you will find very real and current patterns of exploitation or oppression bringing it into the present day.

War is bad, it is also expensive, unpopular, and dangerous, if a leader or a people are going to engage in it, there is a concrete reason for it. Maybe the soldiers on the front line don’t have a good reason, but somebody always does.

A Just War?

We do see wars fought for meaningful reasons in Star Trek . We see Starfleet officers at war with Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Xindi, Borg, and the Dominion. These wars are seen as bad, and even drive good people to do morally questionable things, but one thing that is rarely ever in question is whether these wars are worth fighting . The Federation, and the ideals it represents, need to be protected, even if that means violence on a galactic scale.

‘Strange New Worlds’ is a story that happily steals its story beats from the classic sci-fi movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still , where an alien from a galactic federation lands on the White House front lawn and says “Guys, quit it with the nukes already or we’ll have to sort you out”, with Pike playing the role of Klaatu. However, it is also stealing from a source slightly closer to home – ‘Errand of Mercy’, the first appearance of the Klingons.

In that episode, far from landing on an alien world to teach the primitive locals the beauty of mediated negotiation and conflict resolution, Kirk and Spock are trying to persuade them to take up arms against occupying Klingon forces. Then, it turns out that the primitive locals are actually all-powerful ascended energy beings, to use Pike’s parlance “they have the bigger stick”, and they waste no time in confiscating the toys from both sides and imposing their own peace. While Kirk can eventually see the funny side, it is telling he is as outraged as his Klingon counterpart when it happens.

Keeping that in mind, the Federation’s bemusement at less advanced culture’s wars can seem more like an act of patronising colonialism – the very thing “General Order One”, the Prime Directive, exists to prevent. All wars seem silly when you’re floating above them in a giant spaceship, just as they seem justified and necessary when you’re on the front lines.

Chris Farnell is the author of  Fermi’s Progress , a book of planet of the week adventures about a spaceship that obliterates every planet it encounters. Available at  Scarlet Ferret  and  Amazon .

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Chris Farnell

Chris Farnell is a freelance writer and the author of a novel, an anthology, a Doctor Who themed joke book and some supplementary RPG material. He…

Everything We Know About The Husnock, One Of Star Trek's Most Mysterious Alien Races

In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Survivors" (October 9, 1989), the U.S.S. Enterprise discovered a mystery. On the planet Delta Rana IV — otherwise uninhabited and whose surface was devastated by an ancient cataclysm — a single house sat. Beaming down, the Enterprise crew found a well-kemp lawn, a large white home, and a kindly elderly couple named Kevin and Rishon Uxbridge (John Anderson and Anne Haney). While polite and welcoming, the Uxbridges are cagey about their circumstances. How are they the only people alive on the whole planet, and how can they merely enjoy teatime and lawn mowing without acknowledging their utter isolation? 

Eventually, of course, the truth would come out. Kevin Uxbridge was, in fact, a member of a species called the Douwd, a species of pure energy, possessed of godlike powers. He transformed into a humanoid and fell in love with Rishon, living with her in connubial bliss for years. Many years ago, however, the colony on Delta Rana IV was attacked by a vicious species called the Husnock, who killed all 11,000 colonists, including Rishon. Kevin initially refused to fight the Husnock because his species lives by a strict code of pacifism, but the death of Rishon devastated him. In a moment of vengeful pique, Kevin used his powers to reach out into the galaxy and wipe out every single member of the Husnock race, 50 billion of them. He committed genocide. 

Kevin recreated his home and an illusion of Rishon, hoping to live quietly as penance for his unimaginable crime. Unable to punish or incarcerate a god, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) merely leaves Kevin in peace. 

What we never learn anything about is the Husnock. All Trekkies ever saw was a mysterious warship. What other information can we find?

The Husnock

Indeed, the mysterious warship that appears throughout "The Survivors" isn't even definitively identified as a Husnock ship. Audiences later learned that the warship was another one of Kevin Uxbridge's illusions, summoned to scare off the Enterprise and leave Kevin alone. We are left to infer that Kevin's illusion was extrapolated from Husnock warships, but that may be a foolhardy assumption. 

There are no pictures of the Husnock anywhere in "The Survivors," and there is no description as to what they looked like. In dialogue, they were merely called "a species of hideous intelligence, who knew only aggression and destruction." By extrapolation, Trekkies have found that the Husnock were killed off in the year 2366, only shortly before the events of the episode. The Federation seemed to have little information about the Husnock. 

The only information given about the Husnock has to be derived from the vast sea of "Star Trek" expanded universe lore. In the late 2010s, there was a series of tie-in "Star Trek" novels called "Star Trek: Titan," an anthology that followed the adventures of Captain Riker commanding the titular ship. In David Mack's 2017 "Titan" novel "Fortune of War," the Husnock were finally brought back in their own central story, albeit after their extinction.

"Fortune of War" is set 20 years after the events of "The Survivors" and follows the U.S.S. Titan on an exploration mission of all the abandoned Husnock technology that was abandoned when Kevin wiped them from existence. Husnock warships still possessed a great deal of destructive potential, and it was up to Admiral Riker, a new character named Captain Vale and the Titan crew to keep Husnick ships from falling into the wrong hands. 

'Fortune of War'

By the description in "Fortune of War," the Husnock were essentially evil octopodes. Or, more accurately septapodes. They walked around on four tentacles and used the other three as their arms. They had beak-like mouths and their blood was a dark blue color. They were also said to have multiple hearts, although an exact number was not given. They also seemed to oversee a vast portion of space called the Husnock Star Kingdom, implying that their government was a monarchy. 

"Fortune of War" also described the extinction of the Husnock as they personally experienced it, and it was similar to Thanos' mass murder in "Avengers: Infinity War," but a lot more painful. Evidently, Kevin Uxbridge projected himself into the minds of all 50 billion Husnock simultaneously to simply say "For Rishon" and show them all the image of Rishon being killed in the Husnock attack. He then essentially set them all on fire, burning them all into ash. 

It's a bit grim, but the Husnock warship appeared in "Star Trek Online," the popular 2010 video game. That game endeavored to include every single character and ship that ever appeared in "Star Trek," and to get the Husnock ships involved, a new narrative was invented. It seems that those Husnock ships that the Titan was trying to protect in "Fortune of War" had already been salvaged and put into combat by the Klingons, the Romulans, and even the Federation. That doesn't seem wise or even ethical, but it was a fine shorthand for a video game predicated on combat. 

Whether or not the Husnack will return remains to be seen, although one could see an enterprising screenwriter working a reference into "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

10 Most Fearsome Alien Races In Star Trek

Some of the new civilizations Starfleet encountered were pretty terrifying...

Star Trek was dreamed up by Gene Roddenberry as a vision of a futuristic utopia, free from the struggles and strife of the turbulent 1960s. All races under the sun would come together and explore the far reaches of the galaxy in harmony, putting aside their differences and embracing their connections.

It was also an opportunity to dream up all manner of scary monsters and have them chase William Shatner around a cheap set. Intergalactic peace is all well and good, but if you’re looking to keep a TV show running, you need a little conflict - and nothing says conflict like the lurid beasts which populate the Trek universe.

From cunning strategists to noble but deadly hunters and balls of pure evil energy, the franchise has had more than its share of richly detailed alien species, all of whom naturally come with their own mythology and history.

Some, it must be said, are daft: they’ve aged badly, or they were dumb ideas to begin with. But others have cemented themselves as recurring villains or threats to the continuing safety of StarFleet.

10. Hirogens

A species whose entire existence and civilisation was built around the practise of hunting, the Hirogens were one of the most purely violent aliens ever featured in the Star Trek universe. They weren’t the most violent creature ever to appear, but their sheer lust for the chase makes them especially frightening.

The Hirogen had little respect and zero empathy for other species, treating them only as potential quarries for the next hunting expedition. They were no mindless killers, though: the ritualistic nature of their revered hunts required them to study their prey scientifically, ensuring the methodology of the kill was appropriately selected for the victim in question.

The unerring focus on hunting almost led to their downfall, as the Hirogens took to entertaining themselves with hologramatic simulations of potential victims. To up the challenge, the holograms were programmed to learn and adapt, eventually turning the tables on their erstwhile hunters.

The Hirogen were pushed back, but as a race they have what it takes to be a particular threat to the galaxy, with a proliferation of technology and weaponry, along with an innate bloodlust and understanding of hunting techniques.

Yorkshire-based writer of screenplays, essays, and fiction. Big fan of having a laugh. Read more of my stuff @ www.twotownsover.com (if you want!)

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Recap / Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E17 "Samaritan Snare"

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Original air date: May 15, 1989

The Enterprise is about to study a new pulsar cluster, but first it has to drop Wesley off at Starbase 515 to take a Starfleet exam. Meanwhile, Dr. Pulaski urges Picard to have an operation that he's been neglecting, but he doesn't want it performed on the ship for fear that his invincible aura among the crew will be shattered. In spite of his desire to see the pulsars, he decides to accompany Wesley to the starbase and have the operation off-ship. The pair board a shuttlecraft and settle in for a 13-hour flight at impulse power.

As the Enterprise heads on without them, they receive a distress signal from a stranded ship, the Mondor . The ship is full of Pakleds, an apparently dim-witted species who have no idea how their own technology works. Although Worf is leery of the situation, Riker decides to beam Geordi over to their ship to make their repairs for them. Just after he leaves, Troi bursts onto the bridge warning Riker that the Pakleds are not as harmless as they seem. When Geordi finishes his repairs, the Pakleds are impressed by his intelligence and take him hostage .

As this is happening, Picard and Wesley are stuck together in a small space and share an awkward conversation. Picard admits that he has an artificial heart that needs to be swapped out. Wesley bombards Picard with questions about his life choices, and Picard relates how he was once a brash, impetuous and ambitious young officer, which is to blame for his medical condition. He once picked a fight with a trio of Nausicaans and got impaled through the heart. We'll actually get to see this in " Tapestry ." Wesley is astounded by the story, and the pair become more friendly.

Back on the Enterprise , Riker starts to realize that the Pakleds were never as stupid or helpless as they seemed. Their ship was specifically designed to look damaged. The Pakleds are, in fact, greedy opportunists who will do anything to acquire new technology and power before their culture is ready for it. The Pakleds replicate Geordi's phaser and stun him repeatedly, demanding the entire contents of the Enterprise 's computer in exchange for his return. While he's around, they force him to make improvements to their weapon systems so that they will be "strong." Unable to comply with such a breach of Federation security, the bridge staff pass a coded message to Geordi, hoping that he'll pick up the clues and be ready to spring a trap of his own on the Pakleds.

Meanwhile, Picard and Wesley arrive at Starbase 515. Picard's operation starts to go unexpectedly sideways, and the surgeon states that unless they get a specialist involved, Picard will die. The Enterprise receives word that Picard is on the brink of death, and they are needed at the starbase. But first, Riker and Geordi need to spring their trap. Riker announces that he's going to destroy the Pakled ship with Geordi aboard. Geordi assures the Pakleds that he's on their side now and delivers a stream of Techno Babble to justify some new adjustments that he's making to their weapon systems. The Enterprise showers the Pakleds with harmless hydrogen exhaust, and Geordi exclaims that the "crimson force field" has deactivated the Pakleds' weapons. Deciding that they have lost, the Pakleds drop their purloined shields and allow Geordi to escape. The ship high-tails it to Starbase 515.

This episode contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc : This is the second and final appearance of Ensign Gomez, Geordi's would-be sidekick and love interest.
• Aliens Never Invented the Wheel : The Pakleds are a spacefaring race that apparently just stole the technology and plugged things together without any clue how it actually works. Their mannerisms give the impression of infantile stupidity but compensate with shocking ruthlessness, and are outwitted when the Enterprise and Geordi play off a harmless light show as a Techno Babble disabling weapon, as they still have zero comprehension of the technology.
• Artistic License – Medicine : Early on, Wesley calls Picard's replacement heart "parthenogenetic," which suggests an organic heart grown from Picard's DNA. This would be more in line with the Federation's tech level than the plastic 20th-century-looking mechanical heart seen in the operation.
• As You Know : When Troi warns Riker that the Pakleds are dangerous, Data states, "Our Betazoid counselor is often aware of things beyond our perceptive abilities." Not only is Riker well aware of this fact, Data also states Troi's species and position on the Enterprise, which everyone on the bridge, as well as the audience , already knows.
• Cryptic Conversation : How the crew tell Geordi about the ruse.
• Ditzy Genius : This seems to be the truth behind the Pakled's only-half-faked veneer of haplessness, apparently having a knack for reverse-engineering and integrating disparate technologies even when they don't fully understand how something works (see the rapid creation of a second phaser), and enough cunning to have apparently pulled off this sort of scam multiple times before, including against the Klingons and the Romulans.
• Early-Installment Weirdness : Wesley asks Picard if the incident with the Nausicaans happened "before the Klingons joined the Federation", to which the Captain answers yes. It's later clarified that the Klingon Empire is still a galactic power of their own, and while allies with the Federation, they're not a member species by any means. Also, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country established that the peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingons took place in 2293, more than three decades before Picard's brawl as a cadet.
• Finagle's Law : Picard estimates that the chances of his heart operation having a complication are around 2.4%. Guess what happens?
• Flaw Exploitation : Riker uses this to trick the Pakleds by using a dazzling light-show and Geordi's sabotage to make them think that they were hit with a secret defensive countermeasure.
• Foreshadowing : While the whole ordeal involving the incident that led to Picard getting his artificial heart would be further explained in " Tapestry ", the trope is in effect due to what Picard did after getting stabbed: Picard : I had this one Nausicaan down in this somewhat devious joint-lock when, unbeknownst to me, one of his chums drew his weapon and impaled me through the back. Curious sensation, actually. Not much pain. Shock, certainly, at the sight of serrated metal sticking through my chest. A certain giddy warmth. In fact I do actually remember that I laughed out loud.
• Former Teen Rebel : Picard during his cadet days, which - considering the dignified, reserved persona that he gives off now - seems almost impossible to believe.
• Hostage Situation : The Pakleds take Geordi hostage, demanding the contents of the Enterprise 's computer for his return. While he's around, they demand that he augment their technology.
• Idiot Ball : Riker takes a very firm grip of it in order for him to be fooled by the Pakleds despite Worf, Data, and Troi telling him that they can't be trusted.
• Ignored Expert : Worf's natural call for caution is ignored, as usual. Troi is conveniently absent from bridge when Riker makes his decision to send Geordi. Once she arrives and warns Riker of their untrustworthy nature, he allows Geordi to continue making repairs because they still seem harmless to him.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice : Picard recounts this— he got into a Bar Brawl with three Nausicaans and held his own until one stabbed him in the back and through his heart.
• Innocuously Important Episode : A standard crisis-of-the-week episode with yet another one-shot alien race — except that Picard's artificial heart will come up more than once in the future, and the Pakleds will come back in a big way in Star Trek: Lower Decks .
• Insufficiently Advanced Alien : The Pakleds clearly have no clue how their ship (or any other ship) works. Whether this is true of the entire species, or whether these three bozos just stole a ship, is never made clear.
• Karma Houdini : The Pakleds ultimately gain nothing from their ruse, but are not punished for it either. The ship is in too much of a hurry to bring them to space-justice.
• Know When to Fold 'Em : Once Geordi tells the Pakleds that their weapons are useless, they decide "We are not strong" and drop their shields to allow Geordi to leave.
• Low Culture, High Tech : The Pakleds opt to steal advanced technology from other ships, since their society has only basic spacefaring technology and underdeveloped linguistic abilities.
• The Main Characters Do Everything : Lampshaded when Worf questions why Riker wants to beam over the ship's Chief of Engineering himself to perform basic repairs on an unknown alien vessel.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished : As the name of the episode implies, the ship tries to be a Good Samaritan, but falls victim to a Wounded Gazelle Gambit .
• Noodle Incident : Geordi says that some of the Pakled's stolen technology is Klingon and Romulan. How these idiots managed to con Klingons (much less Romulans ) into giving them high tech without being blasted into atoms is a question which has stumped fans for years.
• Obfuscating Stupidity : Played straight and then subverted with the Pakleds, who on the one hand are clever enough to use subterfuge to lure Geordi in, but on the other turn out to actually be that stupid, genuinely having no idea how their ship works and being easily dazzled by Geordi's bunk Technobabble .
• Planet of Hats : The Pakleds are a dim-witted species, though not quite as dim-witted as they first appear.
• Picard's flaw. He was a hot-shot young cadet, which got him slapped with an artificial heart. Even after all these years, he's too prideful to brook the idea of his crew knowing that he's not invincible.
• Riker's refusal to take the Pakleds seriously as a threat until it’s too late is implied to be for a similar reason.
• Prime Directive : A subtle example of what happens when a species uses unearned tech.
• Rubber-Forehead Aliens : The Pakleds are a rotund species with upturned eyebrows, wrinkled eyes, and projecting lower lips, giving them the appearance of crying babies.
• Stock Footage : The matte painting depicting Starbase 515 is a reuse of the matte painting from " Angel One ".
• Techno Babble : Geordi makes some up to pretend that he's helping the Pakleds fight the Enterprise , but really he's sabotaging their ship and making them believe that they're helpless.
• Tempting Fate : The lead starbase doctor assures everyone that he foresees no impending difficulties with the operation. Things go south quickly.
• Too Clever by Half : Picard insists on having a routine medical procedure performed at a distant Starbase while a very highly qualified physician (Dr. Pulaski) and medical staff onboard the Enterprise who could have easily performed the procedure because he didn't want the crew of the Enterprise to know about his artificial heart. This comes back to haunt him when complications occur during the medical procedure, resulting in Dr. Pulaski being called in anyways (now with the whole bridge alerted to Picard's condition) to help save his life.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit : The Pakleds fake being stranded to lure the Enterprise into helping them, setting it up for a trap. The episode's title, "The Samaritan Snare," refers to this.
• This Is Gonna Suck : Wesley reacts in alarm when he learns that he's going to be spending his 13-hour shuttle trip with Picard, although he rallies hastily.
• Your Mom : As Picard tells it, the way Ensign Picard spoke to the Nausicaans. Picard: I stood toe-to-toe with the worst of the three and I told him what I thought of him, his pals, his planet, and I possibly made some passing reference to his questionable parentage .
• You No Take Candle : The Pakleds' speech is barely above this level; they use correct but very simple grammar and repeat themselves often.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E16 "Q Who"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E18 "Up the Long Ladder"

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" Alien " or non-indigenous referred to any being foreign to one's own homeworld . The term could be used affectionately or as xenophobic slang .

Prior to their identification, the Novans , although Human , were called alien by Captain Jonathan Archer , and later, the Takret were called alien by T'Pol . ( ENT : " Terra Nova ", " The Catwalk ") The 22nd century inhabitants of Earth referred to the Borg as aliens, as the species was unknown at the time. ( ENT : " Regeneration ")

• 1.1 Background information
• 1.2 Apocrypha
• 1.3 External links

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

According to the TNG Season 1 Writers'/Directors' Guide , the term "alien" was defined as " not Human . Different. Not of our tribe . An alien being is any life form not native to Earth. "

In the first draft script of ENT : " Fusion " (which had the working title "Equilibrium"), Trip Tucker mentioned to Fraht that, for Halloween during Tucker's childhood, he had usually dressed up as either an alien or an astronaut . Fraht, having been wondering what to wear for an upcoming Halloween party aboard Enterprise NX-01 , reasoned that, among Humans, he actually was an alien, so Tucker advised him to attend the party just as he was.

A deleted scene from TOS : " Return to Tomorrow " had Spock compare sharing his consciousness with Christine Chapel , a woman , to being in the mind of an alien. Ann Mulhall , amused, then referred to Chapel as her fellow alien (female). ( Star Trek: Lost Scenes , pp. 191-192)

Behind the scenes of Star Trek Into Darkness , the alternative term "visitor" was used for non-Humans. [1]

Apocrypha [ ]

In Star Trek Online , "Alien" is used to refer to a playable species for all factions except TOS Starfleet and the Dominion. Alien players receive no special traits, but instead can choose additional traits from the shared list. Aliens come with an enormous degree of visual customization, and it is possible to customize an alien officer's appearance to match some of the less common species seen in Star Trek , or create something entirely new. It is also possible to recruit alien bridge offers with randomized appearances.

External links [ ]

• Alien at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Extraterrestrial life at Wikipedia
• 3 Ancient humanoid

Riker Is A Great Star Trek Captain, But Not In This TNG Episode

• Riker shines as a capable First Officer under Picard, but stumbles in "Samaritan Snare" as acting Captain, ignoring crucial advice.
• Riker's controversial command decisions lead to Geordi's capture by the unintelligent Pakleds, showcasing his rare missteps as a leader.
• Riker's character growth shines in later TNG seasons and Star Trek: Picard, where he becomes a skilled Captain.

Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) became a great Starfleet Captain, but you wouldn't know it from watching this episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation . For seven seasons and four movies, Commander Riker served as First Officer on the USS Enterprise-D under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). Riker generally performed well when left in command, and Picard once referred to Will as: "the finest officer with whom I have ever served." Riker turned down several promotions over the years, choosing to remain a part of the Enterprise crew rather than take command of his own ship.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2 , episode 17, "Samaritan Snare," Captain Picard must travel to Starbase 515 for a procedure to replace his artificial heart. Ensign Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) accompanies Picard, and the two have some interesting discussions on their six-hour shuttle ride, making their part of the episode the better of the two stories. But the main plot of "Samaritan Snare" focuses on Riker's near-disastrous turn as Captain . Soon after Picard departs, the Enterprise receives a distress call from the Mondor, a Pakled ship. Riker then makes a series of uncharacteristic decisions that make him look like a much worse commander than he typically is.

The Pakleds are strange aliens, even for Star Trek , and their depiction borders on offensive. The dumb aliens would not be seen on screen again until the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks , where they feel significantly less out of place.

Commander Rikers 10 Best Star Trek TNG Episodes, Ranked

Riker was a shockingly bad captain in star trek: tng's "samaritan snare", riker ignores both worf and troi, which feels very out of character..

When Commander Riker opens communications with the unintelligent Pakleds , the aliens use only simple language and do not seem to understand Riker's questions. The Pakleds need help to "make their ship go," and Lt. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) thinks it will be an easy fix. Riker suggests sending Geordi, alone, over to the Pakled ship to fix the problem, prompting Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) to ask: " Do we truly need to send our Chief Engineer over to them?" Riker never offers an answer to this question. Although the Commander acknowledges Worf's statement that they know nothing about the Pakleds, he ultimately ignores it and sends Geordi to the Pakled ship alone.

After La Forge beams over to the ship and begins repairs, Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) arrives on the bridge and tells Riker that Geordi is in "grave danger." It's already odd that Riker did not consult Troi about the Pakleds in the first place (as Picard almost always does with new alien species), but it's stranger still that he completely ignores her worries. Not only does Riker underestimate the Pakleds, he also ignores the advice of both Worf and Troi , which results in the Pakleds taking Geordi hostage. Riker then concocts a ridiculous ruse to give information to Geordi without the Pakleds' understanding, but this, too, makes little sense.

Star Trek: Picard Is The Best Version Of Captain Riker

Riker returned briefly in picard season 1, before making a more substantial return in picard season 3..

Will Riker becomes a better commander as Star Trek: The Next Generation continues, and by the excellent TNG two-part episode "The Best of Both Worlds," he's saving Earth from the Borg. Riker's performance in "Samaritan Snare" is one of the few outliers among his otherwise accomplished career , and he does successfully get La Forge back in the end. Still, Riker does not take on his own command until Star Trek: Nemesis , when he becomes Captain of the USS Titan. Although little has been revealed about Riker's time as Captain of the Titan, he did get to fight off some Pakled ships on Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Star Trek: Picard season 3 has some of Jonathan Frakes' finest acting and some of Riker's best moments.

When Admiral Picard and the reunited Enterprise-D crew must take on the Borg and the Changelings to save the Federation in Star Trek: Picard season 3, Will Riker proves what a skilled Captain he became after TNG . In Picard season 3, episode 3, "Seventeen Seconds," for example, Riker takes Picard's advice to fight Vadic (Amanda Plummer) and her warship, when it might have been better to flee, as he initially suggested. Picard season 3 not only has some of Jonathan Frakes' finest acting and some of Riker's best moments but also shows how far the former Number One has come since his time on Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Cast Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden

Release Date September 28, 1987

Writers Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore

Directors David Carson

Showrunner Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Rick Berman

Where To Watch Paramount+

Star Trek: Picard

Cast Orla Brady, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Jeri Ryan, Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Evan Evagora, Marina Sirtis, Amanda Plummer, Whoopi Goldberg, Gates McFadden, Todd Stashwick, Santiago Cabrera, Michelle Hurd, John de Lancie, Ed Speleers

Release Date January 23, 2020

Writers Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Michael Chabon

Directors Terry Matalas, Jonathan Frakes

Showrunner Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Michael Chabon

Screen Rant

10 star trek actors who also appear in alien movies.

Several actors have made the jump from exploring the stars in Star Trek to hunting Xenomorphs in the Alien franchise.

• Star Trek and Alien share iconic actors, showcasing their talents in both classic sci-fi franchises.
• Brad Dourif impressed in Star Trek: Voyager and channeled creepiness reminiscent of his Alien character.
• Idris Elba transitioned from Prometheus captain to Star Trek Beyond's villain, showing versatility in both franchises.

10 actors have explored the final frontier in Star Trek and faced deadly Xenomorphs in the Alien franchise. Ridley Scott's Alien premiered in 1979 and remains one of the most influential science fiction horror films of all time. Following Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the doomed crew of the Nostromo, Alien spawned numerous sequels, prequels, and crossovers, including projects that are still in the works as of 2024. From the facehugger to the chestburster to the adult Xenomorph, the team behind Alien also created some of the most iconic visuals in cinema.

Star Trek has its own fair share of iconic aliens, though not even the Borg, inspired by H.R. Giger's Alien designs, are quite as viscerally horrifying as those in Alien . Beginning when Star Trek: The Original Series premiered in 1966, Star Trek became an even more expansive franchise than Alien , with a dozen TV series and 13 Star Trek movies . From the 1970s until today, every decade has seen new Star Trek and Alien projects, so it makes sense that several actors have appeared in both franchises.

Star Trek's Borg Owe A Big Debt To Alien

10 brad dourif, star trek: voyager / alien: resurrection, star trek: voyager.

Brad Dourif only appeared in three episodes of Star Trek: Voyager as Ensign Lon Suder , but his character made quite an impression. A Betazoid member of the Maquis, Suder suffered from violent tendencies he tried to control, but he had no outlet for them as a crewmember of Voyager. In Voyager season 2, episode 16, "Meld," Suder murdered Crewman Frank Darwin and was confined to his quarters on the ship.

Brad Dourif made Suder complex and suitably creepy.

When the Kazon attacked and took over Voyager in the Star Terk: Voyager two-parter , "Basics," Suder helped retake the ship. Brad Dourif made Suder complex and suitably creepy, perhaps channeling some of the psychopathic traits of Dourif's Alien: Resurrection character, Dr. Jonathan Gediman. Gediman was part of the science team that cloned Ellen Ripley, and he became a bit too obsessed with the Xenomorphs.

9 Leland Orser

Star trek: deep space nine, star trek: voyager, star trek enterprise / alien: resurrection, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: enterprise.

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2, episode 10, "Sanctuary," Orser played a Skrreean farmer named Gai, who was bonded to the Skrreean representative Haneek (Deborah May). In a later episode of DS9 , season 3, episode 21, "The Die is Cast," Orser appeared as a Changeling masquerading as Romulan Tal Shiar agent Colonel Lovok. Orser's next Trek appearance came in Star Trek: Voyager season 4, episode 5, "Revulsion," where he portrayed Dejaren, a hologram who developed a hatred for organic lifeforms.

In his final Star Trek appearance, Orser played Loomis in a Star Trek time travel episode — Star Trek: Enterprise season 3, episode 11, "Carpenter Street." Loomis was a human blood bank worker who had been recruited by the Xindi in 2004 as part of their plan to destroy humanity. Leland Orser appeared in Alien: Resurrection as Larry Purvis, a civilian who became an unwilling host to a Xenomorph egg.

Leland Orser has become most known for playing unstable or even psychotic individuals, including the sadistic serial killer in 1999's The Bone Collector .

8 Ron Perlman

Star trek: nemesis / alien: resurrection.

Before achieving mainstream fame portraying Hellboy in Guillermo del Toro's two Hellboy movies , Ron Perlman appeared in Alien Resurrection as the crass mercenary, Ron Johner. Premiering in 1997, Alien: Resurrection was one of the first big Hollywood films Perlman starred in. His Star Trek appearance came not long after, in 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis , where he was physically unrecognizable as the Reman Viceroy.

Although the Viceroy is never named in Star Trek: Nemesis , he serves as the second-in-command of the Reman forces and becomes one of Praetor Shinzon's (Tom Hardy) most trusted advisors. The Viceroy used his telepathic abilities to help Shinzon violate the mind of Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) , although this contact allowed Troi to trace the Viceroy's mind later. The Viceroy is eventually killed in a one-on-one fight with Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes).

7 Raymond Cruz

Star trek: deep space nine / alien: resurrection.

Long before Raymond Cruz appeared as Tuco Salamanca in Breaking Bad , he played human soldier, Vargas, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 7, episode 8, "The Siege of AR-558." Vargas was one of the soldiers assigned to protect the communication array on the planet known as AR-558. Vargas survived the five-month assault until Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) arrived with reinforcements, but he was killed during the Jem'Hadar's final attempt to take the array.

Cruz almost made it to the end of Alien: Resurrection, but became the last causality of the Xenomorph .

In Alien: Resurrection , Cruz portrayed Private First Class Vincent "Vinnie" Distephano, a dedicated soldier initially on the side of Dr. Mason Wren (J. E. Freeman). Wren was part of the scientific team that cloned Ellen Ripley as part of their plan to recreate the Xenomorph species. After Wren tried to betray the other survivors, Distephano switched sides. Cruz almost made it to the end of Alien: Resurrection, but became the last causality of the Xenomorph .

Best Star Trek: DS9 Episode From Each Of The Show’s 7 Seasons

6 jenette goldstein, star trek generations / aliens.

Jenette Goldstein is best known for her role in Aliens as Private Jenette Vasquez, a cocky marine who is part of the team sent to investigate Hadley's Hope colony. Like her fellow marines, Vasquez questions Ripley's experience with the Xenomorph on the Nostromo and believes their mission will be an easy one. Vasquez helps keep Ripley and the young survivor, Newt (Carrie Henn), alive, although she later sacrifices herself to avoid being taken by the aliens.

Jenette Goldstein only had a small role in Star Trek Generations , as a science officer on board the USS Enterprise-B in the opening sequence of the film. Although Goldstein has only had minor roles in the Star Trek franchise , her Aliens character, Vasquez, partially inspired the character of Lt. Tasha Ya r (Denise Crosby) on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Jenette Goldstein also voiced the USS Enterprise computer in two episodes of Star Trek: Short Treks.

5 Daniel Kash

Star trek: discovery / aliens, star trek: discovery.

Daniel Kash joined the Star Trek family in Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 10, "Terra Firma, Part 2," with a brief appearance as Duggan, an ally of Captain Gabriel Lorca in an alternate timeline of the Mirror Universe. Kash's more memorable Star Trek appearance came in Discovery season 4, episode 8, "All In," in which he plays Haz Mazaro , the owner of the Karma Casino Barge.

Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Cleveland Booker (David Ajala) had dealings with Mazaro and reached out to him when they were looking for black market isolynium. In Aliens , Kash portrayed Private Daniel Spunkmeyer, a member of the Marine Combat unit sent to investigate Hadley's Hope colony. Spunkmeyer served as a copilot on the dropship Bug Stomper before he was killed when a Xenomorph stowed away on board.

4 Chelah Horsdal

Star trek: discovery / alien vs. predator: requiem.

Upon arriving in the 32nd century in Star Trek: Discovery season 3, Michael Burnham and her crew begin working to aid and rebuild the United Federation of Planets. In the premiere episode of Star Trek: Discovery season 4, Chelah Horsdal's Laira Rillak is elected as the new Federation President . At odds at first, Captain Burnham and President Rillak become close allies, as they fight to save the Federation from the Dark Matter Anomaly in Star Trek: Discovery season 4.

As a Human, Bajoran, and Cardassian hybrid, President Rillak comes from three different species that have historically been on opposing sides. Laira presents a brighter, more unified future, and her time as a top Federation ambassador prepared her well for the job of the presidency. In Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem , Chelah Horsdal played Darcy Benson, whose husband and son were killed by Xenomorph chestbursters while on a hunting trip.

3 Mark Rolston

Star trek: the next generation, star trek: enterprise / aliens, star trek: the next generation.

Character actor Mark Rolston portrayed Private Mark Drake in Aliens, one of the Marines sent to check on the Hadley's Hope colony. In his first Star Trek role, Rolston played Lt. Walter Pierce in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 7, episode 18, "Eye of the Beholder." Pierce had killed his girlfriend and her lover out of jealousy while working on the USS Enterprise-D, and Counselor Troi felt empathic traces of the murder eight years later.

In Star Trek: Enterprise season 2, episode 17, "Canamar," Rolston plays Enolian criminal Kuroda Lor-ehn. After escaping prison, Kuroda had been recaptured when he met Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), who had been wrongly imprisoned. Archer eventually earned Kuroda's trust, which helped the Captain get back to the Enterprise. Mark Rolston also appeared briefly in Enterprise season 4, episode 6, "The Augments," as the Klingon Captain Magh.

Mark Rolston provided the voice for Portal 63 in the video game, Star Trek: Resurgence .

Every Star Trek Series, Ranked Worst To Best

2 winona ryder, star trek (2009) / alien: resurrection, star trek (2009).

Winona Ryder played Amanda Grayson, the human mother of Spock (Zachary Quinto), in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009) . In the alternate Kelvin timeline, Amanda was killed when Nero (Eric Bana) destroyed Vulcan. In Alien: Resurrection , Ryder starred as Annalee Call alongside Sigourney Weaver's Ripley 8. Call kept her true identity as an Auton secret synthetics had been outlawed after a failed uprising.

Call was originally meant to kill Ripley 8 before the Xenomorph inside her could be harvested, but she arrived too late. Despite being a machine, Call felt sympathy for mankind , which led her to sabotage the Xenomorph breeding program. One of the few characters to make it out of an Alien movie alive, Call apparently achieved her goal, destroying the Xenomorphs and making it to Earth in one piece.

1 Idris Elba

Star trek beyond / prometheus, star trek beyond.

As revealed in Star Trek: Beyond , Idris Elba's Krall had formerly been a Federation soldier and Starfleet officer by the name of Captain Balthazar M. Edison. When Edison's ship, the USS Franklin, crash-landed on a distant planet, he found alien technology that allowed him to siphon energy from others to prolong his own life. Edison grew to hate the Federation, and he became so mutated that he no longer appeared human, and he became Krall.

Krall's search for a powerful alien weapon eventually brought him into conflict with Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), who succeeded in killing him.

Before taking on the role of the villainous Krall in Star Trek Beyond , Idris Elba portrayed Jalek, the Captain of the scientific vessel Prometheus in 2012's Alien prequel, Prometheus . Jalek eventually sacrificed himself and his ship to prevent the mysterious Engineers from destroying humanity. Whether they are exploring strange new worlds in Star Trek or trying not to get eaten by a Xenomorph in Alien , several actors have left their mark on two of science fiction's biggest franchises.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek (2009), & Star Trek Beyond are all streaming on Paramount+.

Star Trek Generations is streaming on Max.