Star Trek Ruminations

This blog contains affiliate links. I may earn a commission on purchases made through these link. Now and then the Star Trek  universe gives us hints of truly alien "new life and new civilizations." Below are three exotic races from TNG mentioned only in dialogue.  The Grizella “Unfortunately, they are currently in their hibernation cycle, However, they will awaken in six months, at which time we can get this matter settled. ” — Captain Picard The Ensigns of Command: The episode that introduces us to the Sheliak (who we do see) also gave us the Grizella (who we only hear about). From Picard's dialogue we know that the Grizella have a hibernation cycle. It lasts at least 6 months, perhaps longer depending on how long they had already been in hibernation at the time of this episode.  Just as the pon far cycle followed the Vulcans into space, this hibernation cycle persisted even as the Grizella became a warp-capable, space-faring race. The fact that Picard requests t...

There are a number of episodes of Enterprise (such as “Vox Sola”) that describe the Universal Translator (UT) in terms of analyzing patterns in the spoken word. Few details are given regarding the process, but we can draw some reasonable conclusions. First, let’s start with the easiest task—translating between two known languages. There are already computer systems that can recognize written and even spoken words and translate them into other languages . While there are limitations to the accuracy of such systems, we should expect vast improvements as we enter the 22 nd – 24 th centuries. But what about a computer learning a new language through pattern recognition? This is also something that has already started to happen. Franz Josef Och , a specialist in computer translation, has developed systems that use statistical models allowing computers to learn new languages. The computer is given a document that has already been translated into two different languages. It then c...

The Star Trek universe is largely populated with humanoid races - one head, two eyes, two arms, two legs – with relatively minor variations. One of the few non-humanoid, intelligent races we see on the show is the Sheliak in the episode "The Ensigns of Command" ( TNG , season three). Their non-humanoid form creates an interesting backdrop for the even larger cultural and linguistic barriers that exist between the Sheliak and the humanoid races of the Federation. At the same time it poses some interesting questions about how they have advanced to become a powerful, space-faring civilization. First it must be acknowledged that while the Sheliak are non-humanoid, they still have a roughly humanoid silhouette. What we see of the Sheliak is a human sized, upright being with a head-like protuberance at the top and undulating masses where a humanoid's arms would normally be. Still, they have no discernable face, eyes, nose nor any true appendages. Therein lies an interesting pr...