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...

I think I always considered “True Q” one of the least consequential Q episodes of TNG . Q is most interesting when he is directly facing off with Picard—whether it is something as sweeping and menacing as introducing the Borg (“Q Who?”), or something as quiet and personal as letting Picard revisit his youth (“Tapestry”). Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy this episode. It has some great moments: Amanda throwing the omnipotent Q across the room, Crusher being turned into an Irish setter, a game of hide-and-seek that ends with Amanda and Q standing on the hull of the Enterprise, and plenty of snide remarks from Q. But it still seemed sort of like Q-lite. For one thing, the whole situation is based on the incredible coincidence that this girl just happened to be sent to the Enterprise at the same time that Q just happened to be sent by the Continuum to determine her fate. It’s as if the story couldn’t have been told if Q showed up on earth and we had only marginal involvement from the main...

Index of "Lost in Translation" Articles Communication with Aliens in Star Trek (this page) Verbal Pattern Analysis Scanning Brain Activity Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country "The Universal Translator Would Be Recognized" Men, Ferengi, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Lobes Um . . . Disfluencies and Translation There Be Whales Here ( Star Trek IV ) They Sure Don't Sound Like Son'a to Me ( Star Trek: Insurrection ) Horta Hears a Who ("The Devil in the Dark") Star Trek XI Also see an older post about translation in Star Trek : Musings about “Nemesis”—Part 1 of 2 (The Voyager Episode, Not the Movie) The Universal Translator is a vital piece of technology in Star Trek . Without the Universal Translator we would probably never get to the stories themselves. In his book, Aliens and Alien Societies , Stanley Schmidt writes: Any time two independently evolved species come into contact, [a writer] must decide how, if at all, they’re going to learn to talk to...

I recently saw "The Changeling" for the first time. I had read summaries of it before, and basically knew what to expect - V'Ger -lite - but I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of its execution. When Scotty was pronounced dead and it cut to a commercial my attention was captured. Sure, I knew Scotty would come back somehow, and I could guess that Nomad would be the one to bring him back, but somehow it still managed to be shocking. Scotty was dead! And perhaps in an even more daring move for which Nomad did not have a magic reset button, Uhura's mind had been erased! I also enjoyed some of the camera work - particularly when the camera followed right along side Nomad . On one hand it was smart from a technical standpoint because Nomad could appear to be floating without having to find some way to conceal the strings or rods that held him up. But from an aesthetic standpoint it created a very eerie almost claustrophobic feeling, a very real sense that this dead...

100 Years Young: Part I: Musings About the Drayan Life-Cycle Part II: Is Aging an Inevitable Biological Fact? Part III: Can an Organism 'Grow' Smaller and Younger? Part IV: The Drayan Civilization If you're ready to accept, or at least consider, that aging isn't a biological necessity , accepting the idea that things might grow smaller over time should be a relatively simple matter. At the same time, there are some logistical problems to work out. Consider the following comment from a book about how science-fiction writers can craft convincing alien life-forms: "Every creature I know of starts out as a smaller structure produced in the body of one or more adults of its kind. To become an adult itself, it must grow" ( Aliens and Alien Societies , Stanley Schmidt). Schmidt's comment that things " must grow" does make a lot of sense—and in principle I am inclined to agree with him. This illustrates our second instinctive objection to the Drayan lif...

100 Years Young: Part I: Musings About the Drayan Life-Cycle Part II: Is Aging an Inevitable Biological Fact? Part III: Can an Organism 'Grow' Smaller and Younger? Part IV: The Drayan Civilization Regarding this first point, let me begin with the assertion that what we know as the aging process is not the fundamental truth we presume it to be. I recently came across an intriguing short story called "Invariant" by John Pierce about a scientist who learns how to stop biological aging. As the story explains: "The regeneration of limbs in salamanders led to the idea of perfect regeneration of human parts. How, say, a cut heals, leavng not a scar, but a perfect replica of the damaged tissue. How in normal metabolism tissue can be replaced not imperfectly, as in an aging organism, but perfectly, indfinitely." (The story deals with some unexpected results of his research - you may want to find a copy of this story to see how it ends.) The idea of "perfect re...

100 Years Young: Part I: Musings About the Drayan Life-Cycle Part II: Is Aging an Inevitable Biological Fact? Part III: Can an Organism 'Grow' Smaller and Younger? Part IV: The Drayan Civilization Reverse aging. It's one of the most intriguing concepts in xenobiology introduced into the Star Trek universe. A quiet little episode of Voyager called "Innocent" features a Delta-Quadrant race called the Drayan that have this kind of life-cycle. Unfortunately the concept was introduced but barely explored. The cursory treatment of the idea probably left most fans scratching their heads, dismissing the whole notion of reverse aging, and forgetting about the Drayan as just another alien-species-of-the-week. However, I would argue that this is a concept worthy of further consideration and is even a plausible idea——if not in the real world at least within the confines of the Star Trek universe. To address this topic I will begin by briefly outlining the episode, focusi...

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...

As discussed in part one , the Voyager episode “Nemesis” features a unique glimpse of an alien language. But the main theme of the episode is about hatred and prejudice and how these feelings can be evoked in any of us. Unbeknownst to Chakotay, the Vori have subjected him to an elaborate system of conditioning and propaganda to teach him to hate their “nemesis”, the beast-like Kradin. Yet, to oversimplify the outcome of the episode, the Kradin turn out to be the “good guys” who help Voyager rescue Chakotay and, the Vori turn out to be the “bad guys”—guilty of the very atrocities they have been accusing the Kradin of. Of course, the truth of the situation is still open for debate. The Kradin may not be completely pure and innocent. Likewise, the Vori may not be guilty of every crime the Kradin accuse them of. But the episode is not about coming away with an objective analysis of the Vori-Kradin conflict. It is about the processes that teaches us to prejudge and hate a group of people. ...

The fourth season episode of Voyager , “Nemesis”, begins with a routine shuttle-crash opening. But thereafter it introduces some innovative—albeit somewhat manipulative—storytelling. First, consider the matter of language. The Star Trek universe depends upon the existence of the universal translator. For the most part it has to function flawlessly and invisibly so as not to bog down the drama of a given episode. On a few occasions, however, we are given some hint that communication between alien cultures is not as effortless as it usually seems—that languages are not just different sets of vocabulary but different ways of thinking. “Nemesis” is one of those episodes. This episode features a human-like race called the Vori that take in Chakotay after he crash lands in their war zone. The writers succeed in making the Vori immediately comprehensible in English, but with just enough variation in the way they express themselves to convey the idea of a different language and thought patter...