July 30, 2025 • 24 mins
In this classic omnibus episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses four different creatures from the Star Trek universe: the Andorians, the Tribbles, the Ceti Eels and the Horta. (orignally published 6/12/2024)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hi, my name is Robert Lambin. This is the Monster Fact,
a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
And this is going to be yet another omnibus episode,
collecting four previous related Monster Fact entries. These are going
to cover my recent journey into the Star Trek universe,
(00:31):
so I hope you enjoy these. Let's go ahead and
kick things off with the Andrians. In this episode, I'd
like to begin a series on various aliens and creatures
from the Star Trek universe. Now, first of all, I
will be the first to admit that I am not
an expert in Trek lore, but I very fondly remember
(00:53):
as a kid in the nineties watching reruns of Star
Trek the Next Generation every weeknight at nine PM. So
fondly remember a book that I had to special order
from the local bookstore, Star Trek The Worlds of the Federation,
written and illustrated by Laura Johnson writing as Shane Johnson.
This was an encyclopedic collection of alien profiles. Think of
(01:16):
it as a monster manual. If you will, covering thirty
two different Federation member alien species, as well as a
number of neutral and hostile aliens. This was a nineteen
eighty nine publication, so it's far from current and is
not considered part of current Trek canon, and I'm to
understand some Trek writers took issue with some of the entries. Still,
(01:36):
it's a book that meant a lot to me as
a young Treky, and I suspect it meant a lot
to others from this time period as well, So I'm
going to go ahead and cite it along with some
other sources, with the caveat that again, it's not canon
much in the same way I cited the Dune Encyclopedia
in some of my Dune related entries. With all of
that in mind, let's turn to the Andrians. These blueskin,
(02:00):
white haired, antinny equipped aliens are iconic original series aliens,
but they were rather exotic for me, as they're virtually
absent from both Star Trek the Next Generation and Star
Trek Deep Space nine, which constituted my prime Trek viewing.
The reasoning for their absence, according to the excellent Memory Alpha,
(02:21):
was largely twofold. First of all, Trek creator Gene Roddenberry
preferred that many original series aliens be avoided in favor
of new ones on the next generation. Secondly, the makeup
was allegedly difficult to get right and avoid looking silly.
They overcame these hurdles and subsequent shows, and in the
current Star Trek Strange New World series, which I'm enjoying
(02:43):
quite a bit, we encounter an albinos subspecies of Andrians
known as the Nar, as well as an Andrian Special
Forces officer, and neither of these aliens looks remotely silly.
But let's come back to the biology of the Andorians.
The worlds the Federation describes them as a mix of
mammalian and reptilian features, with both an endoskeleton and a
(03:05):
limited exoskeleton, and the antennae are described as enhancing otherwise
colorblind vision with a quote complex matrix of light sensitive
cones in addition to auditory functions. All of this together
would amount to an enhanced sense of sight and smell.
Fair enough obvious sense organs do sense organ things. Antenna
in terrestrial organisms remember very greatly, and depending on the species,
(03:29):
may utilize senses of touch, air, motion, heat, vibration, smell
or taste. But again, the Worlds of the Federation came
out in nineteen eighty nine before A particular nineteen ninety
three episode of the Next Generation shed a great deal
of canonical light on the biology of Star Trek. The
episode titled The Chase, which I specifically remember from my childhood,
(03:52):
revealed the reason so many Star Trek alien species are
humanoid and resemble each other, often with minor alters to
facial and cranial features. All of this via a revelation
of ancient intentional pan spermia via a single advanced progenitor
humanoid species. In other words, all of these Trek species
(04:13):
look similar not because they're all humans in makeup, but
rather because a single ancestor species spread their own DNA
among the various worlds to seed them. I've always found
this to be a clever way of addressing the seeming
lack of biological diversity in many of the core Tract civilizations.
Now you might reasonably wonder, okay, fine, but realistically, would
(04:37):
these distantly related species still look so similar to each other? Well?
Susan and Robert Jenkins explore this question in their book
The Biology of Star Trek, published in nineteen ninety eight.
They point out that based on what we know about evolution,
it's not at all unreasonable. The evolutionary clock runs slowly,
they write, and it has a built in bias against
(04:58):
major overhauls. Because speciation is brought about by multiple random
changes in DNA, and the changes must allow the organism
to survive and reproduce, small changes are favored over large ones.
Small changes are less likely to compromise the tested survivability
of the original. Given this constraint, two species that start
out alike remain similar over a rather long time, even
(05:21):
under different sets of environmental pressures. They add that particular
environmental pressures would of course have their impact, and a
trend towards facial symmetry would likely stay in place. They
go into greater detail in this great book about not
only the speculative biology of all of this, but also
the connections between human facial cues and the way we
imagine the facial features of treks aliens, and they do
(05:45):
get around to considering the Andrians. They point out that
while nothing resembling a human with antennae exists in the
natural world, we of course do have mammalion species with
enhanced whiskers, and I would point out that we have
other things like the unique robosis of the star No's
mole and the twin feelers of the tentacled snake to
get into the reptile world. For the Andrians, however, they
(06:07):
propose an interesting notion. Perhaps the Andorian home world contains
multiple atmospheric variations, and this results in various microclimates, requiring
enhanced sensation of atmospheric content, temperature, and pressure for any
species that regularly travels outside of a narrow region or microclimate.
(06:27):
They even go so far as to discuss how tissues
in human embryos might develop into antennae under the right
survival pressures. Quote. Human embryos have several segments called embryonic
pharyngeal arches in what will become the head and the neck.
They supply the developing tissue for jaws and some neck organs.
In fish, However, the pharyngeal arches develop into gills because
(06:50):
these structures have been adapted for very different purposes. They
might evolve to provide the organ substrate for the nervous
tissue in an antenna like organ. More broadly, they point
out that added sense organs could potentially detect any number
of factors in a given environment, provided there was an
evolutionary incentive to do so. Memory Alpha provides little canonical
(07:11):
data on all of this, as far as I could tell,
but it does point out that we know that Andrian
antenna can be moved independently via voluntary muscle control, that
they regenerate if they are injured or blasted off, and
they also seem to play a role in balance and
gesticulation and of course therefore communication. I think all this
(07:33):
is quite reasonable. Now, coming back to Star Trek's Strange
New Worlds, the Enar character Himmer in that show is
depicted as having been born sightless, but is more than
able to make up for his lack of sight in
part due to his other senses as a member of
an antennae equipped and Dorian subspecies. All right, Next up
(07:55):
the Trouble with Triples, we discuss the various creatures of
the Star Trek universe, without of course considering the tribles
of Iota geminorum for a world home to an abundance
of carnivorous reptiles in addition to the vaguely mammalian Trible
which seems to serve as a basic prey species for
(08:18):
all the space lizards. The Triple is, of course, a small,
furry creature with no discernible limbs or features. Really, its
only means of defending itself, at least against humanoids, is
to basically tranquilize the humanoid with a gentle cooing effect.
The trouble with Tribles, of course, is their incredible rate
(08:38):
of reproduction. They are even reportedly born already pregnant, and
can quickly overrun any given ecosystem or starship that they
are introduced into. In their natural habitat, they eat and
reproduce as quickly as possible, but their numbers are kept
in check, presumably by their many voracious predators. But on
(08:59):
a Federation star ship, yes, this is where the trouble occurs.
With no predators, plentiful food, and a crew overcome by
their adorable cuteness, their population very quickly spirals out of control.
The creatures debuted in a nineteen sixty seven episode of
the original Star Trek series, but the Grimlins franchise of
the eighties and nineties treads on similar ground. Adorable fur
(09:22):
babies that get entirely out of hand, due to a
mix of ineptitude, human vulnerability to cuteness, and a reproductive
system clearly evolved for different parameters. I've speculated elsewhere that
maguai might depend on a desert, if not an extraterrestrial
environment for their biology to make sense and likewise unsuftible
(09:42):
your mind. We've talked about the role of cuteness both
among humans and cuteness between humans and non human animals.
It is a potent force that manipulates this. For the Triple,
the stabilizing factor is the severity of its ecosystem. On
the Triple home world, triples presumably die in vast numbers,
(10:03):
and their prolific reproduction rate merely allows them to keep up.
We see variations of this in the natural world here
on Earth as well. In general, we see the basic
quality quantity tradeoff. In practice, some organisms err on the
side of producing few high quality offspring, while others simply
produce offspring in vast numbers. The predators can't eat all
(10:25):
of them, and a select few survive to reproduce as adults.
In sea turtles, for example, somewhere on the order of
two out of a thousand eggs actually makes it to adulthood,
surviving the gamut of consumers along the way. We can
also think of the triple in terms of predator satiation,
by which prey briefly and periodically occur at such high
(10:46):
population densities that the predators can't possibly eat them all.
Periodical cicadas, which many of you will be experiencing yet
again this year, are an example of this. So it
would seem possible that tripe might work in a similar manner,
periodically reproducing in such numbers that they simply overwhelm their
many reptilian predators. Now, given that tribles are vaguely mammals,
(11:10):
we might also compare them to such prolific terrestrial warm
bloods as the European rabbit, infamous for its own rapid
reproduction rate. According to the Texas Invasive Species Institute, an
eighteen fifty nine introduction of a mere twenty four European
rabbits into Australia led to a population of more than
six hundred million in less than a century. The tribles
(11:32):
ultimately are a fantastic commentary on what can happen when
a species is artificially transplanted from one ecosystem into another. Now,
how long would it take tribles to overrun the starship Enterprise. Well,
that is a question that you have to throw some
math at. And in twenty twenty student researchers at the
University of Leicester made science headlines with a paper in
(11:55):
the journal Physics Special Topics. Their answer four point z
five days. All right, Next up the Seti Eels. In
(12:18):
a rare case of synchronicity with the news cycle, which
is all about brain worms of late, I decided to
devote this Trek themed episode to the dreaded Seti eels
of SETI Alpha five. You will, of course remember them
from the nineteen eighty two film Star Trek two, The
Wrath of Khan, in which thowd twentieth century eugenics war
(12:40):
tyrant Khan Noonan Singh, played by the superb Ricardo Montaban,
uses larval Seti eels to torture and control two Enterprise
crew members in his quest for vengeance. We also learned
that Seti eels, native to the harsh world Singh was
exiled to by Starfleet, killed many of Khan's people, including
(13:02):
his wife. The setiworm is a burrowing desert creature, but
its larva we're told by Singh, crawl in through the
ear canals of host creatures to wrap themselves around the
cerebral cortex, rendering the host organism highly susceptible to suggestion.
Madness and death follow as the eel grows, unless the
(13:24):
eel is removed or leaves of its own accord. The
latter occurs with first Officer to Chekhov, though the reason
is uncertain. Was it responding to danger, had it lost
control of its host? Was it in fact leaving the
host in order to continue its life cycle. We don't
know any of these answers, in part because Captain Kirk
instantly vaporizes the escaping eel, turning once more to the
(13:47):
non canonical Star Trek. The Worlds of the Federation, written
and illustrated by Laura Johnson, written as Shane Johnson back
in nineteen eighty nine, the author largely shares what we
already know from the movie. Adult SETI, one of the
few native species to survive on the planet, grow to
lengths of fourteen inches and carry their young in tissue
(14:07):
or armor folds on their backs until such time as
they leave the parent for a host organism in life
signs the biology of Star Trek. Susan and Robert Jenkins
briefly discuss the Seti eel in context with other neural
parasites and symbians of the Trek universe, and there are
several classifying The possession we see with the Seti eel
(14:28):
is a kind of quote co conscious mind control, with
the hosts made helpless by the superseding power of the parasite. Presumably,
the whole reason for subduing the host organism is to
keep it from interfering with the larva's occupation of set organism,
and we might assume that the Seti eel also eats
(14:48):
the tissue that it presumably burrows through to reach the
cerebral cortex. The mind control aspect of this fictional parasitic
scenario is, of course vary, in keeping with numerous examples
from the natural terrestrial world, including various parasitoid wasps, flatworms,
hair worms, protozoans, fungi, and more. In broad strokes, we
(15:11):
see parasites that alter host behavior to help complete their
own life cycle. This may mean mere survival or positioning
of the host in such a way that a desirable
new host will consume the current host Now with the
SETI eel, we certainly see the former survival, but not
so much the latter eel controlled humans don't seem to
(15:34):
do anything other than obey fellow humans, though one could
make a case that this alone might lead to say,
uninfected human being either being expelled, which would at least
be a choice. You can imagine scenarios in which this
would put the current host organism in a position to, say,
be near water, or near another organism that it needs
(15:56):
to enter, perhaps some sort of a predator. Or you
could also make the argument that well, okay, a human
that is so easily controlled by fellow humans is going
to remain in close proximity with humans, and perhaps it
just needs to enter a new host organism once it's
done munching and constricting inside that individual skull. Either way,
(16:18):
we also have to acknowledge that humanoids, and remember in
the Trek universe, most or all humanoid species are very
distantly related to each other. Humanoids might not be the
desired vector for the parasite, and in the world of
actual terrestrial parasite studies, we do see dangerous results from
(16:39):
parasites winding up either in the wrong host or the
wrong part of the right host. Now. I've long found
this one of the more horrifying aspects of sci fi
space horror, and particularly sci fi space related body horror,
human interactions with hostile biology that simply didn't evolve to
(16:59):
deal with human beings. The xenomorphic threats of the Alien
film franchise are great examples of this. Of course, on
one hand, the creatures we see in the films are
highly adaptive and make use of host DNA in the
acquisition of their adult forms. They have evolved and or
been engineered to make quick study and use of new bodies.
(17:20):
But the other horrifying way to think about it is
that here is a creature that is truly an alien
within the host body. It doesn't know what it's doing
in there, and much like the scene in twenty twelve's
Prometheus with the robotic surgery pod, this combination of high
skill and lower context for the target body runs the
(17:41):
risk of heading into very grizzly territory. Still, we don't
have to invoke Alien to make the SETI eel terrifying.
The implantation scene in Wrath of Khan remains one of
the greatest moments of space horror in a franchise we
don't generally associate with it. And finally, we're going to
(18:03):
learn about the Horta. In today's episode. I'm going to
round out this initial batch of Star Trek selections, and
I'm going to go with a listener suggestion from one
of our mini gems, the Horta of Janus six. As
we learn in the original Trek episode The Devil in
the Dark, the horta is a large, subterranean heap shaped
(18:26):
organism entirely silicone based rather than carbon based. It tunnels
through the rock via powerful acidic secretions, which it can
also use defensively. Exceedingly long lived, the entire population of
horta dies out every sixty thousand years, with the exception
of a single mother horta, which tends to the spherical
(18:47):
eggs that will produce the next generation of this amazing species.
While the Horta are reclusive and ultimately peaceful, they can
prove lethal in confrontations, such as the one with a
federation mining colony in the Devil in the Dark, which
ultimately required the intervention of a Vulcan mind meld. In
(19:08):
the non canonical Star Trek, the Worlds of the Federation
by Laura Johnson written as Shane Johnson from nineteen eighty nine.
We learned that the miners and Horta would eventually work
together on Janus six following this reconciliation. Now, I distinctly
remember watching this episode of the classic Star Trek as
a kid, and I remember enjoying the alien monster based
(19:30):
suspense and its thought provoking treatment of interaction between intelligent
but radically different alien species, and looking back on it now,
it certainly has that Star Trek optimism that is often
lacking in our modern sci fi. It's no surprise that
this one is often held up as one of the
best original Star Trek episodes. In Life Signs the Biology
(19:53):
of Star Trek Susan and Robert Jenkins, the authors here
discuss the singular nature of the whole in Trek. The
Federation was apparently not accustomed to the presence of silicon
based life, and had therefore missed the Horta's presence on
Genus six in their scans. Entirely later on in tracks,
(20:13):
similar mistakes were made with the microbrains of Valara three
and the space born crystalline entity. This all underlies a
known challenge in astrobiology, we ultimately have only one model
of life upon which to base our observations, and it
happens to be earthlife. We're told that Janus six never
(20:36):
developed carbon based life beyond a few spore producing plants
as well as some algae, but it did boast minerals
and heavy metals, and the authors stress that while silicon
based reactions occur much more slowly compared to carbon based reactions,
a planet like Janus six might in theory have the
minerals to catalyze the chemical reactions needed for a silicon
(21:00):
based life. Now, in the larger realm of science fiction,
silicon based organisms are not uncommon. The alien xenomorph is
sometimes described as silicone based, or at least partially silicone based,
and there are numerous ways this is explained to factor
in with their carbon based bodies. Other examples include the
Kaiju of Pacific Rim, the Exogoths of Star Wars, and
(21:24):
the Eastern island headed Lithodia Rexians of Marvel Comics. However,
as outlined by Charles Q. Choi in the space dot
Com article, silicon based life may be more than just
science fiction from twenty seventeen various experts speculate that silicon
based or silicone encompassing life is very possible. Silicone and
(21:45):
carbon are similar in many ways. Silicon is one of
the most common elements in the universe, and chemists have
artificially synthesized organosilicone molecules composed of both silicone and carbon.
So by some estimations, silicon based life of some sort
may be out there somewhere, whether we know of it
(22:06):
or not. Back to Trek, the Jinkins stress that the
Horta might actually reproduce and reason too much like a
carbon based organism in this episode of Anything, But then again,
this is where science and philosophy butt heads. Star Trek
is ultimately about the hope, if not the reality, of
(22:26):
making contact, settling differences, and figuring out how to move forward,
both as an interstellar community within the fiction and as
a terrestrial species here on Earth in reality. As much
as I love my various nihilistic sci fi visions and
various examples of space horror, I feel more and more
(22:47):
like I need the Star Trek vision in my life.
As in aside, I'll mention that there's actually an underground
geographic positioning technology here on Earth, named after the Star
Trek Horta. It is of course a backronym which stands
for Honeywell or Retrieval and Tunneling AID. All right, there
you have it. I hope you enjoyed this. So I
(23:09):
keep doing these omnibus episodes because it's a better way
to do like a rerun essentially on a Wednesday. And
I've also heard from some listeners that they prefer to
listen to these short form episodes batched together into a
longer omnibus series. So I'm going to keep doing this
as long as it remains popular. As long as the
folks seem to enjoy them, I enjoy putting them together.
(23:31):
If you have recommendations for other Star Trek creatures you'd
like for me to cover in a future series of
Star Trek episodes, or if you have suggestions related to
other you know franchises, comic books, movies, literary settings of
folkloric traditions, mythologies, and more, write in I would love
(23:51):
to hear from you. As always, you can email us
at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Stuffed Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hi, my name is Robert Lambin. This is the Monster Fact,
a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
And this is going to be yet another omnibus episode,
collecting four previous related Monster Fact entries. These are going
to cover my recent journey into the Star Trek universe,
(00:31):
so I hope you enjoy these. Let's go ahead and
kick things off with the Andrians. In this episode, I'd
like to begin a series on various aliens and creatures
from the Star Trek universe. Now, first of all, I
will be the first to admit that I am not
an expert in Trek lore, but I very fondly remember
(00:53):
as a kid in the nineties watching reruns of Star
Trek the Next Generation every weeknight at nine PM. So
fondly remember a book that I had to special order
from the local bookstore, Star Trek The Worlds of the Federation,
written and illustrated by Laura Johnson writing as Shane Johnson.
This was an encyclopedic collection of alien profiles. Think of
(01:16):
it as a monster manual. If you will, covering thirty
two different Federation member alien species, as well as a
number of neutral and hostile aliens. This was a nineteen
eighty nine publication, so it's far from current and is
not considered part of current Trek canon, and I'm to
understand some Trek writers took issue with some of the entries. Still,
(01:36):
it's a book that meant a lot to me as
a young Treky, and I suspect it meant a lot
to others from this time period as well, So I'm
going to go ahead and cite it along with some
other sources, with the caveat that again, it's not canon
much in the same way I cited the Dune Encyclopedia
in some of my Dune related entries. With all of
that in mind, let's turn to the Andrians. These blueskin,
(02:00):
white haired, antinny equipped aliens are iconic original series aliens,
but they were rather exotic for me, as they're virtually
absent from both Star Trek the Next Generation and Star
Trek Deep Space nine, which constituted my prime Trek viewing.
The reasoning for their absence, according to the excellent Memory Alpha,
(02:21):
was largely twofold. First of all, Trek creator Gene Roddenberry
preferred that many original series aliens be avoided in favor
of new ones on the next generation. Secondly, the makeup
was allegedly difficult to get right and avoid looking silly.
They overcame these hurdles and subsequent shows, and in the
current Star Trek Strange New World series, which I'm enjoying
(02:43):
quite a bit, we encounter an albinos subspecies of Andrians
known as the Nar, as well as an Andrian Special
Forces officer, and neither of these aliens looks remotely silly.
But let's come back to the biology of the Andorians.
The worlds the Federation describes them as a mix of
mammalian and reptilian features, with both an endoskeleton and a
(03:05):
limited exoskeleton, and the antennae are described as enhancing otherwise
colorblind vision with a quote complex matrix of light sensitive
cones in addition to auditory functions. All of this together
would amount to an enhanced sense of sight and smell.
Fair enough obvious sense organs do sense organ things. Antenna
in terrestrial organisms remember very greatly, and depending on the species,
(03:29):
may utilize senses of touch, air, motion, heat, vibration, smell
or taste. But again, the Worlds of the Federation came
out in nineteen eighty nine before A particular nineteen ninety
three episode of the Next Generation shed a great deal
of canonical light on the biology of Star Trek. The
episode titled The Chase, which I specifically remember from my childhood,
(03:52):
revealed the reason so many Star Trek alien species are
humanoid and resemble each other, often with minor alters to
facial and cranial features. All of this via a revelation
of ancient intentional pan spermia via a single advanced progenitor
humanoid species. In other words, all of these Trek species
(04:13):
look similar not because they're all humans in makeup, but
rather because a single ancestor species spread their own DNA
among the various worlds to seed them. I've always found
this to be a clever way of addressing the seeming
lack of biological diversity in many of the core Tract civilizations.
Now you might reasonably wonder, okay, fine, but realistically, would
(04:37):
these distantly related species still look so similar to each other? Well?
Susan and Robert Jenkins explore this question in their book
The Biology of Star Trek, published in nineteen ninety eight.
They point out that based on what we know about evolution,
it's not at all unreasonable. The evolutionary clock runs slowly,
they write, and it has a built in bias against
(04:58):
major overhauls. Because speciation is brought about by multiple random
changes in DNA, and the changes must allow the organism
to survive and reproduce, small changes are favored over large ones.
Small changes are less likely to compromise the tested survivability
of the original. Given this constraint, two species that start
out alike remain similar over a rather long time, even
(05:21):
under different sets of environmental pressures. They add that particular
environmental pressures would of course have their impact, and a
trend towards facial symmetry would likely stay in place. They
go into greater detail in this great book about not
only the speculative biology of all of this, but also
the connections between human facial cues and the way we
imagine the facial features of treks aliens, and they do
(05:45):
get around to considering the Andrians. They point out that
while nothing resembling a human with antennae exists in the
natural world, we of course do have mammalion species with
enhanced whiskers, and I would point out that we have
other things like the unique robosis of the star No's
mole and the twin feelers of the tentacled snake to
get into the reptile world. For the Andrians, however, they
(06:07):
propose an interesting notion. Perhaps the Andorian home world contains
multiple atmospheric variations, and this results in various microclimates, requiring
enhanced sensation of atmospheric content, temperature, and pressure for any
species that regularly travels outside of a narrow region or microclimate.
(06:27):
They even go so far as to discuss how tissues
in human embryos might develop into antennae under the right
survival pressures. Quote. Human embryos have several segments called embryonic
pharyngeal arches in what will become the head and the neck.
They supply the developing tissue for jaws and some neck organs.
In fish, However, the pharyngeal arches develop into gills because
(06:50):
these structures have been adapted for very different purposes. They
might evolve to provide the organ substrate for the nervous
tissue in an antenna like organ. More broadly, they point
out that added sense organs could potentially detect any number
of factors in a given environment, provided there was an
evolutionary incentive to do so. Memory Alpha provides little canonical
(07:11):
data on all of this, as far as I could tell,
but it does point out that we know that Andrian
antenna can be moved independently via voluntary muscle control, that
they regenerate if they are injured or blasted off, and
they also seem to play a role in balance and
gesticulation and of course therefore communication. I think all this
(07:33):
is quite reasonable. Now, coming back to Star Trek's Strange
New Worlds, the Enar character Himmer in that show is
depicted as having been born sightless, but is more than
able to make up for his lack of sight in
part due to his other senses as a member of
an antennae equipped and Dorian subspecies. All right, Next up
(07:55):
the Trouble with Triples, we discuss the various creatures of
the Star Trek universe, without of course considering the tribles
of Iota geminorum for a world home to an abundance
of carnivorous reptiles in addition to the vaguely mammalian Trible
which seems to serve as a basic prey species for
(08:18):
all the space lizards. The Triple is, of course, a small,
furry creature with no discernible limbs or features. Really, its
only means of defending itself, at least against humanoids, is
to basically tranquilize the humanoid with a gentle cooing effect.
The trouble with Tribles, of course, is their incredible rate
(08:38):
of reproduction. They are even reportedly born already pregnant, and
can quickly overrun any given ecosystem or starship that they
are introduced into. In their natural habitat, they eat and
reproduce as quickly as possible, but their numbers are kept
in check, presumably by their many voracious predators. But on
(08:59):
a Federation star ship, yes, this is where the trouble occurs.
With no predators, plentiful food, and a crew overcome by
their adorable cuteness, their population very quickly spirals out of control.
The creatures debuted in a nineteen sixty seven episode of
the original Star Trek series, but the Grimlins franchise of
the eighties and nineties treads on similar ground. Adorable fur
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babies that get entirely out of hand, due to a
mix of ineptitude, human vulnerability to cuteness, and a reproductive
system clearly evolved for different parameters. I've speculated elsewhere that
maguai might depend on a desert, if not an extraterrestrial
environment for their biology to make sense and likewise unsuftible
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your mind. We've talked about the role of cuteness both
among humans and cuteness between humans and non human animals.
It is a potent force that manipulates this. For the Triple,
the stabilizing factor is the severity of its ecosystem. On
the Triple home world, triples presumably die in vast numbers,
(10:03):
and their prolific reproduction rate merely allows them to keep up.
We see variations of this in the natural world here
on Earth as well. In general, we see the basic
quality quantity tradeoff. In practice, some organisms err on the
side of producing few high quality offspring, while others simply
produce offspring in vast numbers. The predators can't eat all
(10:25):
of them, and a select few survive to reproduce as adults.
In sea turtles, for example, somewhere on the order of
two out of a thousand eggs actually makes it to adulthood,
surviving the gamut of consumers along the way. We can
also think of the triple in terms of predator satiation,
by which prey briefly and periodically occur at such high
(10:46):
population densities that the predators can't possibly eat them all.
Periodical cicadas, which many of you will be experiencing yet
again this year, are an example of this. So it
would seem possible that tripe might work in a similar manner,
periodically reproducing in such numbers that they simply overwhelm their
many reptilian predators. Now, given that tribles are vaguely mammals,
(11:10):
we might also compare them to such prolific terrestrial warm
bloods as the European rabbit, infamous for its own rapid
reproduction rate. According to the Texas Invasive Species Institute, an
eighteen fifty nine introduction of a mere twenty four European
rabbits into Australia led to a population of more than
six hundred million in less than a century. The tribles
(11:32):
ultimately are a fantastic commentary on what can happen when
a species is artificially transplanted from one ecosystem into another. Now,
how long would it take tribles to overrun the starship Enterprise. Well,
that is a question that you have to throw some
math at. And in twenty twenty student researchers at the
University of Leicester made science headlines with a paper in
(11:55):
the journal Physics Special Topics. Their answer four point z
five days. All right, Next up the Seti Eels. In
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a rare case of synchronicity with the news cycle, which
is all about brain worms of late, I decided to
devote this Trek themed episode to the dreaded Seti eels
of SETI Alpha five. You will, of course remember them
from the nineteen eighty two film Star Trek two, The
Wrath of Khan, in which thowd twentieth century eugenics war
(12:40):
tyrant Khan Noonan Singh, played by the superb Ricardo Montaban,
uses larval Seti eels to torture and control two Enterprise
crew members in his quest for vengeance. We also learned
that Seti eels, native to the harsh world Singh was
exiled to by Starfleet, killed many of Khan's people, including
(13:02):
his wife. The setiworm is a burrowing desert creature, but
its larva we're told by Singh, crawl in through the
ear canals of host creatures to wrap themselves around the
cerebral cortex, rendering the host organism highly susceptible to suggestion.
Madness and death follow as the eel grows, unless the
(13:24):
eel is removed or leaves of its own accord. The
latter occurs with first Officer to Chekhov, though the reason
is uncertain. Was it responding to danger, had it lost
control of its host? Was it in fact leaving the
host in order to continue its life cycle. We don't
know any of these answers, in part because Captain Kirk
instantly vaporizes the escaping eel, turning once more to the
(13:47):
non canonical Star Trek. The Worlds of the Federation, written
and illustrated by Laura Johnson, written as Shane Johnson back
in nineteen eighty nine, the author largely shares what we
already know from the movie. Adult SETI, one of the
few native species to survive on the planet, grow to
lengths of fourteen inches and carry their young in tissue
(14:07):
or armor folds on their backs until such time as
they leave the parent for a host organism in life
signs the biology of Star Trek. Susan and Robert Jenkins
briefly discuss the Seti eel in context with other neural
parasites and symbians of the Trek universe, and there are
several classifying The possession we see with the Seti eel
(14:28):
is a kind of quote co conscious mind control, with
the hosts made helpless by the superseding power of the parasite. Presumably,
the whole reason for subduing the host organism is to
keep it from interfering with the larva's occupation of set organism,
and we might assume that the Seti eel also eats
(14:48):
the tissue that it presumably burrows through to reach the
cerebral cortex. The mind control aspect of this fictional parasitic
scenario is, of course vary, in keeping with numerous examples
from the natural terrestrial world, including various parasitoid wasps, flatworms,
hair worms, protozoans, fungi, and more. In broad strokes, we
(15:11):
see parasites that alter host behavior to help complete their
own life cycle. This may mean mere survival or positioning
of the host in such a way that a desirable
new host will consume the current host Now with the
SETI eel, we certainly see the former survival, but not
so much the latter eel controlled humans don't seem to
(15:34):
do anything other than obey fellow humans, though one could
make a case that this alone might lead to say,
uninfected human being either being expelled, which would at least
be a choice. You can imagine scenarios in which this
would put the current host organism in a position to, say,
be near water, or near another organism that it needs
(15:56):
to enter, perhaps some sort of a predator. Or you
could also make the argument that well, okay, a human
that is so easily controlled by fellow humans is going
to remain in close proximity with humans, and perhaps it
just needs to enter a new host organism once it's
done munching and constricting inside that individual skull. Either way,
(16:18):
we also have to acknowledge that humanoids, and remember in
the Trek universe, most or all humanoid species are very
distantly related to each other. Humanoids might not be the
desired vector for the parasite, and in the world of
actual terrestrial parasite studies, we do see dangerous results from
(16:39):
parasites winding up either in the wrong host or the
wrong part of the right host. Now. I've long found
this one of the more horrifying aspects of sci fi
space horror, and particularly sci fi space related body horror,
human interactions with hostile biology that simply didn't evolve to
(16:59):
deal with human beings. The xenomorphic threats of the Alien
film franchise are great examples of this. Of course, on
one hand, the creatures we see in the films are
highly adaptive and make use of host DNA in the
acquisition of their adult forms. They have evolved and or
been engineered to make quick study and use of new bodies.
(17:20):
But the other horrifying way to think about it is
that here is a creature that is truly an alien
within the host body. It doesn't know what it's doing
in there, and much like the scene in twenty twelve's
Prometheus with the robotic surgery pod, this combination of high
skill and lower context for the target body runs the
(17:41):
risk of heading into very grizzly territory. Still, we don't
have to invoke Alien to make the SETI eel terrifying.
The implantation scene in Wrath of Khan remains one of
the greatest moments of space horror in a franchise we
don't generally associate with it. And finally, we're going to
(18:03):
learn about the Horta. In today's episode. I'm going to
round out this initial batch of Star Trek selections, and
I'm going to go with a listener suggestion from one
of our mini gems, the Horta of Janus six. As
we learn in the original Trek episode The Devil in
the Dark, the horta is a large, subterranean heap shaped
(18:26):
organism entirely silicone based rather than carbon based. It tunnels
through the rock via powerful acidic secretions, which it can
also use defensively. Exceedingly long lived, the entire population of
horta dies out every sixty thousand years, with the exception
of a single mother horta, which tends to the spherical
(18:47):
eggs that will produce the next generation of this amazing species.
While the Horta are reclusive and ultimately peaceful, they can
prove lethal in confrontations, such as the one with a
federation mining colony in the Devil in the Dark, which
ultimately required the intervention of a Vulcan mind meld. In
(19:08):
the non canonical Star Trek, the Worlds of the Federation
by Laura Johnson written as Shane Johnson from nineteen eighty nine.
We learned that the miners and Horta would eventually work
together on Janus six following this reconciliation. Now, I distinctly
remember watching this episode of the classic Star Trek as
a kid, and I remember enjoying the alien monster based
(19:30):
suspense and its thought provoking treatment of interaction between intelligent
but radically different alien species, and looking back on it now,
it certainly has that Star Trek optimism that is often
lacking in our modern sci fi. It's no surprise that
this one is often held up as one of the
best original Star Trek episodes. In Life Signs the Biology
(19:53):
of Star Trek Susan and Robert Jenkins, the authors here
discuss the singular nature of the whole in Trek. The
Federation was apparently not accustomed to the presence of silicon
based life, and had therefore missed the Horta's presence on
Genus six in their scans. Entirely later on in tracks,
(20:13):
similar mistakes were made with the microbrains of Valara three
and the space born crystalline entity. This all underlies a
known challenge in astrobiology, we ultimately have only one model
of life upon which to base our observations, and it
happens to be earthlife. We're told that Janus six never
(20:36):
developed carbon based life beyond a few spore producing plants
as well as some algae, but it did boast minerals
and heavy metals, and the authors stress that while silicon
based reactions occur much more slowly compared to carbon based reactions,
a planet like Janus six might in theory have the
minerals to catalyze the chemical reactions needed for a silicon
(21:00):
based life. Now, in the larger realm of science fiction,
silicon based organisms are not uncommon. The alien xenomorph is
sometimes described as silicone based, or at least partially silicone based,
and there are numerous ways this is explained to factor
in with their carbon based bodies. Other examples include the
Kaiju of Pacific Rim, the Exogoths of Star Wars, and
(21:24):
the Eastern island headed Lithodia Rexians of Marvel Comics. However,
as outlined by Charles Q. Choi in the space dot
Com article, silicon based life may be more than just
science fiction from twenty seventeen various experts speculate that silicon
based or silicone encompassing life is very possible. Silicone and
(21:45):
carbon are similar in many ways. Silicon is one of
the most common elements in the universe, and chemists have
artificially synthesized organosilicone molecules composed of both silicone and carbon.
So by some estimations, silicon based life of some sort
may be out there somewhere, whether we know of it
(22:06):
or not. Back to Trek, the Jinkins stress that the
Horta might actually reproduce and reason too much like a
carbon based organism in this episode of Anything, But then again,
this is where science and philosophy butt heads. Star Trek
is ultimately about the hope, if not the reality, of
(22:26):
making contact, settling differences, and figuring out how to move forward,
both as an interstellar community within the fiction and as
a terrestrial species here on Earth in reality. As much
as I love my various nihilistic sci fi visions and
various examples of space horror, I feel more and more
(22:47):
like I need the Star Trek vision in my life.
As in aside, I'll mention that there's actually an underground
geographic positioning technology here on Earth, named after the Star
Trek Horta. It is of course a backronym which stands
for Honeywell or Retrieval and Tunneling AID. All right, there
you have it. I hope you enjoyed this. So I
(23:09):
keep doing these omnibus episodes because it's a better way
to do like a rerun essentially on a Wednesday. And
I've also heard from some listeners that they prefer to
listen to these short form episodes batched together into a
longer omnibus series. So I'm going to keep doing this
as long as it remains popular. As long as the
folks seem to enjoy them, I enjoy putting them together.
(23:31):
If you have recommendations for other Star Trek creatures you'd
like for me to cover in a future series of
Star Trek episodes, or if you have suggestions related to
other you know franchises, comic books, movies, literary settings of
folkloric traditions, mythologies, and more, write in I would love
(23:51):
to hear from you. As always, you can email us
at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
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