Onscreen evidence M'Ress is an alien?

there's no denying that M'Ress was intended to be an alien, no need to say so explicitly as presenting a human-sized bipedal cat is more than enough to communicate "alien" to TAS's primary audience, N children, saying it outright or making her wear a sign around her neck is wasting time and money two things the show didn't have I would have dearly loved to have had more of a focus for a few moments on M'Ress and Arex, at least an on screen use of Edoan, if for no other reason than to block the Triexian, BS, in the NF novels

 

If TAS was made new in 2015, they would likely spell out if she was an alien or uplifted cat from the first time she appeared, because today there are more options given that the general audience might be expected to accept.

But not in 1973.

Does that mean we have advanced, or that we have degraded I terms of storytelling and imagination?

 

That is a very good question.

 

Maybe neither. It is just two different storytelling devices.

 

If you have to explain everything to the audience, then you have compromised the fiction in favor of being a supplemental guidebook for the not so bright. After decades of sci-fi movies and TV series overloaded with aliens needing no explanation (and the availability of that content on home entertainment), who in 2015 would need a cat-alien to be explained to any degree? Guardians did not make some revolutionary change in expectation or use of characters with an appearance similar to earth animals.

That was one film so incredibly late in the game that it does not warrant any reference in a discussion on character perception. TAS and TVH had cat aliens. Return of the Jedi had Admiral Ackbar and his crew, and on screen, no one needed to explain where they were from, nor were there any questions about their origin--they were assumed to be what they were: aliens.

 

^ I would tend to agree. On a show/film about space exploration and aliens, I think it's pretty darn obvious that M'Ress, like Spock and Arex, was an alien.

 

So is the OP making a serious argument here or is this whole thread just based on a thought experiment.

 

A little bit of both. If all one had to go on was the TAS episodes themselves (i.e., a causal or new viewer won't look up background details online or know what Lincoln Enterprises was selling in the 1970s), how could one interpret the origin of M'Ress?

I'm not arguing that she wasn't intended as an alien. That much is clear based on the off-screen background info. But those who are stating that it is definitive within the show that the five-foot-tall cat is an alien are making interpretations or giving their opinions.

If my five-year-old watches TAS and interprets M'Ress as an alien or as some sort of super cat, I can't really argue with either based on the evidence within the show.

 

So, disprove my outlandish theory while I do nothing to support it? No.

 

No one is telling you or your five-year-old that you can't think M'Ress is a super cat. You can think she's a dude in a cat costume for all that it matters.

But really, the whole point of your OP is that you've made a speculation by using a lack of evidence to prove something (i.e. nobody actually stated in dialogue in TAS that she's an alien), but that lack of evidence is itself overruled by common sense (i.e. that the show is about aliens, not genetically enhanced Earth animals.) And if you don't see or agree with that, well, that's your choice I guess. But saying that we're somehow wrong to "make interpretations or give our opinions" is being hypocritical, because that's what you're doing too. Only we have common sense on our side, not lack of evidence.

 

Quite true.

Death to outlandish theories!

To me, she's a super-cat from Earth (possibly from Fiji).

 

On the contrary - I find your conclusion to be very precise and logical, and very agreeable to me for being so.

More contrived than Remans? Than the existence of B4? Or Sybok? Than Voyager *also* having a command crewperson with a degenerative mental disease that gets prevented by temporal interference in the final episode, just like TNG? Or that the same TOS command crew would end up together in nuTrek even though the timeline was dramatically changed in 2233?

If M'Ress were revealed in canon to be an uplifted Earth cat, or an evolved Earth cat from a Preserver world, or a refugee from a parallel Earth where cats evolved to be the dominant species, it would raise my eyebrow significantly less than ANY of the above. (Although I think I have a pretty good fanon explanation for that last one. )

Am I to take it that it then follows that MC Skat Kat is an alien, too?

 

What in the world does "uplifted cat" mean? Is she just really inspiring to people?

 

What's this outlandish theory that I have? That there is nowhere in TAS that establishes M'Ress is an alien?

How many times to do I have to say that I'm not arguing M'Ress is the descendant of Earth cats after three million years or was genetically manipulated to grant her human-level intelligence and bipedal body construction in order to become a caretaker of inmates at an abandoned colony for the mentally ill?

One could watch TAS and validly interpret M'Ress as something other than an alien. You'd never even know that the production background info supposedly said she was a Caitian from the planet Cait.

 

I assume it means "genetically modified to artificially evolve", but I'll admit that I only saw people using the term in this thread, and I may have that wrong. Take it when reading my post that it is what it means *to me*, anyway. Also take it that you've completely ruined the utility of me trying to use it for shorthand, so I won't be doing that anymore.

 

I kinda like the idea of a super cat.

 

I told a friend about this thread, and he offered this: Maybe the Caitians evolved on Earth before humanity, like the Voth. And perhaps they came back to visit and had something to do with Egyptian cat worship and their animal headed gods.

 

If that were true, then there's no way M'Ress would look like she does. She'd look like a snazzily-dressed, self-centered black dude.

 

That would be Streaky.

David Brin's "Uplift Series" might have popularized the term. In it Dolphins and Chimps are uplifted (given sentience) by Humans. The entire Universe is full of Uplifted species. Humanity is unique because they had no "patron" and seemingly evolved sentience by it's self. Which causes major upheaval in the society of the Five Galaxies.

 

I think that's the explanation in Futurama.