How would you deal with Alien races in a new series?

[VORTEX8472]

How can you speak with a Wild Lion?

Or perhaps more important, why would you waste your time doing so?

If by wild you mean a intelligent sapient being who is uneducated from a simple culture that would one thing. But if you are referring to a "beast of the field" then attempting to communicate would serve no purpose.

A lion is just an animal.

Picard come to the planet of Lion, beam down to the surface and meet a Lion,"Hello, I'm human. Nice to meet you"

While Picard occasionally has his moments, he really not this dense.

An adult male Human's brain is about 1300 grams. An adult male african lion's brain on average weighs 250 grams (half that of a chimpanzee), Picard's tricorder would tell him this.

Now, that is the exact thing that why Star Trek always consider Alien as Human in costume with different language. You didn't catch what I mean from my post.

1. Lion is indeed an animal in our point of view (human). yet, it is definitely a different species than human. Now, consider the Lion in our Earth is definitely a lesser creature / species compared to human. Then, we can imagine (well, alien is always about imagination, as we don't know about the real Alien yet). a smart Lion who have reach the star with their own technology (I"m not talking about the Wing COmmander's Lion Alien).

How can you communicate with them? They don't speak with Human language (Klingon speaks with Human language, although it is not English). They don't even has the behavior of a human. What if in their mind, Human is only a food? Or lesser creature like animal in their mind?

That is what Star Trek miss.

Think I understand your idea, however generally people have difficulty relating to for instance an insect creature (i.e. Iinsectoid-Xindi or Tholian) beyond the initial shock/awe and quickly lose interest, unfortunately we do not seem to empathize with truly extraterrestrial non-humanoid characters outside of occasional cinematic experiences. I don't know how empathetic I can be to a lionesque alien fighting off mutant Hyenas or hunting Starfleet officers.

Unless you mean that Star Trek should use more CGI to create these characters; in that case you have to consider there is the cost prohibitive nature of heavy CGI characters. CGI requires more time and money to complete to any satisfactory standard.

 

[Brainsucker]

Or perhaps more important, why would you waste your time doing so?

If by wild you mean a intelligent sapient being who is uneducated from a simple culture that would one thing. But if you are referring to a "beast of the field" then attempting to communicate would serve no purpose.

A lion is just an animal.

While Picard occasionally has his moments, he really not this dense.

An adult male Human's brain is about 1300 grams. An adult male african lion's brain on average weighs 250 grams (half that of a chimpanzee), Picard's tricorder would tell him this.

Now, that is the exact thing that why Star Trek always consider Alien as Human in costume with different language. You didn't catch what I mean from my post.

1. Lion is indeed an animal in our point of view (human). yet, it is definitely a different species than human. Now, consider the Lion in our Earth is definitely a lesser creature / species compared to human. Then, we can imagine (well, alien is always about imagination, as we don't know about the real Alien yet). a smart Lion who have reach the star with their own technology (I"m not talking about the Wing COmmander's Lion Alien).

How can you communicate with them? They don't speak with Human language (Klingon speaks with Human language, although it is not English). They don't even has the behavior of a human. What if in their mind, Human is only a food? Or lesser creature like animal in their mind?

That is what Star Trek miss.

Think I understand your idea, however generally people have difficulty relating to for instance an insect creature (i.e. Iinsectoid-Xindi or Tholian) beyond the initial shock/awe and quickly lose interest, unfortunately we do not seem to empathize with truly extraterrestrial non-humanoid characters outside of occasional cinematic experiences. I don't know how empathetic I can be to a lionesque alien fighting off mutant Hyenas or hunting Starfleet officers.

Unless you mean that Star Trek should use more CGI to create these characters; in that case you have to consider there is the cost prohibitive nature of heavy CGI characters. CGI requires more time and money to complete to any satisfactory standard.

It is more of Alien behavior and how they communicate. Star Trek portray Alien like a human (although they are weird human). Vulcan is basically a human with pointy ear and culturally focus on logic. They speak like a human. Klingon is a warrior cultured Human. Now look at other TV series, like Falling Sky, which portray some Alien like a different creature than human. Like Alien vs Predator, and like Asgard in Stargate Series. So a bit of CGI won't be hurt, I think.

Now, I don't know what should I do to Vulcan. But We can make Klingon more beastly. They should be more like a beast, rather than a warrior cultured human with a costume. And this beastly model should be shown by Klingon behavior, posture, communication, and their way of think. Thus, their culture should follow from that.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Put them in fursuits.

 

[The Colonel]

Now, that is the exact thing that why Star Trek always consider Alien as Human in costume with different language. You didn't catch what I mean from my post.

1. Lion is indeed an animal in our point of view (human). yet, it is definitely a different species than human. Now, consider the Lion in our Earth is definitely a lesser creature / species compared to human. Then, we can imagine (well, alien is always about imagination, as we don't know about the real Alien yet). a smart Lion who have reach the star with their own technology (I"m not talking about the Wing COmmander's Lion Alien).

How can you communicate with them? They don't speak with Human language (Klingon speaks with Human language, although it is not English). They don't even has the behavior of a human. What if in their mind, Human is only a food? Or lesser creature like animal in their mind?

That is what Star Trek miss.

Think I understand your idea, however generally people have difficulty relating to for instance an insect creature (i.e. Iinsectoid-Xindi or Tholian) beyond the initial shock/awe and quickly lose interest, unfortunately we do not seem to empathize with truly extraterrestrial non-humanoid characters outside of occasional cinematic experiences. I don't know how empathetic I can be to a lionesque alien fighting off mutant Hyenas or hunting Starfleet officers.

Unless you mean that Star Trek should use more CGI to create these characters; in that case you have to consider there is the cost prohibitive nature of heavy CGI characters. CGI requires more time and money to complete to any satisfactory standard.

It is more of Alien behavior and how they communicate. Star Trek portray Alien like a human (although they are weird human). Vulcan is basically a human with pointy ear and culturally focus on logic. They speak like a human. Klingon is a warrior cultured Human. Now look at other TV series, like Falling Sky, which portray some Alien like a different creature than human. Like Alien vs Predator, and like Asgard in Stargate Series. So a bit of CGI won't be hurt, I think.

Now, I don't know what should I do to Vulcan. But We can make Klingon more beastly. They should be more like a beast, rather than a warrior cultured human with a costume. And this beastly model should be shown by Klingon behavior, posture, communication, and their way of think. Thus, their culture should follow from that.

The endemic problem in all of Sci-fi is how to write aliens when our only experience with sentient life is ourselves. You can try to stray away from making them seem too human but eventually you have to use humanity as a point of reference if you are going to write dialogue between alien and human characters.

 

[Brainsucker]

@The Colonel : You're right. That can't be avoided.

Yet, look at the other science fictions out there. From Fallen Sky (specially Fallen Sky), Star Gate, etc. Star Trek vision of Alien is no longer has any novelty in it. While Star Trek still use a pointy ear human, or human with costume and mask, Fallen Sky has a four legs green creature who has telepathic capability. So how can Star Trek regain it's novelty in the eyes of viewer? While the viewer already witness cooler Aliens in other movie and TV series?

And now, in here, We don't give some idea that can bring back the novelty of Star Trek, but only debating on if Klingon should has several culture or not. To be honest, we care only to ourselves, we don't care about Star Trek at all.

 

[The Colonel]

I guess what I meant was that future Star Trek writers need to do a better job with aliens, but the narrow range of human experience puts a limit on how far they can go. Its very difficult to imagine what other intelligent life could be like. You can have aliens be mysterious and frightening like in the Alien franchise, if they are out there as some external threat. But as soon as you have them as recurring characters regularly interacting with people, they have to become more human.

I get what you're saying about visuals, but it's difficult and expensive for a TV show to have regular CGI characters. In Stargate the Asgard are shown sparingly and are portrayed by a mix of puppets and computer effects. Most of the galaxy in SG-1 and Atlantis is populated by humans or humans who are being controlled by aliens. I haven't watched enough Falling Skies to form any opinion about it.

As far as past Star Trek series, the creative staff had to portray a future where humans coexisted with a large number of alien species on a TV budget over hundreds of episodes. I can't really fault them for using a lot of rubber foreheads, and even that cost a lot of money and required huge teams of makeup artists spending hours per actor when races like the Klingons and Cardassians had to be shown. I can suspend my disbelief as far as aliens looking like humans, its a necessary conceit for any show like Star Trek, even with modern visual effects. However, Star Trek does have some pretty cool non-humanoid races like the Gorn and Tholians and Enterprise actually gave us CGI versions of both in season 4. I expect we will see more of this in a future TV series.

The "Alien of the Week" trope is what really bothers me about Star Trek. Instead of taking the time to develop a set group of Alien races, we're just introduced to a forgettable new race every week that we will never see again. There's no real reason for this, because most of the time they could have just used a race we were already familiar with and taken some time to develop them even more. Instead, we're left with hundreds of one-off races that no one remembers or cares about.

DS9 is the only series that mostly avoided this. The Cardassians are actually my favorite aliens in all of Star Trek. They are interesting because they have a totalitarian government because they are naturally inclined to value society as a whole over the individual. They aren't evil they just have a different set of cultural values from humans. At the same time they have a wonderful diversity with complex characters like Dukat and Garak. All because DS9 spends time developing them instead of inventing new aliens every week. I hope that future iterations of Trek learn this lesson.

 

[TerraNovan]

One of the big problems in the previous Star Trek series was the idea of one culture for one alien race. With rare exceptions who are usually shunned, all Vulcans are logical, All Romulans are deceiving etc. The Klingons are probably the best example of this are due to there over exposure and there generic warrior race shtick.

Now it makes sense with some races such as the Borg as they are a collective with a single hive mind. However it seems pretty silly and kind of problematic that only humans or very human like races (and even then it’s iffy with cultures, early TNG anyone?) can have unique and multiple cultures.

Many games, movies and TV shows etc have made fun of this trope like Mass Effect. In a time of more sophisticated TV, this is a trope that should be left behind in my opinion.

My question is how would you deal with alien races in a new star trek series?

1. Would you keep the trope or change it and if so, how?

i would dissect the trope by implying that this is totally in the minds of humans.To most other species humans are a planet of hats.
Its pretty much a neurological fact that people see all foreigners as being the same. Once one can tell the difference they are no longer foreign.

2. Would you have many first contacts, a few, none at all? If yes to first contacts, how would you go around it without walking into previous ground?

I would have only one new species introduced. however it would be in depth and include multiple contacts. Much the way the bajorans were developed, first you meet their soldiers, than colonies, than the central government etc. However the species would be illusive at first, gradually developing an image of the species.

3. How would your new races act or behave?

I would spend a great amount of time looking into the neurological profile of each species. We now know alot about how the brain works. envisioning each species having a certain neurological profile would be perfect.

4. Which races from previous series would you bring back? In the TNG ee ra, a lot of the old TOS races were mostly absent such as the Andorians, Tholians, Gorn, Tellarites etc until Enterprise. Even the Romulans were going to be absent mostly if the Ferengi had been successful villains. Which races do you feel should be left behind, which should be expanded upon like Klingons in TNG.

my favorites are the Gorn, betazoids, caradassians, romulans, etc.

I like the idea of moving into how their minds work.

I always got the impression that betazoids, were a highly sensitive interconnected society. Where people are crippled by the pain of others. Leading to them being rather reclusive to certain uncaring cultures. (i.e. space elves) They are the race that loves to party but the second one steps out of the fun zone conflict arises.

Cardassians and the gorn, think like reptiles, what is perceived as evil and uncaring peoples, relates to races that are incapable of the human range of expression. Their development is based on the older regions of human thought, before we developed empathy. understanding how a people can develop lacking in something that modern humanity was built on, is the true exploration that start trek should be based on.

Romulans vulcans, again are closely linked with people on the autism spectrum, with the romulans having a rather arrogant view on the whole deal suggesting they have antisocial traits as well.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I guess what I meant was that future Star Trek writers need to do a better job with aliens, but the narrow range of human experience puts a limit on how far they can go. Its very difficult to imagine what other intelligent life could be like. You can have aliens be mysterious and frightening like in the Alien franchise, if they are out there as some external threat. But as soon as you have them as recurring characters regularly interacting with people, they have to become more human.

I'm not sure that's really true. You could potentially have aliens with nearly incomprehensible motives that never the less do not lead to hostile intentions, allowing for a certain amount of (admittedly confused) interaction between truly different species. If done right, I think there could be some great stories in there. It's true, though, that doing that too often would lead a lot of people to get bored, so it is still limited in its possibilities. But the fact that you can't do it every episode doesn't mean you can't do it at all.

 

[Tim Walker]

I agree with BigJake. Tv tropes has an article about Absent Aliens.

Consider human subspecies. Trek actually did a bit with this, with genetic enhancement of humans. This was explored in some depth-not only did you get the ruthlessness of Khan, but you also got Julian Bashir, and the Jack Pack.

 

[David.Blue]

Myself, I always adored it when Trek showed a member of an alien race that violated the cultural norm--a Ferengi scientist, a Klingon restauranteur, a racist/intolerant Vulcan, a human who defected to the Romulans out of ideology, etc.

In general, I would try and use the alien races already established whenever possible, even (or especially) if it means going against stereotypes. This might well involve "dissident colonies" of Pacifist Andorians, Humans who live by the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, Buddhist Cardassians, etc.

But frankly, I'd also try and avoid aliens that don't really have an identity. Frankly, I know next-to-nothing about the Trill. Likewise, despite watch every single episode of DS9 I still don't have a sense of who the Bajorans are--not least because so much was made of their religion but I still have no real notion what that religions consists of! What is a paugh? What do the they think the Prophets are, and what is their relationship to them? How to they view those Tears of the Prophets really? I'm left with guesswork, which is all I ever can. Vulcans and Klingons--I have a pretty clear notion what their most basic values are, what they see themselves as, what they aspire to be. But Bajorans? I just don't know.

 

[Melakon]

I really don't mind having unanswered questions about a species. Do we really need to know everything about them, including whether or not they traditionally use an antiperspirant? Sure, if we get so much background detail that we eventually realize they're just like us, that may be a good thing. But it's not always necessary for storytelling purposes.

 

[T'Girl]

What is a paugh?

Your essence, your self, your power, your being.

It is the thing that lives within your flesh.

 

[Tim Walker]

I thought he aliens from "Silent Enemy" (ENT) were well done. They were enigmatic, while definitely causing trouble for our intrepid explorers.

I also thought the Gorns were well done.

I never particularly cared for Rubber Forehead Aliens. I couldn't help thinking that those scripts could have been rewritten, substituting humans from other cultures.

 

[Tim Walker]

Scripts featuring non-humanoid aliens are probably good for only a few stories. Consider that in TOS there was only one show for the Gorn, and one show for the Horta.

As for humanoid aliens, could a human from an exotic culture be substituted?

 

[T'Girl]

As for humanoid aliens, could a human from an exotic culture be substituted?

Yes, I supposed that they could. But a sizable chunk of Star Trek is meeting and interacting with aliens.

 

[Wadjda]

It would be awesome if we could have some humans who identify with alien cultures.

 

[T'Girl]

We had half Human Spock, who mostly identifies with being a Vulcan. And there was half Human Deanna who mostly identifies with being a Betazed. Full Human Seven totally identifies with being Borg.

Naomi Wildman apparently identifies with being Naomi Wildman, which is refreshing.

 

[Hypaspist]

1. Would you keep the trope or change it and if so, how?
2. Would you have many first contacts, a few, none at all? If yes to first contacts, how would you go around it without walking into previous ground?
3. How would your new races act or behave?
4. Which races from previous series would you bring back? In the TNG era, a lot of the old TOS races were mostly absent such as the Andorians, Tholians, Gorn, Tellarites etc until Enterprise. Even the Romulans were going to be absent mostly if the Ferengi had been successful villains. Which races do you feel should be left behind, which should be expanded upon like Klingons in TNG.

1. No 'foreheads of the week.' Let me first say that I love TNG. They introduced a lot of aliens just to construct a story, but they could be better served by not having such implausible story lines about unknown warp-capable species. They should dig deeper into what was already established. You can have a lot more unique cultures stemming from pre-established ones. What about all of the inevitable diaspora peoples that would result of star empires, or of various colonists on all of those planets? Cut it down to a few memorable ones and don't introduce random aliens that aren't needed. Evolutionary branches are better than entirely random species beyond count.
Cutting the fat would give more of a chance to flesh out already existing species. Take Kang, Chang, and Martok. All of them are typical Klingons, in their own way, but all of them have more personality than Klingons typically demonstrate and show that there is more to the Klingon psyche than simply partaking in shouting matches and painsticks.

2. I think it should be the pivotal point of the episode and they should come back to them in future episodes. Darmok was a good episode, but I'd like to see them followed up on (especially since they are obviously advanced enough to outmatch the Federation flagship). Same thing with the Nausicaans and other minor warrior races. I think some explanation should be in order: they were somehow armed and became star faring species, but were never major players. The Klingons should be the exception in that they achieved that level of technology on their own, and that is why they are so powerful.

3. With modern technology, new races should be less humanoid wherever possible. There are loads of science fiction books that can be used as inspiration. One that comes to mind are the Lizard-like metal scavengers from Bolo-Brigade. The Engi from FTL are also very interesting - sort of a benign Borg-like species that are entirely mechanical AND organic at the same time, not just mechanized humanoids.
The long lost insectoid creatures from "Conspiracy" would make a good new villain. They're just as creepy and as malevolent as the Borg. I don't want to see another Conspiracy plot and definitely no more 'evil admiral' plots, but as an evil species they could be fleshed out more.

4. Anything dealing with Starfleet should show more of the primary races of the federation. I'd like to see more random Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, and other fleshed out species.

Some others I have a soft spot for: Breen, Chalnoth, Nausicaans, Kzinti, Gorn, Tholians, and various psychic one-offs like the Organians and Excalbians.

The Kelvans (from the Andromeda galaxy) could make a comeback as a major villain or power player.

 

[I am not Spock]

We've only had a smattering of first contact episodes with truly alien life forms, throughout Trek's history.

Devil in the Dark, Home Soil (I think that's the title of the TNG first season episode, the one with the 'ugly bags of mostly water' life form), Darmok, Vox Sola (the blob like life form in ENT), come to mind

 

[Hypaspist]

Armas was kind of a cool design, even if he was in a terrible episode. Imagine a ship full of tar men with sludge covering everything. The Tholians too were cool, and even though I hate Enterprise, I like how they established that they needed a different sort of environment to survive.