That's always been my take.
The conversation suggests Pike as an Orion trader, dealing in green animal women. Not that Orions are green, or that the green women are Orions.
Nice to see that I'm not the only one who heard it that way.
"The Cage" outtakes
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The conversation suggests Pike as an Orion trader, dealing in green animal women. Not that Orions are green, or that the green women are Orions.
Nice to see that I'm not the only one who heard it that way.
But it was clearly Star Trek's intention that Vina's "woman of color" guise was meant as an Orion personage.
KIRK: That's Vina again, as the green Orion slave girl?
Same writer expanding on the same story. And in-universe, Kirk is certainly in a position to know what Orion women look like. He attended junior high school, he saw the girly magazines.
It’s possible a green Orion slave girl was initially meant to be something unique, but “Whom Gods Destroy” cemented the idea it was common if not meaning all of them being green. “The Cage” was produced long before the Federation was established in universe and therefore the principle the Federation would not tolerate slavery within its worlds. Evidently the Orions are not part of the Federation so they continue to have slaves. Even in “The Cage” there is reference to the Orion colonies where the suggestion seems to be it’s more “exotic” than other Earth worlds.
TAS later affirmed Orion males were not caucasian in “The Pirates Of Orion.” So Orion slaves or slave traders could be of any race, but Orions themselves are evidently of a green hue.
TAS later affirmed Orion males were not caucasian in “The Pirates Of Orion.” So Orion slaves or slave traders could be of any race, but Orions themselves are evidently of a green hue.
Or the planet is multiracial, like Earth (and Vulcan).
I figure the band aren't Orion. They're part of Pike's Place. Quite a place he's got there. Worth a man's soul, wouldn't you say?
I just polled my Trek watching group, many of whom have never seen the show before this season (so they have nothing else to go by), and they overwhelmingly, on the evidence presented in "The Cage" and "The Menagerie", believe the intent was that Vina was an Orion slave girl, and that Orions are green.
Frankly, it requires Timo levels of mental gymnastics to conclude otherwise.
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From The Menagerie certainly and subsequent shows, but there’s not a thing in the original dialogue that says Vina is supposed to be an Orion Slave Girl.
OFFICER: Nice place you have here, Mister Pike.
PIKE: Vina?
ORION: Glistening green. Almost like secret dreams a bored ship captain might have.
OFFICER: Funny how they are on this planet. They actually like being taken advantage of. Suppose you had all of space to choose from, and this was only one small sample.
ORION: Wouldn't you say it was worth a man's soul?
Roddenberry, man. 
Yep, that's that.
Also, it's worth noting that the scene with the green Orion slave girl was not aired on TOS without that line of clarifying dialog in the envelope footage. Consequently, I always thought that Orion slave girls came in green, the way Vina looked.
What's interesting is that green slave girls are intimately associated with Orion, like windmills and Holland. Think Orion, think green slave girls.
I can't remember who, but somebody once wanted to split hairs and claim that Marta in "Whom Gods Destroy" wasn't an Orion because it was never specifically stated in the episode, and possibly a couple other nitpicky reasons.
In any case, I think it's pretty clear that the character of Marta was meant to be an Orion. She's green with black hair, and she dances.
And there was the Orion male seen in "Journey to Babel." And he was a "true" Orion with distinct biology that could be identified by scans/autopsy/whatever, rather than a human "Orion trader." But since he was disguised as an Andorian, we don't know if he was naturally green or not.
Kor
In any case, I think it's pretty clear that the character of Marta was meant to be an Orion. She's green with black hair, and she dances.
And there was the Orion male seen in "Journey to Babel." And he was a "true" Orion with distinct biology that could be identified by scans/autopsy/whatever, rather than a human "Orion trader." But since he was disguised as an Andorian, we don't know if he was naturally green or not.
Kor
Interestingly, the 3-episode Collectors DVD in the UK that came with a magazine, had the Keeper's voice unaltered for the Cage-only sections, but as I recall the 2001 DVDs actually pitched said footage up. This would imply that they uesd the earlier VHS cut for that edition only. Full colour DVD, but with hybrid soundtrack.There are already seven versions of "The Cage":
1. The original, surviving as GR's 16mm b&w print.
2. "The Menagerie" two-parter edit.
3. The 1986 b&w/color hybrid.
4. The 1988 all-color version.
5. The 2001 DVD version.
6. The 2006 TOS-R (CGI) version on DVD and Blu-ray.
7. The 2009 Blu-ray version with original fx.
That's more attention than most TV episodes get in a lifetime.
I could be wrong, in that the 2001 version also retained the original pitch, but I seem to recall it was altered. I would need to check.
Like Orions, tribbles come in different colors, too.
I have both the "hybrid" reconstructed version, that used Roddenberry's B&W print, and the all-color version, on VHS. I was under the impression that the missing color footage had turned up in the abandoned salt mine that all the studios use for their archives, the same as the "Cool, Considerate Men" production number that was cut (and ordered destroyed) from Jack Warner's production of Edwards & Stone's 1776.
And as to Thelin, I think at least one novel has explained it by saying he was part Aenar.
And as to Thelin, I think at least one novel has explained it by saying he was part Aenar.
Hardly any at all, since according to some sources, the series' color blind director was choosing them.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Hal_Sutherland
While science fiction often isn’t rooted in aspects of reality I think we can acknowledge the idea that just as humans have skin pigments that are quite varied there is no reason to think extraterrestrial species are not as well.
Seeing all Andorians the same shade of blue or all Orions the same green or all Vulcans caucasian with the same haircut is fictional shorthand. It is actually more interesting and more believable if we see variations.
Seeing all Andorians the same shade of blue or all Orions the same green or all Vulcans caucasian with the same haircut is fictional shorthand. It is actually more interesting and more believable if we see variations.
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