Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x09 - "All Those Who Wander"

How the Gorn are born. Since they can deposit eggs in a host within hours of hatching I'm sure wondering about their reproduction. Do the Gorn get born with male and female reproductive equipment in their bodies? There wasn't time for any mating to go on so what gives? Without sexual reproduction they are just budding like hydras because there is no chromosome swap.

 

It's not consistent with any past Gorn depiction. Their biology was literally altered to turn them into the horror movie aliens from Alien.

Gorn have male and female genders in Lower Decks and have wedding ceremonies. In Star Trek Into Darkness, McCoy even mentions performing a caesarian section on a pregnant Gorn female and handling baby Gorn, no mention of him being infected with eggs or the babies killing him or anyone else. And yes, the latter example is Kelvin timeline but I doubt Nero's timeline change can alter an entire species' biology.

 

Neither Lower Decks nor STID make any mention of Gorn sex or genders.

 

Star Trek Into Darkness

McCoy: Sweetheart, I once performed an emergency C-section on a pregnant Gorn. Octuplets. And let me tell you, those little bastards bite.

Lower Decks Gorn Wedding

 

That would be neat. I embrace the idea of canon as a living organism that grows and expands my joy in the ST universe.

 

I had a bigger problem with Gorn being born and reaching "adolescence" in a few hours than I had with them reproducing asexually. Many animals can reproduce either sexually or asexually depending on environmental conditions.

 

I'm bummed they have "killed off" Hemmer. While Disco hasn't killed off any of it's regulars for some time, the main cast of that show is more "fluid" than in other Trek shows (e.g. numerous characters have left while new ones are added).

I get why SNW did this from a story perspective. Killing off a lead ups the stakes, but honestly I feel like it's too early in the show's run to do this. We barely knew Hemmer really, he was only in four episodes this season. I think it would have been more impactful to wait another until season 2 at least before killing someone major off. And I agree with the argument it's crappy to kill off the character played by the first disabled actor in Trek history (feels like when they killed Culber in the first season of Disco and then the writers had to put him back in the show due to fan outrage).

The problem with a prequel is that we already know the fates of so many characters: The writers can't kill off Pike, Spock, Chapel, M'Benga, Uhura, Sam Kirk etc. So that only leaves the new characters.

 

To be fair, as I noted, that trope came from Alien as well, where it was never explained how the hell the xenomorphs grew up when they didn't actually seem to feed on anything.

 

There's Gorn with breasts in Lower Decks.

Which is odd for a reptilian species.

Don't embed wiki images, it doesn't work. It will just show up as broken for those who don't already have the image in their browser cache.

 

Good point. I haven't seen Alien in decades.

 

it was also mentioned in the episode that the rate the gorn mature is based on the host body.

 

Or, as "fans" will try to turn everything into a fault because it disagrees with some canon they have created in their own heads.

 

I assumed that meant before "birth", and not after. I just have a hard time imaging the kind of cellular division and energy that would be required for an animal to grow from a few centimeters to well over a meter in a few hours.

 

There's a brief mention of Dr. Sanchez, presumably Sanchez | Memory Alpha | Fandom

 

It does beg the question of why use the Gorn? Is it just for the memberberries because it seems like it's more trouble than just creating a new species.

Maybe TOS gorn had Steven Seagal as a host?

 

*eye blink sound*

 

Oof. This one hits hard. Excellent episode, as I've come to expect from SNW, but we lose Hemmer, one of my favorite characters! What a way to go, though, and I can appreciate Hemmer's arc for what it is. La'an taking time off is completely understandable, and I didn't know it, but I guess she is back for season 2? I'm also glad we get to see Uhura realize she is where she belongs, and how she'll definitely grow into that role on the Enterprise.

As far as I'm concerned, SNW is 9 for 9, and I'm curious to see how they will finish out this season.

 

This. Is there anything else to talk about here other than the 'diversity count?' Or is that all that matters with nu-Trek?

 

Thank you. We don't need MORE small-universe syndrome, here. Scotty can wait his turn. Plus, is Hemmer really dead? What if they left him one of those shuttlecraft, the cold killed the Gorn before they could eat their way out, and he somehow had a soft landing?

 

Okay...

1. Enjoyed it. Loved the whole Aliens ripoff, even though I shouldn't. I'll take a hundred of these over any more of that holodreck costume drama we got last week.

2. Hemmer! Nooooooooooo! So bummed. He was damn near my favorite character. Loved how he actually relished the climate on that planet. Just like home!

3. These are clearly not the TOS Gorn. I've seen references to ST Adventures and STO about 'multiple Gorn species', but can either of those be considered canon? Not sure I'm too worried about it at this point- aside from La'an's reaction and what was said, these were clearly 'monsters of the week,' not any sort of sapient Gorn. Actually, we should call them Trekomorphs. I also loved the built-in, tongue-in-cheek Predator crossover as well with the infravision. Well, played. Well played.

4. Poor Duke, and Cadet Whatserface. Doomed from the very first scene.

5. Head's up play by Chapel using the forcefield in Sickbay to castle herself. God, I wish they would have gone with a new character here and let Jess Bush run with her native accent.

6. I'm assuming La'an's absence will be temporary and minor. She can reappear next season in EP 1 with as little as a log entry to make note of it.

7. Is Hemmer really dead? If so, we don't need to see Scotty this soon. Never, in fact. No more small universe syndrome!

8. Tactical analysis: Make the entire ship freezing, except for the cargo bay. Over-pressurize that. When the Trekomorphs flee there to get warm, open her up and blow them them out into the ice storm with the pressure change. Sort of like an explosive decompression, but to a much lower ambient pressure outside rather than straight vacuum. Same effect, resulting in dead Trekomorphs, and poor Hemmer gets to live. Wow. And I didn't even get to go to Starfleet Academy.

9. Chock. This relationship is getting a little overblown, and we are straying dangerously far from canon, here. Nimoy wasn't the least bit 'huggy' as Spock. C'mon, man.

10. Was that Ensign Uhura we saw at the very end there?

Summary- enjoyed the hell out of it. MOAR! Bring on the season finale!