Most disappointing species in Star Trek ?

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Maybe the Modern day Klingon, I loved Michael Dorn's Worf but some times the other Klingon just seemed too cartoonish. How could a feudal, infighting society so infatuated with Knives, Blood, Tribal rituals and Martyrdom ever become an inter stellar species ?

Perhaps humans can be the most disappointing, maybe Roddenberry's vision was too Utopian, much too pleasant and very rare is it we've seen their urban, dirty, agricultural sides out on the edges of civilization like the Joss Whendon tv series Firefly portrayed humanity. DS9 gave humans a grittier feel but we were still in the Federation's universe. Humanity IMO needed to be portrayed a little more human.

Then we have aliens that appear in all Trek series like the Boslics - WTF are these people about ? Do I care ? Add the Nausicaans etc to this list of Meh! Tribbles seem to have some kind of internet following and appear throughout the series, don't even get me started on these guys.

IMHO Jem'Hadar are worse than the Klingon ever could be, they are a bunch of micro-brains on steroids. Cardassians are IMO a bunch of nazis with absolutely no charm or redeeming qualities.

Ocampa, the Kes species, must be one of the species the "writers" screwed up the most. One of the shortest lifespans, only one child its amazing the species didn't go extinct on day one. It's difficult to be disappointed in a people that never took flight in the first place. The Ocampa come and go with Voyager, their badly written characters never get to plague the ST universe ever again.

The "Q ", great in TNG, but they get deconstructed with DS9 and in Voyager a complete disappointment.

Then we have Species8472 yes they defeated the Borg in a STVoyager battle but ever since this stunt they have been all bark and no bite.

Neo-Romulans ? For me the word Romulan means Tomalak played by Andreas Katsulas from Babylon-5 or Senator Kimara Cretak (played by Adrienne Barbeau & Megan Cole ) and other clever Romulans you see in TOS, not the idiots you see in Star Trek: Nemesis

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

I should have also included the Bajoran, sometimes they were great but other times they were spectacularly bad like Leeta in....

 

[chancellorjake]

I love the development that the Klingons received, but at the same time they were also disappointing. Like you said how could this culture of barbarians develop an interstellar empire. It would have been nice to see that they had more to their culture than Warriors. It would have been nice to see Farmers, Scientists, Priests, Teachers, Lawyers, Police, and Doctors that were equally respected and important to the empire as the Warriors.

 

[JayTheTrekkie]

I went for the modern day klingons from the TOS movies....I did not like the way they looked. I liked what the klingon looks in the 24th century.

 

[Michael]

I went for the modern day klingons from the TOS movies....I did not like the way they looked. I liked what the klingon looks in the 24th century.

Which movie? They had a different make up practically every movie.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

Klingons and their Honourrrrrrrrr.

Man, those guys are tiresome. What's wrong with less "honour" and more brains just once in a while? I can't believe that even cooks and lawyers can't say anything but "it is without honourrrr". Yeah, yeah, blah, we heard it the first time. I'd rather have bald Klingons with a passion for Shakespeare.

I'm just glad nobody voted for the Cardassians so far.

 

[Jamee999]

Cardassians are IMO a bunch of nazis with absolutely no charm or redeeming qualities.

As opposed to the real Nazis?

 

[Mr. Fergy]

I thought many Cardasians=Nazis?

BTW; Where are the Packlids?

 

[chancellorjake]

^ Waiting for someone to help make them GO.

 

[Zeo Ranger IX]

I don't have a problem with any of the options. I didn't like Voyager's treatment of the Borg, though. I thought that the Q Who and TBOBW Borg were the scariest villain ever. Then Voyager seemed to neuter them.

But as far as most disappointing from the get-go? The Kazon. Strange-looking Klingon surrogates that from day one didn't stand a chance of fame, or infamy.

 

[JiNX-01]

Ocampa. Snore.

 

[RobertScorpio]

The Borg. They turned into yet another bumpy head alien species...too bad. They had such a great start..

Rob
Scorpio

 

[greenmystik]

I voted for the Q

 

[judge alba]

out of the list I reckon the cardassians were a dissapointment, they went from a dnagerous sneaky enemy to lackys of the dominion.Though the main species is the borg were dissapointing in my book. they started out as a scary, unstoppable force that other races almost crapped themselves if they met the borg, to what seemed to be idiots in my book, they seemed as though humans or the federation were the species that could beat them at most every turn yet the federation were almost zapped by the domininon even the romulans gave the humans a run for thier money

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Species8472. Just uninteresting.

But why not list the Borg as an option? Misused potential is the most disappointing thing of all.

Maybe the Modern day Klingon, I loved Michael Dorn's Worf but some times the other Klingon just seemed too cartoonish. How could a feudal, infighting society so infatuated with Knives, Blood, Tribal rituals and Martyrdom ever become an inter stellar species ?

They also show a great deal of cultural cohesion, which is the purpose of all the rituals. It keeps them bonded together. And the number of times you actually see one Klingon killing another is pretty small, when you think about it. The fighting is largely ritualized posturing, which serves the same purpose more or less as Martok's wife having conniptions over Jadzia's inability to make those frakking candles correctly.

As for humans not being human enough - humanity is the "straight man" for Star Trek. Other species like Cardassians seem "more human" by comparison, but the humans do get portrayed metaphorically that way.

The Jems act like what they are - a cloned species who exist for a single, narrow-minded purpose. They aren't a full-fledged society like the Klingons. They don't need an external reason for social cohesion, which is why you'll never catch a Jem worrying about making candles correctly.

The Vorta are the same idea as the Jems - their weirdly narrow range of behaviors and interests make them freaky, scary and also good fodder for comedy. They could have been depicted a bit more broadly - I doubt the Dominion could be an effective fighting force if all the Vorta were smarmy creeps like Keevan whose antics destroy the cohesion of their fighting forces, there must be some who are a lot better at their jobs (for instance Weyoun presumably was a pretty good strategist) beyond just sucking up to the Founders.

And you are selling the Cardies way short - they're Star Trek's best realized species (largely because they are the "humans" that the humans aren't allowed to be).

The Ocampa don't really interest me, though I suppose Kes' dangerous superpowers could have been good story fodder if the writers had stuck with the idea rather than just giving her the boot.

The Romulans are another case of untapped potential (but not bungled potential like the Borg - not yet, anyway). I've been assuming that they use xenophobia like the Vulcans use logic - as an element that allows them to do what is unnatural for them, namely having any society at all. As T'Pol famously revealed to Trip, Vulcans (and presuambly Rommies as well) are more violently emotional than humans.

The wonderful irony of the Vulcans is that they are probably more dangerous psychos than Klingons. Certainly more scary than Jems. Klingons externalize their aggression and channel it into baroque rituals in order to neutralize it. Jems are only as a aggressive as the Founders want them to be. Vulcans and Rommies are loose cannons who need their logic/xenophobia fetishes to keep it together.

 

[crouteru]

The Ocampa, because their reproductive cycle means that they should be extinct.

 

[tomalak301]

I went for the modern day klingons from the TOS movies....I did not like the way they looked. I liked what the klingon looks in the 24th century.

Which movie? They had a different make up practically every movie.

I think the only movie I didn't like the Klingons in was III. The way the crew acted towards Kruge (Haven't seen the movie in a while) was so really different from any other Klingons I've seen, especially in Star Trek. All this my leige and my lord stuff was kind of weird.

As for most disappointing, probably Species 8472. So much potential and then they were ignored when they made peace. We never even found out who they really were. I really wish Voyager took another trip through fluidic space. Also, I really wish the phrase "We will purge the galaxy of all life" had much more meaning. Did Species 8472 really expect Voyager to know what was really going on, with a threat like that? I mean seriously, if I was Janeway and saw a ship blast a species homeworld to bits (And one that we know is really powerful) and keep saying that phrase, I probably would have done the same thing just for security reasons.

 

[alicelouise]

I love the development that the Klingons received, but at the same time they were also disappointing. Like you said how could this culture of barbarians develop an interstellar empire. It would have been nice to see that they had more to their culture than Warriors. It would have been nice to see Farmers, Scientists, Priests, Teachers, Lawyers, Police, and Doctors that were equally respected and important to the empire as the Warriors.

Read KRAD's "A Burning House". This novel shows the everyday Klingon society.

Many other posters had a good point. That being, how could a society that is more akin to pre-Union Scotland establish a far reaching empire? One that could vex both the Federation and the Romulans? In fact in the timeline of TOS the Romulans and the Klingons felt a need a need for an alliance.

Let it be said, I have plenty of Scots ancestry. The warring clans made it difficult for any cohesion. They were able to be exploited by the English and the French. They(the Scots) weren't able to do any conquering beyond their borders or pose a threat or any promise.

Yes, I say promise because aside from Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and even Lord Bothwell, there were the inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell and Alexander Fleming. So there's brains, brawn, and charisma.

If we were to apply this to ST this is where the Klingons have been wanting as well, in cohesion. They do have that interstellar empire which is hard to believe.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

Definitely the Ocompa, but for anyone who thinks the 24th century is too Utopian, utopianism is relative, this is 300 years in the future, I imagine things like the welfare state, the internet, equal opportunity, long lifespans would have seemd utopian to people in the 17th century.

I think they didn't show so much of the inner federation like Earth because they may have had to explain how a moneyless economy etc would work, and of course if we could explain how to do that...we'd have already done it!

 

[indranee]

which one was Neelix? that one.