Xindi connection in TAS?

It got so complicated that the (never made) TOS-era New Voyages fan film adaptation of the (also unmade) Enterprise season 5 Kzinti episode "Kilkenny Cats" chose to swap the Kzinti for the Kythari (sp?), a feloid race from an officially published Trek short story.

90's TNG novel The Captain's Honor features the M'dok, who were originally meant to be Kzinti.

Picard showrunner Michael Chabon sought Larry Niven's permission for the Kzinti namedrop there. But a namedrop is one thing, featuring them is another.

 

They spoke to Larry Niven and he gave the production his blessing. When we interviewed him (Before Picard) he seemed open to seeing Trek featured Kzinti.

 

One side note concerning the Xindi:
I only watched Enterprise once, on it's initial run, but there was one good laugh I had at the show.
They showed the skull of an extinct "Avian Xindi"

The prop they used was quite apparently the skull of a Giraffe.

Only on "Enterprise" would they try to turn a heavy boned Giraffe into an avian creature!

 

No teratorn skulls I guess

 

I think you'll find that was a space-giraffe, actually!

I suppose they thought that most of their audience would be unfamiliar enough with giraffe anatomy that they wouldn't notice? To be fair, I did not - they're not exactly common animals in the western world

 

Here's the picture:

I haven't seen this since it aired.
It's a good thing they only showed it for a second.
With a head that heavy, it would take a wingspan of a B-17 to get it off the ground!

 

Yeah... seems odd that an avian skull would have mammalian teeth....
--Alex

 

Depends how loose the Xindi are being with their term of "avian".
Bats are airborne creatures and have teeth, after all.

 

True, but the bone and jaw structure is that of a very heavy leaf eating herbivore. Heavy muscle attachment points for chewing plants. Not to mention the heavy ossocone structure of the Giraffe's horns. Nothing like a bird's extremely pared down and hollow bone structure.

Anything that flies has very tight weight considerations.

But, it's not the first time a Giraffe skull has been used for fantastical beasts. I gather there are ancient Greek pots that depicted Jason (or maybe it was Hercules) fighting the Hydra. And the artist drew a Giraffe skull as the head of the Hydra.

 

Oh I agree, everything else is completely antithetical to an airborne creature!

 

I thought that was a Romulan by the Tellarite

 

You can tell it's a Vulcan next to the Tellarite, mainly because the patterns on his clothing resemble those on what Sarek wore in "Journey to Babel" and in "Yesteryear."

Xerius, on the other hand, on the extreme left, has a hexagonal cape clasp that vaguely resembles some of the Romulan symbols on the sets in "The Enterprise Incident."

According to Memory Alpha, the script identifies the female with the breathing apparatus as an amphibian, so in that case she couldn't be, say, related to the the Aquans from Argo, the species from "The Ambergris Element," except maybe distantly.

And, yes, I believe that we are supposed to assume that the female between the Tellarite and the Gorn is a Human.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Elysian_Ruling_Council

 

I don't recall any evidence that the Aquans in "The Ambergris Element" were a space faring species.