A Betelgeusian Onboard?

[Bry_Sinclair]

A thought has just this minute occured to me.

Ensign/Lieutenant Vilix'pran, whose overactive buds have been mentioned a few times through the series, could he be Betelgeusian?

When Jake babysat for him, he had to make sure the infants wings didn't get tangled up, and in the production notes for TMP the Betelgeusians were said to have evolved from 'leopard-eagles' I believe they put it.

Anyone got any thoughts?

 

[Christopher]

Betelgeusians don't have wings. One is visible full-length on the balcony in the TMP rec deck scene, toward screen right in a brown uniform. (TrekCore doesn't allow direct image links, but if you go to their HD gallery of TMP screencaps, Chapter 9 - Mission Briefing, you can see him in image 552, the tenth image in that chapter.) He clearly has a normal humanoid body plan.

As I understand it, the running gag behind Vilix'pran was to represent a distinctly nonhumanoid alien, something they couldn't afford to depict onscreen with an actor in makeup, so we'd just keep hearing descriptions of this really alien being that got more bizarre each time. Something as humanoid as a Betelgeusian just wouldn't be in that spirit, I think.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I had never noticed any Betelgeusian on the Rec Deck (must study it a little closer). The only image I can ever remember seeing was of the civilian/ambassador in robes.

The idea just occurred to me was all, so I threw it out there to see what others thought.

 

[Christopher]

There are at least two of them in the crowd, the one on the balcony and one mixed in with the crowd below. I based a character on the latter in my novels Ex Machina and Forgotten History.

 

[Dantheman]

As I understand it, the running gag behind Vilix'pran was to represent a distinctly nonhumanoid alien, something they couldn't afford to depict onscreen with an actor in makeup, so we'd just keep hearing descriptions of this really alien being that got more bizarre each time. Something as humanoid as a Betelgeusian just wouldn't be in that spirit, I think.

That's the kind of feeling I got when they talked about that one captain Dax knew who had a transparent skull.

 

[Christopher]

^Yes, exactly, the Gallamite Captain Boday, who was often talked about but never seen. And there was this exchange in "Resurrection" (right after a discussion of Boday):

DAX: What about Doctor Trag'tok? He's intelligent, he has a good physique, and he has a very opaque cranium.
KIRA: True. But his eye bothers me.
DAX: Which one?
KIRA: The middle one.

Between those and Morn's alleged verbosity, the DS9 writers loved making jokes about what was going on offscreen.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

It's one thing I think DS9 always did, fleshing out the universe with weird and wonderful aliens who you (unfortunatley) never got to see. One of the benefits of being a station, the sheer varitey that passes through the airlocks.

There was also the episode where (in conversation) there was a two-headed alien who could never make up his/their mind (think it might have been the one where Odo and Curson bonded).

Ok, so no Betelgeusian Vilix'pran. Just something else, even more interesting.