Consider Orgainia.

What must life be for such beings? Eternal contemplation of the stars and it's life forms? Introspective thoughts most definitely but only aroused by death and destruction as threatened by the Federation and the Klingon Empire!
JB

 

The James Blish novel Spock Must Die! mentioned the Organian treaty. That one seems a bit closer to canon than the flood of mutually contradictory novels that came years later.

 

Ive always wondered why any life form would evolve to a non corporial state
I mean, what's the fucking point ?

 

Doesn't that book end with

Spoiler: Spock Must Die!

the Organians removing the Klingons' ability to travel to through space for the next 100 years?

 

Evolution? Although someone I know told me they don't believe in that theory because just how many apes have become people in the last fifty years? I've always thought that evolving into another form can only occur due to a catalyst like an unknown energy source or even mutation!
JB

 

Obviously James Blish ended his novel on that note due to knowing the show had ended or had TAS appeared before then? Either way it's definitely not canon!
JB

 

Interesting! If you say so, it's been 40 years!

 

Well, the whole point of science fiction is to strain to try to begin to understand things that are beyond us in the here and now. Presumably there are all sorts of amazing abilities and experiences you can have in that state, that we can't imagine from our limited perspective now.
------------
But really, yeah, in real life, being non-corporeal is probably a lot like being a paraplegic, only more so. No limbs or even body to do things with. Maybe you can interact with different wavelengths of radiation, forces like gravitation, in ways that make our enjoyable activities pale in comparison and all that. However, I think that was probably a great idea by one SF writer a long long time ago, which has now been done to death and should be given a rest. Having fun as a cloud is unlikely...

 

Hmh? I'd think being corporeal would be the thing analogous to being paraplegic. Constrained by gravity, confined to a single location at a time, constantly attacked by the elements and betrayed by one's own decaying mortal coil... Trek noncorporeals have it made, often appearing capable of FTL or at least instantaneous-across-observed-ranges travel, capable of influencing the physical world at will in defiance of those natural laws that the corporeals have to obey, themselves safe from corporeal punishment. What's there not to like?

Timo Saloniemi

 

In spiritual form you could travel the entire universe and still be back home in time for tea!
JB

 

And sometimes even a cute space warp pioneer crash lands on your planet to keep you company!

 

Yeah, imagine the conversational possibilities. "You discovered space warp? You know, I can space warp! ...Umm, does this mean I'm not your first? Where exactly did you meet this space warp? And what did she look like? Be honest."

Timo Saloniemi

 

Space warps=doorways into hyperspace, enabling the traveller to cover vast distances of outer space in a shorter time! But only if you know how to navigate them!
JB

 

I thought it was more like

Spoiler: Spock Must Die!

a thousand years

.

Kor

 

You're probably right. I didn't want to bother double checking when I made that post.