Doug Jones talks about his species in EW
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Tosk reminds me of Grig from The Last Starfighter -- but I'm sure that's just because all reptilian-looking alien makeup looks the same to me.
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Sounds fascinating. Doug Jones is a great fit for this character all-around.
Eh. Still not convinced of the whole "sense the coming of death"-schtick. Depends how they are doing it. Ominous feelings of danger by superhuman observation is okay. If it's precise pregognition of death it needs to get the hell out of scifi and into the fantasy realm. Sadly, current signs point to the latter...
What I'm super unconfortable with is "the prey species having a cowardly reputation in Starfleet". If that's some shitty social commentary, get the hell out. TOS humans have never been as perfect as the TNG ones. And I was quite happy with the xenophes-arc on ENT. But if the whole Starfleet is some shitty Apartheid-commentary, I'm not going to pretend that's in harmony with the basic concept of Star Trek's optimistic future...
What I'm super unconfortable with is "the prey species having a cowardly reputation in Starfleet". If that's some shitty social commentary, get the hell out. TOS humans have never been as perfect as the TNG ones. And I was quite happy with the xenophes-arc on ENT. But if the whole Starfleet is some shitty Apartheid-commentary, I'm not going to pretend that's in harmony with the basic concept of Star Trek's optimistic future...
That being said, one of the (alien) main characters being the member of an easily frightened prey species is actually quite an interesting idea worth exploring. And even though I'm not the biggest fan od the alien make-up (it's not bad - but it looks a bit like a random VOY one-off alien), I'm a big fan of Jones end expect him to pull even more out of the role than is on the paper to begin with.
[wicked grin]
Are we going to get rid of Vulcan telepathy, too?
Back in the '50s and '60s, psychic phenomena were widely considered a new frontier in science. Oh there were skeptics, sure, but they got enough serious traction that things like telepathy became a staple in science fiction ... even what we'd consider hard SF. There was nothing wrong with Spock having psychic powers back then, but today, we're pretty sure, scientifically speaking, that telepathy, precognition, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, ESP, etc. are all just bunk without a technological assist.
So ... what do you do? Leave the Vulcans with the ability to read minds and have no balanced way to object to other psychic species, or get rid of the whole thing?
Meh...I don't know. This excerpt from the article makes me think it's the former:
"On Saru’s planet, there’s a dominant predator species that constantly imperils another weaker species called Kelpiens. As part of the latter group, Saru has evolved with heightened survival instincts."
His line in the trailer "My people were biologically determined for one purpose alone...to sense the coming of death" could easily refer to having a heightened sense of survival that makes them more aware than the average human when certain situations are dangerous.
It might have everything to do with gathering all information at hand and determining risk factors and might have nothing at all to do with a supernatural sixth sense.
Not sure how one leads to the other here.
Telepathy is different than precognition.
Having said that, as I mentioned in a post above, I think some animals might have heightened enough senses that they become aware of the potential for danger based on putting together all the sensory input and information at hand -- but not necessarily aware of actual future events.
There's a whole big difference between telepathy (although to be fair, in Troi's case they often streched believability), to precognition - aka timetravel.
The latter opens a whole lot of cans of worms about determinism, fate, free will and stuff. Especially if you have to fumble it on a background in every episode where a redshirt beams on a planet...
Funny, he didn't appear psychotic or otherwise insane.Yeah, he's a Pierson's Puppeteer - without expensive CG.
That's how I read it, as a heightened survival instinct, rather than actual precognition. An ability to identify and sense subtle circumstances representing danger.
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Kelpiens? I'm not exactly impressed with the name.
Yeah, it doesn't.
The whole "prey species" is a really interesting angle when you get into it, because although human beings are occasionally preyed upon individually by other animals when the opportunity arises we've made our way as predators: we kill and consume just about every living creature that it is practical for us to. We have gotten better and better at killing more and more and at mastering the breeding of other creatures in order to kill and consume them in vast numbers.
The Kelpians are not us; they're not hyper-logical or hyper-violent versions of us. They are our opposites, the one thing we're not.
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