Spoilers Extragalactic roll-call

We've had a good look at those wonderful quadrants we call Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma, but if Star Trek goes the way of the Stargate franchise - expanding its scope endlessly - we might find ourselves in another galaxy sooner rather than later.

Pondering what/who might be in those galaxies, I tried to come up with an extragalactic inventory of characters & species we've already met. The list is small, so feel free to add in! I put a spoiler tag on because PIC is mentioned.

- Douwd
- Gomtuu
- Gorn?
- In PIC:

Spoiler

the alliance of synthetic life is said to span multiple galaxies

 

Kelvans from "By Any Other Name"

 

I wouldn't mind a trip to the Andromeda galaxy or even just to one of the globular clusters that is separate from the "galactic plane"

However it could run into the problem that space, well, is pretty much the same everywhere. So we'd probably have similar species and polities as we have aright now.
Then again, if the Progenitors only seeded the Milkyway Galaxy, then we might really find more exotic species there, and with modern GCI...

 

The Gorn are only extra galactic in the 2013 Kelvin video game.

In Star Fleet Battles, the Tholians are said to be from another galaxy. There's also a group of aliens known as the Andromedans, who are apparently different from the Kelvans.

The Stargazer series of books introduced us to the Nuyyad, an invading force from another galaxy.

 

Species 8472 are from Fluidic space, which is another universe. Does that count?

 

Yes, 8472 and the sphere builders are extragalactic (extrauniversal?) I would say

 

Gorn and Tholians are supposedly Beta Quadrant.

On topic: Organians and The Q

 

Generally, yes, but various non-canon sources have them as originating from other galaxies for some reason. It kinda makes sense if we assume that they aren't seeded by the ancient humanoids (neither are the Kelvans), and perhaps many of the major non-humanoid races are actually far-flung colonists.

 

Whomever built the Doomsday Machine

 

There's a good chance that those builders are all long dead, and perhaps, everyone in their galaxy was destroyed by the DM. That could be an interesting episode one day to find various nomadic survivors in a galaxy with all its M-type planets pulverized.

 

Eh, making non-humanoid species extra-galactic colonists/transpalnts/refugees just because of the Chase seems a bit silly to me (let alone that the Gorn are strictly speaking humanoid and our own Precursor-seeded planet also produced a race of sapient dinosaurs, according to Voyager and that the Saurians and the Xindi Reptilian exist as even more examples of Reptilian civilizations)
Non-humanoid species could be from planets were life was already too far evolved for the Chase aliens to change its course towards humanoid, or where chance/unique environmental factors led to Non-humanoid civilizations. Or life on those planets was too exotic for the Precursors to manipulate or even recognize, or they just didn't get to those planets before they died off. Or the planets were deemed to be too unlikely to ever become M-Class.

 

Indeed, sure if there's a rarity of alien life outside of precusor-seeded races, then that explains why there are so few 'non-humanoids', but they would still exist; coming into being eventually.

In general, too:

It's a big galaxy and we've barely seen any of it. What's at the border of Beta and Gamma? Alpha and Delta? Delta and Gamma? What's on the other side of the core? Between the galactic arms? In the Halo, in the orbiting clusters. Going outside the Galaxy is...eh. We have a lot here. With our tech, we can create all those non-humanoids and weird aliens the 60s and 90s couldn't, with fifty+ years of new scifi, you can fill any corner of space with something new.

 

"Extragalactic" and "out of this universe" would appear to be two different things in the general case. The Organians didn't perhaps exactly live in our realm, but they did appear to be localized at planet Organia, and cared a lot about trespassing. We never learned that the Species 8472 would have existed outside our galaxy, either, in the sense that there would be 8472ers around if an Andromedan took a dip into his local fluidic space.

As for those who aren't "out of this universe", how do we define them as extragalactic? By their own say-so? But the Doomsday Machine never said anything. How could Spock know it came from outside our galaxy? Is there some sort of a marker that gets stamped onto you if you cross the Galactic Barrier? Course analysis would be futile: every course can be extrapolated to lead outside the galaxy, by the geometric definition, including the course I take from the fridge to the sofa. And the DDM didn't even hold a course: it explicitly zigzagged from star system to star system.

The only thing in all of Star Trek that we could safely declare extragalactic by the strict definition appears to be the Kelvans, who with their words and actions prop up the Andromeda origin. Some other players can no doubt span multiple galaxies (even if their originating one is unknown), but AFAIK only the one described in PIC is actually made explicit in dialogue.

Timo Saloniemi

 

The Caretaker/Nacene from VOY were explorers from another galaxy - he explained as much to Janeway before he died.

 

Extra-Galactic & Extra-Dimensional are two different things.

 

Unless there are galaxies in those other dimensions as well, corresponding to ours...

(I doubt the Caretaker even knew which galaxy he was in, towards the end. But good spotting there.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

I always figured that was due to the Technical Manual placing Tholia at the edge of the galaxy. Also, I assume they didnt have the rights to use the Kelvans since they're not mentioned in the Joseph materials, hence "Andromedans".

 

I don't know that the Douwd are necessarily extragalactic. Kevin says he's "walked this galaxy," but I can easily imagine (say) 20th century Flint saying he's "walked this Earth" without trying to imply he's not from it.

 

He was old not senile.

 

It's ridiculous to say the Caretaker didn't know what galaxy he was in - he was still talking about compatible cellular structures etc until about two minutes before his death.