Grigari

[rfmcdpei]

One of my favourite alien civilizations in the Trekverse is that of the Grigari, a developed by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens for their 1994 novel Federation and their 2000 trilogy Millennium. Located deep in the Beta Quadrant on the border of the Delta, the Grigari can be briefly descrbed as a sort of hybrid of the Borg and Ferengi. Memory Beta quotage is below.

Nanotechnology was the secret of the success of Grigari medical technology. Their molecular assembly devices could expertly weave together flesh and steel, uniting living nervous systems directly with computer-control circuits. But it was not a static situation. The flesh of most life-forms would eventually reject the filaments of connection the Grigari devices wove. So the devices were programmed not to stop, in order to continually maintain the connection. Thus, as each layer of living cells became damaged, they were stripped away and replaced by more filaments of circuitry and steel. Eventually, the living body of a Grigari amalgam was completely discarded, replaced with an inexact, mechanical substitute.

The nanocomponents of the Grigari were not strictly confined to the biological but were also capable of infiltrating computer systems. By sending strands of the nanotechnology into a system, they were capable of actually reconstructing themselves into duotronic circuitry allowing the nanocomponents to create worm programs with impunity. This made it appear that a network was compromised by insiders when in fact it was the computers themselves that were in control.

[. . .]

Their culture is based on piracy and, unlike the
Ferengi, they will resort to unsavory tactics to make profit. The Grigari themselves often claimed themselves as being traders that had come to offer the secrets of eternal life to unsuspecting worlds. When their treatments were later investigated and found to be hideously flawed, the Grigari typically left as one where they moved to other uncharted sectors of space leaving behind the gruesome tales of the horrors their painful technology had wrought on those planets that had dealings with them.

All in all, they're pretty cool in a terrifying way, especially given their happy incendianary-ism in Millennium. Yay! apocalypse-minded cyborg merchants!

The problem is that outside of those novels and an associated video game, all by the Reeves-Stevenses, the Grigari haven't been present. Have they been featured elsewhere in Treklit? I don't see any serious problems as to their incorporation into the novelverse--they don't contradict anything, and Millennium might be creeping into the novelverse via mention of the Orbs of Jalbador in Watchiing the Clock.

 

[ATimson]

I don't see any serious problems as to their incorporation into the novelverse--they don't contradict anything, and Millennium might be creeping into the novelverse via mention of the Orbs of Jalbador in Watchiing the Clock.

Millennium's been there by fiat for a while - Marco said it was part of the DS9 relaunch way back when.

 

[vegaslover62]

Did you see the Grigari(and waste them all) in the DS9 video game The Fallen, which was based somewhat loosely off of Millennium?

 

[Cybersnark]

I remember seeing them and running like hell from them (those damned personal shield generators ). Fortunately, the Grigari apparently can't turn around very fast, so it actually is possible to sprint past them when their backs are turned.

Honestly, I remembered thinking they were basically a poor-being's Borg. Wouldn't mind seeing them again, I guess, if someone wanted to do a post-Destiny Borg-like story.

 

[Jedi_Master]

One of my favourite alien civilizations in the Trekverse is that of the Grigari, a developed by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens for their 1994 novel Federation and their 2000 trilogy Millennium. Located deep in the Beta Quadrant on the border of the Delta, the Grigari can be briefly descrbed as a sort of hybrid of the Borg and Ferengi. Memory Beta quotage is below.

Nanotechnology was the secret of the success of Grigari medical technology. Their molecular assembly devices could expertly weave together flesh and steel, uniting living nervous systems directly with computer-control circuits. But it was not a static situation. The flesh of most life-forms would eventually reject the filaments of connection the Grigari devices wove. So the devices were programmed not to stop, in order to continually maintain the connection. Thus, as each layer of living cells became damaged, they were stripped away and replaced by more filaments of circuitry and steel. Eventually, the living body of a Grigari amalgam was completely discarded, replaced with an inexact, mechanical substitute.

The nanocomponents of the Grigari were not strictly confined to the biological but were also capable of infiltrating computer systems. By sending strands of the nanotechnology into a system, they were capable of actually reconstructing themselves into duotronic circuitry allowing the nanocomponents to create worm programs with impunity. This made it appear that a network was compromised by insiders when in fact it was the computers themselves that were in control.

[. . .]

Their culture is based on piracy and, unlike the
Ferengi, they will resort to unsavory tactics to make profit. The Grigari themselves often claimed themselves as being traders that had come to offer the secrets of eternal life to unsuspecting worlds. When their treatments were later investigated and found to be hideously flawed, the Grigari typically left as one where they moved to other uncharted sectors of space leaving behind the gruesome tales of the horrors their painful technology had wrought on those planets that had dealings with them.

All in all, they're pretty cool in a terrifying way, especially given their happy incendianary-ism in Millennium. Yay! apocalypse-minded cyborg merchants!

The problem is that outside of those novels and an associated video game, all by the Reeves-Stevenses, the Grigari haven't been present. Have they been featured elsewhere in Treklit? I don't see any serious problems as to their incorporation into the novelverse--they don't contradict anything, and Millennium might be creeping into the novelverse via mention of the Orbs of Jalbador in Watchiing the Clock.

Perhaps there will be some discussion of them in Starfleets travels in the Delta Quadrant. I would LOVE to see Judy and Gar write a novel in the Relaunch timeline. Without Shatner of course.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I thought the Grigari were great. Evil hellish zombie things, that make the Borg seem clean and sane. I'd love to see more of them.

I liked their brand of eternal life, as seen in Federation. How Thornsen got far enough out to find them in a 2050's warp ship I don't know, but what they did to him was cool nonetheless.

I also liked their weapons technology - the "singularity bomb" that destroyed the Time Planet in The War of the Prophets, which sounds like Red Matter under another name, as well as their more-than-extensive range of OTT bioweapons.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I remember seeing them and running like hell from them (those damned personal shield generators ). Fortunately, the Grigari apparently can't turn around very fast, so it actually is possible to sprint past them when their backs are turned.

Or you could just kill them buy either using your tricorder on them and having your hand phaser automatically retune to fire through their shields with Sisko or Kira, or just use Worf's gravity mine thing.

 

[rfmcdpei]

I thought the Grigari were great. Evil hellish zombie things, that make the Borg seem clean and sane. I'd love to see more of them.

The Grigari made the Borg ally with the Federation.

Have we ever met a Grigari individual?

I liked their brand of eternal life, as seen in Federation.

Such life--it reminds me about the Greek myth of the young man who asked for eternal life but forgot about youth.

I also liked their weapons technology - the "singularity bomb" that destroyed the Time Planet in The War of the Prophets, which sounds like Red Matter under another name, as well as their more-than-extensive range of OTT bioweapons.

Oh, nanospores!

 

[Cybersnark]

Or you could just kill them buy either using your tricorder on them and having your hand phaser automatically retune to fire through their shields

And while I was tricorder-scanning them they'd cheerfully rip me apart before I could draw my phaser. Game wouldn't let you do something radical like carrying a tricorder in one hand while carrying a phaser in the other.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Considering what they were responsible for in Millennium, I'd rather they stayed faaaaar away from the Alpha Quadrant. It's seen enough destruction.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Considering what they were responsible for in Millennium, I'd rather they stayed faaaaar away from the Alpha Quadrant. It's seen enough destruction.

More quiet plotting, perhaps, or mayhem in their home territory?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I don't see them as the plotting type. They're like a sleeping giant. A sleeping, murderous, psychopathic giant.

Who is also undead.

The Federation had better keep from annoying them, lest billions and billions die.

 

[Sci]

I see the Grigari more as a plot device than an actual culture with identifiable motives. Not interested.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

Or you could just kill them buy either using your tricorder on them and having your hand phaser automatically retune to fire through their shields

And while I was tricorder-scanning them they'd cheerfully rip me apart before I could draw my phaser. Game wouldn't let you do something radical like carrying a tricorder in one hand while carrying a phaser in the other.

I walked backwards while scanning them in case they got frisky. I got them more often than they got me.

 

[vegaslover62]

And while I was tricorder-scanning them they'd cheerfully rip me apart before I could draw my phaser.

You can scan through walls and retune your phaser before they see you.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Or you could just kill them buy either using your tricorder on them and having your hand phaser automatically retune to fire through their shields

And while I was tricorder-scanning them they'd cheerfully rip me apart before I could draw my phaser. Game wouldn't let you do something radical like carrying a tricorder in one hand while carrying a phaser in the other.

I walked backwards while scanning them in case they got frisky. I got them more often than they got me.

And while I was tricorder-scanning them they'd cheerfully rip me apart before I could draw my phaser.

You can scan through walls and retune your phaser before they see you.

Plus there are some areas where they can't get to you but you can still shoot them.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I googled them. This is what they look like?

I'm not impressed. I envisioned mummified zombie humanoids. They're kinda like that, but... not as cool as I thought they'd be.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

They're cooler when they're killing you.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

I'd be willing to chalk it up at least in part on the graphics of the time - after all, it's an image from a game released over a decade ago.

That said, yeah, not really what I picture when I think 'Grigari.'

 

[Thestral]

I thought they were brilliantly chilling and horrifying in what appearances they've had, so bring them on.

Eventually.