Survival With Tribbles

[Starborn Dragon]

I have a personal belief about Tribbles, and it is more of a hypothesis.

I personally consider Tribbles an incredibly devious and insidious weapon.

They can devastate entire planets ecology, cause ecological disasters on a planetary scale, and they can basically lull you so you won't fight them with their purring.

So I personally believe they were actually genetically created to be a weapon.

But, there is one thing to consider, that to the best of my knowledge, nobody else has ever considered.

In a survival situation, where the only resource were Tribbles, would you eat them?

And, would they be edible and provide enough nutrition for you to survive?

 

[Albertese]

Eat only half of them. The rest will produce more and more.

On the other hand, they only keep reproducing if they too have food to eat, so the tribbles would also be exhausted fairly quickly if they were indeed the only food source. How nutritious would they be? I dunno, about as good as a rat or a squirrel I'd imagine. Might make an adequate stew if you had a few of them. I imagine them as somewhat rabbit-like, so they might actually be quite tasty.

--Alex

 

[Avro Arrow]

On the other hand, they only keep reproducing if they too have food to eat, so the tribbles would also be exhausted fairly quickly if they were indeed the only food source.

In that scenario, they're not *the* only food source, they're *your* only food source. They still have another food source. Suddenly the question of how much nutritional value they can provide to you becomes rather moot...

 

[Poltargyst]

I do not believe they were developed as a weapon. They are only a threat in environments lacking predators. Most planets have predators, so they are not a threat to most planets. I think you could eat them if you had to.

 

[Albertese]

On the other hand, they only keep reproducing if they too have food to eat, so the tribbles would also be exhausted fairly quickly if they were indeed the only food source.

In that scenario, they're not *the* only food source, they're *your* only food source. They still have another food source. Suddenly the question of how much nutritional value they can provide to you becomes rather moot...

But what do tribbles eat? Grain. Turkey sandwiches and coffee. Basically everything humans also can eat. Therefore, if there is a quantity of grain or whatever enough to sustain a tribble population, you can an eat it too and therefore tribbles are not your only food source.

--Alex

EDIT: Oh wait, you're suggesting that in this scenario, the tribbles will eat you. I get it. Nevermind.

 

[FormerLurker]

On the other hand, they only keep reproducing if they too have food to eat, so the tribbles would also be exhausted fairly quickly if they were indeed the only food source.

In that scenario, they're not *the* only food source, they're *your* only food source. They still have another food source. Suddenly the question of how much nutritional value they can provide to you becomes rather moot...

Don't fall asleep in a room full of them.

 

[LadyT'Anna]

What if the Federation created tribbles as an anti-Klingon weapon and couldn't secure them properly?

SCIENTIST (à la Spock): "My apologies, sir; I'm afraid that owing to my accidental overdose of Saurian brandy and resultant lapse in judgment, there are currently 50,000 tribbles loose on a large Federation grain-producing planet."
CAPTAIN: #$%^&*%!

 

[Poltargyst]

On the other hand, they only keep reproducing if they too have food to eat, so the tribbles would also be exhausted fairly quickly if they were indeed the only food source.

In that scenario, they're not *the* only food source, they're *your* only food source. They still have another food source. Suddenly the question of how much nutritional value they can provide to you becomes rather moot...

Don't fall asleep in a room full of them.

 

[FormerLurker]

^Well, tribbles will obviously eat anything. They're probably the biggest scavengers on their homeworld, cleaning up large predators' kills. They're so numerous because the small predators are the ones that eat them, and there are a lot of small predators. I recommend not falling asleep with them nearby in large numbers as they may mistake you for a large predator's kill, and you then wake up to one of them eating your face.

 

[Ithekro]

How do they eat larger animals though? Tribbles have no teeth.

 

[LadyT'Anna]

How do they eat larger animals though? Tribbles have no teeth.

Not as we know them, thekro. But we don't get to see McCoy playing dentist to the tribbles, so there's no way of knowing what their mechanism is for ingestion.

Don't fall asleep in a room full of them.

FormerLurker, that's excellent.

 

[telerites]

Do tribbles defecate and urinate? I assume no and have no anatomical structure for this. Imagine the mess and smell....

 

[scotpens]

Do tribbles defecate and urinate? I assume no and have no anatomical structure for this. Imagine the mess and smell....

Tribbles have a cloaca, like Terran birds and reptiles. If they didn't defecate, wouldn't they explode?

 

[Redfern]

Baby Tribbles ARE the way they poop!

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Avro Arrow]

How do they eat larger animals though? Tribbles have no teeth.

What, you mean this image isn't real?

 

[FormerLurker]

^As I sit here, my friend looked at that image and said, "It's a Langolier."

 

[Starborn Dragon]

How do they eat larger animals though? Tribbles have no teeth.

What, you mean this image isn't real?

That looks like a Sarlacc pit to me.

You know, I think that would be a heck of a deterrent to bestiality.

Arrrgh,

 

[Elder Knight]

One might guess they'd taste like a Hostess Snowball, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sno_Balls
but that's probably wrong.

From that anatomical diagram, I wouldn't expect much in the way of muscle mass (i.e., meat). Might be disappointing, or rather an acquired taste.

 

[FormerLurker]

The predators on the tribble homeworld, especially those few large predators that do eat them, may well swallow them whole.

 

[Redfern]

David Gerrold has implied on a few occasions that the ecology of the tribble homeworld is quite violent, likely equal to that of shark infested waters.

While it's open to interpretation, Gerrold described creatures that seemed rather like tribbles in one of his "War Against the Chtorr" novels. His lead character McCarthy and Tirelli are trapped within a crashed aircraft and through the windows they watch a cycle of Chtooran predation. Initially the downed vehicle gets covered in "spores" and later, balls of fur with no discernible features nibble at the pollen like coating before they get eaten in turn by alien predators.

Sincerely,

Bill