The lack of ALIEN diversity in Star Trek

[Gotham Central]

One of the more disappointing aspects of modern Star Trek has been the dearth of alien diversity on starfleet ships. In fact, there is a noticeable lack of aliens in most depictions of the Federation. What aliens that we do get are usually indistinguishable from humans (Aliens in name only). Given the limited budgets available in the 60s that made sense (and even on TNG). However, there is no excuse for the lack of aliens in other Trek Series (I will cut DS9 some slack given the sheer volume of aliens that they depicted on a regular basis).

In movies, Star Wars has set a pretty high bar for showing lots of non-humans. On TV Farscape managed to show plenty of aliens on a regular basis. Why hasn't Star Trek given us more. Tne TNG movies could have intorduced all sorts of new an interesting crew members, but they never bothered to do so.

Given that special FX have improved considerably, shouldn't we be demanding more diverse crews (shoudl we get any) in the future.

As a side note, one cannot help but notice that TOS movies have at times tried to show more aliens. There are a number of alien crew members on the Enterprise in TMP. There were also quite a few aliens at Starfleet Headquarters in TVH and Camp Khitomer in TUC.

 

[The Borg Queen]

Maybe because they underestimate the sensitivities of their audience.

Perhaps they think people will complain if the aliens outnumber the humans what with an approx. 149:1 ratio of aliens to humans...

 

[The Grim Ghost]

I don't care about the diversity of the crews so much, though it would be nice to see a few more aliens involved.

What bugs me is that the Original series actually seemed to encounter more truly strange (non crew) aliens than the later series did. And when you consider how much more money and resources TNG/DS9/VOY had to work with, that is kind of sad.

 

[ALF]

It's reverse discrimination for sure. Of the paranomal type. Didn't an episode of The X-Files deal with this social issue?

 

[Aquehonga]

The crew of the TOS Intrepid were all Vulcans

Doesn't that count for anything

Captain Beckett had an alien MD (Doc Flocks) who was a mixture of The Grinch & The Joker from BATMAN. Not to mention that Vulcan interloper T'Pau whom Beckett hired on as a FT crew member

What about Worf, Data, Dax, Kira, Odo, B'Elanna, Tuvok, Kes, Neelix, et al?

Talk about Diverse City?

 

[captcalhoun]

there are plenty of aliens, they're just beavering away below decks where we don't see them.

 

[Dream]

Spock! The token alien on the bridge!

 

[ALF]

The crew members from Earth are taking away positions that a visible extraterrestial could take.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

It's because humans are the coolest thing to ever hit the galaxy. Don't you ever watch Star Trek?

 

[Sci]

You'd probably enjoy the book series Star Trek: Titan. Part of the premise of it is that the USS Titan, like other Luna-class starships, is explicitly designed to integrate many different species from wildly diverse cultures and ecologies from throughout the Federation into a single crew.

You'd probably like a lot of the books, too. They tend to do much more interesting aliens. A few interesting ones in the Federation include....

- The Alonis, a species of aquatic lifeforms whose technology is based on the telepathic re-shaping of water
- The Antedeans from early TNG, who have long since joined the UFP
- The Caitians, who resemble humanoid cats, from TAS
- The Damiani, a green-skinned, horned, three-sexed species where, up until recently, two-partner relationships were taboo
- The Nasat, large, insect-like creatures from TAS
- The six sentient species of Gemworld, including the Elaysians, from DS9's "Melora"
- The reptilian, lizard-like Gnalish
- The Horta
- The bi-sexed Hermat
- The reptilian Saurians
- The dinosaur/kimodo dragon-like Pahkwa-than
- The avian Skorr
- The tree-limbed Triexians
- The Bader and Dorset, who inhabit Delta Sigma IV together
- The spider-like Koa
- The aquatic Pacificans
- The tentacled Sulamid

 

[asdf1]

I always liked the Andorians, one of my fav. races, and a major power in the Federation.

So i was sad to see that they almost absent from TNG/DS9/VOY. It was also one of the few things that ENT did well.

 

[captcalhoun]

- The tree-limbed Triexians

that should read THREE limbed Triexians...

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think another point to consider is where particular starships come from. Ships named Enterprise generally come from or near Earth. Other vessels may come from other shipyards, but if they get their crews anywhere around Sector 001, it's expected those ships will have predominantly Human crews as well.

Conversely, though, ships that originate or operate very far from Earth may only have a few Humans among the crews, IMO...

What bugs me is that the Original series actually seemed to encounter more truly strange (non crew) aliens than the later series did. And when you consider how much more money and resources TNG/DS9/VOY had to work with, that is kind of sad.

If you're talking about non-humanoid aliens, then yes that's probably true. But I think at some point putting guys in monster outfits like TOS did was considered too campy by the time TNG came around...

 

[Nerys Myk]

On the other hand they met more "all but human except for their names" aliens than the later series too.

 

[hellsgate]

The beauty of fan fiction. Write up your own slightly-divergent universe with far more diverse crews, stories, ships, planets and everything else. With fiction, especially fan fiction, you can run with limitless opportunities!

 

[Jonas Grumby]

Sticking a glop of Silly Putty on a guy's face and giving him an extra nostril or two does not an alien make...at least IMO. It was too bad that most of the "aliens" we saw on Trek were just some minor variation of a four-limbed, one-headed biped.

That said, I don't find it at all odd that individual ships would have fairly homogenous crews. Unless you're planning on segregating different species to separate areas of the ship, or having at least some of the crew wearing round-the-clock spacesuits, or following every crewman around with a little personal force field to contain the atmosphere, gravity and light levels he needs, I don't see that it makes much sense to try to accommodate wildly variant physiologies within a single enclosed vessel.

 

[ialfan]

TNG and VOY were the worst offenders of this. TNG had all humans (or visually identical) besides the occasional Betazoids, Vulcans and Bolians.

VOY was pretty much the same when it came to the crew.

TOS was understandable due to budget issues and Enterprise due to the time period. Plus Enterprise incorporated a lot more alien diversity in its guest stars and non-crew.

I would have rather seen there being fewer alien species instead of bumpy forehead of the week #147 and just had the "main" species spread out more. It would have been more interesting to see the Federation made up of Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Bolians, Betazoids, Trill, Tellarites, Efrosians, Kasheeta, Caitians, Triexians, Benzites and Zakdorn doing away with all of these federation members that appear human but aren't.

Same goes for other races. I am rather tired of seeing species of the week. Star Trek really should have gotten a core set of 30 or so species including the above federation members and focused on developing them.

 

[Therin of Andor]

- The tree-limbed Triexians

You mean six-limbed. Three arms, three legs. A "less-animated" race than the related Edoans (of TAS).

 

[sunburn800]

One problem with so many different species on a starship could be that you need a lot of medical staff and more than a few doctors. At least for a human doctor it would be hard to keep up with every alien biology, even now just to corectly diagnosis a human takes years of study. Of couse thats just my theory.

 

[The Borg Queen]

Maybe Starfleet medical training is all about how to use a medical tricorder.