What do the Tzenkethi look like now?

[Arpy]

They look like this in Star Trek Online, I'm seeing. Does the game change the way they're now presented in the books? I'm usually the one to argue for more non-humanoids, but I rather liked how different the books presented the Tzenkethi....how it made them pretty, instead of the expected ugly –Klingons/Jem'Hadar/Cardassians/etc.

 

[F. King Daniel]

No, their appearance in the game doesn't affect how they look in the novelverse at all. They're seperate continuities (for now, at least. Things may change when ST: Picard arrives)

 

[Arpy]

^ thanks!

Also, would a moderator change the thread title to *do, not *to? Thank you again.

 

[USS Firefly]

I like how they are described in the novels, not so much in star trek online

 

[Tim Thomason]

The Novelverse and the Onlineverse are very incompatible with regards to their approach on the Borg, the Romulans, 8472 (Gardeners/Undine), and now the Tzenkethi. Both are sourced from canon, of course, and Online originally sourced some novels when developing the Path to 2409 and its background.

The novels made no attempt (nor should they) to stay consistent with what Online established, and vice versa. The Countdown comics and other IDW features skew closer to Online history than Novel history but not always consistently.

All of Star Trek's non-canon history post-2379 is about to be seriously overhauled by Picard and Lower Decks. Online has a plan in place for dealing with this, and I'm sure the comics and novels will come up with some convoluted, universal reset or temporal conundrum to "explain" it all.

 

[JD]

The comics have never really had a consistent continuity anyways, so they don't really need to change their approach. The novels on the other hand.....

They look like this in Star Trek Online, I'm seeing. Does the game change the way they're now presented in the books? I'm usually the one to argue for more non-humanoids, but I rather liked how different the books presented the Tzenkethi....how it made them pretty, instead of the expected ugly –Klingons/Jem'Hadar/Cardassians/etc.

The English version of the page in the link is weird, it's got a picture from STO, but the article only talks about the version from the novels, with no mention of STO at all.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Star Trek Adventures Table-Top RPG uses the STO designs for their ships, but the Novel's description for the actual species.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...-61f8-42a3-b14c-1c8a2abd6c61.jpg?v=1564052236

This is an outright screenshot from STO lol, just with some editing to add explosions and motion blur.

 

[Arpy]

^ the lead Tzenkethi ship looks like it took a page from the DS9 Gorn ship concept and modeled the design after the head of the species it represents. ...Might be a little too "on the nose."

Pros:

• It's got a different shape from the Klingon/Romulan/so-many-others classic T-shape.
• Different Tzenkethi ships have different shapes, unlike the Klingons/Romulans/so-many-others, and similar to the Gorn here.

Cons:

• It's got the reverse T-shape looking like a Cardassian ship.
• It's dissimilar to the ships in the books. I imagine them similar to something out of Flight of the Navigator or SeaQuest, and they'd be cool to see in a fleet shot with other Trek powers.

 

[ryan123450]

I thought the Tzenkethi ships in the books were just perfectly smooth elongated teardrop shapes. Doesn’t seem to look anything like seaQuest.

 

[Arpy]

I thought the Tzenkethi ships in the books were just perfectly smooth elongated teardrop shapes. Doesn’t seem to look anything like seaQuest.

Different classes of ship might have looked differently.

 

[Arpy]

^ the lead Tzenkethi ship looks like it took a page from the DS9 Gorn ship concept and modeled the design after the head of the species it represents. ...Might be a little too "on the nose."

Imagine a Gorn-faced Gorn ship, a Tzenkethi-faced Tzenkethi ship, a bird-faced Romulan warbird, and a Federation ship meeting in space....

 

[Tim Thomason]

Are there any pictures, anywhere, of what the Litverse Tzenkethi look like? Like a Deviantart thing or otherwise. I mean, I "know" what they look like, but I don't recall seeing anyone attempt to put it to paper.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Imagine a Gorn-faced Gorn ship, a Tzenkethi-faced Tzenkethi ship, a bird-faced Romulan warbird, and a Federation ship meeting in space....

Don't you dare miss out the Ferengi ship

 

[Dukhat]

I always assumed that the Tzenkethi looked like the Kzinti. Weren't the Kzinti who they wanted to use for that episode but weren't able to?

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

I always assumed that the Tzenkethi looked like the Kzinti. Weren't the Kzinti who they wanted to use for that episode but weren't able to?

Pretty sure it was just a coincidentally similar sounding name - wasn’t it Robert Hewitt Wolfe who said he’d envisioned the Tzenkethi as “armored lizard things,” or something like that? A far cry from the feline Kzinti, at least if we don’t count Spot turning into an iguana in Genesis.

You may be thinking of some hypothetical plans of Enterprise’s fifth season, where there was even a concept model of a Kzinti ship made for an appearance in an episode.

 

[Christopher]

Pretty sure it was just a coincidentally similar sounding name - wasn’t it Robert Hewitt Wolfe who said he’d envisioned the Tzenkethi as “armored lizard things,” or something like that?

Yes, that's right. Here's the original thread: http://www.exisle.net/mb/index.php?/topic/42306-ds9-question-for-robert-hewitt-wolfe/#entry932056

 

[Tuskin38]

Pretty sure it was just a coincidentally similar sounding name - wasn’t it Robert Hewitt Wolfe who said he’d envisioned the Tzenkethi as “armored lizard things,” or something like that? A far cry from the feline Kzinti, at least if we don’t count Spot turning into an iguana in Genesis.

You may be thinking of some hypothetical plans of Enterprise’s fifth season, where there was even a concept model of a Kzinti ship made for an appearance in an episode.

Yes, that's right. Here's the original thread: http://www.exisle.net/mb/index.php?/topic/42306-ds9-question-for-robert-hewitt-wolfe/#entry932056

Yeah, that's why STO went that route. Since that was the closest thing to an official description they had.

STO did give their Tzenkethi some bioluminescence as a nod to the book version.

 

[JD]

• It's dissimilar to the ships in the books. I imagine them similar to something out of Flight of the Navigator or SeaQuest, and they'd be cool to see in a fleet shot with other Trek powers.

Of the two you mentioned the Trimaxian Drone Ship from Flight of the Navigator is probably closer to what they look like.
The Disney Wiki has some better pictures of it.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Yeah, that's why STO went that route. Since that was the closest thing to an official description they had.

STO did give their Tzenkethi some bioluminescence as a nod to the book version.

Did they? I never noticed that.

I've never liked the "ROMPYSTOMPYRAAAAAAAAARGH" monster schtick that STO went with for their Tzenkethi. It just felt unimaginative to me.

However, I think they probably figured it was easier to animate those than to try and make the more "ethereal" style Tzenkethi of the novelverse.

 

[Christopher]

I've never liked the "ROMPYSTOMPYRAAAAAAAAARGH" monster schtick that STO went with for their Tzenkethi. It just felt unimaginative to me.

However, I think they probably figured it was easier to animate those than to try and make the more "ethereal" style Tzenkethi of the novelverse.

Also, STO is a combat-oriented game, so that shapes the choices they make in depicting alien species.