Alien Races on Star Trek

StarfleetCommand74656 · Captain Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 653 Location: On STV

A lot of these aliens are just very simple, I think. They're all named after their planet (romulans, romulus, vulcans, vulcan etc.) they all tend to have a common motive (Klingon warriors, Cardassian Nazis, secretive Romulnas etc...) speak the same language and have the same government.
Compare this to a planet called Earth, inhabited bya speies called humans, with loads of countries and governments, many religious beliefs, and good and bad people. You have some of this with Klingons and Bajorans, but in most cases...

And they all seem to have minmutes, hours and 24-hour days!

Puck · The Texan Joined: 05 Jan 2004 Posts: 5596

For the most part, they are all bipeds too! They also usually tend to have an almost exact same facial structure! That's what gets on my nerves. I realize it would be difficult for the producers to have a triped race on the show or something, but it still gets on my nerves. Of course, I think Enterprise did an ok job with this when they came up with the Xindi race.

Most of all, they all appear to be inferior to humans in some way. Whether it be that they are intolerant in some way, are missing what we find to be an important aspect of culture, or are always the bad-guys. I don't know, but it seems rare that I see a trek civilization that has been culturally superior to humans.

La Forge · **Sat Mar 03, 2007 12:52 pm Re: Alien Races on Star Trek**

Lord Borg · **Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:43 pm**

It really all comes down to budget, as LF said, in the earlier shows non humanoid species were tricky, let alone humanoid species that looked entirely differnt.

Also theres a semi in trek explaination for it

La Forge · **Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:49 pm**

I believe LB might be referring to this.

That is about the ancient humanoids from the TNG episode "The Chase", which give some reasoning behind the similarities between aliens.

lionhead · **Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:39 pm**

I disagree about them all have a common motive. Romulans where the vulcans that didn't accept the new religion after the nuclear war, so there are different religions in other species.

Klingons are split up into different clans, all with their own manners and beliefs. So there are different governments in other species.

The voth are a race that are totally focussed on their doctorine, but the scientist Tova Veer thought very different about his species past. Also you might remember the Reptilian Xindi Dolim and the Primate Xindi Domar, 2 totally different people.

Sure there are similarities seen in all individuals of 1 species, but its the same thing with humans. We just don't see it as we are a member of that species. Curiosity might be it.

cmdrFelix · Ensign, Junior Grade Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 30

You can generalize with humans too. The humans in Star Trek are all viewed by most to be somewhat naive explorers.

Also the lack of a massive detailed history and culture that rivals our own is that it would take so long to make.

jurgitemvaletem · Crewman Joined: 17 Mar 2007 Posts: 4

Consider this if you will,

we as humans have evolved and become the dominate race on Earth. If Star Trek got anything right about what the rest of the galaxy is like and there are indeed other sentient beings relatively neighboring us in the the universe, the it would be completely logical to assume that there course of evolution would be comparatively similar to our own, would it not?

Lord Borg · **Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:12 am**

cmdrFelix has a point about naive explorers. How many times has Earth been attacked now?

As for aliens being similar, in actuallity, it all has to do with budget, and lets face it, early trek didnt always get the budget it deserved. Look at TNG. Most battles, you saw the action from the bridge, then DS9 came along, and a bigger budget for battles was aloted, and you get things like "Operation Return" and "The Battle of DS9" and of course, (But not least!) "The Invasion of Cardassia"

There are several non humanoid species in Star Trek, which got entire episodes. Thanks to advances in technology and budget, Enterprise, for instance, had the Tholas several times (Though, we only 'saw' them once). The Xindi, once race was Instectoid, one race was aquatic. There was a bird like race, that was sadly, extinct. Another interestning race is Species8472, not really humanoid in a sense that we know of it. It's there, you just have to look for it. (Also, many refernces to non humanoid races!)

Sevensquare · Ensign, Junior Grade Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 35

I think most species consider us dumb looking with no prominant forehead features. We have two legs to walk and hands to grasp--big deal. They don't underestimate our mentality though. We are humans with smart minds.

lionhead · **Mon Mar 19, 2007 10:15 am**

lord Borg. Why do you have to ruin such a great debate by go and mention something like "Budget"?

Omok · Lieutenant Joined: 28 Mar 2007 Posts: 170

I think it alos had a bit to do with the point of the respective story lines. The goal of any show/movie is to entertain, not necessarily educate someone on the Xenology of a given character.

The aspects of culture, language and politics were mainly used for telling a story, not the fanciful imagery of day dreams.

StarfleetCommand74656 · Captain Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 653 Location: On STV

It creates anothe rproblem.
Like in workforce, when Janeway says to Chakotay "we're the same species" He could have been Capellan, Eminian, Vendikan, from Angel One or any of the TOS/TNG totallyhuman-looking races

Founder · **Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:48 pm**

I agree that Star Trek is severly lacking when it comes to the alien department. Star Wars, which admittedly had a bigger budget, has much cooler aliens. Hell, Babylon 5, which has a sevrely lower budget then Trek, had more interesting looking aliens. While TNG did explain it, that doesn't mean it's not dissapointing. That seemed to be the writers way of getting out of making cool looking aliens.

That's probably one of the biggest reasons I love the Dominion. The changelings are completely alien. The Jem'Hadar and Vorta, while humanoid, are really interesting races.

Also, it's true that they make way too many alien species identical to each other. Even if the Klingons have different houses, all of them still love honor and war and blah blah blah. Yes, you may point out one or two examples, but that's still unrealistic. Same for the Ferengi and their greed, Romulans and their shadowy duplicitness, Vulcans and their lack of emotions, etc. Granted, you can simply write it off as "Well, the unified world governments had a standard for the alien species and the majority of them follow it."

True....but still really bland and boring at times.

Another good point was made above my current post. A lot of the times, we've seen MANY alien "humans". Yet, in some episodes, the Starfleet crew encounters a Human and are like "This is incredible! A human all the way here!!!" No...it could just be one of those many other Human aliens...

Omok · Lieutenant Joined: 28 Mar 2007 Posts: 170

lionhead · **Sat Apr 14, 2007 3:06 pm**

Lord Borg · **Sat Apr 14, 2007 3:44 pm**

Not to mention I doubt he'd say that if he wasn't human....also add to the fact it was established he was human?

StarfleetCommand74656 · Captain Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 653 Location: On STV

Lord Borg · **Mon Apr 16, 2007 3:44 pm**

It depends on the species, yes, look at Vulcans for instance, they 'look' human, but their heart is whre our liver is, and beats several hundred times a minute. Klingons, might 'look' human somtimes, but they have three lungs etc.... so while there is often not much external differnce, there is internal differnces mentioned.

Founder · **Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:21 am**

Lord Borg · **Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:24 am**

Yeah...though, the real life explaination? Many episodes, they were lucky to get a minimum budget to make the episode period (Especialy TOS), so making strange and freaky aliens is...hard

. Though, we've got Q, Orgainians, Tholians....

Founder · **Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:58 am**

Yeah, but as I pointed out earlier, Babylon 5 had a MUCH lower budget then Trek, yet have some of the freakiest things you'll ever see.

Also? I'm not arguing this case for TOS. I understand why it was all Humans back then.

Lord Borg · **Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:04 am**

Well, it was a phase that stuck with the future writers and producers, why we haven't seen them all the time, I dont know, I suppose it has to do with the fact of hiring the guest actors and having them on screen? Pupetiring and what not can be hard, and CG would be to expensive to do often (Hence the Tholians being seen once). Perhaps we should ask the Trek writers

JupiterPrime · Lieutenant Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 208

I do have to say (with regard to the Babylon 5 budget) and with the exception of the Ferengi and the Klingons, Babylon 5 did a rather excellent job makings its aliens look like aliens and a much better job than Trek did in many cases.

A lot of Trek aliens have simply just a minor physical distinction that most times, looks painfully obvious, and some things that were a little contradictory. If the Vorta were all clones, then why bother with different versions of them - why not just the same one? and the same for the Jem'Hadar? If they were an engineered race, and any one can hold any ranking, why the need for more than one template?

I understand that logistically it had to be done so that actual actors could be used and not have to CGI an army of soldiers and so that people wouldnt get confused with which Vorta is which, but if that is the case, then maybe they shouldnt have gone with the cloning route. Story-wise it makes sense and simplifies many things, but that falls apart as the basis for a civilization without using the logic behind to carry it forward.

Now....Trek is much more diverse than B5 is and B5 which is a closed story, could afford to do a better job with the very few races that encompass its story, but you'd think with the vast resources that Trek has, they could have doen something to have some more believable aliens than a few pieces of rubber or plastic.

Although I must agree that better attention was given to this issue as the series went forward with VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE

Lord Borg · **Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:34 pm**

Yeah, it's not always budget either, it's also a factor of time and that sort of thing, when your making a new species for almost every episode, theres a definitee time factor involved (Along with budget). Somone mentioned that B5 isnt as diverse, is that true? Not as many aliens? That's also another factor. However, VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE did do some things right, while still humanoid, several species in those series were not so...'human'.