I thought I'd start a thread off for discussing the many alien races on the various Trek incarnations-- how they've been portrayed, how they've evolved (in looks and behavior), and how you feel they fit into the show (or don't, as the case may be).

Specifically, alien elements such as:

Cultural quirks that define entire races: Star Trek has sometimes been accused of creating aliens that have one (or sometimes two) defining characteristic(s)-- characteristics that can become stereotypes. Take for example the Ferengi obsession with profit and their misogynistic attitude towards women. Or the Klingon ideals of honor and glorious combat. Do you feel that having one or two overwhelmingly defining characteristics for a given alien race is too broad and too shallow, and make the species less alien-seeming than it could be? Or do they work out all right, within the context of Trek?

Alien make-up, specifically the infamous 'forehead' or 'ear' aliens: There seems to be an awful lot of species that have hair, just like a human would have, especially if that species has a pretty woman character on the show. ;) When I watch DS9, and see a forehead-alien of the week (especially in the first few seasons), I can't help but wish that some of the more weird and wild alien designs that we see as 'local color' in Quark's bar were brought out into the light for an episode or two. I like strange makeup jobs in my science-fiction, and a forehead alien just doesn't capture my interest as much.

Case in point: the first-season ep of DS9 where Odo accompanies a prisoner to the Gamma Quadrant in hopes of finding out about his origins. It was a great episode, and very well acted by everyone involved, and I'll even admit that the prisoner did turn out to be a pretty interesting character after all, but he was a forehead alien, and it took me most of the episode to even begin to overlook that.

Why are so many forehead aliens used? Watching some of the DVD extras, I rather get the feeling that it can be because a pretty actress is being used, and they don't want to 'uglify' her face. So, a simple forehead or ear prosthetic is used. Perhaps it could be for budget reasons, as well. I'd like to hope that Enterprise used less forehead or ear aliens, but as I've only seen one episode of that show I can't say with any certainty.

And lastly, comparisions with other aliens on other science-fiction shows. This might be a bit unfair, but I can't help but compare what aliens I've seen on DS9 (the Trek show I'm most familiar with) with the aliens I've seen on Babylon 5 and Farscape. Somehow, the Minbari and Narn just come off as more alien in looks and mannerisms than the extraterrestrials of DS9. Kira Nerys is a wonderful character, and very well portrayed, but she's a lousy alien. In my opinion, too many Trek aliens are just humans with forehead bumps or strange shapes on their ears. They act like humans, and dress pretty much like humans. Variation of eye colors with aliens would be nice, as well. It was the red contact lenses that really sold B5's Narn makeup to me, and I loved seeing similar lenses on the Lethean from season three of DS9.

Having one or two defining characteristics in an alien species is horribly limiting dramatically, not to mention somewhat racist (though since it's all about a "built" universe, I'm not going to worry about it, since how someone writes for a non-existant alien species may not have anything to do with how they would deal with other races IRL).

I think the primary problem with it, though, stems largely from audience expectations. Leonard Nimoy and Mark Lenard had so firmly embodied everyone's notions of what a Vulcan should look like and act like that anything that deviated from their paradigm was deemed either poor acting or a creative misstep. I remember when the cast for VOY was first announced, a disturbingly large number of Trek fans I knew (this was before the Internet made its presence known in my life) were up in arms over the notion of a black Vulcan, not because they were necessarily racist but because the notion of a Vulcan that didn't look like Nimoy or Lenard was very hard to accept.

As for why Trek relies so much on "forehead" aliens, that's both a budgetary and a dramatic concern. Yes, the aliens in the background of Quark's Bar look cool for the few seconds they flit across the screen, but they probably have very little articulation, largely because the designers know that they're not going to be onscreen very long. If any real amount of time was spent on them, you'd find that they can't do anything, and in order to overcome that handicap and make the characters work dramatically, you'd either need to create methods of mechanical articulation or use CGI, both of which were financially prohibitive for TV when TNG and early DS9 defined the "look" of Trek. As CGI began to creep in more and more into production, it might have been possible to create more "alien" aliens, but by that time Trek had defined its universe by the humanoid aliens that inhabited it, and to suddenly start throwing in non-humanoids might have violated the "feel" of the galaxy.

Sometimes they'll simply jettison the prosthetic and go for the dots (see Dax, Jadzia).

I'm with Harrison on the whole 'built universe' thing. While TNG's "The Chase" addressed it specifically, there were hints of it in TOS dialogue (Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planet Development - "Bread and Circuses" I think).

Besides, whenever Enterprise tried to revisit TOS aliens with updated 'looks' it has pretty much been a distraction (Tholians, Gorn, turtleheaded Klingons).

Personally, I'm usually more taken out of the illusion by recent attempts at really alien species (I'm looking mostly at you, Stargate).

What usually disturbs me about Star Trek aliens, particularly in the later incarnations was the lack of aliens that would really scarify you. I guess that's to keep the kiddies from having nightmares. But when I saw the Alien movie series that came to become a great part of what in my mind was what space travel and alien contact was really about.

For every humanoid looking alien bidding you to live long and prosper, there is another alien looking to gestate in your chest and burst out.

Part of the reason that aliens get stereotyped is that on the travelling spaceship shows, we'd only see one or two aliens for a short time. On Deep Space 9, where we get to spend more time with some of the aliens, it's easier to see them as individuals.

At any rate, the Federation gets stereotyped too. They're so bubbly, and cloy, and happy.

Just like root beer!

I wrote that and then later that night I thought about "Balok".

I remember when my mother used to watch "Star Trek", I was really too young to take it in, but I remember the end credits would roll and the theme which seemed kind of eerie would play. Right before the end credits would finish, there would be a still of "Balok" and it would scare me.

To this day, I find it hard to watch the end credits or TOS.

It is sadly very true that no aliens in the 24th century offer the willies-inducing terror of some of the 23rd centuries creepies (I'm looking at you, morphing salt sucker!). The Borg came closest, and I still think Q Who is a high point for "suspense" in Trek, but they were so badly neutered in the ensuing years that they hardly count anymore.

Unfortunately, scary aliens are just one aspect of TOS that is no longer in synch with the ephemeral "spirit" of Trek. The brilliant social commentary is almost non-existant in the 24th century, and most of what did happen in the later series was almost accidental. After the hamfisted dogma of the first two seasons of TNG it was like they decided to just stop trying, which was probably for the best, because gems like "The Measure of a Man" hardly eased the pain of dreck like "Justice". It was about that time that Trek seemed to simply become a "strange alien/techno-mystery" of the week, and that seems to be the defining characteristic all the way through Enterprise (DS9 excepted, but it, and TOS, are not the means by which Trek is largely defined anymore).

Hold the phone. Harrison, you like a Data-centric episode? You? Are you sure you aren't an alien posing as Harrison?

I never really noticed the alien races on Trek. It wasn't such a big deal to me. I was really more interested in the crew. I guess that's kinda racist of me? But, for me, the fiction part always won out over the science part. Aliens were just characters to me, and I really didn't care whether they scared or looked or acted different enough. I was more interested in the story.

I've never denied that I loved "The Measure of a Man". My problem was that that was the last time Data's character arc was treated well and wasn't just "Data doesn't get the joke, embarasses himself and others" or "See! Spiner! Act!".

My feeling is that there are a lot of cheap non-CGI options for alien makeup.

Bodypaint's a big one. I was holiday shopping the other day in the toy store and my brother picked up a fairy-themed Barbie and said, "Most alien Star Trek Alien Babe evah!" and sadly he could have been right. 'Cause she had bodypaint and glitter and wings.

Scales/contacts like X-Men's Mystique could be interesting. Yes, Cardassians were kind of serpentine but they didn't really look reptilian.

Even Andromeda's aliens (Trance and the Magogs, which sounds like a rock band in my head now...) looked at least not-just-bumpy-headed, and the Magog were actively creepy.

Contacts got so much cheaper between TNG and ENT that I wonder why they didn't use them more. And in better colors: Troi's eyes were so understated I don't know why they bothered.

Ahhh...

The Magog. Good times....

I can't help being as geeky as I am.

The whole nasal cavity giant-bat thing freaked me out. The nose, it isn't there! Aaargh!

I'm always wigged by the handful that would gestate in your gut.

I was always impressed by the poison they would spray from their mouthes though. And there was that fiiiiine line that Rev. Bem walked. You never knew whether he was joking about consuming you or was actually giving it some thought.

While Rev. Bem was a representative for the Magog in a small sense, he was an anomaly. The rest of the Magog saw others as food or a place to hatch their young. No neutering them at all.

There is a small explanation why so many of the aliens in Star Trek look like humans in a bit of make-up, the dna of a lot of races were altered by that one alien race several thousand years ago so that everyone would bear a strong esemblance to them.

That said, I too would like the designers to put a little more effort into making the various races look different. Humans are great but who watches a Sci-Fi show for the humans?

ITA. I've long been bothered by the fact that there aren't more aliens in Starfleet, or in the casts of the shows. It got better as time went on, so that by the time of Voyager the cast was majority non-human. But even on Voyager, it seemed like all the aliens on the ship were in the main cast, and whenever they'd have a low ranking ensign or something he or she was usually human. Lame. (Of course, when talking about lame trends on Star Trek, DS9 is the exception to every rule)

I hope I never, ever see an alien on Battlestar Galactica. Or the rumored Firefly miniseries.

I don't care if the cast is human or alien on Star Trek, or what the percentages are... I just want Trek to be entertaining again.

Good luck with that.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm still bitter. Can you tell the spirit of the season has permeated through every pore of my being?

I was just remarking to myself, "Man, tothemax is really taking this whole Christmas spirit thing too damn far." Might wanna cynic that up a bit, there.

I really think that the level of aliens-to-humans in the 24th century Treks is fine overall. But I'm not one who likes it when producers do weird stuff just to do weird stuff. If an alien ambassador's need to live in a hot mud bath helps establish the dramatic urgency of Picard mind-melding with Sarek, I'm fine with it, but I don't think any two-line junior officer needs to be anything unusual just to have something unusual.

The low ranking aliens don't have to be weird just not human. Starfleet is supposed to be a multispecies organization but seems to be 90% human.
If the writers want us to believe their "there is no racism etc in the Federation" then show us don't just tell us. If an alien looks human (ie the "bumpy alien" syndrome) that is acceptable due to budget issues. If there is only 1 alien in every show that is just being lazy.

We've only really seen a small part of the Federation: the Enterprise and Voyager ships, and the DS9 station. There may be ships chock full of aliens. Also, not all aliens have bumpy skin or different pigments. Some aliens may actually look...well...human, without any modification. Heck, Deanna and Lwuxanna Troi were Betazoid and all they needed were dark contacts.

This is probably from fanon, but I thought I'd heard that Starfleet's policy was that the bulk of the ships had an 80% one race, 20% other races crew mix. So there'd be a ship with 80% Andorians, with a mix of humans, Tellarites and others, or a ship of predominantly Bolians, and so on and so forth.

It would make sense that they would keep the races on different ships. Andorians and Vulcans would hate being on the same ship because of the temperature issue.
Also I would have loved to see a human on board a mainly alien ship.
But if that is true they should actually mention it. Like a lot of logic problems in ST if they would just think it through and tell us it wouldn't be an issue.

I know that in TOS, they mentioned an all-Vulcan ship. Someone more knowledgeable than me will probably be able to give you the exact episode.

The Intrepid, which was eaten by the giant space amoeba in the episode, "The Immunity Syndrome".

And my geekdom is complete... :)

The budget reason doesn't really fly for why there are no background aliens on Voyager. DS9 had plenty to suit me, and they were made at the same time for probably comparable budgets (if anything, Voyager's would be more because it was on a network.) Think of all those freaky alien extras in Quark's or on the Promenade. Just slap a Starfleet uniform on them, and have one of them be Tom Paris's relief on the bridge. Bam. You have more diversity.

There was also the all-Vulcan T'Kumbra, in DS9's "Take Me Out to the Holosuite".

Yeah, that too. I'm thinking that for the sake of efficiency, Starfleet probably assigns crews mostly of one species to various ships, with a sprinkling of other races to add diversity and proper representation. So you'd have an all-Vulcan ship with a couple of human/Trill/Tellarite officers, a Betazoid ship with the same, and (what we've seen), human ships with a scattering of "alien" races.

Wasn't Voyager supposedly half Maquis, though? That would mess up their carefully organized (but not at all *gasp* racist!) quota system, you would think. There could have been more non-human background guys. Bajorans don't even have expensive makeup.

No, the crew was a mixture of Starfleet and Maquis but the Maquis ship was much smaller than Voyager and therefore had a much smaller crew. I'd say there were about 20 Maquis on Voyager and maybe 40-50 Starfleet personell to begin with (add in the crew losses from thier encounter with the Caretaker which opened up posistions for the Maquis crew).

According to the article at StarTrek.com, the Intrepid-class light cruisers have a standard crew complement of between 150 and 200, and Chakotay said in one episode that he didn't think the ship could run with less than 100 people onboard, so I think we'll have to revise the Starfleet numbers, at least, upward. I'd say, at a guess, that after the Caretaker incident, Voyager was probably left with about 90 or so of her original crew, and probably about 30-50 Maquis that had been captured by the Caretaker over time. Now, the Maquis seem to be overwhelmingly human, with a few Vulcans scattered here and there (and you'd think the cause would draw a number of Andorians and Tellarites, but it looks like you'd be wrong), so the minority non-human crew of Voyager would be further marginalized by all the newcomers...

That is why there should be more alien crewmembers. We can fanwank it and talk about different races getting different ships due to physiological (sorry if that is spelled wrong) reasons. But the old rule of a t.v. show is that if we don't see it then it doesn't exist

Tellarites like war and stuff? I need to read more novels.

They probably didn't have any Bajorans because the Second Directive is "Screw DS9"

BWAH! As it happens, Seska was a (fake) Bajoran, and I got the sense that Bajorans would be over-represented in the Maquis. There was also a Bolian Maquis.

I remember one novel where the Andorian and Tellarite navies were ready to go to war with each other, with only Sulu commanding the Enterprise (in Kirk's absence) standing between them. "The Andorians scream for vengeance!" yells the Andorian commander. "I don't care if you all scream for ice cream," answers Sulu. (I'm just imagining Takei's deadpan voice saying that, and loving it.)

They make up by the end- I think the Romulans were egging them on or something.

Besides, the Maquis were mostly human and Bajoran, with the odd Vulcan thrown into the mix. And one half-Klingon. My guess is that most of the colonies around the Badlands were human and Bajoran ones. Bajorans make special sense in this case, considering the location.

I don't think there were a great deal of Bajorans in those colony so much as there were militant-type Bajorans out there that just didn't want to stop killing Cardassians.

I thought that Species 8472 was pretty scary at first. And the salt monster was scary, but also a hoot!

I always understood that the Ferengi were supposed to be an atavistic race that embodied many of our characteristics. Ferengis-R-Us!

There was a post a while back that asked why the various aliens from Quark's bar couldn't be "promoted" to a speaking role because those particular alien costumes were always a little bit more elborate. I recall one ancedote I read somewhere that the one alien that had the running-joke on Quark (always speaking or having events off-camera) was developed precisely because the costume's mouth couldn't move much. They clearly could have dubbed in the lines, but the problem was with the costume which was why it became a running joke. I'd name the character but I've completely forgotten what it's name was.

That would be Morn. And I've never heard that story, but that sounds reasonable to me.

I've heard it, but with the addition (here, I think) that makeup eventually advanced to the point where he could talk, but the gag was established by then.

It's not the bumpy forehead stuff that makes the Trek aliens seem so unalienlike to me, it's the way they're so easy to interact with. They dress virtually the same, they talk the same language (or may as well do thanks to the UT), the vast majority have similar ideas regarding relationships, eating, friendships, recreation etc... You get the feeling that if you were plunged headfirst into their culture and societies that to some extent you could fumble your way through it, or at least understand the thinking.

Aliens on Farscape for example, were a different matter. They may have spoken the same language again, but some of the things they did were downright bizarre. Even the Sebaceans who to all intents and purposes were human seemed more alien than the Bajorans.

Nevermind.

I have to say on the topic of alien races, that I find the Cardassians at least fairly well developed. They were shown as a reptilian (reptiloid?) species, what with the whole 'dislike cold, loves a warm sauna rock', scales and general behaviour. I've found them really interesting in DS9 (which could of course be much thanks to the skill of Andrew Robinson and Marc Alaimo). It's also one of the more alien looking species I find rather attractive, looks-wise. To me, they don't just look like 'oh, look at this weird alien with bumps here and there' - I can actually understand where the bumps come from.

I have to agree with that Emmchen82. I remember the first time I saw the TNG episode that started it all 'The Wounded' and even from that much, I could believe that we were dealing with a very different people with a different way of looking at things, yes, they may have been soldiers and yes, they may have been family men too, as the memorable scene between the Cardassian and O'Brien in Ten Forward underlines, but that sameness also underlined the difference. Easily one of the best introductions any species ever got on Star Trek, you could tell why they thought them worth developing.

Oddly enough though, I wish they'd done something with the whole Klingon/Viking thing, since they are basically the same thing but one has space-ships and the other has long-boats and come from very different time periods, especially considering the B'Elanna of the House of Prabsa vs Annika Magnusdottir battles to come.