Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lambin. This is the Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
Speaker 2: And this is going to be yet another omnibus episode,
Speaker 2: collecting four previous related Monster Fact entries. These are going
Speaker 2: to cover my recent journey into the Star Trek universe,
Speaker 2: so I hope you enjoy these. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 2: kick things off with the Andrians. In this episode, I'd
Speaker 2: like to begin a series on various aliens and creatures
Speaker 2: from the Star Trek universe. Now, first of all, I
Speaker 2: will be the first to admit that I am not
Speaker 2: an expert in Trek lore, but I very fondly remember
Speaker 2: as a kid in the nineties watching reruns of Star
Speaker 2: Trek the Next Generation every weeknight at nine PM. So
Speaker 2: fondly remember a book that I had to special order
Speaker 2: from the local bookstore, Star Trek The Worlds of the Federation,
Speaker 2: written and illustrated by Laura Johnson writing as Shane Johnson.
Speaker 2: This was an encyclopedic collection of alien profiles. Think of
Speaker 2: it as a monster manual. If you will, covering thirty
Speaker 2: two different Federation member alien species, as well as a
Speaker 2: number of neutral and hostile aliens. This was a nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine publication, so it's far from current and is
Speaker 2: not considered part of current Trek canon, and I'm to
Speaker 2: understand some Trek writers took issue with some of the entries. Still,
Speaker 2: it's a book that meant a lot to me as
Speaker 2: a young Treky, and I suspect it meant a lot
Speaker 2: to others from this time period as well, So I'm
Speaker 2: going to go ahead and cite it along with some
Speaker 2: other sources, with the caveat that again, it's not canon
Speaker 2: much in the same way I cited the Dune Encyclopedia
Speaker 2: in some of my Dune related entries. With all of
Speaker 2: that in mind, let's turn to the Andrians. These blueskin,
Speaker 2: white haired, antinny equipped aliens are iconic original series aliens,
Speaker 2: but they were rather exotic for me, as they're virtually
Speaker 2: absent from both Star Trek the Next Generation and Star
Speaker 2: Trek Deep Space nine, which constituted my prime Trek viewing.
Speaker 2: The reasoning for their absence, according to the excellent Memory Alpha,
Speaker 2: was largely twofold. First of all, Trek creator Gene Roddenberry
Speaker 2: preferred that many original series aliens be avoided in favor
Speaker 2: of new ones on the next generation. Secondly, the makeup
Speaker 2: was allegedly difficult to get right and avoid looking silly.
Speaker 2: They overcame these hurdles and subsequent shows, and in the
Speaker 2: current Star Trek Strange New World series, which I'm enjoying
Speaker 2: quite a bit, we encounter an albinos subspecies of Andrians
Speaker 2: known as the Nar, as well as an Andrian Special
Speaker 2: Forces officer, and neither of these aliens looks remotely silly.
Speaker 2: But let's come back to the biology of the Andorians
Speaker 2: of the Federation describes them as a mix of mammalian
Speaker 2: and reptilian features, with both an endoskeleton and a limited exoskeleton,
Speaker 2: and the antennae are described as enhancing otherwise colorblind vision
Speaker 2: with a quote complex matrix of light sensitive cones in
Speaker 2: addition to auditory functions. All of this together would amount
Speaker 2: to an enhanced sense of sight and smell. Fair enough
Speaker 2: obvious sense organs do sense organ things. Antennay interrestrial organisms
Speaker 2: remember very greatly, and depending on the species, may utilize
Speaker 2: senses of touch, air, motion, heat, vibration, smell, or taste,
Speaker 2: But again, the Worlds of the Federation came out in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine before A particular nineteen ninety three episode
Speaker 2: of the Next Generation shed a great deal of canonical
Speaker 2: light on the biology of Star Trek. The episode titled
Speaker 2: The Chase, which I specifically remember from my childhood, revealed
Speaker 2: the reason so many Star Trek alien species are humanoid
Speaker 2: and resemble each other, often with minor alterations to facial
Speaker 2: and cranial features. All of this via a revelation of
Speaker 2: ancient intentional pan spermia via a single advanced progenitor humanoid species.
Speaker 2: In other words, all of these Trek species look similar
Speaker 2: not because they're all humans in makeup, but rather because
Speaker 2: a single ancestor species spread their own DNA among the
Speaker 2: various worlds to see them. I've always found this to
Speaker 2: be a clever way of addressing the seeming lack of
Speaker 2: biological diversity in many of the core Tract civilizations. Now
Speaker 2: you might reasonably wonder, okay, fine, but realistically, would these
Speaker 2: distantly related species still look so similar to each other? Well?
Speaker 2: Susan and Robert Jenkins explore this question in their book
Speaker 2: The Biology of Star Trek, published in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: They point out that based on what we know about evolution,
Speaker 2: it's not at all unreasonable. The evolutionary clock runs slowly,
Speaker 2: they write, and it has a built in bias against
Speaker 2: major overhauls. Because speciation is brought about by multiple random
Speaker 2: changes in DNA, and the changes must allow the organism
Speaker 2: to survive and reproduce, small changes are favored over large ones.
Speaker 2: Small changes are less likely to compromise the tested survivability
Speaker 2: of the original. Given this constraint, two species that start
Speaker 2: out alike remain similar over a rather long time, even
Speaker 2: under different sets of environmental pressures. They add that particular
Speaker 2: environmental pressures would of course have their impact, and a
Speaker 2: trend towards facial symmetry would likely stay in place. They
Speaker 2: go into greater detail in this great book about not
Speaker 2: only the speculative biology of all of this, but also
Speaker 2: the connections between human facial cues and the way we
Speaker 2: imagine the facial features of tracks aliens, and they do
Speaker 2: get around to considering the andorians. They point out that
Speaker 2: while nothing resembling a human with antennae exists in the
Speaker 2: natural world, we of course do have mammalian species with
Speaker 2: enhanced whiskers, and I would point out that we have
Speaker 2: other things like the unique robosis of the star No's
Speaker 2: mole and the twin feelers of the tentacled snake to
Speaker 2: get into the reptile world. For the Andorians, however, they
Speaker 2: propose an interesting notion. Perhaps the Andorian home world contains
Speaker 2: multiple atmospheric variations, and this results in various microclimates, requiring
Speaker 2: enhanced sensation of atmospheric content, temperature, and pressure for any
Speaker 2: species that regularly travels outside of a narrow region or microclimate.
Speaker 2: They even go so far as to discuss how tissues
Speaker 2: in human embryos might develop into antennae under the right
Speaker 2: survival pressures. Quote. Human embryos have several segments called embryonic
Speaker 2: pharyngeal arches in what will become the head and the neck.
Speaker 2: They supply the developing tissue for jaws and some neck organs.
Speaker 2: In fish, However, the pharyngeal arches develop into gills because
Speaker 2: these structures have been adapted for very different purposes. They
Speaker 2: might evolve to provide the organ substrate for the nervous
Speaker 2: tissue in an antenna like organ. More broadly, they point
Speaker 2: out that added sense organs could potentially detect any number
Speaker 2: of factors in a given environment, provided there was an
Speaker 2: evolutionary incentive to do so. Memory Alpha provides little canonical
Speaker 2: data on all of this, as far as I could tell,
Speaker 2: but it does point out that we know that Andrian
Speaker 2: an Kenny can be moved independently via voluntary muscle control,
Speaker 2: that they regenerate if they are injured or blasted off,
Speaker 2: and they also seem to play a role in balance
Speaker 2: and gesticulation and of course therefore communication. I think all
Speaker 2: this is quite reasonable. Now, coming back to Star Trek's
Speaker 2: Strange New Worlds, the Enar character Himmer in that show
Speaker 2: is depicted as having been born sightless, but is more
Speaker 2: than able to make up for his lack of sight
Speaker 2: in part due to his other senses as a member
Speaker 2: of an antennae equipped and Dorian subspecies. All right, Next up,
Speaker 2: The Trouble with Triples not discuss the various creatures of
Speaker 2: the Star Trek universe, without of course considering the tribles
Speaker 2: of Iota geminorum for a world home to an abundance
Speaker 2: of carnivorous reptiles, in addition to the vaguely mammalian Trible,
Speaker 2: which seems to serve as a basic prey species for
Speaker 2: all the space lizards. The Triple is, of course, a
Speaker 2: small furry creature with no discernible limbs or features. Really,
Speaker 2: its only means of defending itself, at least against humanoids,
Speaker 2: is to basically tranquilize the humanoid with a gentle cooing effect.
Speaker 2: The trouble with Tribles, of course, is their incredible rate
Speaker 2: of reproduction. They are even reportedly born already pregnant, and
Speaker 2: can quickly overrun any given ecosystem or starship that they
Speaker 2: are introduced into. In their natural habitat, they eat and
Speaker 2: reproduce as quickly as possible, but their numbers are kept
Speaker 2: in check, presumably by their many voracious predators. But on
Speaker 2: a federation star, yes, this is where the trouble occurs.
Speaker 2: With no predators, plentiful food, and a crew overcome by
Speaker 2: their adorable cuteness, their population very quickly spirals out of control.
Speaker 2: The creatures debuted in a nineteen sixty seven episode of
Speaker 2: the original Star Trek series, but the Grimlins franchise of
Speaker 2: the eighties and nineties treads on similar ground. Adorable fur
Speaker 2: babies that get entirely out of hand due to a
Speaker 2: mix of ineptitude, human vulnerability to cuteness, and a reproductive
Speaker 2: system clearly evolve for different parameters. I've speculated elsewhere that
Speaker 2: maguai might depend on a desert, if not an extraterrestrial
Speaker 2: environment for their biology to make sense and likewise unsuftible
Speaker 2: your mind. We've talked about the role of cuteness, both
Speaker 2: among humans and cuteness between humans and non human animals.
Speaker 2: It is a potent force that manipulates us. For the Triple,
Speaker 2: the stabilizing factor is the severity of its ecosystem. On
Speaker 2: the Triple home world, triples presumably die in vast numbers,
Speaker 2: and their prolific reproduction rate merely allows them to keep up.
Speaker 2: We see variations of this in the natural world here
Speaker 2: on Earth as well. In general, we see the basic
Speaker 2: quality quantity tradeoff. In practice, some organisms err on the
Speaker 2: side of producing few high quality offspring, while others simply
Speaker 2: produce offspring in vast numbers. The predators can't eat all
Speaker 2: of them, and a select few survive to reproduce as adults.
Speaker 2: In sea turtles, for example, somewhere on the order of
Speaker 2: two out of a thousand eggs actually makes it to adulthood,
Speaker 2: surviving the gamut of consumers along the way. We can
Speaker 2: also think of the triple in terms of predator satiation,
Speaker 2: by which prey briefly and periodically occur at such high
Speaker 2: population densities that the predators can't possibly eat them all.
Speaker 2: Periodical cicadas, which many of you will be experiencing yet
Speaker 2: again this year, are an example of this. So it
Speaker 2: would seem possible that might work in a similar manner,
Speaker 2: periodically reproducing in such numbers that they simply overwhelm their
Speaker 2: many reptilian predators. Now, given that tribles are vaguely mammals,
Speaker 2: we might also compare them to such prolific terrestrial warm
Speaker 2: bloods as the European rabbit, infamous for its own rapid
Speaker 2: reproduction rate. According to the Texas Invasive Species Institute, an
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty nine introduction of a mere twenty four European
Speaker 2: rabbits into Australia led to a population of more than
Speaker 2: six hundred million in less than a century. The tribles
Speaker 2: ultimately are a fantastic commentary on what can happen when
Speaker 2: a species is artificially transplanted from one ecosystem into another. Now,
Speaker 2: how long would it take tribles to overrun the starship Enterprise. Well,
Speaker 2: that is a question that you have to throw some
Speaker 2: math at. And in twenty twenty student researchers at the
Speaker 2: University of Leicester made science headlines with a paper in
Speaker 2: the journal Physics Special Topics. Their answer four points five days.
Speaker 2: All right. Next up the Seti Eels. In a rare
Speaker 2: case of synchronicity with the news cycle, which is all
Speaker 2: about brain worms of late, I decided to devote this
Speaker 2: Trek themed episode to the dreaded Seti eels of Seti
Speaker 2: Alpha five. You will, of course remember them from the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two film Star Trek two, The Wrath of Khan,
Speaker 2: in which thowd twentieth century eugenics war tyrant Khan Noonan Singh,
Speaker 2: played by the superb Ricardo Montaban, uses larval Seti eels
Speaker 2: to torture and control two Enterprise crew members in his
Speaker 2: quest for vengeance. We also learned that Seti eels, native
Speaker 2: to the harsh world sing was exiled to by Starfleet,
Speaker 2: killed many of Khan's people, including his wife. The setiworm
Speaker 2: is a burrowing desert creature, but its larva, we're told
Speaker 2: by singh crawl in through the ear canals of host
Speaker 2: creatures to wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex, rendering the
Speaker 2: host organism highly susceptible to suggestion. Madness and death follow
Speaker 2: as the eel grows, unless the eel is removed or
Speaker 2: leaves of its own accord. The latter occurs with First
Speaker 2: Officer Chekhov, though the reason is uncertain. Was it responding
Speaker 2: to danger, had it lost control of its host? Was
Speaker 2: it in fact leaving the host in order to continue
Speaker 2: its life cycle. We don't know any of these answers,
Speaker 2: in part because Captain Kirk instantly vaporizes the escaping eel,
Speaker 2: turning once more to the non canonical Star Trek. The
Speaker 2: Worlds of the Federation, written and illustrated by Laura Johnson
Speaker 2: written as Shane Johnson back in nineteen eighty nine, the
Speaker 2: author largely shares what we already know from the movie.
Speaker 2: Adult Seti eels, one of the few native species to
Speaker 2: survive on the planet, grow to lengths of fourteen inches
Speaker 2: and carry their young in tissue or armor folds on
Speaker 2: their backs until such time as they leave the parent
Speaker 2: for a host organism. In life signs the biology of
Speaker 2: Star Trek. Susan and Robert Jenkins briefly discuss the seti
Speaker 2: eel in context with other neural parasites and symbians of
Speaker 2: the Trek universe, and there are several classifying The possession
Speaker 2: we see with the seti eel is a kind of
Speaker 2: quote co conscious mind control, with the hosts made helpless
Speaker 2: by the superseding power of the parasite. Presumably, the whole
Speaker 2: reason for subduing the host organism is to keep it
Speaker 2: from interfering with the larva's occupation of set organism, and
Speaker 2: we might assume that the seti eel also eats the
Speaker 2: tissue that it presumably burrows through to reach the cerebral cortex.
Speaker 2: The mind control aspect of this fictional parasitic scenario is,
Speaker 2: of course vary, in keeping with numerous example from the
Speaker 2: natural terrestrial world, including various parasitoid wasps, flatworms, hair worms, protozoans, fungi,
Speaker 2: and more. In broad strokes, we see parasites that alter
Speaker 2: host behavior to help complete their own life cycle. This
Speaker 2: may mean mere survival or positioning of the host in
Speaker 2: such a way that a desirable new host will consume
Speaker 2: the current host. Now with the SETI eel. We certainly
Speaker 2: see the former survival, but not so much the latter
Speaker 2: eel controlled humans don't seem to do anything other than
Speaker 2: obey fellow humans, though one could make a case that
Speaker 2: this alone might lead to say, uninfected human being either
Speaker 2: being expelled, which would at least be a choice. You
Speaker 2: can imagine scenarios in which this would put the current
Speaker 2: host organism in a position to, say, be near water,
Speaker 2: or near another organism that it needs to enter, perhaps
Speaker 2: some sort of a predator. Or you could also make
Speaker 2: the argument that well, okay, a human that is so
Speaker 2: easily controlled by fellow humans is going to remain in
Speaker 2: close proximity with humans, and perhaps it just needs to
Speaker 2: enter a new host organism once it's done munching and
Speaker 2: constricting inside that individual skull. Either way, we also have
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that humanoids, and remember in the Trek universe,
Speaker 2: most or all humanoid species are very distantly related to
Speaker 2: each other. Humanoids might not be the desired vector for
Speaker 2: the parasite, and in the world of actual terrestrial parasite studies,
Speaker 2: we do see dangerous results from parasites winding up either
Speaker 2: in the wrong host or the wrong part of the
Speaker 2: right host. Now, I've long found this one of the
Speaker 2: more horrifying aspects of sci fi space horror, and particularly
Speaker 2: sci fi space related body horror, human interactions with hostile
Speaker 2: biology that simply didn't evolve to deal with human beings.
Speaker 2: The xenomorphic threats of the Alien film franchise are great
Speaker 2: examples of this. Of course, on one hand, the creatures
Speaker 2: we see in the films are highly adaptive and make
Speaker 2: use of host DNA in the acquisition of their adult forms.
Speaker 2: They have evolved and or been engineered to make quick
Speaker 2: study and use of new bodies. But the other horrifying
Speaker 2: way to think about it is that here is a
Speaker 2: creature that is truly an alien within the host body.
Speaker 2: It doesn't know what it's doing in there, and much
Speaker 2: like the scene in twenty twelve's Prometheus with the robotic
Speaker 2: surgery pod, this combination of high skill and lower context
Speaker 2: for the target body runs the risk of heading into
Speaker 2: very grizzly territory. Still, we don't have to invoke Alien
Speaker 2: to make the seti eel terrifying. The implantation scene in
Speaker 2: Wrath of Khan remains one of the greatest moments of
Speaker 2: space horror. In a franchise, we don't generally associate with it.
Speaker 2: And finally, we're going to learn about the Horta. In
Speaker 2: today's episode. I'm going to round out this initial batch
Speaker 2: of Star Trek selections, and I'm going to go with
Speaker 2: a listener suggestion from one of our mini gems, the
Speaker 2: Horta of Janus six. As we learn in the original
Speaker 2: Trek episode The Devil in the Dark, the horta is
Speaker 2: a large, subterranean heap shaped organism entirely silicone based rather
Speaker 2: than carbon based. It tunnels through the rock via powerful
Speaker 2: acidic secretions, which it can also use defensively. Exceedingly long lived,
Speaker 2: the entire population of horta dies out every sixty thousand years,
Speaker 2: with the exception of a single mother horta, which tends
Speaker 2: to the spherical eggs that will produce the next generation
Speaker 2: of this amazing species. While the Horta are reclusive and
Speaker 2: ultimately peaceful, they can prove lethal in confrontations, such as
Speaker 2: the one with a Federation mining colony in the Devil
Speaker 2: in the Dark, which ultimately required the intervention of a
Speaker 2: Vulcan mind meld. In the non canonical Star Trek, the
Speaker 2: Worlds of the Federation by Laura Johnson written as Shane
Speaker 2: Johnson from nineteen eighty nine. We learned that the miners
Speaker 2: and Horta would eventually work together on Janus six following
Speaker 2: this reconciliation. Now, I distinctly remember watching this episode of
Speaker 2: the classic Star Trek as a kid, and I remember
Speaker 2: enjoying the alien monster based suspense and its thought provoking
Speaker 2: treatment of interaction between intelligent but radically different alien species,
Speaker 2: and looking back on it now, it certainly has that
Speaker 2: Star Trek optimism that is often lacking in our modern
Speaker 2: sci fi. It's no surprise that this one is often
Speaker 2: held up as one of the best original Star Trek episodes.
Speaker 2: In Life Signs the Biology of Star Trek Susan and
Speaker 2: Robert Jenkins, the authors here discuss the singular nature of
Speaker 2: the Orta in Trek. The Federation was apparently not accustomed
Speaker 2: to the presence of silicon based life, and had therefore
Speaker 2: missed the Horta's presence on Jenus six in their scans.
Speaker 2: Entirely later on in tracks, similar mistakes were made with
Speaker 2: the microbrains of Vlara three and the space born crystalline entity.
Speaker 2: This all underlies a known challenge in astrobiology, we ultimately
Speaker 2: have only one model of life upon which to base
Speaker 2: our observations, and it happens to be earthlife. We're told
Speaker 2: that Janus six never developed carbon based life beyond a
Speaker 2: few spore producing plants as well as some algae, but
Speaker 2: it did boast minerals and heavy metals, and the authors
Speaker 2: stress that while silicon based reactions occur much more slowly
Speaker 2: compared to carbon based reactions, a planet like Janus six might,
Speaker 2: in theory have the minerals to catalyze the chemical reactions
Speaker 2: needed for a silicon based life. Now, in the larger
Speaker 2: realm of science fiction, silicon based organisms are not uncommon.
Speaker 2: The alien Xenomorpho is sometimes described as silicone based, or
Speaker 2: at least partially silicone based, and there are numerous ways
Speaker 2: this is explained to factor in with their carbon based bodies.
Speaker 2: Other examples include the Kaiju of Pacific Rim, the Exogoths
Speaker 2: of Star Wars, and the Easter Island headed Lithodia Rexians
Speaker 2: of Marvel Comics. However, as outlined by Charles Q. Choi
Speaker 2: in the space dot Com article, silicon based life may
Speaker 2: be more than just science fiction from twenty seventeen, various
Speaker 2: experts speculate that silicon based or silicone encompassing life is
Speaker 2: very possible. Silicone and carbon are similar in many ways.
Speaker 2: Silicon is one of the most common elements in the universe,
Speaker 2: and chemist have artificially synthesized organosilicone molecules composed of both
Speaker 2: silicone and carbon, so by some estimations, silicon based life
Speaker 2: of some sort may be out there somewhere, whether we
Speaker 2: know of it or not. Back to Trek, the Jinkins
Speaker 2: stress that the Horta might actually reproduce and reason too
Speaker 2: much like a carbon based organism in this episode of Anything.
Speaker 2: But then again, this is where science and philosophy butt heads.
Speaker 2: Star Trek is ultimately about the hope, if not the reality,
Speaker 2: of making contact, settling differences, and figuring out how to
Speaker 2: move forward, both as an interstellar community within the fiction
Speaker 2: and as a terrestrial species here on Earth in reality.
Speaker 2: As much as I love my various nihilistic sci fi
Speaker 2: visions and various examples of space horror, I feel more
Speaker 2: and more like I need the Star Trek vision in
Speaker 2: my life. As in aside, I'll mention that there's actually
Speaker 2: an underground geographic positioning technology here on Earth. Named after
Speaker 2: the Star Trek Horta. It is, of course, say backronym,
Speaker 2: which stands for Honeywell or Retrieval and Tunneling AID. All right,
Speaker 2: there you have it. I hope you enjoy this, so
Speaker 2: I keep doing these omnibus episodes because it's a better
Speaker 2: way to do like a rerun essentially on a Wednesday.
Speaker 2: And I've also heard from some listeners that they prefer
Speaker 2: to listen to these short form episodes batched together into
Speaker 2: a longer omnibus series. So I'm going to keep doing
Speaker 2: this as long as it remains popular. As long as
Speaker 2: the folks seem to enjoy them, I enjoy putting them together.
Speaker 2: If you have recommendations for other Star Trek creatures you'd
Speaker 2: like for me to cover in a future series of
Speaker 2: Star Trek episodes, or if you have suggestions related to
Speaker 2: other you know franchises, comic books, movies, literary settings of
Speaker 2: folkloric traditions, mythologies, and more, write in I would love
Speaker 2: to hear from you. As always, you can email us
Speaker 2: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuffed Blow your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.