WEBVTT - The Monstrefact Omnibus: Star Trek

0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:07.240
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.880
<v Speaker 2>Hi, my name is Robert Lambin. This is the Monster Fact,

0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.200
<v Speaker 2>a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.320
<v Speaker 2>focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.

0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.720
<v Speaker 2>And this is going to be yet another omnibus episode,

0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:26.960
<v Speaker 2>collecting four previous related Monster Fact entries. These are going

0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:31.240
<v Speaker 2>to cover my recent journey into the Star Trek universe,

0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.800
<v Speaker 2>so I hope you enjoy these. Let's go ahead and

0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:41.200
<v Speaker 2>kick things off with the Andrians. In this episode, I'd

0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.400
<v Speaker 2>like to begin a series on various aliens and creatures

0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.800
<v Speaker 2>from the Star Trek universe. Now, first of all, I

0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:49.600
<v Speaker 2>will be the first to admit that I am not

0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.199
<v Speaker 2>an expert in Trek lore, but I very fondly remember

0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.120
<v Speaker 2>as a kid in the nineties watching reruns of Star

0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:00.160
<v Speaker 2>Trek the Next Generation every weeknight at nine PM. So

0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.960
<v Speaker 2>fondly remember a book that I had to special order

0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.520
<v Speaker 2>from the local bookstore, Star Trek The Worlds of the Federation,

0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:11.759
<v Speaker 2>written and illustrated by Laura Johnson writing as Shane Johnson.

0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:16.840
<v Speaker 2>This was an encyclopedic collection of alien profiles. Think of

0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.120
<v Speaker 2>it as a monster manual. If you will, covering thirty

0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.480
<v Speaker 2>two different Federation member alien species, as well as a

0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:26.280
<v Speaker 2>number of neutral and hostile aliens. This was a nineteen

0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:29.440
<v Speaker 2>eighty nine publication, so it's far from current and is

0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.760
<v Speaker 2>not considered part of current Trek canon, and I'm to

0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:37.000
<v Speaker 2>understand some Trek writers took issue with some of the entries. Still,

0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:38.480
<v Speaker 2>it's a book that meant a lot to me as

0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.000
<v Speaker 2>a young Treky, and I suspect it meant a lot

0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:42.960
<v Speaker 2>to others from this time period as well, So I'm

0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:44.880
<v Speaker 2>going to go ahead and cite it along with some

0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.560
<v Speaker 2>other sources, with the caveat that again, it's not canon

0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.640
<v Speaker 2>much in the same way I cited the Dune Encyclopedia

0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.200
<v Speaker 2>in some of my Dune related entries. With all of

0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:59.880
<v Speaker 2>that in mind, let's turn to the Andrians. These blueskin,

0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:05.800
<v Speaker 2>white haired, antinny equipped aliens are iconic original series aliens,

0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.480
<v Speaker 2>but they were rather exotic for me, as they're virtually

0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.000
<v Speaker 2>absent from both Star Trek the Next Generation and Star

0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.680
<v Speaker 2>Trek Deep Space nine, which constituted my prime Trek viewing.

0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.560
<v Speaker 2>The reasoning for their absence, according to the excellent Memory Alpha,

0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:25.040
<v Speaker 2>was largely twofold. First of all, Trek creator Gene Roddenberry

0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.720
<v Speaker 2>preferred that many original series aliens be avoided in favor

0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:33.000
<v Speaker 2>of new ones on the next generation. Secondly, the makeup

0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:37.200
<v Speaker 2>was allegedly difficult to get right and avoid looking silly.

0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.400
<v Speaker 2>They overcame these hurdles and subsequent shows, and in the

0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.520
<v Speaker 2>current Star Trek Strange New World series, which I'm enjoying

0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:48.120
<v Speaker 2>quite a bit, we encounter an albinos subspecies of Andrians

0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.400
<v Speaker 2>known as the Nar, as well as an Andrian Special

0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:55.400
<v Speaker 2>Forces officer, and neither of these aliens looks remotely silly.

0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.040
<v Speaker 2>But let's come back to the biology of the Andorians

0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.040
<v Speaker 2>of the Federation describes them as a mix of mammalian

0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:07.280
<v Speaker 2>and reptilian features, with both an endoskeleton and a limited exoskeleton,

0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.400
<v Speaker 2>and the antennae are described as enhancing otherwise colorblind vision

0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:15.080
<v Speaker 2>with a quote complex matrix of light sensitive cones in

0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.639
<v Speaker 2>addition to auditory functions. All of this together would amount

0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.640
<v Speaker 2>to an enhanced sense of sight and smell. Fair enough

0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:27.000
<v Speaker 2>obvious sense organs do sense organ things. Antennay interrestrial organisms

0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.119
<v Speaker 2>remember very greatly, and depending on the species, may utilize

0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:35.840
<v Speaker 2>senses of touch, air, motion, heat, vibration, smell, or taste,

0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.640
<v Speaker 2>But again, the Worlds of the Federation came out in

0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.600
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty nine before A particular nineteen ninety three episode

0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.760
<v Speaker 2>of the Next Generation shed a great deal of canonical

0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.520
<v Speaker 2>light on the biology of Star Trek. The episode titled

0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:53.400
<v Speaker 2>The Chase, which I specifically remember from my childhood, revealed

0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.160
<v Speaker 2>the reason so many Star Trek alien species are humanoid

0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.960
<v Speaker 2>and resemble each other, often with minor alterations to facial

0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:05.000
<v Speaker 2>and cranial features. All of this via a revelation of

0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:11.160
<v Speaker 2>ancient intentional pan spermia via a single advanced progenitor humanoid species.

0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.240
<v Speaker 2>In other words, all of these Trek species look similar

0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.080
<v Speaker 2>not because they're all humans in makeup, but rather because

0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.120
<v Speaker 2>a single ancestor species spread their own DNA among the

0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.839
<v Speaker 2>various worlds to see them. I've always found this to

0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.159
<v Speaker 2>be a clever way of addressing the seeming lack of

0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:32.560
<v Speaker 2>biological diversity in many of the core Tract civilizations. Now

0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:37.880
<v Speaker 2>you might reasonably wonder, okay, fine, but realistically, would these

0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:42.120
<v Speaker 2>distantly related species still look so similar to each other? Well?

0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.440
<v Speaker 2>Susan and Robert Jenkins explore this question in their book

0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.400
<v Speaker 2>The Biology of Star Trek, published in nineteen ninety eight.

0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.560
<v Speaker 2>They point out that based on what we know about evolution,

0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.760
<v Speaker 2>it's not at all unreasonable. The evolutionary clock runs slowly,

0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.800
<v Speaker 2>they write, and it has a built in bias against

0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:03.279
<v Speaker 2>major overhauls. Because speciation is brought about by multiple random

0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.200
<v Speaker 2>changes in DNA, and the changes must allow the organism

0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.200
<v Speaker 2>to survive and reproduce, small changes are favored over large ones.

0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.160
<v Speaker 2>Small changes are less likely to compromise the tested survivability

0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.599
<v Speaker 2>of the original. Given this constraint, two species that start

0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.799
<v Speaker 2>out alike remain similar over a rather long time, even

0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:26.440
<v Speaker 2>under different sets of environmental pressures. They add that particular

0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.080
<v Speaker 2>environmental pressures would of course have their impact, and a

0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.840
<v Speaker 2>trend towards facial symmetry would likely stay in place. They

0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.080
<v Speaker 2>go into greater detail in this great book about not

0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.760
<v Speaker 2>only the speculative biology of all of this, but also

0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.280
<v Speaker 2>the connections between human facial cues and the way we

0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.160
<v Speaker 2>imagine the facial features of tracks aliens, and they do

0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.960
<v Speaker 2>get around to considering the andorians. They point out that

0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.680
<v Speaker 2>while nothing resembling a human with antennae exists in the

0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.760
<v Speaker 2>natural world, we of course do have mammalian species with

0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.720
<v Speaker 2>enhanced whiskers, and I would point out that we have

0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.400
<v Speaker 2>other things like the unique robosis of the star No's

0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.120
<v Speaker 2>mole and the twin feelers of the tentacled snake to

0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.360
<v Speaker 2>get into the reptile world. For the Andorians, however, they

0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.880
<v Speaker 2>propose an interesting notion. Perhaps the Andorian home world contains

0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:17.359
<v Speaker 2>multiple atmospheric variations, and this results in various microclimates, requiring

0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:22.200
<v Speaker 2>enhanced sensation of atmospheric content, temperature, and pressure for any

0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:27.320
<v Speaker 2>species that regularly travels outside of a narrow region or microclimate.

0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.160
<v Speaker 2>They even go so far as to discuss how tissues

0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:34.159
<v Speaker 2>in human embryos might develop into antennae under the right

0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:38.839
<v Speaker 2>survival pressures. Quote. Human embryos have several segments called embryonic

0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.200
<v Speaker 2>pharyngeal arches in what will become the head and the neck.

0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.360
<v Speaker 2>They supply the developing tissue for jaws and some neck organs.

0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.760
<v Speaker 2>In fish, However, the pharyngeal arches develop into gills because

0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.000
<v Speaker 2>these structures have been adapted for very different purposes. They

0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.760
<v Speaker 2>might evolve to provide the organ substrate for the nervous

0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:01.320
<v Speaker 2>tissue in an antenna like organ. More broadly, they point

0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.599
<v Speaker 2>out that added sense organs could potentially detect any number

0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.279
<v Speaker 2>of factors in a given environment, provided there was an

0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:11.880
<v Speaker 2>evolutionary incentive to do so. Memory Alpha provides little canonical

0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:13.760
<v Speaker 2>data on all of this, as far as I could tell,

0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:16.920
<v Speaker 2>but it does point out that we know that Andrian

0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.760
<v Speaker 2>an Kenny can be moved independently via voluntary muscle control,

0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:25.080
<v Speaker 2>that they regenerate if they are injured or blasted off,

0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.360
<v Speaker 2>and they also seem to play a role in balance

0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.960
<v Speaker 2>and gesticulation and of course therefore communication. I think all

0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.040
<v Speaker 2>this is quite reasonable. Now, coming back to Star Trek's

0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.679
<v Speaker 2>Strange New Worlds, the Enar character Himmer in that show

0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.920
<v Speaker 2>is depicted as having been born sightless, but is more

0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.120
<v Speaker 2>than able to make up for his lack of sight

0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.480
<v Speaker 2>in part due to his other senses as a member

0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:54.600
<v Speaker 2>of an antennae equipped and Dorian subspecies. All right, Next up,

0:07:55.240 --> 0:08:01.640
<v Speaker 2>The Trouble with Triples not discuss the various creatures of

0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.760
<v Speaker 2>the Star Trek universe, without of course considering the tribles

0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:09.760
<v Speaker 2>of Iota geminorum for a world home to an abundance

0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:14.440
<v Speaker 2>of carnivorous reptiles, in addition to the vaguely mammalian Trible,

0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:18.120
<v Speaker 2>which seems to serve as a basic prey species for

0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.320
<v Speaker 2>all the space lizards. The Triple is, of course, a

0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:25.040
<v Speaker 2>small furry creature with no discernible limbs or features. Really,

0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.600
<v Speaker 2>its only means of defending itself, at least against humanoids,

0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:34.160
<v Speaker 2>is to basically tranquilize the humanoid with a gentle cooing effect.

0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.560
<v Speaker 2>The trouble with Tribles, of course, is their incredible rate

0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:43.240
<v Speaker 2>of reproduction. They are even reportedly born already pregnant, and

0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:48.440
<v Speaker 2>can quickly overrun any given ecosystem or starship that they

0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.520
<v Speaker 2>are introduced into. In their natural habitat, they eat and

0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.440
<v Speaker 2>reproduce as quickly as possible, but their numbers are kept

0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.120
<v Speaker 2>in check, presumably by their many voracious predators. But on

0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.520
<v Speaker 2>a federation star, yes, this is where the trouble occurs.

0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.600
<v Speaker 2>With no predators, plentiful food, and a crew overcome by

0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:11.640
<v Speaker 2>their adorable cuteness, their population very quickly spirals out of control.

0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.120
<v Speaker 2>The creatures debuted in a nineteen sixty seven episode of

0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.200
<v Speaker 2>the original Star Trek series, but the Grimlins franchise of

0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:22.000
<v Speaker 2>the eighties and nineties treads on similar ground. Adorable fur

0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.280
<v Speaker 2>babies that get entirely out of hand due to a

0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:28.920
<v Speaker 2>mix of ineptitude, human vulnerability to cuteness, and a reproductive

0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:33.640
<v Speaker 2>system clearly evolve for different parameters. I've speculated elsewhere that

0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.600
<v Speaker 2>maguai might depend on a desert, if not an extraterrestrial

0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:42.760
<v Speaker 2>environment for their biology to make sense and likewise unsuftible

0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.280
<v Speaker 2>your mind. We've talked about the role of cuteness, both

0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.960
<v Speaker 2>among humans and cuteness between humans and non human animals.

0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:55.440
<v Speaker 2>It is a potent force that manipulates us. For the Triple,

0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.560
<v Speaker 2>the stabilizing factor is the severity of its ecosystem. On

0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.560
<v Speaker 2>the Triple home world, triples presumably die in vast numbers,

0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:07.280
<v Speaker 2>and their prolific reproduction rate merely allows them to keep up.

0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.520
<v Speaker 2>We see variations of this in the natural world here

0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.400
<v Speaker 2>on Earth as well. In general, we see the basic

0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.760
<v Speaker 2>quality quantity tradeoff. In practice, some organisms err on the

0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:22.040
<v Speaker 2>side of producing few high quality offspring, while others simply

0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.719
<v Speaker 2>produce offspring in vast numbers. The predators can't eat all

0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.560
<v Speaker 2>of them, and a select few survive to reproduce as adults.

0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.560
<v Speaker 2>In sea turtles, for example, somewhere on the order of

0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.840
<v Speaker 2>two out of a thousand eggs actually makes it to adulthood,

0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:40.000
<v Speaker 2>surviving the gamut of consumers along the way. We can

0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.640
<v Speaker 2>also think of the triple in terms of predator satiation,

0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.600
<v Speaker 2>by which prey briefly and periodically occur at such high

0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:51.160
<v Speaker 2>population densities that the predators can't possibly eat them all.

0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.719
<v Speaker 2>Periodical cicadas, which many of you will be experiencing yet

0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.720
<v Speaker 2>again this year, are an example of this. So it

0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.800
<v Speaker 2>would seem possible that might work in a similar manner,

0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.920
<v Speaker 2>periodically reproducing in such numbers that they simply overwhelm their

0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:10.200
<v Speaker 2>many reptilian predators. Now, given that tribles are vaguely mammals,

0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.400
<v Speaker 2>we might also compare them to such prolific terrestrial warm

0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.200
<v Speaker 2>bloods as the European rabbit, infamous for its own rapid

0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:21.720
<v Speaker 2>reproduction rate. According to the Texas Invasive Species Institute, an

0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.320
<v Speaker 2>eighteen fifty nine introduction of a mere twenty four European

0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.760
<v Speaker 2>rabbits into Australia led to a population of more than

0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.520
<v Speaker 2>six hundred million in less than a century. The tribles

0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:37.040
<v Speaker 2>ultimately are a fantastic commentary on what can happen when

0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:42.839
<v Speaker 2>a species is artificially transplanted from one ecosystem into another. Now,

0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.600
<v Speaker 2>how long would it take tribles to overrun the starship Enterprise. Well,

0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:48.960
<v Speaker 2>that is a question that you have to throw some

0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.360
<v Speaker 2>math at. And in twenty twenty student researchers at the

0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.760
<v Speaker 2>University of Leicester made science headlines with a paper in

0:11:55.800 --> 0:12:03.800
<v Speaker 2>the journal Physics Special Topics. Their answer four points five days.

0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:19.120
<v Speaker 2>All right. Next up the Seti Eels. In a rare

0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.160
<v Speaker 2>case of synchronicity with the news cycle, which is all

0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.600
<v Speaker 2>about brain worms of late, I decided to devote this

0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.959
<v Speaker 2>Trek themed episode to the dreaded Seti eels of Seti

0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.720
<v Speaker 2>Alpha five. You will, of course remember them from the

0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.280
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty two film Star Trek two, The Wrath of Khan,

0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:42.720
<v Speaker 2>in which thowd twentieth century eugenics war tyrant Khan Noonan Singh,

0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.480
<v Speaker 2>played by the superb Ricardo Montaban, uses larval Seti eels

0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.960
<v Speaker 2>to torture and control two Enterprise crew members in his

0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.400
<v Speaker 2>quest for vengeance. We also learned that Seti eels, native

0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.360
<v Speaker 2>to the harsh world sing was exiled to by Starfleet,

0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:05.120
<v Speaker 2>killed many of Khan's people, including his wife. The setiworm

0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.800
<v Speaker 2>is a burrowing desert creature, but its larva, we're told

0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:12.079
<v Speaker 2>by singh crawl in through the ear canals of host

0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:16.120
<v Speaker 2>creatures to wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex, rendering the

0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:21.840
<v Speaker 2>host organism highly susceptible to suggestion. Madness and death follow

0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.520
<v Speaker 2>as the eel grows, unless the eel is removed or

0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.120
<v Speaker 2>leaves of its own accord. The latter occurs with First

0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:33.280
<v Speaker 2>Officer Chekhov, though the reason is uncertain. Was it responding

0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.120
<v Speaker 2>to danger, had it lost control of its host? Was

0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.480
<v Speaker 2>it in fact leaving the host in order to continue

0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.200
<v Speaker 2>its life cycle. We don't know any of these answers,

0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:45.160
<v Speaker 2>in part because Captain Kirk instantly vaporizes the escaping eel,

0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.320
<v Speaker 2>turning once more to the non canonical Star Trek. The

0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.360
<v Speaker 2>Worlds of the Federation, written and illustrated by Laura Johnson

0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:56.080
<v Speaker 2>written as Shane Johnson back in nineteen eighty nine, the

0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.160
<v Speaker 2>author largely shares what we already know from the movie.

0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.440
<v Speaker 2>Adult Seti eels, one of the few native species to

0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.040
<v Speaker 2>survive on the planet, grow to lengths of fourteen inches

0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:08.640
<v Speaker 2>and carry their young in tissue or armor folds on

0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:12.080
<v Speaker 2>their backs until such time as they leave the parent

0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.800
<v Speaker 2>for a host organism. In life signs the biology of

0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.360
<v Speaker 2>Star Trek. Susan and Robert Jenkins briefly discuss the seti

0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.480
<v Speaker 2>eel in context with other neural parasites and symbians of

0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.240
<v Speaker 2>the Trek universe, and there are several classifying The possession

0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.080
<v Speaker 2>we see with the seti eel is a kind of

0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:34.400
<v Speaker 2>quote co conscious mind control, with the hosts made helpless

0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.840
<v Speaker 2>by the superseding power of the parasite. Presumably, the whole

0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.600
<v Speaker 2>reason for subduing the host organism is to keep it

0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:46.280
<v Speaker 2>from interfering with the larva's occupation of set organism, and

0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:48.800
<v Speaker 2>we might assume that the seti eel also eats the

0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:53.520
<v Speaker 2>tissue that it presumably burrows through to reach the cerebral cortex.

0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.400
<v Speaker 2>The mind control aspect of this fictional parasitic scenario is,

0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.640
<v Speaker 2>of course vary, in keeping with numerous example from the

0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:08.400
<v Speaker 2>natural terrestrial world, including various parasitoid wasps, flatworms, hair worms, protozoans, fungi,

0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.480
<v Speaker 2>and more. In broad strokes, we see parasites that alter

0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:16.840
<v Speaker 2>host behavior to help complete their own life cycle. This

0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.800
<v Speaker 2>may mean mere survival or positioning of the host in

0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.400
<v Speaker 2>such a way that a desirable new host will consume

0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.280
<v Speaker 2>the current host. Now with the SETI eel. We certainly

0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.560
<v Speaker 2>see the former survival, but not so much the latter

0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.680
<v Speaker 2>eel controlled humans don't seem to do anything other than

0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.960
<v Speaker 2>obey fellow humans, though one could make a case that

0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.840
<v Speaker 2>this alone might lead to say, uninfected human being either

0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:47.400
<v Speaker 2>being expelled, which would at least be a choice. You

0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.360
<v Speaker 2>can imagine scenarios in which this would put the current

0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.960
<v Speaker 2>host organism in a position to, say, be near water,

0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:58.160
<v Speaker 2>or near another organism that it needs to enter, perhaps

0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.920
<v Speaker 2>some sort of a predator. Or you could also make

0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.520
<v Speaker 2>the argument that well, okay, a human that is so

0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.200
<v Speaker 2>easily controlled by fellow humans is going to remain in

0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.160
<v Speaker 2>close proximity with humans, and perhaps it just needs to

0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.440
<v Speaker 2>enter a new host organism once it's done munching and

0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:19.840
<v Speaker 2>constricting inside that individual skull. Either way, we also have

0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.000
<v Speaker 2>to acknowledge that humanoids, and remember in the Trek universe,

0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:27.520
<v Speaker 2>most or all humanoid species are very distantly related to

0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.000
<v Speaker 2>each other. Humanoids might not be the desired vector for

0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:36.600
<v Speaker 2>the parasite, and in the world of actual terrestrial parasite studies,

0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:41.080
<v Speaker 2>we do see dangerous results from parasites winding up either

0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.040
<v Speaker 2>in the wrong host or the wrong part of the

0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.440
<v Speaker 2>right host. Now, I've long found this one of the

0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:52.240
<v Speaker 2>more horrifying aspects of sci fi space horror, and particularly

0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:57.200
<v Speaker 2>sci fi space related body horror, human interactions with hostile

0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:01.080
<v Speaker 2>biology that simply didn't evolve to deal with human beings.

0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.960
<v Speaker 2>The xenomorphic threats of the Alien film franchise are great

0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.440
<v Speaker 2>examples of this. Of course, on one hand, the creatures

0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:10.640
<v Speaker 2>we see in the films are highly adaptive and make

0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:14.320
<v Speaker 2>use of host DNA in the acquisition of their adult forms.

0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.920
<v Speaker 2>They have evolved and or been engineered to make quick

0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:22.280
<v Speaker 2>study and use of new bodies. But the other horrifying

0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.600
<v Speaker 2>way to think about it is that here is a

0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.800
<v Speaker 2>creature that is truly an alien within the host body.

0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.800
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't know what it's doing in there, and much

0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.000
<v Speaker 2>like the scene in twenty twelve's Prometheus with the robotic

0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:39.560
<v Speaker 2>surgery pod, this combination of high skill and lower context

0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.840
<v Speaker 2>for the target body runs the risk of heading into

0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.760
<v Speaker 2>very grizzly territory. Still, we don't have to invoke Alien

0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:52.600
<v Speaker 2>to make the seti eel terrifying. The implantation scene in

0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.320
<v Speaker 2>Wrath of Khan remains one of the greatest moments of

0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:59.920
<v Speaker 2>space horror. In a franchise, we don't generally associate with it.

0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:07.280
<v Speaker 2>And finally, we're going to learn about the Horta. In

0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.200
<v Speaker 2>today's episode. I'm going to round out this initial batch

0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.879
<v Speaker 2>of Star Trek selections, and I'm going to go with

0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.520
<v Speaker 2>a listener suggestion from one of our mini gems, the

0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.280
<v Speaker 2>Horta of Janus six. As we learn in the original

0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.399
<v Speaker 2>Trek episode The Devil in the Dark, the horta is

0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:29.200
<v Speaker 2>a large, subterranean heap shaped organism entirely silicone based rather

0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.800
<v Speaker 2>than carbon based. It tunnels through the rock via powerful

0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:39.119
<v Speaker 2>acidic secretions, which it can also use defensively. Exceedingly long lived,

0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:43.280
<v Speaker 2>the entire population of horta dies out every sixty thousand years,

0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.760
<v Speaker 2>with the exception of a single mother horta, which tends

0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.160
<v Speaker 2>to the spherical eggs that will produce the next generation

0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:55.760
<v Speaker 2>of this amazing species. While the Horta are reclusive and

0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:00.000
<v Speaker 2>ultimately peaceful, they can prove lethal in confrontations, such as

0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.760
<v Speaker 2>the one with a Federation mining colony in the Devil

0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.919
<v Speaker 2>in the Dark, which ultimately required the intervention of a

0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:10.040
<v Speaker 2>Vulcan mind meld. In the non canonical Star Trek, the

0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.879
<v Speaker 2>Worlds of the Federation by Laura Johnson written as Shane

0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.960
<v Speaker 2>Johnson from nineteen eighty nine. We learned that the miners

0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:20.440
<v Speaker 2>and Horta would eventually work together on Janus six following

0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.840
<v Speaker 2>this reconciliation. Now, I distinctly remember watching this episode of

0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.800
<v Speaker 2>the classic Star Trek as a kid, and I remember

0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:32.840
<v Speaker 2>enjoying the alien monster based suspense and its thought provoking

0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.879
<v Speaker 2>treatment of interaction between intelligent but radically different alien species,

0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:40.679
<v Speaker 2>and looking back on it now, it certainly has that

0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.080
<v Speaker 2>Star Trek optimism that is often lacking in our modern

0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.200
<v Speaker 2>sci fi. It's no surprise that this one is often

0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:50.399
<v Speaker 2>held up as one of the best original Star Trek episodes.

0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.960
<v Speaker 2>In Life Signs the Biology of Star Trek Susan and

0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.479
<v Speaker 2>Robert Jenkins, the authors here discuss the singular nature of

0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:03.679
<v Speaker 2>the Orta in Trek. The Federation was apparently not accustomed

0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.600
<v Speaker 2>to the presence of silicon based life, and had therefore

0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.639
<v Speaker 2>missed the Horta's presence on Jenus six in their scans.

0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:15.280
<v Speaker 2>Entirely later on in tracks, similar mistakes were made with

0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:21.280
<v Speaker 2>the microbrains of Vlara three and the space born crystalline entity.

0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:26.840
<v Speaker 2>This all underlies a known challenge in astrobiology, we ultimately

0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.440
<v Speaker 2>have only one model of life upon which to base

0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:35.400
<v Speaker 2>our observations, and it happens to be earthlife. We're told

0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.480
<v Speaker 2>that Janus six never developed carbon based life beyond a

0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.240
<v Speaker 2>few spore producing plants as well as some algae, but

0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:46.000
<v Speaker 2>it did boast minerals and heavy metals, and the authors

0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:51.040
<v Speaker 2>stress that while silicon based reactions occur much more slowly

0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.160
<v Speaker 2>compared to carbon based reactions, a planet like Janus six might,

0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:58.480
<v Speaker 2>in theory have the minerals to catalyze the chemical reactions

0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:03.000
<v Speaker 2>needed for a silicon based life. Now, in the larger

0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.639
<v Speaker 2>realm of science fiction, silicon based organisms are not uncommon.

0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.800
<v Speaker 2>The alien Xenomorpho is sometimes described as silicone based, or

0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.160
<v Speaker 2>at least partially silicone based, and there are numerous ways

0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:18.280
<v Speaker 2>this is explained to factor in with their carbon based bodies.

0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:22.840
<v Speaker 2>Other examples include the Kaiju of Pacific Rim, the Exogoths

0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:27.960
<v Speaker 2>of Star Wars, and the Easter Island headed Lithodia Rexians

0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:32.960
<v Speaker 2>of Marvel Comics. However, as outlined by Charles Q. Choi

0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.399
<v Speaker 2>in the space dot Com article, silicon based life may

0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.720
<v Speaker 2>be more than just science fiction from twenty seventeen, various

0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.960
<v Speaker 2>experts speculate that silicon based or silicone encompassing life is

0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.680
<v Speaker 2>very possible. Silicone and carbon are similar in many ways.

0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.960
<v Speaker 2>Silicon is one of the most common elements in the universe,

0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:56.720
<v Speaker 2>and chemist have artificially synthesized organosilicone molecules composed of both

0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:01.280
<v Speaker 2>silicone and carbon, so by some estimations, silicon based life

0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.600
<v Speaker 2>of some sort may be out there somewhere, whether we

0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:09.440
<v Speaker 2>know of it or not. Back to Trek, the Jinkins

0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:13.000
<v Speaker 2>stress that the Horta might actually reproduce and reason too

0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:17.040
<v Speaker 2>much like a carbon based organism in this episode of Anything.

0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:21.160
<v Speaker 2>But then again, this is where science and philosophy butt heads.

0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:26.040
<v Speaker 2>Star Trek is ultimately about the hope, if not the reality,

0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.679
<v Speaker 2>of making contact, settling differences, and figuring out how to

0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.760
<v Speaker 2>move forward, both as an interstellar community within the fiction

0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.000
<v Speaker 2>and as a terrestrial species here on Earth in reality.

0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:42.840
<v Speaker 2>As much as I love my various nihilistic sci fi

0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:47.200
<v Speaker 2>visions and various examples of space horror, I feel more

0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:49.800
<v Speaker 2>and more like I need the Star Trek vision in

0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.240
<v Speaker 2>my life. As in aside, I'll mention that there's actually

0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:57.840
<v Speaker 2>an underground geographic positioning technology here on Earth. Named after

0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:00.840
<v Speaker 2>the Star Trek Horta. It is, of course, say backronym,

0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:06.920
<v Speaker 2>which stands for Honeywell or Retrieval and Tunneling AID. All right,

0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:08.719
<v Speaker 2>there you have it. I hope you enjoy this, so

0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:12.600
<v Speaker 2>I keep doing these omnibus episodes because it's a better

0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:16.040
<v Speaker 2>way to do like a rerun essentially on a Wednesday.

0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.000
<v Speaker 2>And I've also heard from some listeners that they prefer

0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:22.600
<v Speaker 2>to listen to these short form episodes batched together into

0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:25.920
<v Speaker 2>a longer omnibus series. So I'm going to keep doing

0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:27.840
<v Speaker 2>this as long as it remains popular. As long as

0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:31.040
<v Speaker 2>the folks seem to enjoy them, I enjoy putting them together.

0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:34.800
<v Speaker 2>If you have recommendations for other Star Trek creatures you'd

0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:36.919
<v Speaker 2>like for me to cover in a future series of

0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:40.080
<v Speaker 2>Star Trek episodes, or if you have suggestions related to

0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:47.760
<v Speaker 2>other you know franchises, comic books, movies, literary settings of

0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:51.840
<v Speaker 2>folkloric traditions, mythologies, and more, write in I would love

0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:54.480
<v Speaker 2>to hear from you. As always, you can email us

0:23:54.560 --> 0:24:05.480
<v Speaker 2>at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:09.000
<v Speaker 1>Stuffed Blow your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For

0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:12.919
<v Speaker 1>more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts,

0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:14.760
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.