Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lammon. This is The Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. 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 and 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 discussed the singular nature of
Speaker 2: the Horta 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 micro brains of Valara three and the space born
Speaker 2: crystalline entity. This all underlies a known challenge in astrobiology.
Speaker 2: We ultimately have only one model of life upon which
Speaker 2: to base our observations, and it happens to be earthlife.
Speaker 2: We're told that Janus six never developed carbon based life
Speaker 2: beyond a few spore producing plants as well as some algae,
Speaker 2: but it did boast minerals and heavy metals, and the
Speaker 2: authors stress that while silicon based reactions occur much more
Speaker 2: slowly compared to carbon based reactions, a planet like Janus
Speaker 2: six might, in theory have the minerals to catalyze the
Speaker 2: chemical reactions needed for a silicon based life. Now, in
Speaker 2: the larger realm of science fiction, silicon based organisms are
Speaker 2: not uncommon. The alien xenomorph is sometimes described as silicon based,
Speaker 2: or at least partially silicone based, and there are numerous
Speaker 2: ways this is explained to factor in with their carbon
Speaker 2: based bodies. Other examples include the Kaiju of Pacific Rim,
Speaker 2: the Exogoths of Star Wars, and the easter island headed
Speaker 2: Lithodia Rexians of Marvel Comics. However, as outlined by Charles Qchoi,
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 income 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 Ginkin
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 an 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 a backronym
Speaker 2: which stands for Honeywell or Retrieval and Tunneling AID. Tune
Speaker 2: in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact, The Artifact,
Speaker 2: or Anamalia Stupendium each week. I like to do these
Speaker 2: series and pacts of four to five, but I'll likely
Speaker 2: come back to more Trek creatures in the future, so
Speaker 2: feel free to send in your recommendations or if you
Speaker 2: have ideas for future series that I can do here
Speaker 2: on the Monster Fact, fandoms I haven't dipped into, or
Speaker 2: fandoms I need to dip back into. Just reach out.
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear from you. As always, you can
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 2: dot com.
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