Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is the
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.
Speaker 2: In this episode, I'd like to begin a series on
Speaker 2: various aliens and creatures from the Star Trek universe. Now,
Speaker 2: first of all, I will be the first to admit
Speaker 2: that I am not an expert in Trek lore, but
Speaker 2: I very fondly remember as a kid in the nineties
Speaker 2: watching reruns of Star Trek The Next Generation every weeknight
Speaker 2: at nine PM. I also fondly remember a book that
Speaker 2: I had a special order from the local bookstore, Star
Speaker 2: Trek The Worlds of the Federation, written and illustrated by
Speaker 2: Laura Johnson writing as Shane Johnson. This was an encyclopedic
Speaker 2: collection of alien profiles. Think of it as a monster manual,
Speaker 2: if you will, covering thirty two different Federation member alien species,
Speaker 2: as well as a number of neutral and hostile aliens.
Speaker 2: This was a nineteen eighty nine publication, so it's far
Speaker 2: from current and is not considered part of current Trek canon.
Speaker 2: And I'm to understand some Trek writers took issue with
Speaker 2: some of the entries. Still, it's a book that meant
Speaker 2: a lot to me as a young Treki, and I
Speaker 2: suspect it meant a lot to others from this time
Speaker 2: period as well, So I'm going to go ahead and
Speaker 2: cite it along with some other sources, with the caveat
Speaker 2: that again, it's not canon much in the same way
Speaker 2: I cited the Dune Encyclopedia in some of my Dune
Speaker 2: related entries. With all of that in mind, let's turn
Speaker 2: to the Andrians. These blue skinned, white haired, antinny equipped
Speaker 2: aliens are iconic original series aliens, but they were rather
Speaker 2: exotic for me, as they're virtually absent from both Star
Speaker 2: Trek the Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine,
Speaker 2: which constituted my prime Trek viewing. The reasoning for their absence,
Speaker 2: according to the excellent Memory Alpha, was largely twofold. First
Speaker 2: of all, Trek creator Gene Roddenberry preferred that many original
Speaker 2: series aliens be avoided in favor of new ones on
Speaker 2: the next generation. Secondly, the makeup was allegedly difficult to
Speaker 2: get right and avoid looking silly. They overcame these hurdles
Speaker 2: and subsequent shows, and in the current Star Trek Strange
Speaker 2: New World series, which I'm enjoying quite a bit, we
Speaker 2: encounter an albinos subspecies of Andrians known as the Nar,
Speaker 2: as well as an Andrian Special Forces officer, and neither
Speaker 2: of these aliens looks remotely silly. But let's come back
Speaker 2: to the biology of the Andorans. The Worlds of the
Speaker 2: Federation describes them as a mix of mammalian and reptilian features,
Speaker 2: with both an indoskeleton and a limited exoskeleton, and the
Speaker 2: antennae are described as enhancing otherwise colorblind vision with a
Speaker 2: quote complex matrix of light sensitive cones in addition to
Speaker 2: auditory functions. All of this together would amount to an
Speaker 2: enhanced sense of sight and smell. Fair enough obvious sense
Speaker 2: organs do sense organ things. Antenny interrestrial organisms remember very greatly,
Speaker 2: and depending on the species, may utilize senses of touch, air, motion, heat, vibration, smell,
Speaker 2: or taste. But again, The Worlds of the Federation came
Speaker 2: out in nineteen eighty nine before a particular nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: three episode of the Next Generation shed a great deal
Speaker 2: of canonical light on the biology of Star Trek. The
Speaker 2: episode titled the chase, which I specifically remember from my childhood,
Speaker 2: reveal the reason so many Star Trek alien species are
Speaker 2: humanoid and resemble each other, often with minor alterations to
Speaker 2: facial and cranial features. All of this via a revelation
Speaker 2: of ancient intentional pan spermia via a single advanced progenitor
Speaker 2: humanoid species. In other words, all of these Trek species
Speaker 2: look similar not because they are all humans in make up,
Speaker 2: but rather because a single ancestor species spread their own
Speaker 2: DNA among the various worlds to seed them. I've always
Speaker 2: found this to be a clever way of addressing the
Speaker 2: seeming lack of biological diversity in many of the core
Speaker 2: Tract civilizations. Now you might reasonably wonder, okay, fine, but realistically,
Speaker 2: with these distantly related species still look so similar to
Speaker 2: each other well. Susan and Robert Jenkins explore this question
Speaker 2: in their book The Biology of Star Trek, published in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight. They point out that, based on what
Speaker 2: we know about evolution, it's not at all unreasonable. The
Speaker 2: evolutionary clock runs slowly, they write, and it has a
Speaker 2: built in bias against major overhauls because speciation is brought
Speaker 2: about by multiple random changes in DNA, and the changes
Speaker 2: must allow the organism to survive and reproduce. Small changes
Speaker 2: are favored over large ones. Small changes are less likely
Speaker 2: to compromise the tested survivability of the original. Given this constraint,
Speaker 2: two species that start out alike remain similar over a
Speaker 2: rather long time, even under different sets of environmental pressures.
Speaker 2: They add that particular environmental pressures would of course have
Speaker 2: their impact, and a trend towards facial symmetry would likely
Speaker 2: stay in place. They go into greater detail in this
Speaker 2: great book about not only the speculative biology of all
Speaker 2: of this, but also the connections between human facial cues
Speaker 2: and the way we imagine the facial features of treks aliens,
Speaker 2: and they do get around to considering the Andorians. They
Speaker 2: point out that while nothing resembling a human with antennae
Speaker 2: exists in the natural world, we of course do have
Speaker 2: mammalian species with enhanced whiskers, and I would point out
Speaker 2: that we have other things like the unique probosis of
Speaker 2: the star No's mole and the twin feelers of the
Speaker 2: tentacled snake to get into the reptile world. For the Andrians, however,
Speaker 2: they propose an interesting notion, perhaps the Andorian home world
Speaker 2: contains multiple atmospheric variations, and this results in various micro climates,
Speaker 2: requiring enhanced sensation of atmospheric content, temperature, and pressure for
Speaker 2: any species that regularly travels outside of a narrow region
Speaker 2: or microclimate. They even go so far as to discuss
Speaker 2: how tissues in human embryos might develop into antennae under
Speaker 2: the right survival pressures. Quote. Human embryos have several segments
Speaker 2: called embryonic pharyngeal arches in what will become the head
Speaker 2: and the neck. They supply the developing tissue for jaws
Speaker 2: and some neck organs. In fish, however, the pharyngeal arches
Speaker 2: develop into gills because these structures have been adapted for
Speaker 2: very different purposes. They might evolve to provide the organ
Speaker 2: substrate for the nervous tissue in an antenna like organ.
Speaker 2: More broadly, they point out that added sense organs could
Speaker 2: potentially detect any number of factors in a given environment,
Speaker 2: provided there was an evolutionary incentive to do so. Memory
Speaker 2: Alpha provides little canonical data on all of this, as
Speaker 2: far as I could tell, but it does point out
Speaker 2: that we know that Andoran and Kenny can be moved
Speaker 2: independently via voluntary muscle control that they regenerate if they
Speaker 2: are injured or blasted off, and they also seem to
Speaker 2: play a role in balance and gesticulation and of course
Speaker 2: therefore communication. I think all of this is quite reasonable. Now,
Speaker 2: coming back to Star Trek's Strange New Worlds, the nar
Speaker 2: character Himmer in that show is depicted as having been
Speaker 2: born sightless, but is more than able to make up
Speaker 2: for his lack of sight in part due to his
Speaker 2: other senses as a member of an antennae equipped and
Speaker 2: Dorian subspecies. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: The Artifact or Animalius Stupendium each week. I'm going to
Speaker 2: try and press on with more Trek selections for The
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, so please send in your recommendations and that
Speaker 2: may help me figure out what the next three or
Speaker 2: four of these will be. As always, you can email
Speaker 2: us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.