Most of the 2409 versions are based on the ENT versions, apparently that also goes for Gorn too, so I don't think we'll be getting those Raptor Gorns any time soon and personally I still don't like how ugly ENT Tellarites look, however at least both Discovery and Picard tried to get back to their porcine roots but with the added addition of tusks.
Picard Tellarites
Discovery Tellarites
Maybe we should call Disco Tellarites, Targarites since they look like Humanoid Targs.
it's a big difference in how those shows approach the history of Star Trek - one is 'ashamed' of it and tries to change it, the other respects and plays with it.
Or, you know, LD knows that the TOS Gorn work better in an animated format, and thus, uses that instead of the more realistic Gorn from ENT which wouldn't have looked as good in the same format.
It has nothing to do with "being ashamed" it has everything to do with using whats best for the time frame and/or medium.
Actually, it does.
Academic papers have been written about the phenomenon of TOS contempt, and embarrassment is a big part of it. Research turned up embarrassment over:
the "totally uncool" optimism and even to some degree the allegorical nature of the stories (the "happy stuff is for kids" effect)
the stories were "too cerebral" and liking it meant they had to be nerds (and nerds weren't "cool")
the stereotype of the nerdy costumed Trekkies running around in public giving Vulcan salutes and spouting quotes (this was a big one, the root of the Trekkie/Trekker split in the 1990s)
the fact that there were fanzines and very active and vocal fans (not as much of a factor anymore, and it is a variant of the "chirpy preppy overachievers" thing mostly but they made some people uncomfortable)
the 1960s production values on a serious show that was so popular more than a decade after it was filmed, especially since it came before TV sci-fi became so codified and standardized (eeew! its old! yucky!)
even the "T-shirts and miniskirts" uniforms (again, not as much of a factor anymore since minis are back in style)
and a few other, more esoteric things, like the chromotherapeutic lights and organic golden ratio googie-style design of the hero ship (googie is designed to be upbeat and challenge the senses, and some people don't like their senses to be challenged) etc.
And if you want to see something funny related to that, just watch Kurtzman in interviews, he often gets this look like his underwear is too tight when TOS is brought up.
it's a big difference in how those shows approach the history of Star Trek - one is 'ashamed' of it and tries to change it, the other respects and plays with it.
Or, you know, LD knows that the TOS Gorn work better in an animated format, and thus, uses that instead of the more realistic Gorn from ENT which wouldn't have looked as good in the same format.
It has nothing to do with "being ashamed" it has everything to do with using whats best for the time frame and/or medium.
Actually, it does.
Academic papers have been written about the phenomenon of TOS contempt, and embarrassment is a big part of it. Research turned up embarrassment over:
the "totally uncool" optimism and even to some degree the allegorical nature of the stories (the "happy stuff is for kids" effect)
the stories were "too cerebral" and liking it meant they had to be nerds (and nerds weren't "cool")
the stereotype of the nerdy costumed Trekkies running around in public giving Vulcan salutes and spouting quotes (this was a big one, the root of the Trekkie/Trekker split in the 1990s)
the fact that there were fanzines and very active and vocal fans (not as much of a factor anymore, and it is a variant of the "chirpy preppy overachievers" thing mostly but they made some people uncomfortable)
the 1960s production values on a serious show that was so popular more than a decade after it was filmed, especially since it came before TV sci-fi became so codified and standardized (eeew! its old! yucky!)
even the "T-shirts and miniskirts" uniforms (again, not as much of a factor anymore since minis are back in style)
and a few other, more esoteric things, like the chromotherapeutic lights and organic golden ratio googie-style design of the hero ship (googie is designed to be upbeat and challenge the senses, and some people don't like their senses to be challenged) etc.
And if you want to see something funny related to that, just watch Kurtzman in interviews, he often gets this look like his underwear is too tight when TOS is brought up.
As a Millennial I couldn't agree more, Modern Star Trek needs optimistic and cerebral content as well as mini skirts, colorful uniforms and scantily clad sexy Orions, who the hell asked for this stupid TRIBBLE, we need less censorship and pessimism in Star Trek bring back the good ol TOS and TNG stuff and while we're at it bring back season 5 of ENT.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
> @paradox#7391 said: > Most of the 2409 versions are based on the ENT versions, apparently that also goes for Gorn too, so I don't think we'll be getting those Raptor Gorns any time soon and personally I still don't like how ugly ENT Tellarites look, however at least both Discovery and Picard tried to get back to their porcine roots but with the added addition of tusks. > > Picard Tellarites > > > > Discovery Tellarites > > > Maybe we should call Disco Tellarites, Targarites since they look like Humanoid Targs.
The DSC 'rite is actually kind of awesome, he was also played well and added snorts and grunts to his dialogue plus didn't try to be a Dwarf. The PIC costume looks like a only vaguely related species, if any.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I don't care about the 2410 canon timeline, the wonky old TOS Gorns are just more fun to visually have running around in the game than the newer crocodile looking ones.
it's a big difference in how those shows approach the history of Star Trek - one is 'ashamed' of it and tries to change it, the other respects and plays with it.
Or, you know, LD knows that the TOS Gorn work better in an animated format, and thus, uses that instead of the more realistic Gorn from ENT which wouldn't have looked as good in the same format.
It has nothing to do with "being ashamed" it has everything to do with using whats best for the time frame and/or medium.
Actually, it does.
Academic papers have been written about the phenomenon of TOS contempt, and embarrassment is a big part of it. Research turned up embarrassment over:
the "totally uncool" optimism and even to some degree the allegorical nature of the stories (the "happy stuff is for kids" effect)
the stories were "too cerebral" and liking it meant they had to be nerds (and nerds weren't "cool")
the stereotype of the nerdy costumed Trekkies running around in public giving Vulcan salutes and spouting quotes (this was a big one, the root of the Trekkie/Trekker split in the 1990s)
the fact that there were fanzines and very active and vocal fans (not as much of a factor anymore, and it is a variant of the "chirpy preppy overachievers" thing mostly but they made some people uncomfortable)
the 1960s production values on a serious show that was so popular more than a decade after it was filmed, especially since it came before TV sci-fi became so codified and standardized (eeew! its old! yucky!)
even the "T-shirts and miniskirts" uniforms (again, not as much of a factor anymore since minis are back in style)
and a few other, more esoteric things, like the chromotherapeutic lights and organic golden ratio googie-style design of the hero ship (googie is designed to be upbeat and challenge the senses, and some people don't like their senses to be challenged) etc.
And if you want to see something funny related to that, just watch Kurtzman in interviews, he often gets this look like his underwear is too tight when TOS is brought up.
As a Millennial I couldn't agree more, Modern Star Trek needs optimistic and cerebral content as well as mini skirts, colorful uniforms and scantily clad sexy Orions, who the hell asked for this stupid TRIBBLE, we need less censorship and pessimism in Star Trek bring back the good ol TOS and TNG stuff and while we're at it bring back season 5 of ENT.
You do know that Discovery had probably skimpiest fem Orion outfits to date, it's just that only people for whom it was logical to wear them wore them. Granted Discovery was also the first time we saw any significant amount of Orions as IIRC there was a grand total of 5 fem Orion character in TOS and ENT combined and 0 in TNG, DS9 or VOY, oh and only handful of extras at slave auction so we really didn't see "normal" Orions until DSC and LD.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Playable Gorn still need their sonic disruptors and rocks, Their weapons were described as "like phasers, only worse" by a survivor of the Cestus attack. This description may have been colored by fear, as they were later described as disruptors, Gorn disruptors fired on Cestus III are said to be a variation of very efficient sonic disruptors.
it's a big difference in how those shows approach the history of Star Trek - one is 'ashamed' of it and tries to change it, the other respects and plays with it.
Or, you know, LD knows that the TOS Gorn work better in an animated format, and thus, uses that instead of the more realistic Gorn from ENT which wouldn't have looked as good in the same format.
It has nothing to do with "being ashamed" it has everything to do with using whats best for the time frame and/or medium.
Actually, it does.
Academic papers have been written about the phenomenon of TOS contempt, and embarrassment is a big part of it. Research turned up embarrassment over:
the "totally uncool" optimism and even to some degree the allegorical nature of the stories (the "happy stuff is for kids" effect)
the stories were "too cerebral" and liking it meant they had to be nerds (and nerds weren't "cool")
the stereotype of the nerdy costumed Trekkies running around in public giving Vulcan salutes and spouting quotes (this was a big one, the root of the Trekkie/Trekker split in the 1990s)
the fact that there were fanzines and very active and vocal fans (not as much of a factor anymore, and it is a variant of the "chirpy preppy overachievers" thing mostly but they made some people uncomfortable)
the 1960s production values on a serious show that was so popular more than a decade after it was filmed, especially since it came before TV sci-fi became so codified and standardized (eeew! its old! yucky!)
even the "T-shirts and miniskirts" uniforms (again, not as much of a factor anymore since minis are back in style)
and a few other, more esoteric things, like the chromotherapeutic lights and organic golden ratio googie-style design of the hero ship (googie is designed to be upbeat and challenge the senses, and some people don't like their senses to be challenged) etc.
And if you want to see something funny related to that, just watch Kurtzman in interviews, he often gets this look like his underwear is too tight when TOS is brought up.
As a Millennial I couldn't agree more, Modern Star Trek needs optimistic and cerebral content as well as mini skirts, colorful uniforms and scantily clad sexy Orions, who the hell asked for this stupid TRIBBLE, we need less censorship and pessimism in Star Trek bring back the good ol TOS and TNG stuff and while we're at it bring back season 5 of ENT.
You do know that Discovery had probably skimpiest fem Orion outfits to date, it's just that only people for whom it was logical to wear them wore them. Granted Discovery was also the first time we saw any significant amount of Orions as IIRC there was a grand total of 5 fem Orion character in TOS and ENT combined and 0 in TNG, DS9 or VOY, oh and only handful of extras at slave auction so we really didn't see "normal" Orions until DSC and LD.
Orion outfits have to be reasonably skimpy if they are to maintain their health, especially in the lower ultraviolet content of the daylight or ship lighting most other humanoids probably have. Tendi and Gaila probably have to sleep in the equivalent of tanning beds to compensate for the high coverage of their uniforms cutting down (or even off) ultraviolet to the chlorophyll in so much of their skin area.
But as for the TOS contempt, the miniskirt uniform is not just about how much skin is shown, it is about context. For instance, how many women executives do you think wear Orion-like micromini bikinis to boardroom meetings?
There is a difference between what one wears to the beach or other leisure activity and a professional uniform like a business suit or military uniform. In fact, a lot of the uneasiness for some viewers is the fact that the miniskirt and go-go boots like the skirted option of the TOS female uniform have is part of a more general informal 'uniform', a symbol of the women's rights movement in the 1960s.
Also, while TOS contempt in general is mainly rooted in those things I mentioned in a previous comment, it persists even when some of the elements become irrelevant because once something is branded 'uncool' the stigma tends to stick long after the reasons for it have faded into obscurity. It is like those old feuds that keep going long after those involved forget what started them, and that combined with the parts that are still fully relevant keep TOS contempt going.
Playable Gorn still need their sonic disruptors and rocks, Their weapons were described as "like phasers, only worse" by a survivor of the Cestus attack. This description may have been colored by fear, as they were later described as disruptors, Gorn disruptors fired on Cestus III are said to be a variation of very efficient sonic disruptors.
It is possible that the survivor was not that familiar with disruptor effects, or was not thinking of the fact that something the size and strength of a Gorn probably carry much larger and more powerful versions than what a Human or Klingon would carry.
it's a big difference in how those shows approach the history of Star Trek - one is 'ashamed' of it and tries to change it, the other respects and plays with it.
Or, you know, LD knows that the TOS Gorn work better in an animated format, and thus, uses that instead of the more realistic Gorn from ENT which wouldn't have looked as good in the same format.
It has nothing to do with "being ashamed" it has everything to do with using whats best for the time frame and/or medium.
Actually, it does.
Academic papers have been written about the phenomenon of TOS contempt, and embarrassment is a big part of it. Research turned up embarrassment over:
the "totally uncool" optimism and even to some degree the allegorical nature of the stories (the "happy stuff is for kids" effect)
the stories were "too cerebral" and liking it meant they had to be nerds (and nerds weren't "cool")
the stereotype of the nerdy costumed Trekkies running around in public giving Vulcan salutes and spouting quotes (this was a big one, the root of the Trekkie/Trekker split in the 1990s)
the fact that there were fanzines and very active and vocal fans (not as much of a factor anymore, and it is a variant of the "chirpy preppy overachievers" thing mostly but they made some people uncomfortable)
the 1960s production values on a serious show that was so popular more than a decade after it was filmed, especially since it came before TV sci-fi became so codified and standardized (eeew! its old! yucky!)
even the "T-shirts and miniskirts" uniforms (again, not as much of a factor anymore since minis are back in style)
and a few other, more esoteric things, like the chromotherapeutic lights and organic golden ratio googie-style design of the hero ship (googie is designed to be upbeat and challenge the senses, and some people don't like their senses to be challenged) etc.
And if you want to see something funny related to that, just watch Kurtzman in interviews, he often gets this look like his underwear is too tight when TOS is brought up.
As a Millennial I couldn't agree more, Modern Star Trek needs optimistic and cerebral content as well as mini skirts, colorful uniforms and scantily clad sexy Orions, who the hell asked for this stupid TRIBBLE, we need less censorship and pessimism in Star Trek bring back the good ol TOS and TNG stuff and while we're at it bring back season 5 of ENT.
You do know that Discovery had probably skimpiest fem Orion outfits to date, it's just that only people for whom it was logical to wear them wore them. Granted Discovery was also the first time we saw any significant amount of Orions as IIRC there was a grand total of 5 fem Orion character in TOS and ENT combined and 0 in TNG, DS9 or VOY, oh and only handful of extras at slave auction so we really didn't see "normal" Orions until DSC and LD.
Orion outfits have to be reasonably skimpy if they are to maintain their health, especially in the lower ultraviolet content of the daylight or ship lighting most other humanoids probably have. Tendi and Gaila probably have to sleep in the equivalent of tanning beds to compensate for the high coverage of their uniforms cutting down (or even off) ultraviolet to the chlorophyll in so much of their skin area.
Err where was this mentioned, I've not seen season 3 of Discovery or any episodes of Lower Decks in full (only clips), remember that EU content has never been canon, just the movies and Live-action series so if it's from a (pre-DSC?) book it's not canon.
IIRC the reason for Orions having green skin has never been explained in canon.
it's a big difference in how those shows approach the history of Star Trek - one is 'ashamed' of it and tries to change it, the other respects and plays with it.
Or, you know, LD knows that the TOS Gorn work better in an animated format, and thus, uses that instead of the more realistic Gorn from ENT which wouldn't have looked as good in the same format.
It has nothing to do with "being ashamed" it has everything to do with using whats best for the time frame and/or medium.
Actually, it does.
Academic papers have been written about the phenomenon of TOS contempt, and embarrassment is a big part of it. Research turned up embarrassment over:
the "totally uncool" optimism and even to some degree the allegorical nature of the stories (the "happy stuff is for kids" effect)
the stories were "too cerebral" and liking it meant they had to be nerds (and nerds weren't "cool")
the stereotype of the nerdy costumed Trekkies running around in public giving Vulcan salutes and spouting quotes (this was a big one, the root of the Trekkie/Trekker split in the 1990s)
the fact that there were fanzines and very active and vocal fans (not as much of a factor anymore, and it is a variant of the "chirpy preppy overachievers" thing mostly but they made some people uncomfortable)
the 1960s production values on a serious show that was so popular more than a decade after it was filmed, especially since it came before TV sci-fi became so codified and standardized (eeew! its old! yucky!)
even the "T-shirts and miniskirts" uniforms (again, not as much of a factor anymore since minis are back in style)
and a few other, more esoteric things, like the chromotherapeutic lights and organic golden ratio googie-style design of the hero ship (googie is designed to be upbeat and challenge the senses, and some people don't like their senses to be challenged) etc.
And if you want to see something funny related to that, just watch Kurtzman in interviews, he often gets this look like his underwear is too tight when TOS is brought up.
As a Millennial I couldn't agree more, Modern Star Trek needs optimistic and cerebral content as well as mini skirts, colorful uniforms and scantily clad sexy Orions, who the hell asked for this stupid TRIBBLE, we need less censorship and pessimism in Star Trek bring back the good ol TOS and TNG stuff and while we're at it bring back season 5 of ENT.
You do know that Discovery had probably skimpiest fem Orion outfits to date, it's just that only people for whom it was logical to wear them wore them. Granted Discovery was also the first time we saw any significant amount of Orions as IIRC there was a grand total of 5 fem Orion character in TOS and ENT combined and 0 in TNG, DS9 or VOY, oh and only handful of extras at slave auction so we really didn't see "normal" Orions until DSC and LD.
Orion outfits have to be reasonably skimpy if they are to maintain their health, especially in the lower ultraviolet content of the daylight or ship lighting most other humanoids probably have. Tendi and Gaila probably have to sleep in the equivalent of tanning beds to compensate for the high coverage of their uniforms cutting down (or even off) ultraviolet to the chlorophyll in so much of their skin area.
Err where was this mentioned, I've not seen season 3 of Discovery or any episodes of Lower Decks in full (only clips), remember that EU content has never been canon, just the movies and Live-action series so if it's from a (pre-DSC?) book it's not canon.
IIRC the reason for Orions having green skin has never been explained in canon.
The chlorophyll was one of those things that the writers knew about because it was in the racial bios but probably never made it into dialog or onscreen info displays, but has been a thing for so long that there is no way to say for sure anymore whether it was ever used in throwaway dialog or screens without someone going through every hour of every series looking.
At the very least it is 'hard fanon' and has been mentioned in numerous third party sources, including the races manual that was done in the same vein as the various tech manuals that have had some of their content canonized by being used in live action stories, and the writer's room is usually equipped with those manuals either officially or unofficially which is how so much from the things gets into the shows themselves.
It was also the official line at Paramount when fans asked people involved in the shows about why Orions were green, similar to the way that the producer of Voyager said in interviews that the hero's ship was the Starfleet allegorical equivalent of today's Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. It was also used to explain the gray-skinned Orions in TAS as having been too long out of the kind of sunlight they need so their chlorophyll went dormant.
On the other hand, dialog in The Cage implies that there are Orions who are not green (in fact the script describes the bald guy in civilian clothing as being Orion) and earlier drafts actually state it flat out that the greens are a minority. The script for the fifth movie likewise identifies the rather gaunt and wiry and definitely not-green man with the compressed-air gun who is Sybok's first disciple as an Orion. Also Roger Korby ended up on the ice planet chasing down more leads on Orion medical technology so on an in-setting level it is possible that Ruk was modeled after an ancient version of the gray Orions like the ones seen in TAS.
It is all murky enough that you can just take your pick until a story comes along that actually features the information in a non-ambiguous manner. Until then, the chlorophyll thing was the official behind the scenes thing so it is probably safe enough to go with that.
(...)
It is all murky enough that you can just take your pick until a story comes along that actually features the information in a non-ambiguous manner. Until then, the chlorophyll thing was the official behind the scenes thing so it is probably safe enough to go with that.
Out of curiosity, can you source this at all? Because with your knowledge of all things Trek you display, you know very well that Orions and Chlorophyll have absolutely no connection whatsoever in any of the shows or movies. Any connection between the two via a quick and dirty search I performed comes from the Last Unicorn RPG game books.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
(...)
It is all murky enough that you can just take your pick until a story comes along that actually features the information in a non-ambiguous manner. Until then, the chlorophyll thing was the official behind the scenes thing so it is probably safe enough to go with that.
Out of curiosity, can you source this at all? Because with your knowledge of all things Trek you display, you know very well that Orions and Chlorophyll have absolutely no connection whatsoever in any of the shows or movies. Any connection between the two via a quick and dirty search I performed comes from the Last Unicorn RPG game books.
Nice bit of sarcasm btw, not too subtle yet not too aggressive.
Anyway, Last Unicorn just codified what was already out there informally (remember the part about fanon?). And while the internet is a great resource for finding information and remote social contact it does not have everything exposed where the search engine spiders can catalog it, especially where there are books with the information that the publishers want to keep selling instead of giving the information away free.
I don't have any quick and easy direct links to give you, as I said before a lot of it came from comments in interviews and articles and other behind the scenes sources like convention talks/panels. No doubt there are YouTube videos of some of those interviews but sitting through hundreds of hours of interviews and talk shows is no more practical than combing through every hour of every official Star Trek show to find possible references. Also there are references scattered around the various Star Trek and general science fiction boards and forums to the source of those Star Trek exec comments but they too would take a very long deep dive to dig up again this long after the fact.
The rest of it, like the script references and whatnot are sourced in the scripts (not transcripts, those are fan made by writing down aired dialog for the most part), or the other sources I already mentioned in previous comments. Yes, it is a sort of common lore rather than hard canon (at least so far, it tends to make its way into canon eventually, or at least it did back when the Trek writers (and often producers) were aware of the fanon instead of disdainful and dismissive towards it the way they are now.
I am aware that it is not good enough for the armchair canonistas who automatically dismiss any piece of information not explicitly flogged to death on air in technobabble, but behind the scenes information that is widely accepted like that (several novel writers took it to heart and used in their books because it is so much a part of the lore and fills a glaring gap in the official canon for instance) is good enough for the kind of offhand tangent-of-a-tangent-of-a-tangent comment I used it as. If you recall, the point was actually about TOS contempt.
Don't mistake my approach for being hostile, but this is relevant to the topic. Many players around here are drawn in by the game or one show and wouldn't know all the lore, and with that many games, novels and shows/movies out there, approaching Star Trek can feel daunting. It is however not that difficult to catch up, since we only have one show canon. If you add these little bits and pieces that are not documented anywhere and eloquently sell them as fact it gets more confusing. Behimd the scenes info is interesting, but can be marked as such.
Otherwise you'd say that the 'Twins' in into darkness are actually Caitian despite having no similarities whatsoever, that Gorn have all those 'subspecies' despite it not being relevant anywhere and so on. Show canon serves as a common ground to start from, and the illusion of a complicated, ever 'fluent' canon will persist which doesn't really help in my opinion.
Now regarding the Orions, this is strictly my opinion but I was genuinely curious. Because plant-men Orions is actually something I'd expect Kurtzman's watch to come up with, fits right into riding invisible space mushroom mycel across the universe.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Don't mistake my approach for being hostile, but this is relevant to the topic. Many players around here are drawn in by the game or one show and wouldn't know all the lore, and with that many games, novels and shows/movies out there, approaching Star Trek can feel daunting. It is however not that difficult to catch up, since we only have one show canon. If you add these little bits and pieces that are not documented anywhere and eloquently sell them as fact it gets more confusing. Behimd the scenes info is interesting, but can be marked as such.
Otherwise you'd say that the 'Twins' in into darkness are actually Caitian despite having no similarities whatsoever, that Gorn have all those 'subspecies' despite it not being relevant anywhere and so on. Show canon serves as a common ground to start from, and the illusion of a complicated, ever 'fluent' canon will persist which doesn't really help in my opinion.
Now regarding the Orions, this is strictly my opinion but I was genuinely curious. Because plant-men Orions is actually something I'd expect Kurtzman's watch to come up with, fits right into riding invisible space mushroom mycel across the universe.
A more accurate short answer is that there are no easy to find sources, most are either offline or at least unindexed.
How would knowing what the writer intended lead to any more confusion than what a lot of the later stuff is already plagued with? Knowing what was intended is less chaotic than everyone making their own guess about what is shown onscreen. Remastered TOS has some very glaring errors because they did not usually go back and look at the old scripts, memos, and other original sources.
For instance take the Fesarius in The Corbomite Maneuver. It is clearly and unambiguously identified as a clustership made up of various sized spheres with a shimmering, pulsing glow clinging together "like an invisible fishbowl full of visible glowing marbles". Sadly, it was not possible to do that within budget for a one-off ship using a physical model made of individual spheres so they made a black spherical mask with holes in it that were covered in cut-in-half Ping-Pong balls with some unspecified smaller spheres (possibly marbles or beads) mixed in, with lights on dimmers on the other side of the mask.
But in an epic fail of missed potential, instead of using the freedom of CGI in Remastered to actually make the ship as it was meant to be, they simply modeled the original kludge Jefferies and Chang had to use as a prop in the '60s. It would have been absolutely fantastic if the remastered SFX people would have followed the script SFX instructions instead, then they could have properly shown the launch of Balok's pilot ship as it was supposed to be, which had the spheres shuffling around a bit and the pilot ship forming up and detaching.
Usually I do mention when things come from behind the scenes, but the Orion thing is well enough known that it did not occur to me that it might be necessary in that particular case, and I was being brief since it was just an aside to the actual point, not the point itself.
The twins actually are what Abrams considers Caitian, if they ever actually do a four and if it has Caitians identified as such in dialog that is probably what they will look like since according to the makeup artists Abrams likes that makeup version over all of the others tried for Caitians (and they made a lot of tries). I personally would have preferred if he kept them closer to the TAS version, but Abrams and his acolyte Kurtzman don't seem to care much about things like continuity between series.
And (back to the original subject of this thread) the Gorn have three completely legitimate on-screen looks in live action, that is enough to satisfy even the tightest interpretation of what is canon or not so whether there are different types of Gorn is not really in question, there definitely are, the only question left is what those three types mean in the scheme of things.
What Orion "plant men"? As far as I know none of the material that mentions chlorophyll says (or even implies) that they are humanoid mobile flora like the Delvians of Farscape or Vegetons like Ficus from the old Quark TV series. Orions have always been depicted in those as fauna based like humans/Vulcans/etc., but having chlorophyll (and chloroplasts obviously) in their skin sort of like the real world green sea slug but mammals instead of slugs.
Yeah, saying Orions are plant men/women because they can gain energy and nourishment from sunlight is like saying the Protoss are as well, because they ALSO gain nourishment from sunlight.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
And (back to the original subject of this thread) the Gorn have three completely legitimate on-screen looks in live action, that is enough to satisfy even the tightest interpretation of what is canon or not so whether there are different types of Gorn is not really in question, there definitely are, the only question left is what those three types mean in the scheme of things.
What's the third live-action look for the Gorn? I know of only 2 the one from TOS and the one from ENT, I would consider the TOS-R look to be separate from original TOS look. the JJ Abrams films talked about Gorns but never showed one and as far as I know there's been no Gorn in Discovery or Picard.
And (back to the original subject of this thread) the Gorn have three completely legitimate on-screen looks in live action, that is enough to satisfy even the tightest interpretation of what is canon or not so whether there are different types of Gorn is not really in question, there definitely are, the only question left is what those three types mean in the scheme of things.
What's the third live-action look for the Gorn? I know of only 2 the one from TOS and the one from ENT, I would consider the TOS-R look to be separate from original TOS look. the JJ Abrams films talked about Gorns but never showed one and as far as I know there's been no Gorn in Discovery or Picard.
You are right, I looked it up again and it looks like there are only two types that actually made it air (the TOS and ENT), the third was in the background of the 2009 movie in some of the Rura Penthe scenes, but it turns out that by chance the theater cut took out all the scenes where it was so it never actually was in the movie, and at this late date it is unlikely that an extended cut will be released. It is a good thing it did not make it on the screen, Abrams's idea of a Gorn looks less like a Gorn than the "tailed twins" look like Caitians:
While it was filmed, it never made it on screen, so its canon status is kinda iffy. Typically what is seen on screen is canon.
That's why we've clashed in the past. What was intended behind the scenes vs what we actually see. Its been stated that Roddenberry said of the TMP Klingons in relation to the TOS Klingons is "they always looked like that". So... are we to assume that he always ment them to look like they did in TMP and thus imagine them to look like they did in TMP because that was what was intended?
At least they addressed it in DS9 (Worf saying "we don't like to talk about it"), and came up with a reason in Enterprise.
Throwing in behind the scenes stuff and saying its canon muddies the water because its not as accessable as what is actually shown.
BTW... they actually did make a couple new models for TOSr, I believe the Gorn ship (which was actually designed for the remaster) and the Orion ship were new models. The original Orion ship was just spinning lights with no actual frame or anything. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Orion_scout_ship
OK, I love the Gorn. After the Romulans, the Gorn are tied with Andorians for my favourite Star Trek species. Followed closely by M-113 Salt Vampires and Hortas. Hortae? My main character is a TOS Romulan, and my very first alt is a TOS Gorn. My second alt is an Andorian, but Salt Vampire and Horta captains just seemed...impractical.
Anyway, it's hard to say that the 23c Gorn are a separate race in STO when you can't even MAKE one properly, as the 23c. outfit (for player charcter and BOFF Gorn) has a 24c. chest, despite being modeled on the TOS Gorn captain's uniform. So the best you can do is a twenty-third-and-a-half-century Gorn (shades of Duck Dodgers!) until the STO art people finally debug the outfit's top.
Also, in regards to Slar, he was from the Mirror Universe anyway, IIRC. So his type may not exist in our universe at all. Maybe in the MU, the agile Gorn out-evolved and killed the slow, super-strong Gorn. Maybe in our universe the reverse was true, and the fast guys all got squashed in their sleep by unexpected boulder showers. (Gornar weather forecast: cloudy, with a 50% chance of half-ton blocks of sandstone). Maybe our Gorn once were all agile ones, until they succumbed to a cheeseburger-heavy diet and became the classic TOS Gorn. Who knows? Of course, all of these are merely humourous suggestions, and NOT canon, but just intended to remind folks that Slar "ain't from around these parts", as far as Gorn are concerned, and shouldn't be regarded as typical of "our" Gorn without some substantiated evidence.
Hell, maybe that's WHY everyone in the Mirror Universe is grumpy and xenophobic. Maybe their Gorn rushed out and annoyed everyone else, while ours just kicked back at home and watched boulder sports on TV! And ate cheeseburgers, obviously. Until those pesky Feds invaded/colonized Cestus III in the middle of Playoff Season!
Anyway, fun conversation.
And DEVS: PLEASE fix the 23c. Gorn costume to include 23c. torsos. Thank you!
While it was filmed, it never made it on screen, so its canon status is kinda iffy. Typically what is seen on screen is canon.
That's why we've clashed in the past. What was intended behind the scenes vs what we actually see. Its been stated that Roddenberry said of the TMP Klingons in relation to the TOS Klingons is "they always looked like that". So... are we to assume that he always ment them to look like they did in TMP and thus imagine them to look like they did in TMP because that was what was intended?
At least they addressed it in DS9 (Worf saying "we don't like to talk about it"), and came up with a reason in Enterprise.
Throwing in behind the scenes stuff and saying its canon muddies the water because its not as accessable as what is actually shown.
BTW... they actually did make a couple new models for TOSr, I believe the Gorn ship (which was actually designed for the remaster) and the Orion ship were new models. The original Orion ship was just spinning lights with no actual frame or anything. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Orion_scout_ship
Roddenberry tended to get caught up in the moment and make sweeping statements about things in whatever project he was working on at the moment, hence the Klingon looks statement which was probably fueled by the frustration of not being able to afford to use even the Kang or Kor style makeup for the proposed fourth season format change (Koloth, Korax, and their ship were to become semi-regulars, with lots of Klingons in around half of the episodes), between the budget cuts and the generally punishingly tight shooting schedule of a an hour-long show at the time.
One bit of rare trivia is that Roddenberry originally opposed having a Klingon on the Enterprise crew in TNG because they were too rigid and one-dimensional to work well in a human crew (that one-dimensionality was something he talked about for years before that at conventions and whatnot so it is not surprising).
That gives extra strength to the concept of fusions that would be able to keep up with tricksters like the humans (John M. Ford probably saw the potential in the earlier versions of those comments and ran with it). It also fits in well with ENT's augments, the Klingons already had the technological and physical advantage over UESPA yet lost every encounter with Enterprise because they could not anticipate Archer's tricks at all, so creating warriors who could overcome that limitation must have been deemed worth the risk.
Overall, the evidence from interviews, convention panels, and whatnot (especially after Roddenberry was shoved out of the movie production and basically paid to not kick up too much of a fuss about it) it looks like that "Klingons always looked like that" comment is best taken to mean that there were always movie style ones but that they employed the TOS style ones (whatever you want to call them) genetically modified (or just plain humanoids the empire absorbed) janissaries (remember the constant surveillance) on their border with the Federation. TNG shows that later on they must have accepted the janissaries who survived as full Klingon citizens since the three from TOS were obviously not still under that pervasive observation.
Yes, the Gorn and Orion ships were new models in Remastered. The original Gorn one was very crude since it was only supposed to be seen in blurry extreme magnification.
The Orion one was never meant to be seen at all between the high density of its warp field distorting light around it and its sensor ECM they never got a look at its hull, the screen just had a representation of its warp field (which is why it looked like a giant photon torpedo in FTL flight, the field the sustainers keep up is small and dense just like the bigger one the Orion ship made to travel that fast). The Remastered series execs decided to put a "gods eye view" of the Scout as eye candy for the viewers which was ok, but the clear view of it on the screens they also showed a few times actually conflicts badly with the plot and dialog.
> @shadowfang240 said: > Yeah, saying Orions are plant men/women because they can gain energy and nourishment from sunlight is like saying the Protoss are as well, because they ALSO gain nourishment from sunlight.
No, but I call them plant people should they be able to perform photosynthesis through chloroplasts in their skin, because that is a feature exclusive to plant life (the sea slugs mentioned do not perform photosynthesis, they perform kleptoplasty and simply slowly devour active chloroplasts and thus getting some nourishment from them in a somewhat parasitic capacity). As I said, Orions are green -> green equals chlorophyll -> Orions perform photosynthesis is something so weird it is as good as traveling on invisible space fungus. Especially since Trek has Vulcans, who have copper-based green blood. Orions are way more likely to have that as well than chlorophyll.
Edit: Yes, strange new worlds and all that, this would be fine. Give me sapient plants, no problem, I don't have an issue with it because it's unrealistic, my issue is simply that nothing hints at Orions having chlorophyll in any canon appearance - it would have come up in some capacity at this point. That's why behind the scenes or fan made theories are confusing.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Talk of Orions - about time they made them playable as Federation faction characters in-game.
I mean, Lower Decks has shown us there is at least one Orion Starfleet Officer as of 2380, and I don't recall any dialogue that suggested she was either the first OR the only one.
We also got a Federation Orion in the Kelvin universe/timeline, and Orions served the Terran Empire in the 22nd century, Tendi is the only one so far in the Prime universe that we know of.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Could be an opening for a C-Store unlock.
I'd be tempted to remake a character if it weren't for the fact my short, spunky "Orion" Engie had a T5 vintage Fleet Patrol Escort (non refit).
Comments
Most of the 2409 versions are based on the ENT versions, apparently that also goes for Gorn too, so I don't think we'll be getting those Raptor Gorns any time soon and personally I still don't like how ugly ENT Tellarites look, however at least both Discovery and Picard tried to get back to their porcine roots but with the added addition of tusks.
Picard Tellarites
Discovery Tellarites
Maybe we should call Disco Tellarites, Targarites since they look like Humanoid Targs.
Actually, it does.
Academic papers have been written about the phenomenon of TOS contempt, and embarrassment is a big part of it. Research turned up embarrassment over:
- the "totally uncool" optimism and even to some degree the allegorical nature of the stories (the "happy stuff is for kids" effect)
- the stories were "too cerebral" and liking it meant they had to be nerds (and nerds weren't "cool")
- the stereotype of the nerdy costumed Trekkies running around in public giving Vulcan salutes and spouting quotes (this was a big one, the root of the Trekkie/Trekker split in the 1990s)
- the fact that there were fanzines and very active and vocal fans (not as much of a factor anymore, and it is a variant of the "chirpy preppy overachievers" thing mostly but they made some people uncomfortable)
- the 1960s production values on a serious show that was so popular more than a decade after it was filmed, especially since it came before TV sci-fi became so codified and standardized (eeew! its old! yucky!)
- even the "T-shirts and miniskirts" uniforms (again, not as much of a factor anymore since minis are back in style)
and a few other, more esoteric things, like the chromotherapeutic lights and organic golden ratio googie-style design of the hero ship (googie is designed to be upbeat and challenge the senses, and some people don't like their senses to be challenged) etc.And if you want to see something funny related to that, just watch Kurtzman in interviews, he often gets this look like his underwear is too tight when TOS is brought up.
As a Millennial I couldn't agree more, Modern Star Trek needs optimistic and cerebral content as well as mini skirts, colorful uniforms and scantily clad sexy Orions, who the hell asked for this stupid TRIBBLE, we need less censorship and pessimism in Star Trek bring back the good ol TOS and TNG stuff and while we're at it bring back season 5 of ENT.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
> Most of the 2409 versions are based on the ENT versions, apparently that also goes for Gorn too, so I don't think we'll be getting those Raptor Gorns any time soon and personally I still don't like how ugly ENT Tellarites look, however at least both Discovery and Picard tried to get back to their porcine roots but with the added addition of tusks.
>
> Picard Tellarites
>
>
>
> Discovery Tellarites
>
>
> Maybe we should call Disco Tellarites, Targarites since they look like Humanoid Targs.
The DSC 'rite is actually kind of awesome, he was also played well and added snorts and grunts to his dialogue plus didn't try to be a Dwarf. The PIC costume looks like a only vaguely related species, if any.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
You do know that Discovery had probably skimpiest fem Orion outfits to date, it's just that only people for whom it was logical to wear them wore them. Granted Discovery was also the first time we saw any significant amount of Orions as IIRC there was a grand total of 5 fem Orion character in TOS and ENT combined and 0 in TNG, DS9 or VOY, oh and only handful of extras at slave auction so we really didn't see "normal" Orions until DSC and LD.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Orion outfits have to be reasonably skimpy if they are to maintain their health, especially in the lower ultraviolet content of the daylight or ship lighting most other humanoids probably have. Tendi and Gaila probably have to sleep in the equivalent of tanning beds to compensate for the high coverage of their uniforms cutting down (or even off) ultraviolet to the chlorophyll in so much of their skin area.
But as for the TOS contempt, the miniskirt uniform is not just about how much skin is shown, it is about context. For instance, how many women executives do you think wear Orion-like micromini bikinis to boardroom meetings?
There is a difference between what one wears to the beach or other leisure activity and a professional uniform like a business suit or military uniform. In fact, a lot of the uneasiness for some viewers is the fact that the miniskirt and go-go boots like the skirted option of the TOS female uniform have is part of a more general informal 'uniform', a symbol of the women's rights movement in the 1960s.
Also, while TOS contempt in general is mainly rooted in those things I mentioned in a previous comment, it persists even when some of the elements become irrelevant because once something is branded 'uncool' the stigma tends to stick long after the reasons for it have faded into obscurity. It is like those old feuds that keep going long after those involved forget what started them, and that combined with the parts that are still fully relevant keep TOS contempt going.
It is possible that the survivor was not that familiar with disruptor effects, or was not thinking of the fact that something the size and strength of a Gorn probably carry much larger and more powerful versions than what a Human or Klingon would carry.
IIRC the reason for Orions having green skin has never been explained in canon.
The chlorophyll was one of those things that the writers knew about because it was in the racial bios but probably never made it into dialog or onscreen info displays, but has been a thing for so long that there is no way to say for sure anymore whether it was ever used in throwaway dialog or screens without someone going through every hour of every series looking.
At the very least it is 'hard fanon' and has been mentioned in numerous third party sources, including the races manual that was done in the same vein as the various tech manuals that have had some of their content canonized by being used in live action stories, and the writer's room is usually equipped with those manuals either officially or unofficially which is how so much from the things gets into the shows themselves.
It was also the official line at Paramount when fans asked people involved in the shows about why Orions were green, similar to the way that the producer of Voyager said in interviews that the hero's ship was the Starfleet allegorical equivalent of today's Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. It was also used to explain the gray-skinned Orions in TAS as having been too long out of the kind of sunlight they need so their chlorophyll went dormant.
On the other hand, dialog in The Cage implies that there are Orions who are not green (in fact the script describes the bald guy in civilian clothing as being Orion) and earlier drafts actually state it flat out that the greens are a minority. The script for the fifth movie likewise identifies the rather gaunt and wiry and definitely not-green man with the compressed-air gun who is Sybok's first disciple as an Orion. Also Roger Korby ended up on the ice planet chasing down more leads on Orion medical technology so on an in-setting level it is possible that Ruk was modeled after an ancient version of the gray Orions like the ones seen in TAS.
It is all murky enough that you can just take your pick until a story comes along that actually features the information in a non-ambiguous manner. Until then, the chlorophyll thing was the official behind the scenes thing so it is probably safe enough to go with that.
Out of curiosity, can you source this at all? Because with your knowledge of all things Trek you display, you know very well that Orions and Chlorophyll have absolutely no connection whatsoever in any of the shows or movies. Any connection between the two via a quick and dirty search I performed comes from the Last Unicorn RPG game books.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Nice bit of sarcasm btw, not too subtle yet not too aggressive.
Anyway, Last Unicorn just codified what was already out there informally (remember the part about fanon?). And while the internet is a great resource for finding information and remote social contact it does not have everything exposed where the search engine spiders can catalog it, especially where there are books with the information that the publishers want to keep selling instead of giving the information away free.
I don't have any quick and easy direct links to give you, as I said before a lot of it came from comments in interviews and articles and other behind the scenes sources like convention talks/panels. No doubt there are YouTube videos of some of those interviews but sitting through hundreds of hours of interviews and talk shows is no more practical than combing through every hour of every official Star Trek show to find possible references. Also there are references scattered around the various Star Trek and general science fiction boards and forums to the source of those Star Trek exec comments but they too would take a very long deep dive to dig up again this long after the fact.
The rest of it, like the script references and whatnot are sourced in the scripts (not transcripts, those are fan made by writing down aired dialog for the most part), or the other sources I already mentioned in previous comments. Yes, it is a sort of common lore rather than hard canon (at least so far, it tends to make its way into canon eventually, or at least it did back when the Trek writers (and often producers) were aware of the fanon instead of disdainful and dismissive towards it the way they are now.
I am aware that it is not good enough for the armchair canonistas who automatically dismiss any piece of information not explicitly flogged to death on air in technobabble, but behind the scenes information that is widely accepted like that (several novel writers took it to heart and used in their books because it is so much a part of the lore and fills a glaring gap in the official canon for instance) is good enough for the kind of offhand tangent-of-a-tangent-of-a-tangent comment I used it as. If you recall, the point was actually about TOS contempt.
Don't mistake my approach for being hostile, but this is relevant to the topic. Many players around here are drawn in by the game or one show and wouldn't know all the lore, and with that many games, novels and shows/movies out there, approaching Star Trek can feel daunting. It is however not that difficult to catch up, since we only have one show canon. If you add these little bits and pieces that are not documented anywhere and eloquently sell them as fact it gets more confusing. Behimd the scenes info is interesting, but can be marked as such.
Otherwise you'd say that the 'Twins' in into darkness are actually Caitian despite having no similarities whatsoever, that Gorn have all those 'subspecies' despite it not being relevant anywhere and so on. Show canon serves as a common ground to start from, and the illusion of a complicated, ever 'fluent' canon will persist which doesn't really help in my opinion.
Now regarding the Orions, this is strictly my opinion but I was genuinely curious. Because plant-men Orions is actually something I'd expect Kurtzman's watch to come up with, fits right into riding invisible space mushroom mycel across the universe.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
A more accurate short answer is that there are no easy to find sources, most are either offline or at least unindexed.
How would knowing what the writer intended lead to any more confusion than what a lot of the later stuff is already plagued with? Knowing what was intended is less chaotic than everyone making their own guess about what is shown onscreen. Remastered TOS has some very glaring errors because they did not usually go back and look at the old scripts, memos, and other original sources.
For instance take the Fesarius in The Corbomite Maneuver. It is clearly and unambiguously identified as a clustership made up of various sized spheres with a shimmering, pulsing glow clinging together "like an invisible fishbowl full of visible glowing marbles". Sadly, it was not possible to do that within budget for a one-off ship using a physical model made of individual spheres so they made a black spherical mask with holes in it that were covered in cut-in-half Ping-Pong balls with some unspecified smaller spheres (possibly marbles or beads) mixed in, with lights on dimmers on the other side of the mask.
But in an epic fail of missed potential, instead of using the freedom of CGI in Remastered to actually make the ship as it was meant to be, they simply modeled the original kludge Jefferies and Chang had to use as a prop in the '60s. It would have been absolutely fantastic if the remastered SFX people would have followed the script SFX instructions instead, then they could have properly shown the launch of Balok's pilot ship as it was supposed to be, which had the spheres shuffling around a bit and the pilot ship forming up and detaching.
Usually I do mention when things come from behind the scenes, but the Orion thing is well enough known that it did not occur to me that it might be necessary in that particular case, and I was being brief since it was just an aside to the actual point, not the point itself.
The twins actually are what Abrams considers Caitian, if they ever actually do a four and if it has Caitians identified as such in dialog that is probably what they will look like since according to the makeup artists Abrams likes that makeup version over all of the others tried for Caitians (and they made a lot of tries). I personally would have preferred if he kept them closer to the TAS version, but Abrams and his acolyte Kurtzman don't seem to care much about things like continuity between series.
And (back to the original subject of this thread) the Gorn have three completely legitimate on-screen looks in live action, that is enough to satisfy even the tightest interpretation of what is canon or not so whether there are different types of Gorn is not really in question, there definitely are, the only question left is what those three types mean in the scheme of things.
What Orion "plant men"? As far as I know none of the material that mentions chlorophyll says (or even implies) that they are humanoid mobile flora like the Delvians of Farscape or Vegetons like Ficus from the old Quark TV series. Orions have always been depicted in those as fauna based like humans/Vulcans/etc., but having chlorophyll (and chloroplasts obviously) in their skin sort of like the real world green sea slug but mammals instead of slugs.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
What's the third live-action look for the Gorn? I know of only 2 the one from TOS and the one from ENT, I would consider the TOS-R look to be separate from original TOS look. the JJ Abrams films talked about Gorns but never showed one and as far as I know there's been no Gorn in Discovery or Picard.
You are right, I looked it up again and it looks like there are only two types that actually made it air (the TOS and ENT), the third was in the background of the 2009 movie in some of the Rura Penthe scenes, but it turns out that by chance the theater cut took out all the scenes where it was so it never actually was in the movie, and at this late date it is unlikely that an extended cut will be released. It is a good thing it did not make it on the screen, Abrams's idea of a Gorn looks less like a Gorn than the "tailed twins" look like Caitians:
That's why we've clashed in the past. What was intended behind the scenes vs what we actually see. Its been stated that Roddenberry said of the TMP Klingons in relation to the TOS Klingons is "they always looked like that". So... are we to assume that he always ment them to look like they did in TMP and thus imagine them to look like they did in TMP because that was what was intended?
At least they addressed it in DS9 (Worf saying "we don't like to talk about it"), and came up with a reason in Enterprise.
Throwing in behind the scenes stuff and saying its canon muddies the water because its not as accessable as what is actually shown.
BTW... they actually did make a couple new models for TOSr, I believe the Gorn ship (which was actually designed for the remaster) and the Orion ship were new models. The original Orion ship was just spinning lights with no actual frame or anything.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Orion_scout_ship
Anyway, it's hard to say that the 23c Gorn are a separate race in STO when you can't even MAKE one properly, as the 23c. outfit (for player charcter and BOFF Gorn) has a 24c. chest, despite being modeled on the TOS Gorn captain's uniform. So the best you can do is a twenty-third-and-a-half-century Gorn (shades of Duck Dodgers!) until the STO art people finally debug the outfit's top.
Also, in regards to Slar, he was from the Mirror Universe anyway, IIRC. So his type may not exist in our universe at all. Maybe in the MU, the agile Gorn out-evolved and killed the slow, super-strong Gorn. Maybe in our universe the reverse was true, and the fast guys all got squashed in their sleep by unexpected boulder showers. (Gornar weather forecast: cloudy, with a 50% chance of half-ton blocks of sandstone). Maybe our Gorn once were all agile ones, until they succumbed to a cheeseburger-heavy diet and became the classic TOS Gorn. Who knows? Of course, all of these are merely humourous suggestions, and NOT canon, but just intended to remind folks that Slar "ain't from around these parts", as far as Gorn are concerned, and shouldn't be regarded as typical of "our" Gorn without some substantiated evidence.
Hell, maybe that's WHY everyone in the Mirror Universe is grumpy and xenophobic. Maybe their Gorn rushed out and annoyed everyone else, while ours just kicked back at home and watched boulder sports on TV! And ate cheeseburgers, obviously. Until those pesky Feds invaded/colonized Cestus III in the middle of Playoff Season!
Anyway, fun conversation.
And DEVS: PLEASE fix the 23c. Gorn costume to include 23c. torsos. Thank you!
Roddenberry tended to get caught up in the moment and make sweeping statements about things in whatever project he was working on at the moment, hence the Klingon looks statement which was probably fueled by the frustration of not being able to afford to use even the Kang or Kor style makeup for the proposed fourth season format change (Koloth, Korax, and their ship were to become semi-regulars, with lots of Klingons in around half of the episodes), between the budget cuts and the generally punishingly tight shooting schedule of a an hour-long show at the time.
One bit of rare trivia is that Roddenberry originally opposed having a Klingon on the Enterprise crew in TNG because they were too rigid and one-dimensional to work well in a human crew (that one-dimensionality was something he talked about for years before that at conventions and whatnot so it is not surprising).
That gives extra strength to the concept of fusions that would be able to keep up with tricksters like the humans (John M. Ford probably saw the potential in the earlier versions of those comments and ran with it). It also fits in well with ENT's augments, the Klingons already had the technological and physical advantage over UESPA yet lost every encounter with Enterprise because they could not anticipate Archer's tricks at all, so creating warriors who could overcome that limitation must have been deemed worth the risk.
Overall, the evidence from interviews, convention panels, and whatnot (especially after Roddenberry was shoved out of the movie production and basically paid to not kick up too much of a fuss about it) it looks like that "Klingons always looked like that" comment is best taken to mean that there were always movie style ones but that they employed the TOS style ones (whatever you want to call them) genetically modified (or just plain humanoids the empire absorbed) janissaries (remember the constant surveillance) on their border with the Federation. TNG shows that later on they must have accepted the janissaries who survived as full Klingon citizens since the three from TOS were obviously not still under that pervasive observation.
Yes, the Gorn and Orion ships were new models in Remastered. The original Gorn one was very crude since it was only supposed to be seen in blurry extreme magnification.
The Orion one was never meant to be seen at all between the high density of its warp field distorting light around it and its sensor ECM they never got a look at its hull, the screen just had a representation of its warp field (which is why it looked like a giant photon torpedo in FTL flight, the field the sustainers keep up is small and dense just like the bigger one the Orion ship made to travel that fast). The Remastered series execs decided to put a "gods eye view" of the Scout as eye candy for the viewers which was ok, but the clear view of it on the screens they also showed a few times actually conflicts badly with the plot and dialog.
> Yeah, saying Orions are plant men/women because they can gain energy and nourishment from sunlight is like saying the Protoss are as well, because they ALSO gain nourishment from sunlight.
No, but I call them plant people should they be able to perform photosynthesis through chloroplasts in their skin, because that is a feature exclusive to plant life (the sea slugs mentioned do not perform photosynthesis, they perform kleptoplasty and simply slowly devour active chloroplasts and thus getting some nourishment from them in a somewhat parasitic capacity). As I said, Orions are green -> green equals chlorophyll -> Orions perform photosynthesis is something so weird it is as good as traveling on invisible space fungus. Especially since Trek has Vulcans, who have copper-based green blood. Orions are way more likely to have that as well than chlorophyll.
Edit: Yes, strange new worlds and all that, this would be fine. Give me sapient plants, no problem, I don't have an issue with it because it's unrealistic, my issue is simply that nothing hints at Orions having chlorophyll in any canon appearance - it would have come up in some capacity at this point. That's why behind the scenes or fan made theories are confusing.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
We also got a Federation Orion in the Kelvin universe/timeline, and Orions served the Terran Empire in the 22nd century, Tendi is the only one so far in the Prime universe that we know of.
They have - the S'Yahaza City Talons.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I'd be tempted to remake a character if it weren't for the fact my short, spunky "Orion" Engie had a T5 vintage Fleet Patrol Escort (non refit).