- 18/06/2025
Kellin? There's no one here by that name.
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00:00We here at TrekCulture love a list that's completely topical and on the button and on the money,
00:05so you're probably wondering, it's literally called Alien Species You've Forgotten About.
00:09What are you talking about?
00:10There is actually a reason, and before I start, please note that this article was written a little while ago,
00:17and that will make sense as we go on. Sorry, Jack.
00:20With that in mind, I'm Sean Ferrick for TrekCulture,
00:23and here are 10 alien species you've probably forgotten about.
00:28Number 10, The Axanar.
00:30You're certainly already familiar with the name Axanar,
00:32it's the title of the much-discussed fan film project led by Alec Peters
00:35that tells the story of Garth of Izar and Crewe during the Four Years' War with the Klingons,
00:40ending in Garth's ultimate victory at the titular planet.
00:43Prelude to Axanar, released in 2014, features a gaggle of famously familiar faces and Star Trek alum,
00:48the likes of Tony Todd, Gary Graham, J.G. Hertzler,
00:51and Battlestar Galactica's Kate Vernon, who of course also appeared in Star Trek, and Richard Hatch.
00:55In all of this, you've perhaps forgotten that we've actually met the Axanar.
01:00They were one of the first friendly species the crew of the NX-01 made contact with,
01:05thanks in large part to the linguistic genius of Hoshi Sato.
01:08The Axanar are androgynous with 400 plus year lifespans,
01:12so Captain Garth could even have fought alongside Hoshi's first contact friend at the Battle of Axanar.
01:17The adversaries in that skirmish have never been given in canon,
01:20nor have we encountered the Axanar again since fight or flight.
01:23Number 9, The Hikarans.
01:26Star Trek The Next Generation's Season 7 installment, Force of Nature,
01:29has never ranked all that well with Fan.
01:32Despite the relatively strong ecological message at its core,
01:34the episode is really only remembered for imposing a maximum speed limit on Federation vessels,
01:39and since that idea was rapidly swept back into the subspace disruptions it came from,
01:44you'd be forgiven for forgetting the alien species at the centre of this warp drive drama.
01:47We've only ever met two Hikarans,
01:50the brother and sister science duo who were trying to save their planet, Hikaris II,
01:54which was under threat from the cumulative effects of warp field energy on the region.
01:58Sure, they might both have engaged in some unconventional methods to prove their point,
02:02but then most activists don't wait around for the paperwork to clear.
02:05Rabaal and Sarova were widely greeted with suspicion aboard the Enterprise-D,
02:10Geordi seemed more concerned by his power conversion,
02:13one-upmanship with Commander Kaplan of the Intrepid,
02:16and Picard fobbed them off to the Federation.
02:18Sarova had to self-destruct her own ship before anyone would truly listen,
02:22sacrificing herself to prove her theory.
02:25There's nothing like a gigantic subspace rift to make people pay attention.
02:29Number 8, The Fabrini.
02:31You no doubt remember the original series episode for The World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky,
02:36but if someone just said Fabrini to you,
02:38your first thought might be alcohol or pasta, not alien species from Star Trek.
02:42In physical appearance, the Fabrini were suspiciously human,
02:46let's call that one convergent evolution towards budget savings,
02:49and their clothing wouldn't have looked much out of place on Carnaby Street in the 60s.
02:53They had to make do on the original series, of course,
02:56but with nothing to distinguish them outwardly,
02:58it's little wonder that the Fabrini have been forgotten.
03:01Nevertheless, what the Fabrini lacked in facial features,
03:04they made up for in fairly fascinating backstory.
03:07Some 10,000 years before they bumped into the Enterprise,
03:09a group of Fabrini escaped their dying planet aboard a generational ship that was also on an asteroid.
03:15Think Oumuamua, but it's definitely aliens.
03:19When Kirk, Spock and McCoy beamed over,
03:21they found that the Fabrini had lost all knowledge of their past
03:24and were worshipping the ship's central computer as the Oracle of the People.
03:28Fortunately for Dr. McCoy, said computer contained the Fabrini's advanced medical knowledge
03:32enough to cure him of the conveniently deadly Xenopolyscythemia.
03:37Number 7. The Antarans
03:39The Star Trek Enterprise episode, The Breach, is a bit of a mixed bag of speleothems, mostly.
03:46On the one hand, it's an attempt at a moral tale about the perniciousness of deep-seated historical prejudices,
03:51and on the other, it's a comedy cave rescue caper.
03:54You've likely also forgotten about the alien species at the centre of that first plotline,
03:58the Antarans, once embroiled in a bloody series of wars with the Denobulans.
04:03The actual fighting may have ended over 300 years ago,
04:06but an extreme animosity remained between the two peoples,
04:10so much so that an Antaran patient, Hudak,
04:13refused life-saving treatment from Dr. Phlox aboard Enterprise.
04:17Captain Archer then ordered Phlox to treat Hudak against his will, even suggesting sedation,
04:22arguing that the doctor was ethically bound to help if he could.
04:25Phlox refused, stating,
04:27Hippocrates wasn't Denobulan.
04:29Whatever the reasons, Hudak had the capacity at that stage to refuse care.
04:33Treating him would have, therefore, been unethical.
04:35It seems more than a little odd that Archer would have forgotten about the importance of informed consent in Earth medical practice.
04:41In any case, Phlox and Hudak began a different kind of healing process,
04:46but it's one we never hear about again.
04:48Number 6.
04:49The Herc.
04:50Named from the Klingon word,
04:52Herc, slang for outsider or foreigner,
04:55Herc meaning outside,
04:56the Herc have only ever been mentioned by name in two episodes of Star Trek.
05:01Presumed extinct by 2372,
05:03we don't even know what the Herc looked like.
05:05The species was introduced in the Sword of Kalas,
05:08in which our trio of honourables, Dax, Kor and Worf,
05:11go on a quest to find the titular weapon,
05:13nabbed by the Herc during their invasion and pillage of Kronos over 1,000 years prior.
05:18After Jadzia identifies Herc writing and DNA on the Sword's Shroud,
05:22brought back from the Gamma Quadrant by Kor,
05:25all three set off to the ruins of a Herc museum.
05:28That's about as much of a look at the species as we get,
05:30the rest of the episode is mostly two grown-ups arguing over a bit of metal.
05:34The Herc then get a second offhand mention in the Star Trek Enterprise episode, Affliction.
05:39Star Trek Online gives the species quite the backstory, however.
05:43In it, the Herc were once a peaceful race,
05:45until the Dominion stopped by and removed a crucial fungus from their ecosystem.
05:49This caused the Herc to go insane and start their rampage as the great plunderers of the galaxy,
05:55as Kor would later describe them.
05:57Number 5.
05:58Gods and Devils.
05:59That Tennessee Williams line has perhaps never been more literal than when applied to Star Trek.
06:04Take away all of the demons and you'd lose the angels too.
06:08Over the years, Trek has run the inventory of devils and deities,
06:12very real incarnations of the classic good versus evil battle that even the future can't do without,
06:17and all the better to know our crew by.
06:19That's not to forget that frontiers are still drawn in the galaxy
06:22between Bellicose Empires and the friendly Federation.
06:26There are those you'll know, Apollo, Shakaree, Ardra, the Prophet's parades, Janeway's dad, Satan's robot,
06:34plus probably the Q on both sides of the fence, and those you won't.
06:38Our own Frank Chavez has recently written about the much misunderstood Megans of the animated series
06:43that gave us Lucian himself in satiric form.
06:46Animated series writer Larry Brody had always wanted to do an episode where the Enterprise met God.
06:52Studio execs hated the idea, but they didn't mind a story about the devil.
06:56Go figure.
06:57There's one last god-like alien species you've probably forgotten about, the Preservers.
07:02All we've seen in canon of this powerful race, who certainly liked to act the transcendent part,
07:07are the obelisks they left behind on their protected planets.
07:11Number 4. The Rumorans.
07:13There's more than a little irony to the fact that Star Trek Voyager's Unforgettable
07:17is one of the show's least memorable episodes.
07:20It's less surprising, then, if you can't recall the Rumorans.
07:23In fact, no one, on screen at least, was supposed to.
07:27Isolationist to the nth degree, the Rumorans were forbidden from leaving their home planet.
07:31Highly advanced in stealth technology, Rumoran biology was also adapted to their covert existence.
07:38A pheromone released by their bodies blocked long-term memory formation in anyone they encountered.
07:43Within a day or so, you'd forget you'd even fallen in love.
07:46Twice.
07:47Those Rumorans who did try to escape their home world were hunted by tracers
07:51and had their memories wiped by neurolytic emitters.
07:54That might have ended Chakotay and runaway Kellen's romance,
07:57but at least the latter got to forget everything about Needlings' cooking.
08:01Given the Rumorans also had a knack for computer viruses to erase every last shred of their presence,
08:06it is highly unlikely that any record of the species made it back to Starfleet.
08:11With zero context, Chakotay's pen and paper approach would have just seemed like the scrawlings of a madman.
08:18Number 3.
08:19The Skagarans.
08:21You might not be the only one who's forgotten about this species,
08:24nestled away in what was once the Delphic Expanse.
08:26We still don't know if Captain Archer, when he was done saving the rest of humanity,
08:30made good on his promise to alert Starfleet to send help to the human Skagarin planet from the episode North Star.
08:35It's somewhat surprising that Enterprise had its practically mandatory Western Frontier episode
08:40right in amongst the fast-paced Zindi arc,
08:43but with 24 of them to write in that season, I suppose they had to slow down at some point.
08:48The episode was interesting enough, if a little clumsy with the real-world parallels it attempted to draw.
08:53These Skagarans themselves were relatively intriguing as alien abductors from Earth's past.
08:58Sadly, we didn't get to meet Amelia Earhart this time.
09:00Already a technologically advanced society by Earth's 19th century,
09:05warp-capable with directed energy weapons and transporters,
09:08the Skagarans enslaved thousands of humans to assist in the creation of colonies on other worlds.
09:13Humans on the North Star planet rebelled, however,
09:15subjugating the Skagarans in turn until the NX-01 intervened to stop them.
09:20Perhaps more generally, we need a long trek to tie up all of these alien abductor storylines.
09:25Number two, the Vendorians.
09:29Oh, okay, I'm going to read this as it's written,
09:33but please send a bit of love to poor Jack who wrote this
09:37before the episode Caves of Star Trek Lower Decks' fourth season.
09:43There is one purple-haired ensign, now a Lieutenant Junior grade,
09:46who won't forget his first Vendorian.
09:47It had taken the form of a put-upon Andorian elder on Tulgana IV,
09:52and Boimler then naturally phasered the wrong blue guy,
09:56starting a bar brawl until Beckett Kirkhands Mariner stepped in to offer drinks.
10:01The lesson?
10:02Always know your shapeshifters, or you'll end up working on a research asteroid.
10:05The Vendorians made their debut back in the 1970s in the OG animated series episode The Survivor.
10:11A truly alien alien species, the likes of which only animation could really achieve at the time,
10:16the Vendorians were octopus-like creatures capable of rearranging their own atoms
10:21to become anyone or anything, even engineering components of relative size.
10:26Imitation being the sincerest and creepiest form of flattery,
10:29if a Vendorian maintained the form of a person for long enough,
10:33it could begin to take on the memories, emotions, and attitudes of that person.
10:37This was the case for famous, and formerly lost explorer, Carter Winston,
10:42who crash-landed on the Vendorian homeworld,
10:44living there for almost a year before his body ceased to function.
10:48The masquerading Vendorian who had cared for Carter,
10:51then weaseled his way aboard the Enterprise to commit all sorts of sabotage.
10:55And just another note that these aliens would come back quite recently in Lower Decks,
11:00where they're still up to their shapeshifting shenanigans.
11:03Number 1. The Satarrans.
11:05How do you solve a problem like the Satarrans?
11:08I don't know. Get it on, Mcmander Riker?
11:11From a relatively memorable episode, with another memory wipe,
11:14it's likely you've forgotten about this particular alien species.
11:17Let's begin with a show of good faith.
11:19His last words, Picard, which you soon won't remember either.
11:23Careful, it's the namesake of that guy from The Scottish Play,
11:27or Suds, from The Simpsons, if you prefer.
11:29What's he doing there on the bridge, dripping with dramatic irony?
11:33Don't play dumb, Macduff.
11:35We all know you're not a member of the crew.
11:37Now, let's get to solving this little conundrum,
11:40as there's a highly advanced android down in Ten Forward
11:43wasting an awful lot of processing power serving drinks.
11:46When Macduff's machinations are uncovered,
11:48despite the general amnesia,
11:50his true Satarran form is briefly revealed
11:53thanks to a couple of rapid phaser volleys.
11:55Under the Starfleet garb,
11:56he'd probably be due a mention in the Gods and Devils entry on this list.
12:00Demonic, almost mummified in appearance,
12:02with bulging eyes, mouth and teeth exposed,
12:05and a thoracic region laid bare in grim, skeletal fashion,
12:09whatever counted as flesh for a Satarran
12:11was a nightmarish mottled grey.
12:13I doubt many are holidaying on the Satarran homeworld of Sothis III.
12:17Put it that way.
12:18Folks, thank you so much for watching along,
12:20and thank you so much once again to Jack Kiley for writing this list.
12:23You are awesome and wonderful.
12:25Please check out the original list,
12:26and please make sure that you are subscribed.
12:28Make sure you're following us over on Twitter at TrekCulture.
12:30We're on Instagram at TrekCultureYT,
12:32and we are of course on TikTok and BlueSky as well.
12:35I have been Sean Ferrick.
12:35You can follow me on the various socials.
12:37Look after yourselves until I'm talking to you again.
12:40Make sure that you live long and prosper.
12:42Take care.
12:43Thanks very much.
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