I actually like that explanation. It makes the most sense and really is the only way to explain why so many of the higher life forms are so compatible that they can even interbreed. This is really one of my favorite episodes for that reason. I mean, really the look of disgust on those guys faces when they found out they were related was reason enough to make it a great episode.
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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The problem with this episode is that it feels rushed. The setup is good, but they don't have the time to sell the conclusion. Imagine if any of the two part stories in the series were single episodes. I also think that sometimes leaving a mystery unsolved or still with questions is better than outright answering it.
I agree that the concept that important deserved a little more setup. Really it would have been good to sprinkle buildup and clues throughout a whole season for a better payoff.
Unfortunately they just wouldn’t take that kind of risk with TNG or Voyager so the closest we got was the dominion war build up in DS9.
It makes the most sense
Except that it doesn't make any sense at all because that's not even close to how DNA or evolution work. The episode is about as scientifically grounded as the one where Barclay devolves into a spider.
especially when we know he should be evolving into a salamander baby. it's just proven science
It makes about as much sense as Q.
Or the sound of phasers and explosions in space.
Pretending like Star Trek is a bastion of scientific accuracy instead of excellent space fantasy is just ridiculous.
It is how it works if you design it that way...
See, it's that interbreeding that's the issue.
Spock was originally fully Vulcan, and then he was a miracle of Vulcan and Human genetic science.
And then the eugenics war became part of canon.
But the writers still wanted hybrids, because they offer a glimpse into an alien culture.
Which leaves us with a conundrum.
I just feel that there was a better answer than "Ancient Aliens".
In a galaxy full of aliens with the same morphology and 3 or 4 godlike species like the traveler and Q, "ancient aliens" is where the answers start to fall apart?
I'm just saying that 99% of the hybrids shown in any particular series could have still been explained as deliberate genetic manipulation. Many of them are.
But mostly I'm still mad about how lazy that episodes seemed when compared to some of the other episodes that season.
i thought this was cool as a kid!
It’s a fun, well executed episode. It just happens to be one of those occasions where the Trek writers betray their complete misunderstanding of evolution.
oh yeah, maybe so. i think for me, as a kid, it was a tale that showed me we, ie humans, are more similar and have more in common than may appear to us at first glance. good lesson at that time.
Yeah, it's thematically appropriate for Star Trek, and a solid episode by just about every other metric. And Star Trek has never exactly been hard sci-fi, so I mostly don't let it bother me.
On the other hand, having lived through the "teach the controversy" nonsense, I do get just a little more bothered when they get evolution wrong than I do when they mess up something else.
Not to mention the scale of space and time
Especially since the solids share very little with the founders /s
Didn’t the founder lady say they were originally like the solids? Or am i misremembering?
They evolved from solid life forms, but it was never established what kind of life forms. Could be humanoid, could be a bacterium. It would make no scientific sense for something as complex as a humanoid to evolve into something so different. But it's Star Trek, so anything is possible.
But it’s Star Trek, so anything is possible.
hyper evolved space salamanders.
Maybe it was something they achieved rather than evolved to. Like ascension in Stargate.
Achievement unlocked: your body spontaneously melted.
Third impact.
I want a hard reboot where there are no humanoid aliens at all.
No Vulcans or Klingons; hell, no bipeds at all!
Oops! All Tribbles!
The Horta has entered the chat...
I remember reading about something that described this thought in a Star Wars fan site once. The stories that show human characters or human like characters everywhere, aren't really human at all ... they are more like place holders for exotic space alien beings that we can't even imagine.
I'd like to think that of Star Trek as well. The stories are just stories being shown for our convenience because the aliens they would encounter would be so strange and foreign to us that we wouldn't be able to believe it, let alone understand it
Babylon5 was much closer to that that Star Trek was.
Well, the few advanced ones were. But all the others that needed to fit in the budget were all humanoid.
...or were shown in biosuits
Then it wouldn't be Star Trek, which is primarily a sci fi representation of human social conflicts with forehead stuff as a stand in for racial differences.
To the point that Nimoy set out to do “the wall coming down in space” for ST6 as the whole plot.
I'm perfectly happy with it not being 'Star Trek.'
I want a show where we encounter and deal with truly strange new worlds.
Those shows already exist!
Honestly I've always hated this. An early example of the awful trend where there has to be a "lore reason" for every little detail.
Star Trek aliens are mostly humanoids because its a human TV show telling stories that have to be relatable to humans and also has a limited budget. There is no need for a lore explanation.
At least in this case it's a one off that's never really referenced again.
I like it, because it tells us that even though they are all aliens, everyone is related as one giant family.
So why have a war between species, when that means we are all fighting our own.
It is a good analogy about humanity and how we all evolved from the same ancestors, so we should stop the bickering and start to work together to make our ancestors proud.
I agree with you in premise, there is a general trend to over lore in modern sci-fi. Things can't just be, they need some specific explanation.
This though, I didn't hate. It's always bothered me that aliens in sci-fi are just humans with shit on their face, their cultures are just aspects of our culture turned to the extreme, and every species' technology is around the same level.
Having a progenitor species that seeded the galaxy and that's why every intelligent species is basically the same is fine, basic but you know at least it makes sense and doesn't need to come up again.
Why are they the same, because a wizard did it essentially.
If they were true to how the universe works then every species they encountered would be crabs.
"There is something of us in each of you, and so, something of you in each other."
ghost side-eyeing Dr. Crusher
Salome Jens played both the alien that seeded the universe and the female shapeshifter from DS9.
And the Sphere Builder from Enterprise.
But first the motherfucking dinosaurs.
I haven't seen discovery so no spoilers
But it would be great if there was a bigger explanation that the general humanoid aliens were all seeded by the preservers while other more exotic spacefaring species evolved on their own hence the significant differences
Hard to say why specifically without spoilers, but I think you should at least try watching Discovery. It has some interesting ideas and is not altogether bad. I still like it the least out of all the series though. My issues with it are purely structural in nature (in short, too many things are rushed IMO).
I slogged through the first couple seasons but gave up when they were the only ones who miraculously solve the Burn
I hated that too. I did enjoy the season before that a lot though