SNW: Memento Mori

[clearspira]

Before we go off on this episode too harshly, I think it does need to be noted that it was actually Enterprise's ''In The Mirror Darkly'' that first retconned the Gorn into fast moving velociraptors without cunning or guile that roared more often than they spoke. In fact, the battle against that Gorn even is vaguely ''Alien-esque'' given how it involved a hunt through the Jefferies Tubes/air vents. The blame here probably should go to ENT instead of SNW.

But yeah, these changes are awful. One of the reasons why ''Arena'' is such a fan favourite episode is beause of its message. This Gorn turned out to be their Captain Kirk. More savage yes, but brave and cunning and smart. Proving that just because you look like an inhuman monster TO ME, just because you look different and act different and think differently TO ME, it doesn't mean that your soul is different to mine. And you can apply this message to anything. Race, gender, LGBT issues. Its not what is on the outside, its what is on the inside that counts. And bear in mind, this was the 1960s, which was a message that needed to be said.

By turning them into Andromeda's Magog, that message is gone. Like so much of Star Trek's hopeful future in the last twenty years.

And what amplifies the message of ''Arena'' is that the Federation was in the wrong. WE were encroaching into THEIR territory. They thought we were invading them and were defending themselves. Disproportionately sure, but its not as if humans haven't been guilty of that in real life too. This also BTW amplifies the idea that the Federation in TOS had barely any idea who the Gorn were as they apparantly had no knowledge of their territorial borders.

Like Section 31 being a secret by the 24th century despite the events of DISCO, there is no way this episode can co-exist with the events of ''Arena''.

[Al-1701]

I think modern creators just think the fights in Arena were too cringe. And the Gorn in In A Mirror Darkly is a taskmaster hired by space crystals, so he's not going to be the most glowing example of his race. Also, Mirror Universe. In Terrans are a brutish people, so can be the Gorn.

I'm also use to the Gorn being one of the Federation's closest allies (once the business of the Arena was sorted out) in Starfleet Battles. SFB even describes the Gorn as a people of high intelligence and personal bravery (there were also three species of Gorn who evolved on separate planets despite being the same genus [perhaps an ancient intelligence separated them so they would not wipe each other out]).

[Madner Kami]

The ENT-Gorn is mostly a visual update to the TOS-Gorn. A bipedal, humanoid reptilian species. Somewhat slower than a human, but very much physically a lot stronger than your average human and more resilient (Enterprise's Gorn gets floored by an increase of local gravity to 20Gs; a human would get crushed and literally pancacked by that). The SNW-Gorn are quadrupedal and animalistic lizards. There's a huge visual and behavioural difference between both and while there actually would be room for... let's call it creative reprodutive practises, them explicitly hunting sapient species for oviposition is just not there in prime canon.

[Al-1701]

I was thinking the juveniles might be arboreal (like actual Komodo dragons) and therefore have a more quadrupedal build and a tail. This could be a holdover from when their progenitors had to seek refuge in trees from adults that would eat them. As they mature, their skeletons adjust to be bipedal and lose the tail.

Really, they could do fastening things with the Gorn. In the Kelvin universe, Gorn give birth to live young themselves like sharks (which apparently bite like sharks). Could they always do this or only hold their eggs inside when laying the clutch is too hazardous? We'll never know because this is the Gorn we got.