Stupid Alien Designs + Worthless Concepts

[King Green]

Have any of you had disagreements withs creation of an extra-terrestrial/dimensional/psychological/biological/etc. Species that has little to no sense whatsoever?

For me: knee-testicles from Trek: Wrath of Khan, Betazoid mating cycle which makes every female practically an omni-sexual with little consequence-view, the weird alien-"gods" in voyager; janeway takes a faith test???, f#cking Vulcan inner eye-lids?!?, ocampans idea of the afterlife which is essentially becoming a sentient cosmic power, the nazi planet from TOS and worst of all...some bullshit cosmic barrier to limit warp speed to 9.9.

The writers really need to re-think their creations. Worldbuilding is not for newborn god-babies like Franklin Reeds in Marvel.

[TGLS]

For me: knee-testicles from Trek: Wrath of Khan

Technically, it was The Undiscovered Country.

f#cking Vulcan inner eye-lids?!?

Just leaving this here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nictitating_membrane

some bullshit cosmic barrier to limit warp speed to 9.9.

It's because they were tired of coming up with more and more ridiculous figures for speed. If they didn't put any limit, it would just get more and more ludicrous as they use larger and larger numbers. So they instead decided to redefine Warp to be proportional to 1/(10-x), so at worst they would just start adding more 9s.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The Nazi and Gangster planet is kind of weird yeah.

[Link8909]

The Nazi and Gangster planet is kind of weird yeah.

I love 1920s Gangster Planet.

Though if its stupid alien designs look no further than the Ocampa, while they don't look ridiculous, biologically they are a complete mess.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yeah they'd need some sort of person that takes care of things in order to function socially as a people.

[McAvoy]

The Ocampa with their dog life span and can only reproduce once and it's a tedious process.

Yep complete mess.

[TGLS]

Eh, The Ocampa's screwed up biology can be justified by the Caretaker screwing it up.

[Nealithi]

Have any of you had disagreements withs creation of an extra-terrestrial/dimensional/psychological/biological/etc. Species that has little to no sense whatsoever?

For me: knee-testicles from Trek: Wrath of Khan, f#cking Vulcan inner eye-lids?!?, the nazi planet from TOS.

The writers really need to re-think their creations. Worldbuilding is not for newborn god-babies like Franklin Reeds in Marvel.

Just narrowing down three I feel like defending. So bear with me please.
The knee/testes in Undiscovered Country was a hand wave at not all aliens are human. And they didn't go into details. Because of that all you need to do is handwave it off about said statement on aliens.
Vulcan inner eyelids. It has been mentioned all the way back to TOS that an ancient race seeded both Earth and Vulcan. Vulcan is a desert world with lots of harsh light and sand storms. A bit to protect the eyes is not exactly a bad adaptation. Spock 'forgetting' they exist? He spends most of his time on a climate controlled star ship. How often do the inner eyelids even blink? And if they are to hold back excessive light. Then on a relatively dark place like said star ship he may well be blind.

Now the Nazi planet and the gangster planet were odd. But one was specifically done. And Spock himself said the chances of a world developing all that from naming to uniforms is astronomically unlikely. It was imposed upon them. How likely was it to be accomplished? I read about a teacher did an experiment where he put some people in his class over others. Gave them certain signs etc to practice. And they fell into a superiority level that was scary. After some time (And it wasn't much if I recall) he pointed out he had been recreating Nazi doctrine. And they simply followed the path before them. So the Nazi planet is actually possible to do. For the historian to think he could get efficiency without cruelty from it. Well that seems less plausible to me. But Chuck also mentions that for a time it was considered plausible.

The gangster planet is less plausible. I think they wanted Kirk and company to encounter a mafia style society but to do up the aliens and everything would cost too much. So a handwave was put in the story. They copied a big book of gangland and got all the style and attitude from that. Then we can use premade sets and costumes for a fraction of the cost.

And that last part I think is where things get difficult. You have to keep to your budget. Both in money, but in time as well. The ocampa breeding situation. Chuck went into how professional writers would move there from DS9 or TNG and be appalled at how little they cared about continuity. So a writer tosses in something 'alien' and says job done. This also leads to things like the skin flap covering an alien's mouth and while we hear a ton of verbal exposition, they communicate through interpretive dance. . . So maybe we need to toss anything from voyager. . .

[McAvoy]

Eh, The Ocampa's screwed up biology can be justified by the Caretaker screwing it up.

Maybe. All we got is that with the Female Caretaker is the Ocampa can live as longer. Not sure about the reproduction.

Maybe whatever happened to that planet changed them. Afterall, their evolution would be accelerated with their short lifespan.

[clearspira]

Knee testicles are stupid for one simple reason: testicles exist to create and store sperm. Meaning we now have to work out where his dick is as if it is anywhere other than his leg then this alien must have sperm tubes like veins.

The Congenitor from ENT would make my list. Not because of the idea of 3 sexes, but because it is stated on screen that they make up only 3% of the population. How the in the blue blazes of hell can a species evolve with a 97% gender disparity and not be an evolutionary dead end? One plague, one war, one natural disaster is all it would take to have wiped out 3% of the population when they were in their early years.