It’s been a few years, but I have not stopped thinking about Gurx, the planet that is home to the Strondovarians. I have not improved my artistic skills at all since last time, and I still only draw reluctantly because there’s nobody else to draw for me. But my desire to not draw is outvoted by my inability to stop thinking about alien worlds, so it’s definitely time I dipped my feet back into the oceans of worldbuilding (also the poll on my Patreon said to do it).

To begin, it’s probably best if I go back to the beginning and get reacquainted with some of the animals of Gurx that we’ve learned about in the past. Not the beginning of the planet, but let’s say the beginning of the branch on the evolutionary family tree on which the Strondos arose:

We all know the not really accurate image of humanity’s evolution from fish to monkeyman to human and all that. But hey, it’s better than no visual at all.

Starting at the left we have the aquatic common ancestor of all modern Lapaouger animals on Gurx:

Lapaouger have a bodyplan that is defined by a six-limbed muscular system. These things were air-breathers that floated near the tops of the ocean until prey drifted beneath them, then they’d drop onto their victims and grab them with their six limbs.

Some of the modern descendants of this species that don’t follow the path toward Strondos include those who remained underwater and took over new niches (such as the Awua, Ubeelih, Thimmagg), those who developed leaping out of the water and even flight (such as Stepao, Tessen, Ougliahai), and some who now crawl on the bottom of the seas (such as Eenag).

Some of their descendants found it successful to move out of the water and onto the land, leading to these ones:

Gurx has a lower gravity than we’re used to on Earth, so their musculature proved sufficient to support them in the way the skeleton supports us (I confess I am assuming any readers have endoskeletons, I can only apologize if I leave anyone out). Their time spreading onto land came after the downfall of the Vootuph species that had dominated the planet, so the Lapaouger had a lot of evolutionary niches to move into.

One of the very successful lines that split off this branch of the family tree are the Ekkpay, who walk on their frontmost four legs while the hindmost became tools of various kinds (examples include Aunip, Seampway, Elleero, Imbaukla, Guoar, and Urloay). Other descendants from this group that didn’t lead to Strondos include some who have remained on all six limbs but with different strategies (such as Aigreeloa and Pholbunu) and some who have lost all of their limbs in favour of a serpentine style (such as Yibbeau).

But we’re following this branch down the line to the Aehubar, the group who came to focus largely on their hind limbs as “feet” and front limbs as other things.

Aehubar legs are powerful muscles intertwined in a complex manner to support more weight than you might expect, and which can bend at almost any point in the limb. Even Aehubar who do still use their middle limbs when walking will stand on their legs for various reasons such as fighting or eating food on high plants. Fur also became popular among the Aehubar, beginning for these pictured common ancestors as course spiny grows that helped deter predators, but eventually growing softer and covering more surface to help keep in warmth.

One of the most important offshoots of the Aehubar are the Glounaph, whose top limbs fused together into a single arm-like appendage with the eyes on it, and in most Glounaph species the middle limbs adapted for gliding and eventually into big leathery wings. This group includes Eklooan, Briapway, Nathaie, and Oaushaue.

Some other modern descendants of this ancestor who don’t follow the path to Strondos include some nocturnal predators (including Daembeb and Iakeab), and some more distant relations like Sesennrel, Biddooa, and the megafauna Hethrooau.

But getting closer to the Strondovarians a branch that comes from this ancestor is now call Orstraph, which translates closely to “masked animals” because of the way their leathery faces look like masks over their furry bodies. This is a very diverse group of animals with examples such as Abpeaoulee, Okkealil, Boavaie, and Oudaihib.

From the Orstraph came this type:

These are common ancestor of the Strondos, as well as all the now-extinct Varian species, and some closely-related species that do not meet the level of intelligence to be recognized as “Varian” by the Strondos (including Hotaein and Ealpaia).

And that brings us to the modern day. With their mastery of technology, the Strondovarians have become the unquestionably dominant species of the planet Gurx for the time being.

And with that all recapped, I feel prepared to start exploring still more corners of planet Gurx and Strondo culture.

A couple Star Trek Thought back I talked about Captain Solok, who was in charge of the T’Kumbra,a ship with a predominantly-Vulcan crew. Although Solok is a complete tool, I am completely a fan of there being Starfleet vessels where humans are in the minority, it they’re there at all.

The T’Kumbra is not the first such vessel. I know that the USS Intrepid on the original series was a Vulcan majority ship that was destroyed. And I don’t remember the name of it right off, but I believe that Geordi LaForge’s mother captain a vessel that had a crew largely composed of Vulcans. That ship was also destroyed. The T’Kumbra is lucky the Dominion War ended before someone decided to say it was a casualty. Anyway, as far as I’m aware, that’s the full extent of what we’ve canonically been shown for Starfleet ships where Humans aren’t the bulk of the population.

Granted, pretty much ALL Starfleet vessels are made up of a mix of species working together, which is as it should be in the Federation, but if 99% of Starfleet is human, it feels like tokenism when we see an alien. Obviously they want a mostly-human cast for the ships that the shows are set on, but you’d think we’d at least get glimpses of ships with crews made up predominantly of the other Federation founding races now and again. Give me a ship with Tellarite or Andorian crews at the very least.

But it isn’t just my desire to see a more diverse Starfleet that makes this make sense. Alien species should also be adapted to different climates or atmospheres or gravitational constants. Surely you’d want a ship for Starfleet officers who are best suited to live in arctic conditions, and why not have one for aquatic species? These would be easy enough to convey by just having our boring human captains talk to them over a viewscreen and it would make the universe feel that much more rich.

In the Star Trek episode “The Devil In The Dark” a mining operation on some planet is being attacked by a “monster” that has already killed dozens of people, burning them alive so almost nothing remains. The Enterprise arrives to help and the crew investigate. They discover that the so-called monster is a silicon lifeform and it seems to be intelligent. Further investigation and mind-melds reveals that the lifeform is the Horta, and it is a mother, trying to protect its eggs from being destroyed by the mining. There’s no real enemy here, just a misunderstanding to be overcome.

I consider this to be a sort of ideal episode of Star Trek. They come across new life, they are in conflict at first, but over time they realize that the alien isn’t a monster, it is a person of its own kind, with a different way of life. Different, but no less real. It’s about learning to communicate and deescalating a situation from a horror story to a first contact.

And, of course, the alien is not humanoid in appearance at all. Its a rocky blob that we are still asked to care about because it is a living being. Not every episode of Star Trek can be this, but I appreciate every one that is, and always want more.

I’m always kind of surprised the Horta has not become a more iconic part of the franchise. I have read that there have been attempts to show more of them in cameo roles and that there have been Horta in Starfleet in books and stuff, but it has yet to happen on screen. It’s a shame.

That guy over there is Solok. We all know Solok, right? He was a Starfleet Captain during the Dominion War, and he captained a ship made up of a predominantly Vulcan crew. That’s good stuff. Mean ol’ PDR is always going on about how humanity is over-represented in Starfleet and how we need to see more aliens, so PDR must love Solok, right?

I do not. Solok is a jerk.

Solok is a Vulcan-supremacist, who loves picking on humans (especially Ben Sisko) and “proving” how much he, as a Vulcan, is their better. Not just humans, either! When he winds up making an all-Vulcan baseball team to mock Sisko, Solok makes it clear he also thinks it is stupid for Bajorans or Ferengi or Trill or Klingons to deny Vulcan superiority. Solok thinks that he’s Logic’s gift to the universe and loves to tell you about it.

And what really shows what a prick Solok is can only be the design of his team’s uniforms. He decided to decorate them with the Vulcan symbol of the IDIC, an icon used to acknowledge the uncountable ways the universe can present itself, and to appreciate the beauty that results from that. The thing is basically the Vulcan way of saying equality is good, and here we have Solok wearing it while he tries to prove that Vulcans are better than everyone else. It ain’t right.

I fully acknowledge that the humans in Starfleet can be annoying, and I’ve absolutely seen them mock Vulcans in ways that I consider racist. But that doesn’t mean Solok needs to also be a racist.

Hey, you know how the Prophets of Bajor exist outside of time and didn’t understand how linear time works until Benjamin Sisko from Earth taught them? (Let’s ignore for now if Sisko taught them at some point, they should always have known for now.) And you know how they also give visions of the future to their worshippers on Bajor? Well, what if Benjamin Sisko’s physical appearance provided the beauty standards that made Bajorans evolve to look like humans?

Yes, I’m at it again, complaining about how too many aliens in Star Trek look like humans. But this time I’m providing a reason it works. Sure, canonical Star Trek has already provided an excuse (which I do not like) for why so many aliens look like human, and they’ve doubled down on that excuse in recent years. But I find my theory here more interesting in this case.

There already exists a fan theory, one that I had nothing to do with and am only using here as fodder for my own theory, that Cardassians and Bajorans are a single species that has diverged in evolution after some of them made their way to Cardassia from Bajor. I’m not gonna bother looking it up again for this post, but that idea is based on evidence such as Bajorans and Cardassians being able to very easily produce offspring together (many Trek hybrids, notably Vulcan/Human ones, are mentioned to require technological intervention to make a viable offspring, but Bajoran/Cardassian ones have been shown to happen as mistakes). Also, there’s the matter of a natural space-warp thingy that just happens to bring primitive spaceships from Bajor to Cardassia where those ancient Bajoran astronauts (who were active thousands of years before human ones) could have crashed and lived out their days starting a new species in the process. There may be more evidence, I don’t remember, but the gist of it is that the ones who wound up on Cardassia evolved into Cardassians.

What PDR is suggesting is: what if the ones who ended up on Cardassia are actually closer to “original” Bajorans than “modern” Bajorans are? Those on Cardassia are outside of the direct influence of the Prophets, but those back on Bajor are getting the visions from the beings who know the future. And some of those visions are surely of the Emissary, the great religious figure from the future who is none other than Benjamin Sisko. And if even a handful of Bajoran artists get such visions, they’re gonna make art that depicts a figure like Sisko and the people are gonna revere that figure. If that figure looks human, humanoid necks and foreheads and skin tones are gonna be appealing to the people. Natural selection would happen and those traits would be selected more often, passing along genes that hew closer to human traits. In the thousands of years of separation, Cardassians surely evolved to their new world as well (maybe that’s when their love of heat came into it), but I definitely think that Bajorans used to look closer to Cardassians back in the day.

The only flaw with this theory (the ONLY flaw, I will not be accepting any other flaws because as I so confidently say there are no others) is that the visions from the Prophets that we usually see don’t typically involve figures from the distant future, but instead people already known to the person having the vision. But hey, it only takes a couple of visions to a couple of artists over the millennia to start the thing rolling. Once one artist is doing it, others could emulate that one, and before you know it smooth foreheads are just the most popular thing and the divergence has begun.