Star Trek’s Weirdest Plot Points

Graham Host
TV Star Trek
TV Star Trek

The Star Trek franchise has been going a long time. With several generations, fifty years and a reboot under the belt, Roddenberry’s idea has grown considerably beyond his original series and we’ve seen some amazing sights. We’ve also seen some weird ideas that sound perfectly plausible but are still a bit odd.

The Big Bang

It is a common scientific belief that the universe was once a single tiny mass. Dubbed the Primordial Atom, it exploded into the foundations of the universe as we know it today. But what exactly made it detonate in the first place? The Voyager episode Omega introduced a new type of particle – The Omega Molecule.

Star Trek Omega Molecule
Omega Molecules

Much like all atoms to us now, it contained great power but unimaginative destructive powers. Starfleet scientists believed that an Omega particle could have produced the spark needed to kick-start creation.

God Is An Alien

After Wesley Crusher fell through a greenhouse and was sentenced to death – long story – Picard faced problems. Should he follow the Prime Directive and let Wesley die? Or fight it and save the boy? (Don’t worry, Wesley survived.) When trying to intervene, a multi-dimensional presence emerged and stopped his attempts. The native people worshipped it as their god and believed it was angry at Picard.

Star Trek Edo God
The Edo God

Data was able to establish contact and realised that it was a highly advanced life-form with great powers that existed in higher planes of reality.

The Devil Is An Alien

The Voyager episode Coda sees Captain Janeway supposedly reliving the end of her life several times. Time simply resets to an earlier point each time that she ‘dies’. She eventually realises that she died the first and then her father comes to help her move on. Sticking with the idea that a captain stays with her ship, Janeway refuses to leave and it’s a good thing she does.

Star Trek Matrix Realm

It then turns out that her ‘father’ is some sort of alien. Janeway would have been drawn into an energy matrix and feasted upon had she agreed to depart. The crew later ponder if each ‘near-death experience’ in history was other such predatory aliens making passes at unwary patients. Janeway did the obvious thing when she realised the truth – she told the creature to “go back to Hell”.

Da Vinci Was An Alien

Despite the fame and glory to Leonardo Da Vinci, we don’t actually have a body. The story goes that they selected the biggest skull – for his intellect – and announced it as his. Jim Kirk proved them wrong. Requiem for Methuselah saw Flint, an immortal Human who claimed to have both met and been some of the greatest minds in history. Amongst his many alias’ were Methuselah, King Solomon, Alexander the Great, Lazarus and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Star Trek Flint

In a more passing idea, Spock mentioned that one of his ancestors had a saying. “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be the truth”. The disdain for emotion, the unrivalled intellect – Sherlock Holmes was a Vulcan. Heck, let’s just come out and say it,

Humans Are Aliens

One minor difficulty with shooting live-action science fiction is the human factor. Simply put: all actors are human (probably) and we can’t do aliens that well. This means that most ‘aliens’ – Klingons, Romulans, VulcansCardassian, and more – are all bipedal, around six feet and with normal human features. Sorry, not human features.

Star Trek Ancient Humanoids
An ancient humanoid

Captain Picard took the lead in The Next Generation episode The Chase. Using DNA from across the galaxy, a hologram explains the shared ancestry of the Star Trek alien races. Existing billions of years before any other race, ancient humanoids knew that they would one day die out before other races would arise. They then spread a DNA code across dozens of worlds – eventually resulting in the common bipedal form.

Graham Host
Graham Host was a proud member of the Fan Contributor program. In his spare time, he enjoys the works of Terry Pratchett, DC Comics and a wide assortment of video games. Under no circumstances should he be fed after midnight.