We rate 11 aliens from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.” For life-long Star Trek fans, those are magical worlds, promising to take us along for wild adventures.

Set in the 23rd Century, just 10 years before the events of Star Trek, the Original Series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows a five-year mission of exploration led by Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) including two crew members fans met in the series Star Trek: Discovery – Spock (Ethan Peck), and First Officer Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn). 

The series revives all the fun and optimism of the Original series, emphasising the Enterprise’s peaceful mission. It introduces historic Star Trek moments, including the creation of the Prime Directive, which bars crews from meddling in the natural development of civilisations through the use of advanced technology. We meet all the classic Star Trek species including humans, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Illyrians. And the crew’s lives come into focus, too, as we find out in one episode that the junior officers play a game called Enterprise Bingo, which dares them to try to visit locations, or get away with doing things in certain places. 

But for the wide-eyed kid in all of us, it’s all about those aliens. So we’ve picked just 10 encounters and we’ve ranked them from the aliens we’d most like to meet, to the one we’d most like to avoid. And then we’ve added number 11. The absolute off-the-charts worst.

Binge Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1-2.

1. The Nebula/Debra

Like the Kerkohvians (more on them later), the Nebula (a luminous cloud of space dust and atomic elements) is a disembodied sentient being. Unlike the Kerkohvians, though, the Nebula seems playful and a little mischievous. When it encounters Chief Medical Officer Joseph M’Benga’s sick young daughter Rukiya, it tries to cure her, and to make her feel less isolated and lonely by transforming the Enterprise into her favourite fantasy world, and the crew into her favourite characters. In exchange, Rukiya names the Nebula after her late mother, Debra.

Verdict: 10/10 for fun times!

2. The Aenar 

Aenar, like the Enterprise’s Chief Engineer Hemmer (Bruce Horak), are a rare albino subspecies of the normally blue Andorians. The Aenar have pale blue-white skin, white eyes and hair, bony faces with built-up brow ridges and cheekbones, and two antennae, which enhance their balance. While blind, they have telepathic abilities, which they have stringent ethical rules around when it comes to reading the thoughts of other beings. They believe that death comes only after one has fulfilled one’s life purpose.

Hemmer embodies the Aenar’s peaceful beliefs and desire to live kind and helpful lives. Hemmer originally wanted to study botany, but when he found his gifts lay in engineering, he decided to make the world a better place by fixing broken things, and by protecting all living things in the known universe. 

Verdict: We’re not worthy, but adopt us, please?

3. The R’ongovians

This fascinating humanoid species, introduced in Strange New Worlds, come from an advanced, post-warp civiliwation. They have striped grey heads with hairless skin that suggests some species of sharks, along with sharp teeth and small, pointed ears. But aside from that, they closely resemble humans. 

R’ongovians come from R’ongovia in the Beta Quadrant where they control a strategic region of space between the Romulan Star Empire and the Klingon Empire. As such, they would make superb allies and dangerous enemies for the Federation. They can be quite a diplomatic challenge, requiring shrewd and sensitive handling. The R’ongovians value empathy, which means they listen closely and often mirror the perspectives and behaviour of anyone they’re negotiating with (and carry that behaviour into their next encounter, which can be confusing). But they expect the same from other species they negotiate with, which is to say the ability to appreciate and express the R’ongovian point of view, and the ability to anticipate and express how their actions will impact the R’ongovians. 

Verdict: To borrow Spock’s favourite phrase, “fascinating, captain”.

4. The Lanthanites

Season 2 episode 1 introduces a new alien to the Star Trek universe, and new crew member to the Enterprise, Pelia (Carol Kane, yes, The Addams Family’s grandma) the Lanthanite. What’s she in charge of? That’s a spoiler, so wait to find out. 

Pelia is a member of the near-immortal Lanthanite species. The Lanthanites look fully human and one group actually co-existed among humans on Earth, unrecognised, until the 22nd Century. Pelia claims to have been hanging around on Earth since the time of Pythagoras (500 BCE). The stories she could tell!

Verdict: We love Pelia but this is a bit normal as far as Star Trek alien encounters go.

5. The Kerkohvians

A new species in the Star Trek universe, the Kerkohvians are a disembodied, higher-dimensional race who travel via a “temporal vortex” located on the planet Krekhov’’s moon. While currently existing on a different plane of reality having abandoned their physical civilisation, the Kerkohvians prove to be both powerful and willing to help the Enterprise crew, perhaps relating to the crew’s uniforms, since they refer to themselves by colour names. 

Culturally, the Kerkohvians hold strong moral values about repairing any damage they cause, but communicate this in legalistic and bureaucratic terms, as if the whole universe is bent on suing them. 

Verdict: They’re okay, we guess? Middle of the pack seems fair.

6. The Deleb, The Shepherds and M’hanit

In a three-for-one deal, this episode gives us the sentient comet known as M’hanit, and their escort, a species known as the Shepherds, who protect M’hanit from their space ship, as the comet brings change and life to new planets. We also meet the Deleb, whose planet is in the comet’s path. 

The Shepherds are grey, humanoid aliens with huge, wide-set eyes, and foreheads that come to a point at the top of the skull. They have lost the history of when they first started protecting M’hanit (and it’s hinted at that they’re just one of a few Shepherds escorting a number of comets), but regard doing so as a sacred duty. The Shepherds see M’hanit’s actions as pre-ordained and any efforts to tamper with its course as an act of war, regardless of whether M’hanit seems set to collide with an inhabited planet like Persephone III. Some of the Enterprise crew nickname the Shepherds “crazy space monks”.

The comet seems like a typical comet – a massive, ragged hunk of rock cruising through space leaving a tail of ice in its wake. But inside, there are traces of a subterranean structure and there is a large, egg-like structure in the chamber in the heart of the comet that is covered in symbols in a repeating sequence. The Shepherds refer to this as the “temple”.  The structures within the temple communicate musically (Kenyans might recognise the tune as the Tiriki hymn, Vamuvamba).

The Deleb are a pre-industrial, desert planet-dwelling humanoid species with purple, scaled skin, yellow eyes, and ridged foreheads. Costume designer Bernadette Croft used references from Earth’s desert-dwelling nomads to designer Iris van Herpen’s organic forms as a jumping off point, and included details like headwear textiles that look like the raised folds and spikes of reptile skin.  

Verdict: No shade to the Deleb or the comet, but the Shepherds come off as a buzzkill with no idea why they’re doing something they’re dead set on killing you over. Still, fascinating!

7. The Orions

Prepare for an unusual crossover between the animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds, with Lower Decks voice cast members Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid playing their characters in live action for the first time. PS: even if you’re not familiar, this episode opens with an imaged scene from Lower Decks to catch you up.

This green-skinned, humanoid species harks back to the days of the original series. The Enterprise crew go into their first encounter believing the Orions’ reputation as pirates, smugglers and enslavers (previous depictions included seductive “slave girls”. Ewww). Criminal organisation The Orion Syndicate is in operation during the 22nd, 23rd and 24th Centuries, so the Enterprise crew are on high alert at the start of their encounter – until one crew member who’s been sent back in time (from their era in Lower Decks) shares some hints about the future and suggests that a more open-minded approach could help. 

It turns out dominant cultures are not universal any more in space than they are on Earth! Some Orions are also scientists, on a similar mission of discovery to the Enterprise. 

Verdict: Pirates or physicists is a fun game to play in theory, but a chance encounter with The Orion Syndicate is no joke.

8. “Buckley”

While on a rescue mission to assist the USS Peregrine on the ice planet K-Seven (later Valeo Beta V), the Enterprise crew encounter an alien of unknown species who goes by the nickname Buckley. While they’re intelligent and appear benign, their language doesn’t come up on the universal translator. Buckley is a refugee from a Gorn breeding planet, and seems both gentle and protective over the only other survivor aboard the Peregrine. While they’re blue-skinned and roughly human height and clothed in a bulky jacket, their proportions are distinctly alien, with large, moth-like antennae, and a small facial area like that of a deep sea fish on a massive head.

PS: Buckley’s performer, Carloz Albornoz, wears a full-body suit that took months to build and includes an animatronic head that puppeteers controlled, while he controlled the movements of the rest of the body. 

Verdict: Buckley seems sweet and would be a lot higher up this list if it wasn’t for a certain disgusting medical issue.

9. The Majalans

This species only looks human on the surface but they have black blood. Culturally, medically and technologically, the Majalis seems more advanced than the Federation’s current species. And they recently refused an invitation to join the Federation … for reasons. The Majalans swan about dressed like ancient Romans, while living in shining cities in the clouds. They’re generous and seem to run an egalitarian culture that prioritises culture and learning. 

Did you guess they have a deadly secret? Alas, discovering how the computer that controls their whole civilizstion is powered might be more appalling than finding a whale that starved because it ate plastic bags thinking they were jellyfish. As to how the situation came to be, no one can say, but the Majalans have reluctantly accepted the price they’re paying to live comfortably.

Verdict: Like suddenly seeing your triple chins when your screen goes dark. An unflattering jump scare. 

10. The Kalar

First introduced in the original series, the Kalar are a human-looking species native to Rigel VII in the Alpha Quadrant. Violent and secretive with a rigid caste structure, Kalar society seems similar to Bronze Age warrior cultures, with weapons such as armour, swords, spears, pikes, and maces. Thanks to a failed mission some years back, some Kalar elites have access to and are using Starfleet weapons. 

The Kalars’ development has been stunted by radiation leaking from an asteroid, which has impacted most of the population’s ability to form memories and logical thoughts, while heightening their sense of fear. As a result, some of them write symbols on their own skin to remind themselves of important details including their names. There is a ruling elite, however, who have access to a secret technique for retaining their memories and dominating those who forget, so they can benefit from their labour.

Verdict: Dumb as rocks, violent, with an abusive leadership? Very yee-haw, no thanks.

11. The Gorn

Number one on top of the list of aliens we never want to meet are the Gorn. They’re the Strange New Worlds series’ biggest problem, infecting entire planets to use them as breeding grounds for their young. Throughout the first two seasons, tidbits about the Gorn are revealed, as if they’re horror movie monsters we only catch glimpses of until our final, fatal encounter. 

They loom as a threat from Season 1, episode 4, and we get our first face-to-fang meeting in Season 1, episode 9, which introduces the start of the Gorn’s horrific lifecycle, from parasitic eggs (which are invisible to Starfleet’s scanners) to body-bursting hatchlings (like the xenomorphs from the Alien films), to viciously combative murder-lizard-style young. At this stage, the Gorn are animalistic feeding machines with the intelligence of pack hunters. 

The two-metre tall adult Gorn finally arrive to kidnap members of the crew in the Season 2 finale wearing black space suits (with space for a flexible, mobile tail that it uses as a weapon) that also give a nod to the Alien franchise. The Gorn are a complex, technologically advanced civilisation … who treat most other life forms as just something you can lay eggs in.

While the Gorn are an original series monster, some updates have been made to the giant lizard in a space suit-style design. Both the suit and the Gorn face have been updated, so now it’s less like kids’ plastic zoo set, and more like if the raptors from Jurassic Park got even smarter, suited up, and went to space. The Legacy Effects team brought the Gorn to life using a combination of puppetry, animatronics, digital modelling and practical effects using actors (like Warren Scherer) in costume. 

Verdict: The toilet spiders of space travel. 

Binge Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1-2.

Also watch: Star Trek: Into Darkness and its sequel Star Trek: Beyond (which are set in an alternate timeline), and animated kids’ series Star Trek: Prodigy.