Star Trek: 10 Alien Races That Only Appeared Once
Klingons, Borg and Jem'Hadar are well known but what of those that didn't stick around for too long?
Across the plethora of Star Trek series, writers have created astounding worlds and with them, unique aliens, some of which we have seen again and again. A few of those have been milked to eternity and back and then there are others who like a flickering light, burned bright for 45 minutes and then were never seen again. In some cases the continuation of their story was teased and the doors left open for an elusive second appearance, while on other occasions the end titles firmly closed the book.
Star Trek's self-contained episodic nature across its shows from 1966 to 2005 provides the best chance to analyse these races. The later Alex Kurtzman era shows tend to approach arcs and connected with them, recurring characters. These tend to be familiar elements rather than inspired one-offs for Michael Westmore to imagine.
By no means is this a final set - more aliens that offered plenty of scope but fell to the kerb too early. Let's take a good look at some of the more prominent one episode creations, those which astounded fans over the multiple Star Trek series yet somehow failed to be as catchy and memorable as a grumpy Tellarite.
10. Voth
One of Voyager's best alien creations and a sci-fi cheese classic if you read the synopsis as Dinosaurs in Space.
The opening 15 minutes are devoid of the principle cast. The audience instead follows Doctor Gigen as he explores the Distant Origin Theory that the Voth were not originally from the Delta Quadrant but somewhere else entirely... Earth.
It's a revolutionary move for Star Trek to leave an episode in the hands of its guest cast but it thoroughly establishes the race, their background and significance of humanity in relation to them.
While echoing Galileo's trial, at which he argued that the Earth revolved around the Sun, Distant Origin goes much further. The concept of a super-advanced civilisation flying city-sized ships makes for compulsory watching, so tie this in with the trial of their own scientist for his proven findings and you have a Voyager classic.
The revelation that they were from a far part of the galaxy could have disrupted their society inexplicably especially when explained they were DNA relations to the "lesser" humans.
Their story has been continued, like the Vaadwaur, on Star Trek Online engaging them as a serious Delta Quadrant threat.