Star Trek: 10 Alien Species You’ve Probably Forgotten About

5. Gods And Devils

Axanar Star Trek Enterprise Alien
Paramount Pictures

That Tennessee Williams line has perhaps never been more literal than when applied to Star Trek — take away all the demons and you'd lose the angels too. Over the years, Trek has run the inventory of devils and deities, very real incarnations of the classic good versus evil battle that even the future can't do without, and all the better to know our crew by. That's not to forget that frontiers are still drawn in the galaxy between bellicose empires and the 'friendly' Federation.

There are those you'll know — Apollo, Sha Ka Ree, Ardra, the Prophets/Pah-wraiths, Janeway's 'Dad'… Satan's robot… plus probably the Q on both sides of the fence — and those you won't. Our own Frank Chavez has recently written about the much-misunderstood Megans of The Animated Series that gave us Lucien himself in satyric form. Animated Series writer Larry Brody had always wanted to do an episode where the Enterprise 'met God'. Studio execs hated the idea, but they didn't mind a story about the devil. Go figure!

There's one last god-like alien species you've probably forgotten about — the Preservers. All we've seen in canon of this powerful race, who certainly liked to act the transcendent part, are the obelisks they left behind on their protected planets.

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Jack Kiely is a writer with a PhD in French and almost certainly an unhealthy obsession with Star Trek.