Star Trek: 10 Things That Made You Cringe

Crewmember Edward Larkin had an incredibly awkward introduction in the Short Treks episode The Trouble With Edward.

Edward was a strange man. He often had big, unorthodox ideas that he struggled to achieve. In a briefing with other scientists aboard the USS Cabot, Edward suggested using genetically modified tribbles as a food source for the starving Calation people. The true shock came when he described tribbles as being all meat underneath the fur, admitted that he had eaten one himself, and suggested genetically modifying them to be brain-dead to solve the ethical problems of his plan.

He also revealed that tribbles were, at the time, extremely slow at breeding, something which Edward also tried to correct with genetic engineering, resulting in the various tribble infestations throughout Trek history. Strangely, this massive ecological disaster was less disturbing to picture than Edwards cooking up and eating one of Trek's cutest fuzzy creatures.