12 Abandoned Star Trek Ideas That Would Have Been Incredible
2. Ephraim The Tardigrade
One of the initial plans for Star Trek Discovery was for the Tardigrade creature (nicknamed Ripper by Michael Burnham) to be called Ephraim and be a fully sentient, functioning member of the crew. Not many details of these script ideas have survived, but the idea was that he and Burnham would have become friends as he pondered the nature of life, the universe and everything in between.
If he was still subjected to use the Spore Drive, there's a chance that the scripts (given Discovery's grim nature) would have led to Ephraim continually suffering to use the drive. Given that it almost killed Ripper, would that have been the plan for Ephraim as well?
In the end, the visual effects required to bring Ephraim to life would have been far too expensive and the show relegated a once noble, thinking alien crewmember to a sapient creature. Could have been an interesting character for the show, though.