12 Most INSANE Star Trek Theories
11. The Kelpiens ARE The Ba'ul
The Discovery episode The Sound of Thunder may have opened up a giant can of worms regarding the two dominant species of Commander Saru's home planet: the Kelpiens and the Ba'ul.
While Kelpiens have believed for years that the natural process known as vahar'ai was fatal, we discover it is actually a natural transformation of Kelpiens from fearsome prey into fearless predators.
Seemingly afraid of being hunted by these predators, the Ba'ul used their superior technology to hide in their spacecraft, and invented a phony religion to indoctrinate the Kelpiens. Whenever a Kelpien was about to go through vahar'ai, they would be sacrificed and transported onto a Ba'ul ship, never to be seen or heard from again.
Saru belives the Ba'ul then slaughtered these sacrifices, but he may be completely wrong. One theory suggests that these sacrifices are actually taken on board the ship to evolve into Ba'ul.
The crew discover that any time the population of predator Kelpiens drops, the population of Ba'ul rises. Perhaps this is not the Kelpiens hunting the Ba'ul, but rather evolving into them?
The one Ba'ul we see is covered in thick black goo, but underneath it could easily be a super-evolved form of predator Kelpien. It also tells Saru that he has no idea what he really is, implying that everything he thinks is wrong.
We later see Kelpien flying Ba'ul spacecraft. Knowing how peaceful the Kelpien tribes are, we can only assume this means they have learned to work alongside the Ba'ul as one species.