9 Star Trek: The Animated Series Aliens That Should Appear In Live Action
7. Lactran
To save money, Star Trek's non-humanoid aliens have been depicted as sentient gas, flashing lights, shapeshifters, and simple forms such as sentient rocks. On Star Trek: The Animated Series, the only limits on the aliens were the writers' imaginations and the animators' drawing skills. The episode The Eye of the Beholder, introduced the inhabitants of Lactra VII, giant, hyper-intelligent slugs called Lactrans.
When the Enterprise came looking for the missing members of a previous mission to Lactra VII, Spock learned that the Lactrans were once similar in intelligence to humans while the Lactrans decided that the currently simplistic Federation was evolving into something higher. They invited the Federation to return in 20 or 30 Lactran centuries. While 30 human centuries is 3000 years,the length of a Lactran century wasn't defined.
The recently announced Star Trek: Starfleet Academy series is apparently set in the 32nd century. An episode about Starfleet cadets using what the Discovery learned about communication with the 10-C to communicate with the Lactrans would be an excellent way to connect the Starfleet Academy series to Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: The Animated Series. It would also be a fine entry in Star Trek's periodic exploration of communication.