Star Trek: 10 Shapeshifting Aliens That We Know About

They might sound like something you'd only whisper to your pharmacist, but the Chameloids are no myth, that's for sure! And, for the first time since 1991, a Chameloid is coming back. Assuming, as seems sensible, that her former Emperor-ness Philippa Georgiou landed back after 2293, it most definitely can't be the same Chameloid either, unless the species is resistant to total vaporisation by Klingon disruptor after all.

The eyes had it in the teaser trailer for Star Trek: Section 31 shown for the first time at San Diego Comic-Con this year (2024). Not somehow some kind of Soong-type android, but indeed one of those shapeshifters from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, to be played this time by Sam Richardson, actor and life-long Trek fan.

Richardson knows his stuff, therefore, but it's not like he has much to work on for the species. Before her death, the one and only Martia before him spent most of her time trying to flatter Captain Kirk's rather large… ego in a murder-plot-escape-ruse on Rura Penthe. We do know that Martia's initial appearance was not the Chameloid's 'true' form, but merely a "pleasing shape," and that they could take on a variety of bodily configurations including tall male alien, tiny child, and Kirk himself. I know it's a trope, but just shoot them both!

It would also seem that Chameloids retain the same yellow eye colour no matter the (humanoid) form they change into, so there's your Achilles' heel (probably shouldn't have reproduced that tendon!) for, we assume, Section 31 hoping to gain an advantage with this particular operative. Either that or there's a booming market for Chameloid contact lenses!