Star Trek: 10 Shapeshifting Aliens That We Know About

Let's take a dive into the "Galactic Zoological Catalogue" for a moment. Doctor Pulaski had read at least part of the entries under 'A' of that never before (and never after) mentioned work, as from it she was able to inform Captain Picard and a semi-impressed Mr Worf "of a species called allasomorph, which is supposed to possess the power to alter their molecular structure into other life-forms".

The Dauphin was the first and, clip-show aside, pretty much last appearance of this rather peculiar set of shapeshifters. After all, calling up Starfleet as their own personal 24th century taxi service every five minutes, then moaning about the trip conditions, was probably not the best way to ingratiate themselves to the Federation. That and wanting to kill poor Hennesey just because there was an infinitesimal chance he might infect their precious protégée princess.

Salia — the titular dauphin — and Anya, her governess, having taken on humanoid and/or bug-eyed monster form, were on their way back to home planet Daled IV, a tidally locked world with a 1:1 synchronous rotation. Contrary to similarly un-spinning planets in Star Trek — Remus and Dytallix B, for example — both sides of Daled IV were inhabited. The planet's unusually dense troposphere presumably prevented anyone from cooking to death on the permanently sunny half. Moreover, in their natural state, the Allasomorphs, though apparently made of molecules, looked more like they were beings of pure energy anyway.

In spite of the lengthy civil war between the two halves of their planet, Allasomorph civilisation was clearly also highly advanced. Their system of communication used a "terawatt [10¹² watts] power source," which was in itself more power than the entire Enterprise-D could generate. By way of comparison, the most powerful laser on Earth at the moment, coincidentally named 'Vulcan,' can produce up to one petawatt (10¹⁵ watts) of power but 'only' for a pulse duration of 500 femto(10⁻¹⁵)seconds.