Star Trek: 9 Ways Strange New Worlds Re-Imagined The Gorn

Captain Kirk's unfamiliarity with the Gorn before their attack on Cestus III, doesn't mean there weren't earlier Federation contacts with the ravenous reptiles.

The first known human encounter with the Gorn was their capture of the Federation colony ship SS Puget Sound, which La'an had almost miraculously survived. According to La'an Noonien-Singh, earlier attacks went unreported because no one was left to make reports.

A second early contact was Finibus III. Arriving there during a routine mission, the Enterprise crew found the colony deserted, killed in an apparent massacre. The Enterprise was then forced to face off against four Gorn starships.

While exploring the wreckage of the USS Peregrine, an Enterprise landing party discovered, to their horror, that one of the refugees the Peregrine rescued from a Gorn breeding planet was infected with parasitic Gorn eggs. What had been a search and rescue mission suddenly became a fight for survival as the Gorn hatchlings ran rampant through the wreckage.

A fourth encounter was the Gorn attack on Parnassus Beta, a human colony outside of Federation jurisdiction. The Enterprise engaged the Gorn over the planet. Pike also led an away mission to the colony in search of survivors.