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

The Gorn are vicious predators but they aren't mindless and they don’t immediately kill every lifeform they encounter. They periodically take captive humanoids to the breeding planets, also called planetary nurseries, throughout their territory where they breed their hatchlings.

The Gorn prevent their prisoners from escaping or calling for help by placing towers on their planets that block subspace signals and transporter beams. They may also be used as lures to draw passersby into a trap. Why hunt down fresh meat for the grinder when you can bring it to you?

La'an described the horrors of surviving a breeding planet to Captain Pike during Enterprise's Gorn encounter at Finibus III. She saw everyone she ever knew suffer and die horrific deaths. Victims who weren't hunted down and eaten alive had their bodies cut open and stuffed with the Gorn's parasitic eggs. As the last survivor of the SS Puget Sound, La'an had the "honor" of being used in a Gorn ritual where she was placed onboard a life raft and set adrift in space. Against all odds, she was later rescued by a Starfleet vessel where she met future Enterprise first officer Una Chin-RIley.