A fan made Daystrom Institute library file on the Barzans and their unmanned probes.
Star Trek YouTuber Ketwolski has produced a series of fan made Daystrom Institute library files covering everything from Cardassians to the Temporal Cold War. These files are both fun and full of fascinating background information that both casual and long time devoted Trekkies will find interesting.
The Barzans were an interesting species because although they did trade with many other species they didn’t actually travel in space themselves. Barzans used probes for defense, exploration, and trade.
Check out this dramatic recreation of a Daystrom Institute file on the Barzans.
The idea of the Barzans using probes instead of manned spacecraft is extremely interesting. We’ve of course already used probes in place of manned missions for space exploration and transportation. The American rovers exploring Mars right now are examples of this.
In Star Trek we see many alien races that are able to travel at warp speeds, but surely there would be races that prefered not to travel and have unmanned probes do it for them. Probes and unmanned vessels would always be more cost efficient than manned vessels. Of course the one whole in the Barzan story was that if they needed more resources surely probes that advanced would be able to provide them from their own solar system.
This is another fantastic example of Star Trek predicting the future. It’s not just about iPads and cellphones, Trek was predicting how we would explore the stars as well. Once again Star Trek covers a possibility that most other science fiction missed.
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