Tribbles are the best-little used alien in all of Star Trek

Star Trek has seen many great aliens created for the series but of the lesser-seen ones, the Tribbles may take the cake.

The Tribbles are one of the most well known, least used, alien races in all of Star Trek’s canon. They’ve been seen all over the place, on just about every show, and even in a movie or four. Unlike the Klingon’s or the Q, Tribbles aren’t seen that often. They’re not villains, nor are they allies. They’re an alien race so synonymous with Star Trek that every fan knows them but so rarely seen a new fan may not know how truly great they are. They aren’t out to destroy anyone or hurt anything. They just wanna mate. They’re basically space-gerbils.

The race of off-brand Furby’s are just nuisances, delightful, hammy nuisances. They just exist for a good laugh but for some reason whenever they appear they seem to be part of that series best episodes. In both Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the episodes that surround the Tribbles happen to be some of the strongest of not just the season but their respective series.

First appearing in the classic Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles, the classic alien tormented the Federation and Klingons alike and resulted in a classic scene in which saw James T. Kirk nearly drown in a pile of Tribbles. Then, of course, there was Trials and Tribble-ations, the iconic DS9 episode that somehow pulled off a seamless integration of Ben Sisko into footage that was originally shot. It may be the best shot scene in the history of the series, if not the franchise, because of how seamless it was implemented and with how low-tech the technology was at the time.

They were a huge plot point in Star Trek: Into Darkness, where Bones McCoy used one to experiment with Khan’s blood. The experiment ended up being the reason why the crew was able to save Kirk from radiation poisoning. They also keep popping up as a nice little easter egg, which is always cool.

As you see above, the Tribbles have had several outstanding moments but they’re not as talked about as much they should be. That’s why it’s great to see SyFy Wire’s Warp Factor covering the first appearance of the aliens. They deserve more love and respect, and the fact that Paramount and ViacomCBS haven’t come together to make oodles of Tribble merchandise is still mind-boggling to me.

We need more love for Tribbles, folks. After all, that’s what Tribbles are all about.