We’re looking at the three most haunting aliens in Star Trek just ahead of Halloween.
One of the hallmarks of the Star Trek franchise, as with almost any science fiction franchise, is the creatures that populate each and every episode of the series, whether they are inhabiting the main cast such as Spock, Worf, and one of my personal favorites, that mischievous rascal Quark, or making guest appearances as the memorable alien races of Star Trek both friend and foe.
Fan favorites include The Gorn, the Horta (both of those falling under the laughable variety), and of course, the Tribbles. Over its 55-year history, Trek has given us some of the most memorable alien races in all of science fiction, but there is a select few that will be remembered for the fear they struck in the hearts of viewers and Starfleet officers alike, and this piece will count down the top three of those alien races.
As with a lot of my pieces, please bear in mind that I am completely blind, so the appearances of these creatures are almost a non-factor in regards to how I have decided to rate them. I have been told by sighted people in my life what they look like but have actually never seen them before myself, so please keep that in mind. I am going more off-screen presence and how that race is perceived by the other characters around it.
These rankings will go from three to one, with three making you uneasy, two leaves you unsettled, and one leaves you fairly freaked out.
#3: Vidiians
This creepy race of organ harvesters made their first appearance in Star Trek Voyager season 1 episode “Phage”. The episode is aptly named, for the phage is the flesh-eating pandemic that has infected the Vidiians, forcing them into kidnapping and harvesting the organs from their victims in order to sustain their race. This has resulted in the Vidiian society being split into two groups, for those that have contracted the phage are shunned by those who have not out of fear of infection.
Upon hearing that Voyager contained a race of alien antagonists that participated in organ harvesting, I was immediately intrigued for that seemed like a pretty scary and rather morbid concept for a family series like Trek.
I, of course, have never seen a Vidiian but have heard that, due to the nature of the phage and their need to harvest organs, their skin resembles that of a patchworked quilt, which is in of itself a very creepy description.
As with most races in Trek, however, the Vidiians are not portrayed as being completely evil but rather a society suffering from an incurable disease, forcing them to perform unspeakable acts to stay alive, turning them into sympathetic villains, and making it so that, while they are undeniably creepy, they are not inherently evil. So the highest they can hope for on my list is the #3 spot.
#2: The Borg
A very strong argument could be made for the Borg to occupy the #1 spot on my list, and I would love to have that debate with a fellow Trekkie, but for reasons which I will endeavor to explain, I must put them in second place.
“In their collective state, the Borg are utterly without mercy”, Captain Jean-Luc Picard. “It is my opinion that the Borg are as close to pure evil as anything we have ever encountered.”
The Borg are a hive mind, also called “The Collective,” with the outward appearance of cyborgs, having both mechanical and biological body parts, and their grey skin gives them a zombie-like appearance.
The Borg, in my opinion, was really the first-ever truly sinister antagonist in the Star Trek franchise. From the first time you hear the collective voice address the crew of the Enterprise in the Next Generation, there can be no doubt that they are the first truly scary race in Star Trek. Even their ships, just large cubes, are very ominous in appearance.
The Borg have no sympathetic motives like some could argue the Vidiians do, rather their sole purpose seems to be to assimilate any and all life forms they come into contact with, making them a part of the Borg collective, even including children.
The concept of the Borg alone is enough to make them one of the few truly scary races in Trek, but the combination of their physical appearance and the screen presence that they possess makes the Borg one of the most feared races in Star Trek and indeed one of the more feared races in all of science fiction.
While this may not be quite enough to award the Borg the #1 spot on my list, make no mistake, resistance is futile.
#1: Species 8472.
The winner of my scariest races in Trek is so scary, it doesn’t even have a name, just a species number given to them by the Borg upon their attempt to assimilate them, an attempt that would prove to be unsuccessful.
Species 8472 makes their first appearance in the two-part Voyager episode “Scorpion parts 1 &2”. The unnamed species is made up of biotechnology, giving them immunity to all conventional attacks, including assimilation by the Borg. Not only do Species 8472 possess an immunity to assimilation, but their bioships are far more advanced than even the Borg cubes, enabling them to destroy the cubes in seconds.
The biotech that forms the genetic makeup of Species 8472 gives them an ability to infect their victims, whereupon the alien cells will “eat the victim alive” as what nearly happened to Harry Kim in “Scorpion”.
Species 8472 is not only aggressive towards the Borg but to all other sentient life in the galaxy with no exceptions, declaring “The weak shall perish”. While I admit, Species 8472 doesn’t have quite the screen presence of the Borg, I must give them the nod over the Borg as the scariest species in the galaxy for one reason.
A species that is feared and hated by the Borg itself, a species that has no fear of the Borg and treats them with the same extreme prejudice that it shows for every other life form in the galaxy, deserves the #1 spot. To my knowledge, in the entirety of the Star Trek canon, only one species matches that criteria, and it is the species without a name—Species 8472.
These are my three most feared species in the galaxy, but I would love to hear how I got my list woefully wrong, what species I mixed up in my ranking, or what species I insulted by not including them at all.
Let me know in the comments section, and happy Halloween.