3 reasons Star Trek: Strange New Worlds made the Gorn even more terrifying

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds made the Gorn better.

Fans are still talking about Strange New Worlds’ fourth episode, Memento Mori, which featured the crew of the Enterprise having to fend off an attack from several Gorn ships. The episode is being heralded and rightfully so, for its ability to make them seem even scarier than ever before.

They added layers to the alien race that we haven’t seen in Star Trek prior to the episode, and set it apart from the rest of the Star Trek aliens we’ve seen far more of. Collider wrote about this very idea, with them saying the Gorn have become even more terrifying thanks to Strange New Worlds.

They’re not wrong, the episode really highlighted what the Gorn were and really brought them away from other typical Trek aliens of the past. So what raised their profile? We have three examples that we feel made the Gorn even scarier than ever thought possible.

Three reasons Star Trek: Strange New Worlds made the Gorn terrifying

They use live bait for traps

Now, other aliens will use damaged vessels as bait for traps, sure. We’ve seen that before and it’s pretty common. Yet, to my knowledge, no other alien race in Star Trek will use live bait to trap other ships, with the purpose of using the survivors as instruments of forced breeding or as food that is still very much conscious. They are barbaric in their treatment of captives.

They’re experts at hiding in plain sight

The Gorn don’t need cloaking, as they’re able to hide their signature in surrounding spacial anomalies. Rolling into an area, looking around to see if anyone’s there, and then scanning for signatures is usually the way to avoid getting trapped. Yet, if you’re not able to see or scan for your enemies, it means they’re able to get you when you least suspect them.

They’ll kill their own without thinking

The Gorn using light to communicate ship-to-ship was cool. The Gorn being pretty trigger happy and blowing their own ship out of the sky after it was falsely reported they were compromised is a sign that the Gorn don’t care about anything. That makes them incredibly dangerous and even more horrifying. They are simple killing machines that are looking to eat and procreate.