Revisiting Star Trek: Discovery's first contacts highlights how they let one new race down

In the world of Star Wars, fans get excited every year for May 4th. Over the years, that date has become a big day for the fandom, with news and fun treats for the fans getting announced. Why May 4th? Because it's a play on the slogan "May the force be with you" and so it's become "May the 4th".

Star Trek fans have their own day like that, but it's actually attached to the franchise's lore. On April 5, 2063, in Bozeman, Montana, humanity made its first public contact with an alien race; the Vulcans. From that day on, humanity grew and helped develop interstellar space travel. Eventually helping found the Federation and became a force for good in the universe.

Due to that important day, Star Trek fans now celebrate April 5 every year. Star Trek itself also gets in on the fun, oftentimes posting trailers, articles, or some sort of fun thing to engage with. This year, due to a variety of reasons, it was a relatively quiet offering, but Star Trek's website did publish an article, highlighting all of the first contacts that happened in Star Trek: Discovery.

The article breaks down the first encounters of the Klingons and Vulcans, the arrival of the Tardigrades, the Pahvans, jahSepp, the Kelpiens, the Ba'ul, the Kwejians and of course Species Ten-C.

Going through the article highlighted just how misused the Ba'ul were and how great they could've been. Instead of focusing on an alien race with so much lore that adding to it will only hurt it, like the Klingons, they should have instead looked at the Ba'ul more. They had a look straight out of J.J.R. Tolken, mixed with a very H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Elder god.

Yet instead of further exploring just how ferocious and vile they could be, the wrtiers of the show copped out, wasted a prime design and turned them into nothing more than another throwaway alien with little to no value outside of their first and only storyline.