Strange New Worlds season 2 - SPOILERS

[Maxperson]

Huh. We might even say that the spacesuited Gorn we have seen was hatched in some unknown species, while the Gorn Captain from Arena might have hatched in humans (or other Federation humanoids) during this period...

Humans move faster than that. My vote is still for a Sleestak.

 

[Divine2021]

I just watched "Arena" to check. And... the damage to continuity isn't that bad, imho.

The Enterprise is sent a message to come to an outpost world, where the crew could be given some shore leave. When they arrive, they find a world that's been decimated by an attack. There are aliens still on the world, and they bombard the away team. The team never sees the aliens.

The crew of the Enterprise in orbit explicitly don't get in range of the Gorn ship for visual contact. What they get off of sensors, they don't recognize. That's entirely fine - between SNW and TOS, the Gorn develop new ships that don't look like their old one on long-range sensors. This is a non-issue.

After Kirk blows up the aliens on the ground, the aliens ship takes off. Questioning a survivor, Kirk discovers that the outpost never sent an invitation. Kirk recognizes that the aliens must have lured them to the planet. He muses on why, and comes to the answer that the Enterprise is the only Federation ship in the area, and this is prelude to invasion!

(In retrospect, Kirk is being dumb here - or, more accurately, the writers are being dumb, because they needed to fabricate a reason for the Enterprise to be here. If the aliens know there's only one ship in the area, there's no need to lure the Enterprise in - an invasion fleet would paste the one ship anyway. We, with SNW, can surmise that the Gorn lure the Enterprise in because they freakin' HATE the Enterprise.)

Kirk gives chase to the alien ship, and eventually both the Enterprise and the aliens are caught by the Metrons, who set up the Arena thing. And this is where the first (and pretty much only) canon violation happens.

The Metrons use the word, "Gorn," and Uhura, Scotty, and Spock, who are on the Bridge at the time with Kirk, do not immediately go, "Oh, crap, Jim, we know these guys, we are in deep kimchee!"

Kirk is then whisked away to fight the Gorn Captain. Kirk has not (so far, iirc) been part of the SNW Gorn episodes, but it is hard to believe that Sam Kirk wouldn't have mentioned them, unless the Gorn become classified. So his ignorance is a bit of an issue. But it doesn't really change the plot of the episode.



Yeah, but "launch an interstellar offensive and notify alien governments to stay the heck out of the way" is not an instinctive response.

I have a current No-Prize explanation for the Gorn behavior, until they give me one. The basic answer is in one term: Life stages.

I surmise that the majority of the Gorn we have seen are young, non- or barely-sentient. It is this stage in which they are extremely competitive, violent, and weirdly, breed. The young stage are the ones who are so strongly bound by instinctual responses.

The Gorn Captain we see in TOS, and maybe the one we saw in the spacesuit, are mature specimens, possibly past breeding age, sentient, and no longer so strongly bound by instinct. These mature specimens are the ones who maintain Gorn culture, build ships, and so on. They are brutal, but can make plans and choose to act to avoid full-scale wars and such.

So to explain the finale - There's a coronal mass ejection where Scotty was. That sends the young Gorn into a frenzy. The mature Gorn say, "Well, our kids are going to consume each other unless we give them a target," so they drop them off on the colony world and let them hash it out. They message the Federation to stay the heck out of the way, because a full-scale conflict isn't something the adults want at this time, and they don't want the Federation to figure out their behavioral patterns like this, lest it be exploited.

At the colony, we see a couple of young Gorn choose to not attack humans. This one has already fed and bred and matured to the point where it isn't entirely driven by instinct. It is on its way to becoming a mature, sentient individual. I don't know any other reason for that scene except to telegraph that there are changes as Gorn mature.

This is a good take, I thought similar thoughts after watching Arena again. The only odd bit, as you point out, is the crew not reacting to the name Gorn. Everything else can easily be squatted away.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hr. That's an interesting thought.

We know that, by the time of the TOS movies, we have Gorn in the background of Federation Council scenes, which is weird if the Gorn are still eating sentients to breed. We can guess that, post-Arena, the Gorn can (perhaps with Federation help) figure out how to get appropriate DNA/whatever into the young so they develop into intelligence while eating Gorn-cattle, or something.

"All-New, All-Improved Gorn-Cow-Chow! Now with Vulcan DNA for clear mentation on maturation!!"

Huh. We might even say that the spacesuited Gorn we have seen was hatched in some unknown species, while the Gorn Captain from Arena might have hatched in humans (or other Federation humanoids) during this period...

Interesting. Sort of a, "what creature did the mind flyer tadpole hatch in?" Situation.

 

[Stalker0]

I surmise that the majority of the Gorn we have seen are young, non- or barely-sentient. It is this stage in which they are extremely competitive, violent, and weirdly, breed. The young stage are the ones who are so strongly bound by instinctual responses.

The Gorn Captain we see in TOS, and maybe the one we saw in the spacesuit, are mature specimens, possibly past breeding age, sentient, and no longer so strongly bound by instinct. These mature specimens are the ones who maintain Gorn culture, build ships, and so on. They are brutal, but can make plans and choose to act to avoid full-scale wars and such.

At the colony, we see a couple of young Gorn choose to not attack humans. This one has already fed and bred and matured to the point where it isn't entirely driven by instinct. It is on its way to becoming a mature, sentient individual. I don't know any other reason for that scene except to telegraph that there are changes as Gorn mature.

This was my thought as well. Younger gorn are near beast level intelligence, but then get radically smarter as they age.

As far as I know the only time we see in the finale that a Gorn doesn't attack is against Pike's GF (sorry can't remember her name), and we find out she has been implanted with gorn eggs. So that explains that behavior.

 

[Morrus]

There might be more than one type of Gorn.

 

[RangerWickett]

"Gorn? Oh, I thought you said 'Corn'!"

 

[Umbran]

As far as I know the only time we see in the finale that a Gorn doesn't attack is against Pike's GF (sorry can't remember her name), and we find out she has been implanted with gorn eggs. So that explains that behavior.

Possibly. She's not alone, though. Pike and others, who are not infected with eggs, are only a few feet away, and it passes on attacking them, too.

 

[Ryujin]

I just watched "Arena" to check. And... the damage to continuity isn't that bad, imho.

The Enterprise is sent a message to come to an outpost world, where the crew could be given some shore leave. When they arrive, they find a world that's been decimated by an attack. There are aliens still on the world, and they bombard the away team. The team never sees the aliens.

The crew of the Enterprise in orbit explicitly don't get in range of the Gorn ship for visual contact. What they get off of sensors, they don't recognize. That's entirely fine - between SNW and TOS, the Gorn develop new ships that don't look like their old one on long-range sensors. This is a non-issue.

After Kirk blows up the aliens on the ground, the aliens ship takes off. Questioning a survivor, Kirk discovers that the outpost never sent an invitation. Kirk recognizes that the aliens must have lured them to the planet. He muses on why, and comes to the answer that the Enterprise is the only Federation ship in the area, and this is prelude to invasion!

(In retrospect, Kirk is being dumb here - or, more accurately, the writers are being dumb, because they needed to fabricate a reason for the Enterprise to be here. If the aliens know there's only one ship in the area, there's no need to lure the Enterprise in - an invasion fleet would paste the one ship anyway. We, with SNW, can surmise that the Gorn lure the Enterprise in because they freakin' HATE the Enterprise.)

Kirk gives chase to the alien ship, and eventually both the Enterprise and the aliens are caught by the Metrons, who set up the Arena thing. And this is where the first (and pretty much only) canon violation happens.

The Metrons use the word, "Gorn," and Uhura, Scotty, and Spock, who are on the Bridge at the time with Kirk, do not immediately go, "Oh, crap, Jim, we know these guys, we are in deep kimchee!"

Kirk is then whisked away to fight the Gorn Captain. Kirk has not (so far, iirc) been part of the SNW Gorn episodes, but it is hard to believe that Sam Kirk wouldn't have mentioned them, unless the Gorn become classified. So his ignorance is a bit of an issue. But it doesn't really change the plot of the episode.



Yeah, but "launch an interstellar offensive and notify alien governments to stay the heck out of the way" is not an instinctive response.

I have a current No-Prize explanation for the Gorn behavior, until they give me one. The basic answer is in one term: Life stages.

I surmise that the majority of the Gorn we have seen are young, non- or barely-sentient. It is this stage in which they are extremely competitive, violent, and weirdly, breed. The young stage are the ones who are so strongly bound by instinctual responses.

The Gorn Captain we see in TOS, and maybe the one we saw in the spacesuit, are mature specimens, possibly past breeding age, sentient, and no longer so strongly bound by instinct. These mature specimens are the ones who maintain Gorn culture, build ships, and so on. They are brutal, but can make plans and choose to act to avoid full-scale wars and such.

So to explain the finale - There's a coronal mass ejection where Scotty was. That sends the young Gorn into a frenzy. The mature Gorn say, "Well, our kids are going to consume each other unless we give them a target," so they drop them off on the colony world and let them hash it out. They message the Federation to stay the heck out of the way, because a full-scale conflict isn't something the adults want at this time, and they don't want the Federation to figure out their behavioral patterns like this, lest it be exploited.

At the colony, we see a couple of young Gorn choose to not attack humans. This one has already fed and bred and matured to the point where it isn't entirely driven by instinct. It is on its way to becoming a mature, sentient individual. I don't know any other reason for that scene except to telegraph that there are changes as Gorn mature.

There's a bigger elephant in the room. Kirk is not a command officer. He's second in command on a starship, every bit as formidable as Enterprise. The two ships appear to be operating in the same theatre. I simply can't imagine that a command grade officer would not be informed of a threat to the Federation as serious as the Gorn.

"Stay out of our way" could be the intellectual response to an instinctive reaction. I'll certainly buy your "life stages" deduction, as it fits rather neatly. The concept that they grow to reflect the species in which they gestated is also an interesting concept, and one we've seen elsewhere.

 

[billd91]

Possibly. She's not alone, though. Pike and others, who are not infected with eggs, are only a few feet away, and it passes on attacking them, too.

Marie has, however, interposed herself between Pike and Scott and the Gorn spawn so it has to get through her to get to them. And, as we see, it's not willing to do that because she's implanted.

 

[Umbran]

Marie has, however, interposed herself between Pike and Scott and the Gorn spawn so it has to get through her to get to them. And, as we see, it's not willing to do that because she's implanted.

With respect, we see that it is not willing to attack her.

We do not know it is "because" of anything in particular. That is your interpretation of the event. Unless there was a line in the subtitles like, "Gorn youngling: Growl. Ah, clearly you are implanted with eggs, so I will not assault you!" that the rest of us did not see?

Note: Gorn are lethally aggressive, to the point of cannibalism, with each other after hatching. Killing someone carrying eggs wipes out competition early! It would be incongruous for them to not be aggressive with those carrying eggs, unless that was specifically the Gorn that had implanted Marie. While that technically could be, there's nothing I recall in the scene to telegraph that relationship.