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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds should focus on expanding on The Orions next

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds should focus on expanding on The Orions next

As a lifelong Star Trek enthusiast with memories of watching the original series on my grandmother’s grainy television set, I must say that the Orions have always been a fascinating yet enigmatic species for me. The way they were initially portrayed as slave traders was problematic and outdated, to say the least. However, I’ve always appreciated how subsequent iterations of Star Trek have tried to redefine them, giving us a more nuanced understanding of their culture.

The Orions from Star Trek are often challenging to fully understand due to their complex portrayal in the series. At first, they were depicted similarly to other alien species popular during that era in science fiction, serving as a group of aliens who manipulated others using members of their own kind, often referred to as Orion slave girls in the original series.

In Star Trek: Enterprise, it was depicted that Orion women possessed great abilities and weren’t always portrayed as victims. Additionally, both Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek: Lower Decks have featured Orions serving in Starfleet, which suggests a more complex and dynamic representation of their species. Furthermore, these series delved deeper into the alien race and provided insight into their history.

To put it simply, these pirates were infamous for their cruel actions towards people, which ranged from slave trading among other atrocities. Star Trek: Enterprise and Lower Decks have successfully revised their image, offering a more lighthearted perspective. However, among the various alien species introduced in the original series, it’s the Orions who seem to hold the most potential for further exploration and understanding.

In various aspects, the Orions from Star Trek are perplexing due to this reason: Since the original series, each subsequent show has endeavored to revise their alien race, as numerous viewers found the portrayal of Orion women to be questionable. As a result, Star Trek: Enterprise and Lower Decks have put significant effort into redefining them.

In my gaming world, it’s me, the male characters, who are enslaved, not the females. To trick unsuspecting players, the women disguise themselves as slaves and lay their traps. It’s not that this concept is superior; it’s just more socially acceptable in our society. However, some of us gamers find these changes to be superficial and poorly grounded. What The Lower Decks did, creating a matriarchal society, feels like an add-on rather than something deeply rooted, beyond a few lines of dialogue.

In a different phrasing: New Strange Worlds might strengthen fresh concepts and delve deeper into the legends surrounding the Orions, perhaps introducing rival factions who exploit each other, even using opposite genders as subjugated labor. Alternatively, it could be that neither gender is enslaved in these worlds, instead, the Orions are known for their deceit, a trait questioned by Lower Decks’ D’Erika Tendi when she once stated that Orions no longer engage in piracy, only to have this claim disproven later.

Perhaps Strange New Worlds could successfully refine and emphasize the Orions, as they have previously done with the Gorn. After all, Orions in Star Trek seem to resemble the DC Comics character Hawkman in their recurring nature. Like Hawkman, whose origin has been revised and reimagined numerous times in comic books, the Orion species’ background might benefit from a similar approach, perhaps even a special storyline aimed at simplifying and clarifying their complex history.

Even if their previous attempt failed, Star Trek might consider exploring the Orions again, providing a well-defined storyline and background information about these intriguing characters.

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2024-11-11 07:23

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