The Strange Origins of Star Trek's Gorn 

So, what do you all think? Are the Gorn multiple species from different homeworlds or the same species that practices genetic engineering?

Given that we know that the Cestus IV colony has been re-established, and presumably under some sort of shared-sovereignty arrangement with the Gorn, and that they play baseball there, an idea that I really like is that there's been some cross-cultural exchange on that planet, and that Cestus IV now has a thriving Gorn baseball league.

That mycelial network joke never gets old. Great video man.

Clearly, the other galaxy that the Gorn come from is "Far Far Away", when their genetic line split from that of the Trandoshans, evidenced by the "lightsword" seen on the Gorn caprain's belt in the TOS episode "Arena". =) Great video, loved the Skillshare fake-out! Keep up the good work.

"As well as coughing sounds resembling the throat clearing of a seasoned chain smoker" Dude I about choked to death on my cigarette when you said that! ! Your sense of humor and wit really connects with me. Love watching your videos man, your knowledge of Star Trek is the best I've seen.

They should never have reintroduced the Gorn as being known of prior to "Arena". It renders a lot of what Spock says during that episode contradictory.

I was genuinely happy about you getting a sponsor for this episode and you pulled a fast one on me😂

He said it. He said the thing!

The Skillshare gag earned you a sub.

i have come to the conclusion that i absolutely hate how the gorn were depicted in strange new worlds.

It is amazing to me how you put together all this information. I have watched Star Ttek since the tos in 60's but I can not remember all this stuff 👍🏼

12:25 That sponsor joke was good! -> It took me out of a state of semi-doze/trance. -> Since I have an agressive reaction to the Skillshare/Brillant in_script ads, I moved to reach the keyboard to skip it (stopping just in time when you clarified that was a joke). 12:35 You silly! -> The meme is never about Goku (who by the way has further "forms" beyond the one you showed [Super Saiyan "1"] that is just his second), but instead for Freeza [an alien "cold demon" who does have reptilian/amphibious alternate forms].

As someone who once owned a pet lizard, I can definitely say that the Gorn have the possibility of becoming good friends.

This was great! I like the idea of several related species.

Woo hoo! Friday, Orange River, Trek!!!

Gorn but not forgotten...

LOL at the Skillshare joke. You got me :)

I've always like the idea of the Gorn being multiple species from different homeworlds, it adds a unique dynamic to Star Trek lore. I think it always better explains different appearances of Gorn across the canon. I think it would be cool, if they confirmed this in Star Trek SNW, but I doubt it'll happen. I would like see more of the Gorn in Star Trek.

The skillshare joke was top notch

Great video,Tyler!

It was definitely time for another mention of the mycelial network! Pretty sure the Gorn also made a guest appearance on Lost in Space.

Gorn's gonna Gorn. Great video btw. Thanks, Tyler.

You just made my lunch break thanks man. I'm still digging the wolverine beard too.

I finally get the mycelial network bit! That show was rough after season 2.

That skillshare bit was great :)

One tiny thing on a great video, as always. I.Q. _shouldn't_ change, up or down. It's been known to be problematic since shortly after its inception; it was intended as a diagnostic tool, not a general assessment of intelligence. Thus the abbreviation: Intelligence Quotient; i.e., it is meant to be a measure of "mental age" over "physical age" to diagnose developmental disorders and identify those who need extra attention, not a high score. And, if it worked (it doesn't, generally, as separate tests will give widely varying "scores" and the question/task selection is subject to many contextual and cultural problems), it wouldn't change from the age of 10 to the age of 50. The ratio, again if it worked, would stay the same. If your I.Q. is 150, your ratio is 1.5 to 1, "mental age" to "physical age." This is all a digression, as more granular and reliable evaluations are used nowadays in cognitive science, and their purpose has not been as co-opted by popular science. Apologies if you know all this and were speaking informally, I'm just fascinated by intelligence and our limited understanding of it, as you seem to be with your mention of dogs, birds and the plausibility of reptiles possessing skills similarly.

Yeah I don't see how the xenomorphic Gorn of SNW would even be tolerated by the Federation, let alone the Romulans and Klingons they're right next to.

Would have been cool if they just made a new species of alien in BNW instead of making the Gorn have crazy breeding camps.

I would love to see a battle between the Klingons and the Gorn.

I gave my own theory on the Gorn but i'd just like to say another amazing video. Always well thought out, you have a distinctive presentation style. You always have some thoughtful humour in your videos but the skillshare moment had us all going. Comedy gold.

Again a perfect start of my weekend, Tyler. But of my holidays as well! Thanks Tyler!

Lil baby Gorns😂 you crack me up 😎🌟

I was so excited for this! All expectations were exceeded, and I had high hopes, so that says something! Terrific work, I love all the details! Your breakdown of the Gorn is very thorough and entertaining!

O.K. I'm going to take a crack at the question. It is possible that the Gorn look like separate species but because of adaptations to varied regional environments on their homeworld, they appear different much like humans from different parts of Earth look dissimilar but are still the same species. However, all humans reproduce the same way. If one ignores the fact that the real reason Gorn have multiple reproduction techniques is because of poor writing/continuity, then the one homeworld idea seems less likely. The other extreme in concepts is multiple species evolving on the same planet. Of course the Xindi set the precedent in Star Trek so the idea has legs. Except given the reptilian nature of Gorn evolution It's most likely that one species would eventually dominate genetically much like Homosapiens replaced Neanderthals. The Xindi were genetically unique from one another and wouldn't necessarily have to compete for the same resources or environments. But again there is the multiple forms of reproduction for the Gorn to explain. As the age of Gorn civilization is a bit of a mystery, I believe there are two possible explanations that fit the facts. 1. The Gorn were once a single species that, prior to developing FTL, colonized nearby star systems and the satellites they inhabited had an environment sufficiently alien to their biology that they adapted to these conditions and over a long period evolved separately from their counterparts on other worlds. Then were re-united after the invention of warp drive. 2. The Gorn were a single species that, with the creation of warp drive, colonized nearby planets. And, in order to be able to exist on as many different worlds as possible, genetically altered the colonists instead of "terra"-forming the worlds. With the genetically "pure" Gorn providing the hegemonic influence. Which means they can co-exist and cooperate with each other but their biologies can't co-mingle ,effectively making them different species. Both of these explanations can work whether the Gorn were homegrown in the Beta Quadrant or came from somewhere else.

This was well thought out. I enjoyed this video.

"Unfortunately the crew of the downed federation vessel were taken in a gorn raid. And speaking of raid, let's take a minute to talk about today's sponsor..."

Actualy Greek Mythology was influenced by the Gorn🦖

Its always great to get home from work on Fridays and have an OrangeRiver video waiting to be watched. Well done again Tyler. Live long and prosper. 🖖

I remember also the Gorn having a non-aggression treaty with the Dominion

Are they really ‘cold-blooded’ or are they poikilothermic. As killers, they may be described as ‘cold-blooded’ due to their apparent lack of emotions or hesitance in taking the lives of others. They apparently need little motivation.

God, I flinched at that sponsor fakeout lmaooo

I wish you had gone over how the Gorn joined the Klingons in STO - its a neat story. Really fits them. Also I love the rumor that the female of the species is the bigger one.

Cool video. I think the Gorn are one species that practices DNA engineering. I kinda wish SNW had chosen a different race to be the boogeyman for this first season. I just dont like a few of the changes they have made to them. Like their spit being able to implant their eggs or them communicating by flashing lights. The new look and how savage they were are the only things i liked about them.

I have actually very few quibbles with SNW, but I was really disappointed that they were made into Aliens-esque contagious gutbusters. Cause that's so damn tired by now. I'd kinda thought they were leading up to like scary-smart adversary with shocking cultural practices.

Far more information out there than I thought, thanks! I really like the idea of separate castes

If the Borg can be reasoned with anyone can.

I like the idea, from STO I think that Gorn have genetic memory of sorts and they 'remember' worlds where the Hegemony had been and held a planet as their own.

The video was an excellent exploration of reconciling the continuity issues with the Gorn. Thank you! I hope to see them again on the screen one day. Also, that fake sponsor segue was hilarious 😂. Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you, friends. ✝️ :)

Could you do a vid on the Xenomorph? Love to hear your thoughts on their biology! Especially on the subject of H.R. Geiger’s concept of biomechanical organisms

I've always felt like the Gorn became The Breen the shape of the helmet matches the shape of a Gorn's head.

Time Trap from Star Trek The Animated Series also depicts how the Gorn and other species can get along.

Amazing that Fredric Brown actually rewrote the short story to fit Star Trek. He was a great writer. Science fiction and other writers used to do TV writing a lot until the 1980s when the Television & Screen Writer's Guild got it restricted to only guild members.

Great video!

Awesome video!! Thank you for your awesome work!!

Like always nicely done video, I still think the Tholians ARE NOT going to be friends anytime soon.

First! Love your channel! :D

I enjoy your content. Watched the original series during the 1970's. Thank you for your efforts in making it all make sense!

B-canon be like "All these humans with stuff on their foreheads are completely separate species... but those lizards must be related, clearly."

Nice you got a sponsor

As I understand it, it sounds like the Gorn’s reproduction cycle is more like the Magog’s from the Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda Series from 2000. As they both take hosts from other species to impregnate by biting the said hosts and when the young are ready to be born they eat their way out of the hosts. And some are just taken for food.

I wonder if they simply didn't see other beings as sentient or sapient until after SNW and were like "oh shit yeah let's not inhabit our hatchery worlds with people". I think the Gorn as a species or collection of species could be a very interesting antagonist if done well. Having something so alien, something so seemingly malevolent, turn to be mistaken can be interesting.

I think i remember making a chain smoker comment on CBS's page XD well played, im sure others did aswell

it's strange but i find the gorn cute...trying to think why, i think it's because the cheap costume doesn't flex much and it doesn't look like they can really close their mouths which makes them less scary. i also think the klingon ambassador gorn in star trek online is fun to watch in action because he's probably the most violent diplomat i've ever seen 😀

Many years ago I came across a science fiction anthology with a bunch of short stories, probably written in the late 1940s and 1950s. As I read through it, I gradually came to realize that I was reading the basic plots for several different episodes of ST-TOS. "The Cage" was one of the stories, "Arena" was another and I seem to recall at least one other that was also a Star Trek episode, but I no longer remember which one. The characters and details were different, but the overall plot arcs were nearly identical. For example, in "The Cage" story on the TV show, the aliens capture Pike, but later released him when they realized that humans and our drive for freedom made them unsuitable for what they had in mind. In the anthology story, the aliens released their version of Pike when they observed him keeping a small lizard as a pet and decided that any species that kept pets were too advanced to be held against their will. As I remember it, the stories in the anthology were uniformly well written and entertaining. I hadn't thought about it for years until this video brought up the Gorn.

After watching DS9 for the 4th time, can you please talk about the Tzenkethi and the Tzenkethi war?

I think this is one of your best!

I think there is a simple explanation for the discrepancy between the Gorn of Strange New Worlds and the other appearances of the Gorn. Simply put, they weren't quite as successful as were were during their evolutionary development. Where we as the dominant human species successfully murdered all our competition, the Gorn were less so. As such, in the modern day of Trek, they exists as a society of multiple species from the same world. The Gorn the Kirk and Archer Enterprise encounter are from a different Gorn species that the Pike Enterprise with the latter being considerably more aggressive and violent than the former.

Omg... The chain smoker comment had me Rollin! 😂😂

The skillshare sponsor fakeout was funny

Something notable about Xenomorphs (Aliens) which may be relevant to the Gorn (and connect to the "multiple species") idea. Xenomorph take on certain traits of their hosts. Mostly this is all size/shape; but has also in some depictions meant other traits as well. It stands to reason that if they are borrowing from Aliens for the Gorn, they may use this to explain all the disparity in the species. Perhaps there is a version of Gorn which has developed live birth (and possibly even the faceted eyes) through breeding in a specific area of space. Developing live births (as referenced in the Kelvin timeline) could potentially lead to more peaceful Gorn once they no longer need hosts to mate. McCoy could have also been talking out of his ass, or could have been referring safely retrieving Gorn young from an unwilling host. I have also seen the faceted eyes as actually a kind of goggles some Gorn wear. I think this was on Star Trek Online...but it's been a while since I have played that. While I prefer my Gorn with bug eyes (makes them really unique among reptile aliens), I do appreciate this as a solution to the varied eye depiction. If I'm right about what they are doing with this Xenomorph inspired depiction, it could be used to lead to the Arena/Lower Decks style Gorn eventually in a civil war with the more bestial ones in SNW and eliminating them.

It’s “gorn” to be interesting to see how the Gorn will be portrayed in the future.

i think we can sorta simplify the "why do Gorn look so different on a given day" from just the fact that their government is called a "Hegemony". It's more than likely there are a number of different worlds in different systems with different ways of rearing their young. This would make each different Gorn world like it's own region or small nation. So unlike most species/races they probably don't have a "home" planet per say, but rather a "Capital" planet of sorts. So you could potentially have a group or faction of Gorn from one sector be extremely different from others in another sector just due to the planet they were spawned on. Though another supposition is that the Gorn seen in Strange New Worlds is either a genetic offshoot or the Gorn version of Jem'Hadar. Literal shock troops being bred in case of a potential war. Something they probably use on a constant basis to keep pesky intruders from snooping around too hard, hence all the various hunting/raiding parties. But until we get more information it's just a thought/idea.

Gornville?, Gorntopia, Gornadelphia, Gornwall, Gornborough, Gornica, Gorntown, perhaps?

I dream of a crossover with Land of the Lost, because Sleestaks look goofier than the Gorn and they travel between dimensions.

Hi video 🔥

After what has happened on the final episode of strange New Worlds season 2 this has really relaxed my confusion about the gorn and is a really good video.

I enjoy your content. Peace! \o/

Wait, so Gorn children are capable of infecting organisms with their eggs (which are also fertilized)? Is that something we've seen in the real world? I love STW it's just that the Gorn sometimes make me scratch my head.

Rambunctious offspring might be why the Gorn lay eggs and leave. They let the hatchlings go wild until only the strong survive then they come and harvest them when they calm down.

as usual, the ending made me smile, thanks a lot ALSO, joke telling, like any kind of telling, is a skill, and if you want to master such skills yourself, allow me to direct you to the OrangeRiver youtube channel.

I watched Arena on live TV last night... man.... what a fun show. I felt like a child. Lol... I kept sending little video clips to friends and family... I can't help but swing ultra slow fake punches at people now... walk around all clumsy...make really weird sounds... ran around my yard pretending to improvise a mortar/cannon...really just desperately shoving dirt and rocks in a tube.... I keep pretending things are super heavy and tossing them at my family.... I ended up here. Cheers!

Actually the emergency C-section thing isn't a throw away line if you think about it. I would rather have an emergency C-section to remove an alien parasite than it ripping out my abdomen! As already noted, they come out ready to feed, hence the reference to them biting

The fake Skill-Share ad made me reach for the right arrow button! Ya got me!

I think The Gorn using hosts to infect then birth them sounds a bit odd I suppose they are Aliens though

An interesting overview of the Gorn! Though to be honest SNW didn't do anyone favors by ripping off the Space Beagle. Thank you for attempting to make logical sense out of the mess. Hopefully we will learn more as the series goes on. Peace.

@8:00 dude, I love your sense of humour! Haha

Seasoned chain smoker, lol thats a great way to describe it.

I admit I'm biased, but my favorite version of the Gorn is the one from the Star Fleet Battles line of boardgames. The Gorn are three species who are so genetically close they are speculated to have evolved from a common ancestor..but not in their homeworlds. There is no fossil evidence of any Gorn inhabiting their three homeworlds (Gh'Dar I, II and III) going back further than roughly 15,000 years. Where the Gorn originally evolved and who transplanted them to their current region of space is unknown. The three species discovered each other early in their spaceflight era, and formed the Gorn Confederation. The Confederation is located coreward of the Romulan Empire, and the Gorn have fought the Romulans since before either polity developed warp drive. Centuries of skirmishing with the ever-aggresive Romulans resulted in a paranoid, defensive mindset in the Gorn prior to contact with the Federation, explaining their 'shoot first ask questions later' reaction to discovering Federation colonists on Cestus III.

11:30 the most straightforward answer is that they’re no longer limited to a guy in a rubber suit.

Mmm, Popplers, I mean Gorn...kinda neat how they are comparable.

I loved your skill share joke hahaha. You're a funny guy, I love your videos.

Gorn young are far more dangerous than adults.

Another great informative video Tyler.Maybe your right,as seen in the hilarious commercials of KIRK reliving his glory days with a living room pillow fight with his aging GORN nemesis,perhaps the traits we have in common like aging and shortness of breath can eventually unite us.But if my daughter ever dated a GORN and got pregnant,it's time for daddy to load up the plasma shotgun !

I only ever knew about the super-slow species. lol.

The gorn naming their planet gornar is like if humans named our new home humanar

I had 2 friends in reenacting. Heath Hammond and his older half brother (his name slips my mind). Their dad was a stunt man who was the original Gorn in the suit in TOS. We went to his ranch up above Canyon Country not too far from Vasquez Rocks and over his front door was a sign, "House of Gorn".

Gorn are good and well educated guys, they are very kind , helpful and take care everyone needs

Quark said it best "They're insidious"

My headcanon before this was that the Gorn planet has actually lighter gravity based on the clunky movement in TOS being on a near 1G planet. But now that it’s heavier, that would make it that Gornar has a higher oxygen level and the Gorn have denser bones than I previously thought to explain for their lethargy.

For me. It's the orange, gold and brown halter dress and shorts, with debutant length gloves. Why am I the only one obsessed with this?