TOS s2e6 “The Doomsday Machine” and VOY s5e14 “Bliss”
The telepathic pitcher plant was approximately two thousand kilometers wide, and contained large amounts of bioplasmic energy.
So, the giant cone is slightly larger in overall length than just the width of the “face” on the giant ship devouring mouth.
BananaVoyager for scale:
I really wish Star Trek was more consistent with its world building when it comes to stuff like this. There’s a variety of spaceborn life forms out there, but no larger ecosystem, and usually no lifecycle. I get that exploration and discovery means not having all the answers, but shit like the pitcher plant just doesn’t make sense. They are basically just monsters that exist outside the natural order of things. In fact, the many omnipotent beings in Star Trek are often the best explanation for how these things came to be, pretty much just “a wizard did it” but pretending that it’s still somehow sciencey if we don’t call it magic.
I like the idea that the galaxy could be populated by a complex web of gigafauna. I want to see pods of spacewhales navigating between worlds, filter feeding on gigantic space bugs, and evading ambush predators that phase in and out of reality. I want areas on the star chart that say “here there be dragons” because while we’re pretty sure there aren’t actual dragons, we know something dangerous is lurking there. I want to see spores from a silicon fungus that spread solar sails and infect neighboring worlds. And I want the show to remember that it exists instead of just being gone forever as soon as the credits roll.
Found your “wizard”:
But yeah, would be nice to expound upon these space faring mega-fauna. I’m imagining a stampede of crystalline entities being corralled by space whales into some kind of subspace trap for them to feast upon. Circle of intergalactic life shit, man.
No, the space whales would eat Farpoint Stations, obviously. Crystalline Entities would be preyed upon by giant space otters.
On a related note, I am now imagining Crystalline Entities wearing hats.
Oh jeez, I really must be high! I don’t know what I was thinking; space whales would eat space plankton, not space jellyfish. It’s chelys galactica that would eat Farpoint cnidarians.
Now, which of these things is most plankton-like?
Now, hang on a minute. Picard introduced its own brand of space faring “chum”:
But, for arguments’ sake and our own personal gratification, let’s assume the space whales require certain nutrients that are only locally available from crystalline entities.
Well, I really wish there were no space fauna at all. Because it makes no sense, and I always rolled my eyes at those episodes.
