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In my readings it seems like a few people have high opinions of the Sheliak. What makes them so amazing?

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J. vom Land der Ostern Blumen
Thol'yuns, hear your 'ssembly call you! ~ Up, lest worse than frost befall you! ~ To Webs! To Webs! To Webs, in Thol'ya! ~ Lo! All the tach'yun guards are lighted, let all hearts be now united! ~ To Webs ! To Webs! To Webs, in Thol'ya!

Advance the silk of Thol'ya Hurrah! Hurrah! ~ For Thol-i-a we take our stand, and live or die for Thol'ya! ~ To Webs! To Webs! and conquer peace for Thol'ya. ~ To Webs! To Webs and conquer peace for Thol'ya.

Probably a stupid question, but who/what are the Sheliak?

Dude, really? They're one of the few non-humanoid species ever featured in 'Trek. "Ensigns of Command" where Data has to convince the human colonists to evacuate, because the Sheliak had a super-exact treaty with the Federation to colonize any H-class planets. I got the impression that the Federation did not want any confrontation with them, or they wouldn't have been so super-diplomatic in the episode.

IIRC, Worf states that the Sheliak colony ship has at least equal firepower to the E-D, so they must be serious business. Why they never followed up on them is something that really irks me about 'Trek.

EDIT: I also remember them just beaming Picard off the bridge and back at whim. I don't remember if the E-D's shields were up, though.

From the pictures that I have seen online, they reminded me of a cross between the Horta and the Excaliban. Am I wrong?

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J. vom Land der Ostern Blumen
Thol'yuns, hear your 'ssembly call you! ~ Up, lest worse than frost befall you! ~ To Webs! To Webs! To Webs, in Thol'ya! ~ Lo! All the tach'yun guards are lighted, let all hearts be now united! ~ To Webs ! To Webs! To Webs, in Thol'ya!

Advance the silk of Thol'ya Hurrah! Hurrah! ~ For Thol-i-a we take our stand, and live or die for Thol'ya! ~ To Webs! To Webs! and conquer peace for Thol'ya. ~ To Webs! To Webs and conquer peace for Thol'ya.

Sounds about right. I just think a species that apparently is fairly powerful would've featured in more than one episode. Sort of like my Gorn issues. And the TNG episode "Conspiracy". Damned lazy writers.

I think the Borg were supposed to be behind the Conspiracy Bugs but something behind scenes got fubarred so they had to change what they could to salvage it.

It is similar to how they tried to make the Ferengi an imposing bad guy but just couldn't overcome bias so they made the Ferengi foolish. I don't blame Denise Crosby for leaving, especially after "The Naked Now" and "Code of Honor".

You are right, laziness.

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J. vom Land der Ostern Blumen
Thol'yuns, hear your 'ssembly call you! ~ Up, lest worse than frost befall you! ~ To Webs! To Webs! To Webs, in Thol'ya! ~ Lo! All the tach'yun guards are lighted, let all hearts be now united! ~ To Webs ! To Webs! To Webs, in Thol'ya!

Advance the silk of Thol'ya Hurrah! Hurrah! ~ For Thol-i-a we take our stand, and live or die for Thol'ya! ~ To Webs! To Webs! and conquer peace for Thol'ya. ~ To Webs! To Webs and conquer peace for Thol'ya.

It truly is. If the writer in question (I'm looking at YOU, Braga) can't be bothered to watch the preceding material, they shouldn't be given the privilege of writing a script for Star Trek.

Ah, after checking them out on DITL, I remember them now.

In some ways it is nice that we don't know much about them, I mean if Data had of just given everyone the complete encyclopedia on them it would have been boring and left nothing to the imagination. Featuring them again would have been nice but there are some things which are better left to speculation, makes it more interesting to watch.

Tsukiyumi wrote:Dude, really? They're one of the few non-humanoid species ever featured in 'Trek. "Ensigns of Command" where Data has to convince the human colonists to evacuate, because the Sheliak had a super-exact treaty with the Federation to colonize any H-class planets. I got the impression that the Federation did not want any confrontation with them, or they wouldn't have been so super-diplomatic in the episode.

IIRC, Worf states that the Sheliak colony ship has at least equal firepower to the E-D, so they must be serious business. Why they never followed up on them is something that really irks me about 'Trek.

EDIT: I also remember them just beaming Picard off the bridge and back at whim. I don't remember if the E-D's shields were up, though.

They never followed up on the Tamarians either, who apparently went well out of their way to open relations with the Federation, and had combat technology at least equal to Starfleet. One episode wonders, sadly.

The Sheliak are forgiveable, since they seemed to consider good relations "staying away from the icky inferior humanoids, don't call us, we'll call you."

True. The Tamarians are another race I think should've make additional appearances. I guess they couldn't find anywhere to squeeze them in; then we wouldn't have had room for great episodes like "The Storyteller", " Force of Nature", " Masks", "Emergence", etc...

I would have liked to see more of the Sheliak, if done correctly - a very slow, gradual process of continued contact rather than an all-at-once de-mystification of them and then a happy, "Oh, OK then, let's all be friends" ending. The fact that the E-D considered one of their TRANSPORTS to be a match for them in firepower was certainly interesting, as was their "alien-ness." IMO, they should have been a lingering worry rather than a direct and overt threat or antagonist.

Mikey wrote:I would have liked to see more of the Sheliak, if done correctly - a very slow, gradual process of continued contact rather than an all-at-once de-mystification of them and then a happy, "Oh, OK then, let's all be friends" ending. The fact that the E-D considered one of their TRANSPORTS to be a match for them in firepower was certainly interesting, as was their "alien-ness." IMO, they should have been a lingering worry rather than a direct and overt threat or antagonist.

The impression I had was that, like the Romulans, they wanted any and all contact with the Federation to be intimidating. The colony ship was ( I surmised) something more like a big heavily armed ship tasked with delivering colony equipment, or a specially fortified colony ship, since they knew there was a human habitation on the planet that they intended to wipe out.

That seems logical. It worked in my case.

Tsukiyumi wrote:It truly is. If the writer in question (I'm looking at YOU, Braga) can't be bothered to watch the preceding material, they shouldn't be given the privilege of writing a script for Star Trek.

If your talking about the early TNG seasons, the blame falls squarely on Roddenberry's shoulders. Feel free to pin everything after that on Beevus and Butthead.