Since its debut in 1966, Star Trek has given pop culture some of the greatest aliens of all time. Vulcans, Klingons, and the Borg appeal to more than just sci-fi nerds and have become parts of the larger lexicon. But not every alien in Trek deserves such praise. With hundreds of episodes to air, producers
I never really thought about it, but you’re right, the Dooplers are too over the top and only make sense in a cartoon context.
The Pandronians from TAS and LD (the species that effectively have three independent parts) also make no sense outside of a cartoon.
I feel like the Pandronians aren’t as severe - maybe an 8. You could explain the floating in part as a naturally occurring anti-gravity system (which does canonically exist artificially).
I might be biased, though, in kn my Star Trek Adventures campaign, I have a Pandronian as my chief medical officer.
Yeah, at least they don’t violate conservation of matter like the Dooplers appear to.
I feel like they could have done several things to make them more realistic.
One option might have been instead making it a form of matterless telepathic project, with a bunch of the crew having to awkwardly walk inside these projections.
Another option might have been to make it so the Doopler behaves sort of like a replicator and uses materials from its environment to build clones. At first, the Cerritos life support systems would be able to keep up, but then, instead of the risk of being crushed, it could have instead been the risk of oxygen depletion or something as life support struggles to keep up. Granted, that would have made beaming the Doopler emissary onto the star base even more sadistic than it already was, so you’d have to find a way to revise them.