Predators, Prey and That Alien on Discovery

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

So, I’ve now watched the first two episodes of Discovery and went down a rabbithole named “Saru.”

Saru is one of the bridge crew in those first two episodes, and apparently shows up again on the Discovery. He’s a new species called a Kelpian, and I am instantly fascinated.

Predators vs. Prey

One of the things we tend to assume is that most alien sentients will be predators to some degree. Certainly, Vulcans are apex predators, perhaps more so than humans (before you say “but they’re vegetarians” — that’s why). Most aliens we see in Star Trek are, like us, bipedal omnivores or carnivores.

The Kelpians are different, and Saru himself explains it better than I can:

“Your world has food chains. Mine does not. Our species map is binary. We are either predator or prey. My people were hunted. Bred. Farmed. We are your livestock of old.”

Saru is not just a prey species. He’s basically a cow. I hope we find out more about how Kelpians evolved (and who was keeping them as livestock).

And they thought this through amazingly well.