In 60 years of the “Star Trek” franchise, the Klingon Empire has faced countless foes across the galaxy. They’ve taken on the Federation, the Romulans, and the Dominion, but true “Trek” fans know that there is one enemy above all other that spurred the Klingons to their greatest battle, in which many warriors died with honor for the fate not just of the Empire, but the universe itself: Tribbles. Remember Tribbles, the little fuzzy puffballs that make adorable little cooing noises and don’t do anything but make more Tribbles? Yeah, those things are one of the greatest threats to the entire “Star Trek” universe, and Klingons hate them even more than they hate most other creatures. Unless, that is, they’re served up for lunch.
As unlikely as it might seem, the mutual enmity between the Klingon Empire and the troublesome Tribbles is long-established “Trek” canon , and even inspired a moment in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” that would’ve included a tasty nod to their hateful history. The only problem was that once the props were made, the scene was deemed to be simply too gross for audiences and wound up on the cutting room floor.
Tribbles are a disgustingly sugary snack for Klingons
According to the 1995 book “The Making of the Trek Films,” “Star Trek VI” was slated to include a moment in which a Klingon prison guard took a break from enforcing Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy’s prison sentence to tear open a Tribble and devour its guts raw as a snack. In reality, the “guts” in question were actually just gummy worms and tapioca, a combination that we can only assume pairs well with Klingon bloodwine and prune juice. The effect, however, was so disgusting that the bit was cut from the film, presumably because tearing open a cute little ball of fluff and sucking out its innards is a bit off-putting for the average theatergoer.
The edible Tribble — which could have been a pretty amazing marketing opportunity for hungry “Trek” fans who really wanted to commit to their Klingon cosplay — was designed by model builder Greg Jein, a multi-time Academy Award nominee with a long history with the franchise. In addition to creating several props for “Star Trek VI,” including Chancellor Gorkon’s animal-horn chalice, he worked on “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” “Star Trek V,” and was part of the team that built the original model of the Enterprise-D used in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Klingons hunted Tribbles to extinction
As for the Tribbles, which were almost named Fuzzies, they first appeared in one of the most well-remembered episodes of the original “Star Trek,” “The Trouble With Tribbles.” That episode established that they consume and reproduce at a phenomenal rate, able to explode, according to Mr. Spock, from a single Tribble to a population of 1,771,561 in a mere three days. As McCoy pointed out, they are essentially “born pregnant,” a very efficient system that winds up presenting a lot of problems when it comes to resources. That episode also established that while most space-faring species find them docile and cuddly, Tribbles have a natural aversion to Klingons.
In the “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” episode “Trials and Tribble-ations,” the Klingon Worf revealed that in the century since the original “Star Trek,” the sheer reproductive frequency of Tribbles presented “an ecological menace” to the Empire. As billions of Tribbles tore through resources eating everything in their path and exponentially breeding, much like the real-life invasive rabbits that inspired their creation, Klingon warriors hunted them to extinction … mostly. Time travel shenanigans returned them to the galaxy after that episode, and the third season of “Picard” included a cameo from a “genetically altered Tribble” that looked more like the face-hugging baby Xenomorphs from “Alien” than the classic fuzzballs.
With Tribbles back in the galaxy, it remains to be seen whether they’ll become a problem for the Federation and the Klingons again. Now that we know that they can make a tasty snack, though, the solution to that issue seems to be solved in a manner both honorable and delicious. Then again, if those gummy worm guts become a delicacy, the Klingon Empire may have met its match in the greatest foe of all: high blood sugar.
Leave a Reply