Cytherian or Not

[Captain McBain]

What do you think of the speculation that the trapped being from Star Trek V could be a rogue Cytherian? I'm sure some of you have heard this idea.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

He didn't have the big blue jewelly thing in his head.

 

[Melakon]

It's the first I've heard of it, and sounds to me like an attempt of fannish retconning, trying to position TNG as "real" Star Trek at the expense of anything else.

Memory Alpha makes no mention in its Background or Apocryphal sections that "God" and the Cytherians might be related.

Why can't "God" simply be an alien species never before seen or afterwards? Why does everything have to be connected?

 

[Nerys Myk]

What's a Cytherian again?

 

[Melakon]

The Cytherians turned Barclay into a supergenius and he hijacked the Enterprise to their distant region of space.

 

[Captain McBain]

It's the first I've heard of it, and sounds to me like an attempt of fannish retconning, trying to position TNG as "real" Star Trek at the expense of anything else.

Memory Alpha makes no mention in its Background or Apocryphal sections that "God" and the Cytherians might be related.

Why can't "God" simply be an alien species never before seen or afterwards? Why does everything have to be connected?

TNG is just as 'real' as the other Star Treks. Everything doesn't have to be related, but that doesn't mean that some things couldn't be related. Plus, the Cytherians and this being from Star Trek V look remarkably similar.

 

[Melakon]

The "God" creature assumed many different appearances, there was no indication the Cytherians could do that.

 

[Captain McBain]

I was unaware that the creature could assume different shapes. Unfortunately, the Cytherians were only in one episode, and we didn't even get to see Enterprise away team members on their planet.

 

[DonIago]

...so what if it was?

But no, I don't think that makes a lot of sense.

 

[Orac]

God in Star Trek V took the form of various floating heads and Sybok. The Cytherians projected the image of a floating head onto the bridge of the Enterprise in The Nth Degree. The Thasians did the same thing in Charlie X. Is god a Thasian?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Considering the bajillion near-identical humans roaming the galaxy, surely there's more than one race of floating heads out there?

I imagine the Cytherian head was just a big hologram they projected onto the Enterprise bridge, that they're really average-sized humanoids. STV's being seemed able to project images onto his actual form, which was basically a beam of light/energy/whatever.

 

[Timo]

Indeed, we aren't really even dealing with "a species of floating heads" here - basically every species in the galaxy communicates through projecting talking heads, and it's just a matter of tech balance whether the projection is on the opponent's viewscreen or somewhere else.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Bad episode, bad movie. Don't really care if they're connected or not.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

Is there any particular reason to think he's a Cytherian? I suppose you could assign him to any one of the numerous already existing god-like species in Trek. Or just add him as one more entry on the list.

 

[Melakon]

I used to have a Norelco rotary shaver with floating heads too. And then there were all those floating head hippies in the 60s. And then there was... ZARDOZ!

 

[Gary7]

Bad episode, bad movie. Don't really care if they're connected or not.

I can't agree. I found "The Nth Degree" one of the more enjoyable TNG episodes. The only plausibility thing I struggled with was Barclay "transferring" most of his consciousness into the ship's computer. Perhaps a different kind of being could do that, but not the human mind no matter how much you increased intelligence. It's simply not possible given the way the human brain works.

The "Cytherians" was another one of those enormous technology infusions for Starfleet that went nowhere. Given all they learned about how space could be warped and take the Enterprise across vast distances in practically no time, you'd think that this would be quickly adopted. But no, it was forgotten never to appear again.

 

[Melakon]

They did a good job with the laser light show scene though. The stage crew was really proud of that.

 

[Timo]

The "Cytherians" was another one of those enormous technology infusions for Starfleet that went nowhere. Given all they learned about how space could be warped and take the Enterprise across vast distances in practically no time, you'd think that this would be quickly adopted. But no, it was forgotten never to appear again.

Well, if the Cytherans were related to the ST5 God, they would have had the ability to make seemingly reasonable people believe impossible and silly things, and forget all about other things that made perfect sense. The heroes would definitely not have left the center of the galaxy with all of their marbles...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain McBain]

Indeed, we aren't really even dealing with "a species of floating heads" here - basically every species in the galaxy communicates through projecting talking heads, and it's just a matter of tech balance whether the projection is on the opponent's viewscreen or somewhere else.

Timo Saloniemi

How can you possibly know that? Maybe the Cytherians are incorporeal.

 

[Luminus]

What do you think of the speculation that the trapped being from Star Trek V could be a rogue Cytherian? I'm sure some of you have heard this idea.

Okay, I'm really late to this party, but... Joe Menosky, who wrote the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Nth Degree, suggests that the creature is one of the Cytherians. The side-effect of this is that it brings to light the massive issue with the use of warp in Star Trek V as the galactic core is 30,000 light years away from the Enterprise D's current position in the television episode.