Your views on Species 8472?

[Garak007]

I am not sure if this has been done already but I would like to know this forums views on how Species 8472 was treated?

My view is that Species 8472 at the start of Scorpion had perhaps one of the most thrilling introductions in the whole of Star Trek even better than the Dominion.

The start where they kicked The Borg's ass with no hanging about and even at this time during Voyagers run The Borg was still a force to be recon with. I thought at least they will be able to talk with The Borg and maybe come to terms with one another to fight a common goal. The very first part of the Scorpion more or less dealt with that and was perhaps the best episode in the whole Voyager series as they was a big hype of meeting the The Borg in the Delta Quadrant. I will not go into the 2nd part of that 2 part episode as in my view it was a let down.

The next time we meet Species 8472 was when it was outside of Voyager trying to get away from the Hirogen hunting party which was another good reasonable episode with them in.

Now the last episode where Voyager came across a space station of Species of 8472 and they find out they were training to personate Star Fleet and at the end of it all the Voyager crew managed to come up with a deal with them to stop an invasion.

What the hell... a alien race that is more nasty then The Borg to start with and you had the suspense of not knowing who they were and their whole intense purpose was to destroy the galaxy and only to find the producers then decided to reduce them to like any other species in Star Trek. Bad move!

 

[exodus]

Watch the ep. again.
We never stop any invasion.
The Boothby 8472 says he's going to speak to his superiors about calling a truce.........but we never hear back for him.
So either they killed him & the invasion is still on or unknown to us, there is a truce.

The fact is, they left it up in the air.
As the famous quote says: "The Revolution will not be televised."

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

That's true. Boothby said he couldn't promise anything, but he'd give it a try.

Also, Janeway gave 8472 information on the technology used to defeat them. So, if they are going to invade, there's no way for us to defend ourselves from the attack now.

I get why she did it, but I thought that was a bad move.

 

[G2309]

I agree it's a shame the way the were reduced to nothing after scorpion. Im not sure they could afford completely cgi on a regular basis even in Scorpion you only get brief glimpses.
I still think the Dominion had a better introduction being both strong and smart. 8472 was never given their own voice so often felt like aliens of the week.

 

[THE_FETT]

What's so great about the Dominion? Shapeshifting blobs with a bunch of thugs hooked on crystal white? Not that interesting. Not that they episodes with them wern't good, but I'm not seeing why they're even being mentioned alongside Species 8472 who were bar-none the coolest villains since ... since ...

Everything about them was total bad-ass. The opening teaser for Scorpion was just like, "**** YEAH!" "Resistance is fu..." *BZZU-BLAAM!* **** YOU YOU'RE ****ING DEAD YOU ZOMBIE-ROBOT FREAKS!"

I think it was the first time we actually saw alien-looking aliens in the tv series. And they had those cool Lovecraftian eyes. Just everything about them was ultra-cool.

But, yeah, wasn't really a fan of the use of them in "In the Flesh (?)" it didn't really ruin the notion of the species as a whole, but I thought that particular use of them was - it just could've not been done. The episode itself wasn't bad per-se; but just, I don't know, didn't like the use of those specific 8472's in it.

I like to imagine that some 8472 ships showed up some time later and you see "Boothsby42" on the viewscreen of one of the ships and he says, "I take it you received my report. I believe we may have misunderstood these hu..." *BZZU-BLAAM!* **** YOU YOU'RE ****ING DEAD YOU ****IFIED REJECTS!"

 

[Garak007]

I agree it's a shame the way the were reduced to nothing after scorpion. Im not sure they could afford completely cgi on a regular basis even in Scorpion you only get brief glimpses.
I still think the Dominion had a better introduction being both strong and smart. 8472 was never given their own voice so often felt like aliens of the week.

Ok I think the complete destruction of 3 Borg cube ships in 1 hit per cube was some what better then a suicide run of a Jem'Hadar ship on the Odyssey even that the out come of that was far better

Going from that and begin able to talk to them just like any other race in Star Trek was a big let down in my view. Even that people have posted you don't get a for gone conclusion to the invasion.

 

[Anwar]

Well, the problem was that they were TOO powerful. There would've been NO WAY for VOY to have survived if the invasion continued. The only reason they were created was for that one story to explain why the Borg wouldn't just destroy VOY in a nanosecond. Once they did that the writers no longer had a use for them, but they realized they couldn't let them be and had to get rid of them in a way that permanently got them out of the Trekverse.

 

[Kai Winn]

all the great adversaries were introduced as far superior, whether it's the borg, dominion, 8472, or sphere builders. only enterprise got it right, and did not diminish the sphere builders and xindi reptilians rapidly. the dominion? easily destroyed a galaxy class vessel, and overwhelmed the defiant early on. next episode, defiant comfortably takes on a whole fleet. at the end, mere shuttles shoot the same dominion vessels down.
anyway, i wish the 8472 episode with the fake starfleet academy would not exist. voyager left the space 8472 could access from their realm, end of story.

 

[henbane]

Species 8472 was a great chance to introduce a new adversary, especially since the Borg had largely been tamed. However, the writers missed the opportunity to develop this storyline - or perhaps it was intentional with the view to a movie or likewise.

Sure Species 8472 seemed all powerful and conquering - they were supposed to be, but every foe has it's weakness (just as the Borg etc did) and no doubt, if the storyline had been persued there would be have been a way to defeat them.

I see Species 8472 as a lost opportunity.

 

[Rek]

I see Species 8472 as a lost opportunity.

Same. I'd of liked to see more about them but I suppose not all loose ends get wrapped up in TV shows. Like DS9, they wrapped up almost everything but I was left with a few questions afterwards.

 

[Cornholio]

very cool alien adversary.

then they got pansified.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I think that "In the Flesh" is my least favourite Voyager episode. Species 8472 were one of the coolest villains in Star Trek - it was a tragedy that they were turned into just another race of changelings.

 

[exodus]

Voyager's problem with the aliens of the Delta Quad. were the writers humanized all of them. No way species like the Hirogen & Species 8472 should be able to be reasoned with. To the Hirogen, we are food and status, to 8472 we're like a virus. Why would 8472 want to mimic us? They had the ability to destroy entire worlds. They could open a sigularity right at Earth's doorstep, destroy it and the knowledge of any weapon against them. They could end us from beyond orbit and we'd never see the face of our killers. Why mimic us? Who mimics what they see as a germ?

It was stupid.

 

[Space Turtle]

I don't think In the Flesh would have been a bad episode if they had used a different alien species. But I agree that it wasn't the right way to go with 8472. In humanizing them it took away their sense of menace.

It would have been good to see the whole human-borg-8472 situation that was set up in Scorpian pt1 play out over a whole series.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

I think that a Federation-Borg-8472 conflict would make a perfect Voyager/TNG/DS9 cross-over movie, actually.

 

[Space Turtle]

I think that a Federation-Borg-8472 conflict would make a perfect Voyager/TNG/DS9 cross-over movie, actually.

I would definitely go and see that!

 

[I am not Spock]

It's a shame that CGI was too expensive to use regularly on TV in the 90s, because I liked 8472 and wish they were used more often. I wish we'd seen them again after 'In The Flesh'.

 

[exodus]

I think that a Federation-Borg-8472 conflict would make a perfect Voyager/TNG/DS9 cross-over movie, actually.

After the Dominion war, the Federation would have fallen taking on 8472.............which might interesting.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

I don't know... if Sisko came back with his prophet powers, Janeway and Seven started creating weapons with advanced Borg technology to use, Picard was in charge of coordinating the battle front, and they placed the Promethus at the head of the Armada, they might have a chance.

 

[exodus]

I don't know... if Sisko came back with his prophet powers, Janeway and Seven started creating weapons with advanced Borg technology to use, Picard was in charge of coordinating the battle front, and they placed the Promethus at the head of the Armada, they might have a chance.

I see you've given this lots of thought.


Actually, all we need is for Odo to bring the Dominion into the war.

Game Over, man!!!!