Star Trek Aliens: Are Tribbles Evil?

Tribbles are evil.  There, it’s done.  I said it.  It’s off my chest.  Am I doubtful or ashamed?  Quite the contrary.  I’m here on an urgent mission – to warn you against supporting these eternally purring fuzzy fuzzballs.  The expansive Star Trek universe, created by Gene Roddenberry, boasts many a cool, weird creature – many times they qualify as both. There are more than a few that are baddies or yes, even elegantly evil.  However, Tribbles seem to score way higher on the evil scale.  Why?  

They are so darn cute. 

Cute equals evil?  Sometimes.  Just go ask a Furby.  Laugh Trek is here to help.

Deception Dance

Traditionally, Trek gives us explicitly bad, ugly or evil creatures.  Certainly you may argue Species 8472 isn’t truly evil, but they sure ain’t gonna win any beauty contest.  And they love to behave badly.  Just ask the Borg.

The Borg are probably the most intrinsically evil Trek creation.  Yes, of course, we can all argue on the philosophy of being in a collective, of having a super fast memory and potent abilities augmented by the collective – blah blah.  However, yanking the young Annika Hansen from her parents or morphing Jean-Luc Picard into the near zombie like Locutus is truly some low class behavior. 

Dismembering abducted victims to surgically replace them with fake limbs and yanking their eyes out to replace real eyes with implants?  You do the clear, evil calculations.

But more than anything else – Tribbles deceive.  They purr and they wiggle and shimmy oh so adorably.  And all the while they are plotting to literally eat us out of house and home.  They eat and eat and procreate.  They’re born pregnant, said Dr. McCoy in their introduction episode, The Trouble With Tribbles, in the classic original series. Of course, one alien race got the message years ago.  Klingons know the Tribble score. 

They’re mortal enemies with Klingons, which some may find cool or even comforting, but let’s put things into perspective.  Klingons are surly, ballsy or even combative, but nobody would ever call them deceptive nor evil. 

Star Trek lists all manner of creature and alien race.  It’s the one stop sci-fi franchise for all kinds of alluring lifeforms. But Tribbles?  It’s said that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  If that’s the practical case, then cuddle up to a Klingon and ditch those gluttonous, sex crazed powder puffs.