Lower Decks Is Finally Casting Light On Star Trek's Most Mysterious Species
This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks."
"Star Trek: Lower Decks" season 4, episode 4, titled "Something Borrowed, Something Green," takes place largely on the Orion homeworld, the place where Lieutenant D'Vana Tendi (Noël Wells) hails from. She is there to attend the wedding of her sister D'Erica but also to face the familial legacy she deliberately left behind when she joined Starfleet. The episode features a lot of lingering sororal resentment and multiple mysterious, violent, sexy figures from Tendi's past.
More important to Trekkies, however, are the numerous details about Orion life. "Something Borrowed" is the first time we've really had a good look at the Orions and what they're like in their element.
Orions, of course, first appeared on "Star Trek" as early as the "Original Series" pilot, "The Cage," when Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) was seduced by a green-skinned woman at a Roman-style orgy. Perhaps the green makeup was too expensive, though, as Orions rarely appeared in "The Original Series" beyond that. In "Journey to Babel" (November 17, 1967), an Orion came to a diplomatic summit, but they were disguised as an Andorian. Yvonne Craig also played an asylum-bound Orion woman in "Whom Gods Destroy" (January 3, 1969). Orions similarly appeared on two episodes of "Star Trek: The Animated Series," including "The Pirates of Orion" (September 7, 1974), which firmly established the species as one of space plunderers.
After that, the species was entirely eschewed for decades. Orions would be absent from "The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine," and "Voyager" altogether. They wouldn't show up again until the fourth season of "Enterprise" in 2004.
Because of this 40-year absence from our screens, Orions have remained a question mark. "Lower Decks" season 4 has finally stepped in to answer some questions.
The Orions
Prior to "Lower Decks," Orions were often discussed only in problematic terms. There are several references to "Orion slaves" on "Star Trek," implying that slavery is still a functioning institution in the future, a fact that would make "Star Trek" decidedly less-than-utopian. According to various expanded-universe lore — novels, RPGs, and the like — Orions do indeed practice slavery as a matter of course, and often bought and sold people as an institutional norm for centuries. Perhaps this is why Orion is not a member of the federation. In the "Star Trek: Enterprise" episode "Borderlands," Starfleet witnessed an Orion being sold at a slavery auction.
To take the curse off of Orion slavery, some expanded universe writers have bent over backward to explain how it might be ethical from a sci-fi standpoint. Some of said writers have compared Orion slavery to essentially low-paid internships wherein Orions would be given money for their work and would be openly educated by their owners under a timed contract. They would just have to live in their master's homes, and only socialize with other enslaved beings. Once the contract was up, the enslaved individual was free. This is the rosiest version of slavery I have ever heard.
Throughout, Orions have been depicted as pirates, and, as seen on "Lower Decks," they are still accustomed to pillaging and plundering well into the 24th century. Mariner (Tawny Newsome) has joshed with Tendi multiple times about her pirate ancestry, an offensive Orion stereotype that Tendi eventually confronts Mariner about. Not all Orions are pirates, she says. Indeed, Tendi is sparkly, kind, and interested in medical science.
"Something Borrowed," however, reveals that most Orions live a rowdy, sexy, violent, rough-and-tumble lifestyle. When Mariner visits Orion for Tendi's sister's wedding, she is stabbed at least three times.
The Orion lifestyle
In "Something Borrowed," Trekkies finally see that Orions live in, essentially, a romance novel world. Tendi's sister is to be married, but she's been kidnapped on the eve of the wedding. Tendi explains that the "kidnapping the bride" is a tired old Orion wedding tradition and the subsequent staged "brave rescue" is a boring practice she could do without. The "rescue," of course, leads Tendi and her two companions Mariner and Lieutenant T'Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) into some of the seamier corners of Orion society.
Mariner, for instance, walks into a party club with Tendi and she is immediately struck in the shoulder by a flying dagger. This was merely an aggressive greeting from one of Tendi's old rivals. This leads to a lethal drinking contest (involving a strange poisonous bug), and eventually to an underground sex dungeon where Orion men are kept in a constant state of mindless arousal via the heavy use of pheromones. Orion men, it seems, are subservient to sexually-dominant women, and the women get to "rescue" their grooms during wedding parties.
Throughout "Something Borrowed," there is dialogue to stress Tendi's status on the planet and how much wealth her family has amassed. On a planet of pirates, everyone is a thief and a gangster, so wealth is respected and violence common. Each family also has a "Prime" intended to take an important part in their (presumed) criminal enterprises.
After being featured in a central plot on "Discovery" season 3 and a few cameos here and there in the Kelvin-verse, the Orions are finally a species with a culture and a society. As always, I offer a hearty handshake to the "Lower Decks" showrunners for exploring something Trekkies always kid of asked about.
New episodes of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.