Everything We Know About The Husnock, One Of Star Trek's Most Mysterious Alien Races
In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Survivors" (October 9, 1989), the U.S.S. Enterprise discovered a mystery. On the planet Delta Rana IV — otherwise uninhabited and whose surface was devastated by an ancient cataclysm — a single house sat. Beaming down, the Enterprise crew found a well-kemp lawn, a large white home, and a kindly elderly couple named Kevin and Rishon Uxbridge (John Anderson and Anne Haney). While polite and welcoming, the Uxbridges are cagey about their circumstances. How are they the only people alive on the whole planet, and how can they merely enjoy teatime and lawn mowing without acknowledging their utter isolation?
Eventually, of course, the truth would come out. Kevin Uxbridge was, in fact, a member of a species called the Douwd, a species of pure energy, possessed of godlike powers. He transformed into a humanoid and fell in love with Rishon, living with her in connubial bliss for years. Many years ago, however, the colony on Delta Rana IV was attacked by a vicious species called the Husnock, who killed all 11,000 colonists, including Rishon. Kevin initially refused to fight the Husnock because his species lives by a strict code of pacifism, but the death of Rishon devastated him. In a moment of vengeful pique, Kevin used his powers to reach out into the galaxy and wipe out every single member of the Husnock race, 50 billion of them. He committed genocide.
Kevin recreated his home and an illusion of Rishon, hoping to live quietly as penance for his unimaginable crime. Unable to punish or incarcerate a god, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) merely leaves Kevin in peace.
What we never learn anything about is the Husnock. All Trekkies ever saw was a mysterious warship. What other information can we find?
The Husnock
Indeed, the mysterious warship that appears throughout "The Survivors" isn't even definitively identified as a Husnock ship. Audiences later learned that the warship was another one of Kevin Uxbridge's illusions, summoned to scare off the Enterprise and leave Kevin alone. We are left to infer that Kevin's illusion was extrapolated from Husnock warships, but that may be a foolhardy assumption.
There are no pictures of the Husnock anywhere in "The Survivors," and there is no description as to what they looked like. In dialogue, they were merely called "a species of hideous intelligence, who knew only aggression and destruction." By extrapolation, Trekkies have found that the Husnock were killed off in the year 2366, only shortly before the events of the episode. The Federation seemed to have little information about the Husnock.
The only information given about the Husnock has to be derived from the vast sea of "Star Trek" expanded universe lore. In the late 2010s, there was a series of tie-in "Star Trek" novels called "Star Trek: Titan," an anthology that followed the adventures of Captain Riker commanding the titular ship. In David Mack's 2017 "Titan" novel "Fortune of War," the Husnock were finally brought back in their own central story, albeit after their extinction.
"Fortune of War" is set 20 years after the events of "The Survivors" and follows the U.S.S. Titan on an exploration mission of all the abandoned Husnock technology that was abandoned when Kevin wiped them from existence. Husnock warships still possessed a great deal of destructive potential, and it was up to Admiral Riker, a new character named Captain Vale and the Titan crew to keep Husnick ships from falling into the wrong hands.
'Fortune of War'
By the description in "Fortune of War," the Husnock were essentially evil octopodes. Or, more accurately septapodes. They walked around on four tentacles and used the other three as their arms. They had beak-like mouths and their blood was a dark blue color. They were also said to have multiple hearts, although an exact number was not given. They also seemed to oversee a vast portion of space called the Husnock Star Kingdom, implying that their government was a monarchy.
"Fortune of War" also described the extinction of the Husnock as they personally experienced it, and it was similar to Thanos' mass murder in "Avengers: Infinity War," but a lot more painful. Evidently, Kevin Uxbridge projected himself into the minds of all 50 billion Husnock simultaneously to simply say "For Rishon" and show them all the image of Rishon being killed in the Husnock attack. He then essentially set them all on fire, burning them all into ash.
It's a bit grim, but the Husnock warship appeared in "Star Trek Online," the popular 2010 video game. That game endeavored to include every single character and ship that ever appeared in "Star Trek," and to get the Husnock ships involved, a new narrative was invented. It seems that those Husnock ships that the Titan was trying to protect in "Fortune of War" had already been salvaged and put into combat by the Klingons, the Romulans, and even the Federation. That doesn't seem wise or even ethical, but it was a fine shorthand for a video game predicated on combat.
Whether or not the Husnack will return remains to be seen, although one could see an enterprising screenwriter working a reference into "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."