| rdfs:comment | - An entire civilization of this creature's species once lived on the planet M-113. The creatures needed salt to survive and so were fundamentally affected when, at some point before the 23rd century, the planet lost its supply of salt. Due to the scarcity of the substance, the native civilization collapsed and the creature's species was driven to the brink of extinction. An encounter with Uhura, as a crewman drawn from her mind, also proved frustrating for it. Seconds from killing her, it was distracted by Sulu and Rand. It later murdered an engineering technician named Barnhart on Deck 9.
- The creatures were a highly intelligent species that used telepathy to draw in prey by extracting an image from their minds and taking that form. Once the prey was completely drawn they then used to draw salt from a prey's body through suckers that were on the creatures hands. They also possessed tremendous strength and an ability to survive several phaser shots at short range.
|
| abstract | - The creatures were a highly intelligent species that used telepathy to draw in prey by extracting an image from their minds and taking that form. Once the prey was completely drawn they then used to draw salt from a prey's body through suckers that were on the creatures hands. They also possessed tremendous strength and an ability to survive several phaser shots at short range. At the height of their existence, there were millions of creatures that roamed around the planet in a similar fashion to the buffalo of Earth. However, by the 2260s only a single specimen lived. In 2264/2265, this lone creature encountered Professor Robert Crater and his wife, Nancy. During this encounter, the creature killed Nancy and took her form to stop Professor Crater from killing it.
- An entire civilization of this creature's species once lived on the planet M-113. The creatures needed salt to survive and so were fundamentally affected when, at some point before the 23rd century, the planet lost its supply of salt. Due to the scarcity of the substance, the native civilization collapsed and the creature's species was driven to the brink of extinction. In 2264 or 2265, the last of the M-113 creatures murdered Nancy Crater, an act that almost drove her widower, Professor Robert Crater, to destroy it. In the end, the fact that it was the last of its kind, or perhaps its ability to assume any form, stayed his hand, and he lived with it for a year or more. In 2266, the remaining creature was given an opportunity to secure more salt – which was especially vital as the Crater expedition was dangerously low on salt by that time – when the USS Enterprise visited M-113 for routine medical checks of the two scientists working there, unaware Nancy Crater had been killed. Hungering for the salt in Human bodies, the creature evidently saw Humans chiefly as food, and proved highly dangerous. The creature's hunger drove it to murder crewmen Darnell, Sturgeon and Green on the surface of M-113 (which was strewn with archaeological remains). As Nancy Crater, it blamed Darnell's death on ingestion of a borgia plant. Impersonating Crewman Green, it returned to the Enterprise, where chance saved Yeoman Janice Rand from becoming its next victim. It followed her when she brought Sulu his dinner, and might have murdered both officers except that Beauregard, a curious plant in the botany section of the Life Sciences Department, scared it off. An encounter with Uhura, as a crewman drawn from her mind, also proved frustrating for it. Seconds from killing her, it was distracted by Sulu and Rand. It later murdered an engineering technician named Barnhart on Deck 9. Around this time, Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Commander Spock found Professor Crater on the surface of M-113, and returned to the ship with him. The creature, then impersonating Chief Medical Officer McCoy, sat in on a staff meeting at which Crater admitted he knew how to identify it. Before Crater could reveal or be made to reveal how this might be done, the creature murdered him, attempted to feed off Spock, who survived, presumptively due to the differing composition of Vulcans' blood salts, and fled to McCoy's quarters. Kirk found it there, and attempted to lure it to him with salt. In a resulting scuffle, it overpowered Kirk and began to feed on him. It wasn't until the creature dropped its hypnotic projection, and Kirk began to scream from the pain of salt extraction, that McCoy shot and killed the creature. (TOS: "The Man Trap" ) Another individual of this creature's species was stuffed and on display in Trelane's castle. A landing party from the Enterprise, especially McCoy, reacted in surprise upon seeing it. It was later destroyed by Trelane with a phaser. (TOS: "The Squire of Gothos" )
|
