Scientifically, what ARE Tribbles?

[KAL 9000]

Just rewatched Star Trek, and I am now thinking "what are Tribbles? Like, how does their biology work?" They really don't make sense, so I was wondering if there's a scientific explanation for how they work and how they evolved.

[Bill Phil]

1: It's Star Trek...

2: There are some animals capable of fertilizing their own eggs. It's feasible that a species could be born pregnant.

3: What else was there?

[KAL 9000]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

1: It's Star Trek...

2: There are some animals capable of fertilizing their own eggs. It's feasible that a species could be born pregnant.

3: What else was there?

Why are they FURRY, and how do they reproduce so fast?

[Nibb31]

If that's the only technobabble that you have trouble with in Star Trek, especially TOS, then your suspension of disbelief is remarkable.

[Dman979]

Scientifically? They're weird.

 

I wonder if (when?) we discover alien life, how we'll classify it? Plants, Bacteria, Protists, Fungi, Animals, Aliens? Or would they go under of of the 5 categories becuase they share some characteristics? And what would that say about us?

[Bill Phil]

29 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Why are they FURRY, and how do they reproduce so fast?

Why are they furry? Well, fur is good insulation.

They reproduce so fast because they're born pregnant, according to the episode they appeared in.

[razark]

52 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Why are they FURRY

It's easy for the prop makers to work with.

 

52 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

how do they reproduce so fast?

They're easy to build.

[sojourner]

Scientifically?  They're fiction.

[Jonfliesgoats]

I'm game.  Fur has many applications beyond thermal insulation.  It is conceivable that "fur" would evolve on Tribbles in order to protect their reproductive organs from the effects of solar radiation.  More likely the fur is actually an intricate system of whiskers to support Tribbles sensory organs.  Perhaps they use fluffy whiskers to find food?  They are hungry enough.  

Beyond this, we aren't sure that Tribbles originated in space.  Like rats, they could just be vermin from a cold planet that now are pests on spaceships.  Mudd may have just tried making money from vermin, which is entirely in line with his character.

A larger problem is the balance of biomass.  Tribbles eat food, but replicators synthesize food from energy in Star Trek.  Even if Tribbles existed in the food processing units of a starship, they wouldn't have access to enough mass to grow to the huge populations we see.

A darker thought emerge about mass and Tribbles: They could be eating the ship and its inorganic cargo!  In this case, Tribbles are like spacefaring shipworms.  Beyond just damaging the ship by clogging systems, they could actually cause a structural failure of the ship.

Edited November 4, 2016 by Jonfliesgoats

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, razark said:

It's easy for the prop makers to work with.

They're easy to build.

Fair point, note that in cgi long fur is hard, very hard. Video games cheat a lot here with hair and it works well as nobody expect perfect realism. 

Two is important, it can be done easier in cgi, make an simple Skyrim mod who let spigians also summon a spigian, good chance the summoned one will also summon an new who will ......
This continue until you run out of memory
 

[Mitchz95]

Their homeworld was a brutal death world, as I recall. Presumably the rapid breeding was a way to keep the population up in the face of so many hostile predators.

[55delta]

Just a small correction, it was Cyrano Jones, not Herry Mudd, who was selling tribbles. That said, if you hadn't seen the show for a while, I can understand someone mixing up both con-men.

The other thing mentioned about tribbles is that they make a cooing sound when touched that is said to have a tranquilizing effect on most people (except for Klingons.) So they aren't necessarily vermin, but their population could grow rapidly out of control. Although, it does seem that tribble populations increase explosively exponentially to an unrealistic degree. On the other hand, it's not that you'd have to look far to find cases of animals in real life who are relatively harmless, yet will out-populate their food supply after a short time.

Edited November 5, 2016 by 55delta
Name correction

[KAL 9000]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

If that's the only technobabble that you have trouble with in Star Trek, especially TOS, then your suspension of disbelief is remarkable.

It's not the ONLY technobabble, just one of the more interesting ones.

[Jonfliesgoats]

Tribbles are very "metal"!

38 minutes ago, Mitchz95 said:

Their homeworld was a brutal death world, as I recall. Presumably the rapid breeding was a way to keep the population up in the face of so many hostile predators.

 

A lot of advancements have come from technobabble.  

[Scotius]

They are starfish from space Only furry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown-of-thorns_starfish

[kBob]

5 hours ago, razark said:

It's easy for the prop makers to work with.

I think the main reason was the story line needed them to be cute and attractive to humans, and little furry creatures generally are (as long as they aren't being percieved as vermin, but even then sometimes they are cute vermin).

 

Scientifically: well my only answer is they are from a different planet; should we ever manage to go FTL and explore beyond the Alpha Centauri system I'd bet we will find things that make tribbles seem ordinary and quite plausible.

Edited November 4, 2016 by kBob

[razark]

5 minutes ago, kBob said:

I think the main reason was the story line needed them to be cute and attractive to humans, and little furry creatures generally are...

My guess is that kittens don't follow directions, and Shatner's toupee staff was already familiar with the procedures.

[kBob]

Just now, razark said:

My guess is that kittens don't follow directions, and Shatner's toupee staff was already familiar with the procedures.

If that's sarcasm, it's pretty bad.

[razark]

1 minute ago, kBob said:

If that's sarcasm, it's pretty bad.

We're on an internet forum for a computer game about little green men exploring space, discussing the scientific points of balls of fluff from an oft-parodied 1960s sci-fi show, and you accuse me of not taking it seriously?

[Nuke]

what really doesnt make any sense is the xenomorph. what you have is a two species cycle where one type of critter lays an egg, when that hatches you get another kind of critter, which is really just a delivery vector for an embryo, which requires a host to develop. it then pops out of the host's chest, where its the size of a small cat, and then hours later is a massive man eating beast of prey. some of which are queens and capable of starting the cycle again. its every quirk of nature all roled into one with a few more added on for good measure. at least the tribble had to eat something to get pregnant.

when you are done geeking out, you realize its all fiction.

Edited November 4, 2016 by Nuke

[kBob]

1 hour ago, razark said:

We're on an internet forum for a computer game about little green men exploring space, discussing the scientific points of balls of fluff from an oft-parodied 1960s sci-fi show, and you accuse me of not taking it seriously?

You are not making any sense.  I didn't accuse you of anything unless you were trying to be sarcastic in which case I said it was bad sarcasm.  Maybe I misread what you were saying it sounded like you were saying I was stating the obvious. 

Edit:

And if I misunderstood you intentions, and you were not trying to be sarcastic then obviously it's a simple misunderstanding and my comment would not apply which is why I started it with the conditional.

Maybe you misunderstood what the word sarcasm means?  Doesn't have anything to do with taking the topic seriously.

Edited November 4, 2016 by kBob

[Jonfliesgoats]

Nature is pretty strange.  Think about fungi that modify the behaviors of ants, wasps that lay eggs in other creatures, etc..  Tribbles and Mogwais aren't that odd in comparison.

[mikegarrison]

Probably a bunch of cut up faux fur coats, sown into balls.

4 hours ago, 55delta said:

Just a small correction, it was Cyrano Jones, not Henry Mudd, who was selling tribbles. That said, if you hadn't seen the show for a while, I can understand someone mixing up both con-men.

IIRC, there was an episode of the animated Star Trek series where Mudd showed up with tribbles. Oh, guess not. Google says that was Jones also.

Edited November 4, 2016 by mikegarrison

[Drethon]

10 hours ago, Jonfliesgoats said:

I'm game.  Fur has many applications beyond thermal insulation.  It is conceivable that "fur" would evolve on Tribbles in order to protect their reproductive organs from the effects of solar radiation.  More likely the fur is actually an intricate system of whiskers to support Tribbles sensory organs.  Perhaps they use fluffy whiskers to find food?  They are hungry enough.  

Beyond this, we aren't sure that Tribbles originated in space.  Like rats, they could just be vermin from a cold planet that now are pests on spaceships.  Mudd may have just tried making money from vermin, which is entirely in line with his character.

A larger problem is the balance of biomass.  Tribbles eat food, but replicators synthesize food from energy in Star Trek.  Even if Tribbles existed in the food processing units of a starship, they wouldn't have access to enough mass to grow to the huge populations we see.

A darker thought emerge about mass and Tribbles: They could be eating the ship and its inorganic cargo!  In this case, Tribbles are like spacefaring shipworms.  Beyond just damaging the ship by clogging systems, they could actually cause a structural failure of the ship.

One nitpick, I don't think replicators were in standard use in TOS time period.  So they had to have food storage somewhere.

[kerbiloid]

Collective delusion caused by claustrophobia, cosmic radiation and hypoxia.
And a handy explanation for absence without notice, lost property or budget overrun for others. That's Space Fleet, after all.