12 Star Trek Aliens Who Should Make A Comeback
9. The Anticans And Selay
The dog-like Anticans and the snake-like but still humanoid Selay were introduced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Lonely Among Us. Delegates from both species were being transported by the Enterprise-D to the neutral planet Parliament to resolve their long-standing conflict before both races joined the Federation. The conflict between the Selay involved the carnivorous Anticans viewing the Selay as a source of food and eating them alive and the Selay retaliating. Who wouldn't?
However, their conflict was barely even a subplot. The focus of the episode was a non-corporeal alien who attempted to take over the ship by transferring its consciousness from crew member to another.
A future Star Trek series or even an episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks could explore the conflict between the Anticans and Selay in greater detail. It could show the audience how the conflict was resolved and how joining the Federation went for both species. For instance, how did the Federation convince the Anticans to stop eating the Selay? Did they do it willingly or was it like trying to convince Americans to stop eating beef? Did the Anticans ever get over their disgust at eating replicated meat? Did the Anticans and Selay get along well enough to serve together? Or does Starfleet carefully avoid assigning members of the two species to same ship?