4.0 A Celestial Bestiary (Overview)
The chapter introduces a bestiary of weird, dangerous, but scientifically semi-plausible planetary, stellar, and interstellar phenomena, offered as springboards for the writers' imaginations.
Over the course of the past seasons, our writers have frequently been called upon to devise various exotic-sounding planetary and stellar phenomena for our heroes to explore and to sometimes be threatened by. Since this need seems likely to continue, we herewith present the Star Trek Celestial Bestiary of weird, dangerous, but scientifically semi-plausible phenomena. We hope that these might serve as springboards for our writers' imaginations. This Bestiary is divided into three sections: Planetary phenomena, stellar phenomena, and interstellar phenomena.
Please note that many of these objects and phenomena, some of which have already been depicted in TNG/DS9 episodes, are based on actual scientific theory, though a few are pure figments of the imagination. If you're contemplating using any of these in a story, we would be happy to discuss them at greater length. (Thanks to Dana Berry of the Space Telescope Science Institute, and Steven Agid and Brian Young of McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Company for additional scientific material.)