Gorn

In Star Trek, the Gorn are a humanoid reptilian species from the Gorn Hegemony. They first appear in the original series episode "Arena".

Fictional history
The Gorn had contact with the Orion Syndicate as early as 2154. The name of their government was established as the Gorn Hegemony in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Bound" although, in the games "Star Trek: Starfleet Command" and "Star Trek: Starfleet Command II: Empires at War" The Gorn's government was referred to as the "Gorn Confederation".

The Gorn made first contact with the Federation at Cestus III in 2267 when a misunderstanding nearly led to war (original series episode "Arena", the Gorn played by Bobby Clark). Although the Gorn made territorial claims, the Federation had a settlement there in 2371, indicating tension later softened.

Depictions
The Gorn was designed by artist Wah Chang, and is depicted in Arena as a hissing, slow-moving, but lethal beast.

For years, "Arena" marked the only live-action appearance of the Gorn, although the race was "name dropped" from time to time (cf. DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations"). In 2005, an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise featured a Gorn (albeit in the Mirror Universe) in the episode "In a Mirror, Darkly Part II". In that episode, the Gorn (whose name was Slar) was an overseer of a group of slaves belonging to the Mirror Universe's Tholians in an attempt to steal technology from the Constitution-class NCC-1764 Defiant which had been transferred into the Mirror Universe from ours. Slar hid in the ship's corridors and killed several crewmembers until it was killed by Jonathan Archer. For this appearance, Slar was designed and rendered using computer animation, and looked different from the original appearance; the clearest being lack of compound eyes. Slar also moved much faster than the Gorn Captain Kirk fought. Since "In a Mirror, Darkly" takes place entirely within the Mirror Universe, the contact seen between the Earth Empire and the creature does not contradict the first contact seen in "Arena".



Other appearances

 * A Gorn appeared in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Time Trap".
 * Gorn burial practices were discussed in an issue of Marvel Comics' Star Trek Unlimited.
 * A Gorn appeared in the first DC Comics run of Star Trek, in 1982. Bones comments that he doesn't have any tranquilizer strong enough to knock out a Gorn.
 * A mini-campaign with a Gorn enemy and ally appear in the SNES game and PC game Starfleet Academy. There are video cutscenes featuring a Gorn, portrayed using a puppet. The ships are also playable in skirmish mode, and multiplayer games.
 * Gorn appear in the 2005 novel STAR TREK - Starfleet Corps of Engineers #44: Where Time Stands Still, a sequel to the animated episode mentioned above.
 * Gorn appear in the PC game Starfleet Command.
 * Gorn ships appear in the PC game Klingon Academy. They are also playable in skirmish mode.
 * Gorn ships appeared in the FASA Starship Combat Simulator. Lead alloy versions of the MA-12 and the BH-2 were available in the late 1980s.
 * Gorn appear in the Nintendo game Star Trek: 25th Anniversary.
 * Gorn appear in Star Trek: The Next Generation book #32, Requiem.
 * The Gorn homeworld and government chamber are shown in the Star Trek: The Next Generation trade paperback comic book The Gorn Crisis.
 * A Gorn, with a name that sounds like "Rrrk", manages a bar in Arcturus (a city, planet and star all with the same name) in the novel The Lost Years.
 * Gorn are available as one of the playable races for the Klingon Empire in the PC game Star Trek Online.
 * A life size Gorn statue was on exhibit at the Las Vegas Hilton's Star Trek museum. Its current whereabouts are unknown.
 * Gorn action figures have been available over the years including the famed Mego line from the 1970s, and of course appeared in that lines television commercials.
 * A Gorn was slated to appear in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis as a friend of Worf.
 * The Gorn are featured in the 2010 Pocket Books novel Star Trek: Typhon Pact - Seize the Fire They also appear in the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy and the TNG novel Cold Equations: Silent Weapons. Their mirror universe counterparts appeared in Star Trek: Mirror Universe - Rise Like Lions.
 * "Mythbusters", a Discovery Channel TV show that uses elements of the scientific method to test the validity of rumors, myths, movie scenes, adages, Internet videos, and news stories, set out to prove whether or not it was possible for Captain Kirk to have constructed an effective bamboo cannon that could have injured a Gorn, as depicted in the climax of "Arena". Unfortunately, the answer was no. Available Earth bamboo (anyway) was not strong enough to withstand the explosion.  While Kirk would have been badly injured or killed, the Gorn would have been only slightly injured.
 * A Gorn is shown reading "Gorn" magazine and sitting in Sheldon's spot in The Big Bang Theory season 4 episode "The Apology Insufficiency".
 * A Gorn is shown at the conclusion of a dream by Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory Season 5 episode "The Transporter Malfunction".
 * In the film Paul, the protagonists are shown playing with a Gorn mask.
 * The Gorn appeared in Robot Chicken Season 6 "In Bed Surrounded by Loved Ones", in which Kirk has "stage 3-space Herpes" and contacts the people he had sex with. One such encounter includes the Gorn (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) too, which they briefly fight before making out.
 * The Gorn appear in the 2013 video game Star Trek, set in the alternate universe of the 2009 Star Trek film. Taking place between the first film and its sequel, the Gorn appear as enemies attacking the New Vulcan colony. The Gorn shown are depicted as being a brutal race of imperialistic extra-galactic conquerors who had already taken over their galaxy before crossing over into the Milky Way. They are shown to have a rigid caste system based on skin coloration and intelligence levels with the more intelligent Gorn serving as soldiers, while primitive ones serve an attack-dog role. These Gorn are far alien-looking and are not as fully bipedal as previous incarnations. Their relations to the Gorn of the original series are not known.
 * Dr. McCoy referred to performing an emergency delivery of a brood of eight Gorn, noting "those little bastards bite!" in the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness. This is most likely a reference to the 2013 video game Star Trek due to McCoy performing a c-section of a Gorn in the game.

The Gorn in the Star Fleet Universe
Note that in the Star Fleet Universe, there is a distinction between Gorn (singular) and Gorns (plural).

The Gorn race appears in the alternate non-canon Star Fleet Universe, represented in the range of games from Amarillo Design Bureau Inc. as well as the first two Star Fleet Command games (and the Orion Pirates stand-alone addon for Starfleet Command II) from Taldren. These are not considered canon with the Star Trek movies or series. In this continuum, the Gorn Confederation is a powerful empire located coreward of the Romulan Star Empire, also bordering the United Federation of Planets and the Interstellar Concordium. It comprises three genetically related races, each from a neighboring star system, known as Ghdar I, Ghdar II and Ghdar III. They are portrayed as a more civilized and cultured race than as referenced in the Paramount Star Trek universe.

They ally in Y174 with the Kzinti Hegemony, the Hydran Kingdoms, the Federation and the Tholian Holdfast in the General War. The alliance between the Gorns and the Federation - following a brief conflict over a misunderstanding regarding the Federation colony on Cestus III, a Gorn world - represents one of the few alliances that is based on mutual trust and desire for friendship as opposed to political convenience.

They are mutually antagonistic with the Romulans, with whom they share a border with the Interstellar Concordium, and were among the first races to feel the effects of the ISC War of Pacification.