Horta
a Horta-created tunnel
The Horta is a silicon-based lifeform from Janus VI. It is composed of a material similar to fibrous asbestos.
Horta physiology is very different from the carbon-based norm more commonly found in the galaxy. Horta are hard to find with tricorders, and are invulnerable to phaser I, though they can be injured with an adjusted phaser II. They feed on rock, and thus they are nourished just by tunneling. Horta tunnel through rock like most humanoids walk through air, moving with the aid of an extremely corrosive acid. They leave perfectly round tunnels in their wake. This acid is so corrosive that it only leaves fragments of bone and teeth if used on a Human. Although Hortas did not evolve in an oxygen environment, they seem able to exist in it for extended periods of time.
The Horta species possesses [by the terms of carbon-based life forms] an unusually long life cycle. Every 50,000 years all of the Horta die out except for one, the so-called mother Horta, who then watches the eggs until they hatch and mothers and protects them. Horta eggs resemble spheres, and they seem to mostly consist of silicon, aside from a few trace elements. They are stored in the Vault of Tomorrow in the Chamber of the Ages.
- This type of life cycle has an incredible risk of extinction, unless there is some as-of-yet unknown means of new mothers being created and distributed through space.
It was in the midst of one of these temporary phases of extinction that the Federation colonized Janus VI in the 2210s. The mother Horta tolerated the Federation presence up until the miners established a new, lower level in 2267 where they first encountered Horta eggs. Thinking them nothing more than a ball of useless silicon, the miners' automated equipment destroyed thousands of them. The mother Horta retaliated by carrying out actions of sabotage and murder against the Janus VI colony.
Horta eggs.
It was only when Commander Spock of the USS Enterprise, called in to catch the dangerous "creature", mind-melded with the mother Horta that he was able to determine that the Horta was actually an intelligent life-form. In fact, before the discovery of the Horta, silicon-based life had been thought a fantasy by Federation scientists.
The mother Horta reached an accord with the miners, who were distressed at the destruction they had caused. The miners would leave the Horta alone on the lower levels once they began hatching, while the Horta would use their abilities to locate and construct access to choice mineral deposits for the miners. Just as the Enterprise departed the planet, the first baby Horta hatched and began tunneling like crazy. (TOS: "The Devil in the Dark")
Information about the Horta was displayed by the computer as an okudagram graphic in Keiko O'Brien's schoolroom on Deep Space 9. (DS9: "A Man Alone", "The Nagus")
Memorable Quotes
- "NO KILL I" - Horta Mother
- "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!" - Leonard McCoy
Background
- The Horta was played by Janos Prohaska. Some new CGI visual effects were created for the Horta for the 40th anniversary of the original series. Notably the Horta emerging/tunneling through the rock face when Captain Kirk encountered the Horta mother on his own was a combination of new and original footage.
- The 'suit' for the Horta - also with Prohaska inside - first appeared in the final episode of the original ABC series The Outer Limits. Titled "The Probe" (with Peter Mark Richman), the episode's storyline was about survivors of a plane crash in the Pacific waking up to find themselves (and their liferaft) on the floor of an alien spacecraft sent to collect terrestrial life forms. In this episode, broadcast in January, 1965, the future Mrs. Horta was performing yeoman service as a giant cold germ threatening the hapless Earth people.
- According to the text commentary for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home by Michael Okuda: "Two days before the filming of the Federation Council chamber scene, it was requested that it include a Horta ambassador. However, due to the short notice for the request, it was impossible to create a Horta in time for filming, and the Horta failed to appear in the film."
- In the audio commentary for "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth", David Wise mentions that Kukulkan's zoo was to have a Horta.
- The German word Hort (male gender, der Hort) means "all-day nursery", quite fitting to the role the Horta has.
Apocrypha
Although there is no current canon reason to believe the Horta ever left Janus VI, in several non-canon novels and comic books by Diane Duane, there is a Horta crew member on the Enterprise, Ensign Naraht – in particular, Naraht plays a critical role in The Romulan Way. The novel Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido has the Horta as members of the Federation as of 2380 and are represented by one Councillor Sanaht. They also appeared in Greg Cox and John Gregory Betancourt's DS9 novel, Devil in the Sky. A Horta was also mentioned in The Lost Years.
The non-canon Internet fan series, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, had a Horta character, Lieutenant Pergium, who played a critical role in at least one episode of the series.
The series of non-canon Star Trek: Titan novels also has a male Horta character, Chwolkk, who serves as an engineer on the USS Titan.
Horta-manned Federation ships have been mentioned in various novels; apparently they are standard model starships with nearly all amenities removed, and filled with solid stone, which the Horta can reshape as they see fit.