Tribble

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This article is about the fictional furry creature of Star Trek. For other uses, see Tribble (disambiguation).

A pile of Tribbles.

Tribbles are small, soft, gentle fictional animals in the Star Trek universe whose cute appearance and soothing purring endears them to every sentient race which encounters them — except Klingons. While only appearing in a handful of episodes, they are one of the most popular and famous species in the Star Trek universe.

1 Physiology
2 Inspiration
3 History
4 References in popular culture
5 Trivia
6 See also

[edit] Physiology

Tribbles are native to the planet Iota Geminorum IV. They are essentially small bundles of fur with no visible external features. Their fur colors range from solid white to grey, speckled light to dark brown, yellow to redish orange, and black. Their only two purposes in life appear to be to eat and to reproduce, and they perform both of these functions extremely well, as Lieutenant Worf states "If you feed that thing the smallest morsel of food, in a matter of hours you'll have.....ten tribbles, then a hundred, then a thousand." Though they are "born pregnant" they will only reproduce when conditions are favorable. They will even reabsorb their young in harsh conditions. Dr. McCoy took time to examine some tribbles concluding that they use almost all their metabolism for reproduction. Instead of generating waste, a Tribble gives birth to another Tribble. The population on their home world is only kept in check by the abundance of predatory reptiles.

[edit] Inspiration

David Gerrold, in The Trouble With Tribbles: the Birth, Sale, and Final Production of One Episode [1] mentions that after the episode was aired, people asked him if tribbles were inspired by the Flatcats of Robert A. Heinlein's novel, The Rolling Stones, which are a similar small, fuzzy creature.

Look—I thought I was telling the “rabbits in Australia” story. When rabbits were first introduced to Australia, they multiplied at an incredible rate because there were no predators or natural enemies to keep them in control. It was an ecology story—and a spaceship is the perfect setting for it because a spaceship must be a balanced ecology.

When it came to designing the creatures though, I had to be simple—they had to be easy to build; they had to be cheap, and they had to be believable. We wouldn’t want to use rabbits for the story—we wanted something…well, gimmicky. We needed a science fiction animal.

...

I had to think—what would be easy?

Holly ... Sherman had a key ring attached to a ball of pink fuzz. The more I looked at it, the more obvious it became. ...The ease with which a fluff ball could be manufactured made it a natural candidate.

The concept is an old one that predates even the Heinlein novel, since it is central to the story "Pigs is Pigs", which was very popular from its first publication in 1905 and beyond.

The name for the creatures was originally "fuzzies", but in order to avoid confusion with the H. Beam Piper novel, Little Fuzzy, Gerrold brainstormed some nonsense words, arriving at "tribble" almost at random.

[edit] History

The date of first contact with tribbles has never been established in canon. Chronologically speaking, the earliest known appearance of tribbles was in the 2003 Enterprise episode "The Breach" (which takes place in 2152) in which Doctor Phlox uses them as food for his medicinal pets in Sick Bay. They were presumably known by his race before this date, but most likely were unknown to humans as Hoshi Sato was the only person to see the tribble before Phlox fed it to one of his creatures.

Viewers first saw tribbles in the 1967 Star Trek: The Original Series television episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", written by David Gerrold. The episode has been noted as one of the most popular episodes of the series, owing to its intelligent sense of humor. This episode was not, however, a depiction of first contact since it was a human named Cyrano Jones who introduced the tribbles to Captain Kirk's crew, indicating the creatures were known prior to the episode.

In the same episode, Spock explains that Vulcans see no useful purpose for tribbles, so the species is not endearing to them, but it's not mutual for the ever-adoring species. For a moment, Spock (a half-Vulcan) begins to find the charm of the cuddly creatures and is caught lovingly petting one; once Spock realizes everyone is staring at him, he tries to hide his feelings and quickly puts the tribble down, a scene heavily laden with humor, since Spock was just stating how the soothing purr of the tribbles would not affect him: "Fortunately, I am ... immune to its effects," he says, quite obviously affected by it.

Tribbles return in the non-canon Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles" and they also make brief reappearances in the bar scene of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and the evacuation scene of Star Trek: Generations.

In Deep Space Nine episode Trials and Tribble-ations the crew of the USS Defiant encounter the tribbles once more. Worf reveals that the creatures were actually hunted down and exterminated by his people; specially-trained warriors were sent to kill every tribble in existence, and an armada of Klingon vessels obliterated the tribble homeworld. Klingons are unique among Star Trek's races in their extreme hatred of these cute little creatures (the feeling was apparently mutual). This is because they were "ecological disasters", and emitted a loud shrieking noise instead of their normal soothing purr in the presence of Klingons (this may be due to the tribbles reacting to the Klingons' reptilian ancestry, similar to the tribbles' natural enemy). Deep Space Nine Security Officer Odo dryly remarks, "Another glorious chapter in Klingon history. Tell me, do they still sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt?" A number of tribbles were brought back to Deep Space Nine from the past and the species was re-established. It is not known whether or not their return was deliberate.

[edit] References in popular culture

Tribbles made a brief appearance on Jeopardy! in the 1997 Teen Tournament when they were the object of a Daily Double answer. The tribbles appeared on host Alex Trebek's podium during the clue and then multiplied every commercial break, eventually covering the camera.

In one chapter of the book What Does A Martian Look Like? The Science of Extraterrestrial Life Dr Jack Cohen and Professor Ian Stewart claim the tribble as the most believable alien in Star Trek, and speculate as to how it might have evolved.

In the Neopets computer game, Jubjubs resemble tribbles in that they are big balls of fluff. There are also in-game items called 'fuzzles' and 'evil fuzzles' which are small, multicolored fluffballs.

The 1991 computer game Crystal Caves: Trouble with Twibbles is without doubt another reference.

The Smurfs cartoon episode "Fuzzle Trouble" featured similar creatures called Fuzzles, clearly inspired by "The Trouble With Tribbles." Papa Smurf mentioned upon first sighting that "little fuzzles are big trouble," indicating that the Smurfs had had previous experience with the creatures long before the current generation.

The froglike, rapidly reproducing Gizka in the Bioware Star Wars RPG Knights of the old Republic are clearly inspired by tribbles. The title of a quest dealing with their removal, "The trouble with Gizka," is also a reference to the episode.

The PopCap Games computer game “Chuzzle” features tribble-like critters.

In an episode of the cartoon Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, “The Trouble with Scribbles,” Foster’s is overwhelmed by simplistic imaginary friends called “Scribbles.” As in the episode's namesake, the Scribbles prove useful for a short while.

An Ad Agency Spoof site, Tribble Ad Agency in 2006 noted that Ad Agencies are like Tribbles, their fees keep multiplying and deliver nothing in return.

One episode of Futurama "The Problem with Popplers" is also loosely based on the subject of tribbles creatures.

The game Space Trader for Palm OS has a mystery item that the player can purchase which, randomly, may be a tribble. If the player purchases food, the tribble will eat the food (reducing the amount you have), and multiply. The more tribbles you have, the more small boxes begin to appear on the screen. If the player purchases narcotics, the tribbles will also eat that, and die. The player may be cited by police for an "ecological" danger. Eventually, the player may be able to find someone to purchase the tribbles.

The Commodore 64 version of the game Elite introduced Trumbles (creatures based on the Tribbles with one or two notable differences such as breeding cycles only occurring during hyperspace jumps).

[edit] Trivia

Tribbles is the name of a gene in the fruitfly genome that is responsible for stopping excessive cellular proliferation. Named as such because when the gene is removed, there is an over proliferation of cells in the growing mesoderm.

Several prop tribbles from the show were auctioned off at the 1967 Worldcon, the 25th World Science Convention held in New York City. They each sold in the $20 range.