Tribble

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


Tribble Polygeminus grex (scientific classification)
A pile of Tribbles
Homeworld:	Iota Geminorum IV
Affiliation:	None

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 reddish 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-Commander 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 over fifty percent of 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 Star Trek: 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". The episode was written by David Gerrold, and the original tribble props were designed by Wah Chang. It 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. Although non-canon to the series, some fans speculate that by the time of third Star Trek movie, a genetically-altered breed of Tribble may have been created that kept their reproduction in check allowing them to become popular pets aboard starships and stations. Before that time, Tribbles were a nuisance and forbidden aboard vessels and most planets.

In Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" the crew of the USS Defiant encounter the tribbles once more when they accidentally travel back in time and participate in the events of "The Trouble With Tribbles". 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 universe of the Neopets website, Jubjubs resemble tribbles in that they are big balls of fluff. There are also 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).

They appear in the children's book Weirdos of the Universe, Unite (Pamela F. Service) when a toy tribble is brought to life and used to cause mayhem onboard an invading spaceship.

Fuzzy tribble toys, similar in appearance and in their quivering and squeaking to the tribbles on the show, are available for purchase, for example at one of the kiosks outside Quark's Bar at Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas.

Puffskeins, and by extension Pygmy Puffs, of the Harry Potter universe share some resemblance to tribbles.

In the Nickelodeon Channel animated television series, "My Life as a Teenage Robot" in one episode the character Sheldon is sneaking around Dr. Nora Wakeman house trying to locate Jenny's blueprints. He opens the door of attic only to have tribbles fall on him, squeaking and all like when Captain Kirk opened the storage bin on Space Station K-9.

An episode of MADtv from 2001 parodied an episode of TOS featuring the Tribbles, dubbing the story into Spanish.

The episode of the webcomic Something Positive for January 5th, 2003 has one character giving another a Tribble made of what turns out to be a third character's hair.

An episode of the PBS childrens' series Arthur once had an episode named "The Trouble With Tibbles" (an obvious reference) after the mischieves Tibble twins, Timmy and Tommy, from the series.

[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.

Several stuffed tribbles were given away as a promotion for the DS9 episode. They included a tag with pictures from the original episode And the DS9 episode that said in part: "30 YEARS AGO, 1,771,561 OF THESE FRIENDLY TRIBBLES TOOK OVER THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE...THIS WEEK, TRIBBLES INVADE DEEP SPACE NINE"