The Gorn are expected to return in La'an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong) one of the rare humans who survived being captured by the Gorn as a child. La'an's personal history and expertise with the Gorn became invaluable when Captain Christopher Pike's (Anson Mount) Starship Enterprise battled the Gorn in Strange New Worlds episode 4, "Memento Mori."
The Gorn debuted in the Strange New Worlds further reimagined the Gorn and turned the reptiles into a terrifying and cannibalistic adversary. Yet each time the Gorn is depicted, they are different, and it's hard to reconcile how they are all the same species. But this is because Star Trek often gets mired in the idea that its aliens live in monocultures, so that all Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians, Bajorans, etc. are the same.
Yet not all humans are the same, even though we all come from the same planet. Humans have myriad cultures, skin tones, and beliefs, and these differences are celebrated in Star Trek. Aliens in the Star Trek franchise should have the same treatment but the franchise has traditionally depicted the other species Starfleet encounters as monocultures, simply because it was easier because of limited television budgets and for storytelling expediency. Star Trek has taken steps to address this; there are Black Vulcans now, starting with Star Trek: Discovery introduced a very different kind of Klingons, the fanbase rejected it, in part because Discovery feebly and ill-advisedly attempted to retcon all Klingons into its new vision. Never mind that the appearance of the Klingons has been in flux since Star Trek: TOS, denoting that they are not a monoculture.
Strange New Worlds Must Show There Are Different Kinds Of Gorn
Strange New Worlds has a perfect opportunity to address the various discrepancies with the Gorn by showing they are not a monoculture either. Strange New Worlds already made massive changes to the Gorn by showing how they can be born within other humanoids and then fight for dominance after birth until there is one alpha. The Gorn were also established to have feeding planets where they consume aliens they abduct, and La'an was a survivor of such a place. Yet the Gorn also have the technological acumen to build starships and the reptiles are a spacefaring race. The best way to reconcile all of this is to show that there are different types of Gorn with various skillsets and capabilities. There may be more savage and mindless Gorn as well as scientifically-minded Gorn. This would allow each version of the Gorn seen in Star Trek to comfortably remain canonical.
Strange New Worlds can do for the Gorn what the show has subtly done for Vulcans. Spock's (Ethan Peck) fiancée T'Pring (Gia Sandhu) oversees and tries to rehabilitate Vulcans who have rejected logic, including Spock's renegade half-brother, Sybok. Within the Vulcan race, there are both anti-logic criminals like Sybok and Vulcan extremists who revere logic to dangerous ends. The Gorn can be the same way, with different levels within the society of the Gorn Hegemony, so that some are more mindless killers while other Gorn are warriors and scientists. La'an's traumatic experience could very well be with just one type of Gorn, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds could expand our knowledge of the reptilian aliens to make them as diverse as human beings are.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 returns in 2023 on Paramount+.