Vidiians

Developed by Star Trek: Voyager series' co-creators Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor, they serve as recurring antagonists during the show's first two seasons.

The alien species have made minor appearances in the show's subsequent seasons, and have been included in novels set in the Star Trek universe.

Inspired by the Maya civilization, the bubonic plague, and Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, the Vidiians were seen by the show's co-creators as a way to honor Gene Roddenberry's approach to portraying well-developed antagonists in the Star Trek franchise.

The crew of the USS Voyager first encounters the alien species in the season one episode "Phage", in which the Talaxian Neelix (Ethan Phillips) has his lungs stolen by two Vidiians, Dereth (Cully Fredricksen) and Motura (Stephen Rappaport).

They have developed advanced medical technology to remotely harvest organs directly from living humanoids in order to stop the progression of the Phage, which causes tissue to disintegrate on a cellular level.

[1] In "Faces", Lieutenants Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill), B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson), and Peter Durst (Brian Markinson) are kidnapped by the Vidiians.

Vidiian Chief Surgeon Sulan (also played by Markinson) experiments on Torres to find a cure for the Phage, since her Klingon genetic structure has an immunity to the disease.

This kills the Vidiians and the crew of that Voyager, excepting Harry Kim and the newborn Naomi Wildman; their counterparts having died, they change ships before the self-destruct completes.

During this episode, Kes returns to Voyager (she had left at the beginning of the fourth season when the development of her psionic powers threatened the starship and its crew).

[15] In the Star Trek universe, roughly 2,000 years prior to the arrival of Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, the Vidiian Sodality was a culture driven by "educators, artists, and explorers".

[17] The spread of the Phage, resulting in thousands of Vidiians dying every day, pushed the alien race to harvest organs and tissue from corpses as well as living beings.

[18] Extended periods of contact or group meetings are strongly discouraged to prevent the further spread of the Phage, and those infected are shunned by healthy Vidiians out of fear of contamination.

[18] In the years following Voyager's encounters with the Vidiians but prior to their return to Earth, a committee of alien intellectuals known as the Think Tank claimed to have cured the Phage.

[20] Taylor, Piller, and producer Brannon Braga developed the premise behind the Phage and the Vidiians' motives for harvesting organs from discussing ideas that fulfilled the following questions: "Who's interesting?

[23] In his book Star Trek: Parallel Narratives, Chris Gregory attributes the development of the Vidiians to Braga's affinity for the horror genre.

During a behind-the-scenes feature included on the DVD release of the show's second season, Bormanis explained that the writers and producers paid close attention to imagining a virus that could believably almost exterminate an entire species.

Piller viewed the idea of "an alien culture who are a civilized people who are forced to do uncivilized things in order to survive" as a compelling plot point.

She explained: "[E]ven though they knew what they were doing was wrong in terms of the actual action, they were very confident that because they were culturally superior, they were totally justified in killing people and taking their organs".

[32] Taylor worked closely with Westmore to ensure that the Vidiians bore no resemblance to previous alien species featured in the Star Trek franchise.

[34] Created as a mask covering the entirety of the actor's head,[26] the prosthetic make-up includes pieces from other alien species, such as Talaxians and the Kazon, to represent the Vidiians' long history of taking organs from humanoids in multiple areas of the Delta Quadrant.

[39] Taylor developed Danara Pel as a way to explore the morality behind treating terminally ill individuals, while Picardo approached the character as a meditation on the role of physical appearance in romantic relationships.

[23] He explained his interpretation of the Doctor's romance with Pel:He falls in love with the real her, the horrifyingly deformed her, not this beautiful, radiant holographic being that is trapped inside her.

[26] Skye Dent had a more critical opinion of the episode, saying that alterations made to her first draft of the script weakened the effectiveness of the alien species as antagonists.

Piller, Braga, and Taylor praised executive producer Rick Berman's decision to reformat the Torres' storyline with the inclusion of the Vidiians.

[44] While commenting on the episode "Lifesigns", TrekToday's Michelle Erica Green questioned the show's decision to focus on the Kazon and described the Vidiians as a more suitable and compelling candidate to serve as the primary antagonists for the first two seasons.

[45] Today's Ree Hines called the Vidiians one of the greatest Star Trek villains, writing that "their method of organ extraction upped the fear factor" and made them unsympathetic.

[47] Even though he felt that the Vidiians had a compelling premise, he criticized their repeated appearances as distracting from the series' story arc of a lost crew on a journey home.

[49] A number of academics have identified the Vidiians as potentially adversely influencing public knowledge and perceptions of scientific issues, including genetics and organ donation.

"[50] Literary critic John Kenneth Muir wrote that the Vidiians were an example of the prevalence of organ harvesting story arcs in science fiction, comparing them to characters in the British television shows UFO, Space: 1999, and Blake's 7.