Interesting concept. Dr who had a episode of the new series "Blink" about the angel statues in churches and around london being an alien species older than most sentient life, "quantum fixed: "they only exist in this reality as long as you people are not looking at them, then theyre quantum locked. Part of their physiology is they become solid stone when observed but the moment you blink, they move, one of the best and freakiest episodes of sci fi in ages. Trek for all its science fiction background, ironically, has not been the show that has the best memorable alien species in sci fi history, i find that disturbing but truth. When i look back, the best "aliens" were on shows like Dr. who, Farscape, V, X-files. Trek makes ridiculous aliens (like Q) or they make ape intelligent grunting "kill everyone for honor and glory" aliens like the Klingons, even the Dominion was not interesting alien wise the changelings were IMO copies of terminator 2's morphing Cyborg and they just found an excuse to call them an alien race. The Tholians were "true" aliens that were severely underused, I mentioned this in another thread, Voyager had one or two Aliens of worthwhile mention like the dudes who turned out to be dinosours from earth evolved.
The Sheliak in TNG are close, like the Tholians they were a very unusual species we saw very little of that are left mysterious, The Binars in 01010101 or whatever that episode was called were "i nteresting" to a degree...but when i say real aliens i mean the kind that people remember and talk about for a long time, and Dr who's Angels from Blink became internet CRAZE for months after, my daughter and her friends talked about them with chums for a year almost, so that to me says someone made a memorable creature. Only Trekkers talk about Klingons or Borg, they aren't "interesting" outside the scope of star trek, species 8479 have a stupid name, a Borg designation, to identify them the appearance is cool but hell i forgot they even EXISTED until i started to read the STO "path to 2409" threads a few months ago. That says to me, they didn't leave a lasting impression enough to care. The kind of Aliens your talking about are what we need..Babylon 5 had the right idea with "older races, younger races" like the Minbari, Vorlons, Shadows That approach to alien race hierarchy is what i wish Trek had going, one could argue Vulcans are like minbari but really, they aren't because trek did not leave any mystery or make them stay ahead of technology they let humans "catch up" when they joined the federation. The Breen were a refreshing exception when they entered the Dominion war..i recall they were first mentioned to my knowledge by Riker in "generations" when he listed what races had the type of disruptors used on that station they investigagted, then we saw the breen (who look like er..princess leia in her bounty hunter Boussh costume from return of the jedi ) and they had mysterious technology that was all to quickly overcome.
