#im not sure how accurate the annotations are on the Mayan pic too- ive added the website i found it on

[mercury-prince]

Now, what I want to see from star trek is how aliens represent other aliens in art. Imagine if that ancient Bajoran guy who space-sailed to cardassia came back and told ppl how cardassians look, spawning hundreds of kinda shitty drawings in bestiaries after a long game of telephone where they barely look recognisable (like these: first is a scorpion, second is a panther)

[Image ID: a square medieval illustration of a creature with a human-ish face, a fish-like body, and four limbs sticking out akimbo. it has a sharp tail that is piercing someone's hand. /.End ID]

[Image ID: a deer-shaped creature with a red belly, face, and legs, a blue back, green butt, and beige neck. it has white streaks coming out of its mouth, as if it's exhaling or spitting. a group of rams, sheep and deer look at it, with very confused expressions. /. End ID]

All the pre-warp species that the federation had broken the prime directive with must have some sick paintings of vaguely humanoid creatures standing around in matching outfits.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY: do other species have something like the zodiac? Or drawings of the star systems around their planet, using familiar figures to link different stars together? What did they call the foreign planets, before they learned they were called Vulcan or Romulus or Ferenginar? Imagine all the pre-warp star maps in different alien languages and art styles. the ones we have irl say so much about the cultures they were made in.

first pic [Image ID: a photograph of the nebra sky disk, from 1800-1600 BC. It is a turquoise coloured metal disk with a gold circle representing the sun, a crescent moon, and small circles depicting the Pleiadies star cluster. /. End ID]

second pic [Image ID: an annotated diagram of the Mayan Wakah-Chan Tree, a design found on the burial lid of Lord Pacal, from circa 680 AD. It is an illustrated diagram depicting the sun, moon and planets with intricately patterned symbols. /. End ID]

third pic [Image ID: an illustration from The Book of Fixed Stars by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, circa 964 ad. it depicts the constellation of Orion, using a black ink drawing of a kneeling figure with the stars drawn as red circles on different parts of the body. Each of the stars are labelled in Arabic. /. End ID]

I could go on forever about how we love to look into the vast unknown to find reflections of ourselves, and how i think star trek is an extension of that urge we've clearly been having since the dawn of time. Its not just the need to study things that will help with our everyday lives (like looking at the harvest moon), its the way we often take a celestial body and make it the symbol of a human characteristic, like how klingons represent honour and vulcans represent logic. what we think about space and what we do to fill in the gaps of the unknown say a lot about how we think in general. and according to trek we think a lot about weird little blokes in weird little outfits so. yh fair enough

i think this is my most research heavy shitpost ever lmao. but please add ur thoughts or take these ideas however u like