In this episode:
- A literary analysis of The Devil in the Dark
- Everyone’s favorite silicone-based lifefrom, the Horta
- Roddenberry and his producers believed this episode provided Stark Trek with its organizing thesis about how to treat aliens and “the other” and the show, but I argue this thesis was marbled through the first season back to the earliest episodes
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Hi Justin!
I just listened to your podcast episode for The Devil in the Dark.
I have a possible insight I think you will like, and maybe you will be the only person that sees it besides me.
When I was a kid, I loved to go to the movies to see the Tarzan serials. When I got to be about ten or twelve, I started buying the E.R. Burroughs books.
There were 24 in all by him.
Anyway, in the books, the
Language of the Apes that Tarzan spoke called the Elephant “Tantor”, the Lion “Numa”, and so on.
The interesting thing, was that the Pigs, or Wild Boar,
Were called “Horta”.
Hence, “Horta the Boar…
I would bet that Gene Coon had read the Tarzan books, and maybe used the play on words to name this Silicone based life form.
Horta the Boar, became Horta the Borer.
What do you think? Coincidence? I would bet not.
I have asked Shatner on twitter, and also the Star Trek twitter page a few different times what they thought,
But have never gotten an answer.
That is a deep cut as they say. But I bet you are right. Any sci-fi writer or any TV writer of that day would have been raised on Burroughs. I need to check my source These Are the Voyages if Coon named the Horta or the puppeteer who created the costume. Have you checked the Horta entry on Memory Alpha. You could try to suggest an edit to that website and see what happens. It’s at least worth a mention.