'Star Trek: Discovery' Cast Adds An Alien, First Pic Evocative Of 'Original Series' Species

Little more is known about the next Star Trek TV show except the ship — check out U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031 above — and a title, Star Trek: Discovery. We still don’t know who will captain the infernal machine, for one (though we have our theories). But showrunner Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) promises big revelations soon and has been letting slip a few little tidbits on Twitter. One picture in particular gives us our very first look at a Star Trek: Discovery cast member.

The picture reveals a makeup test for an alien species:

Orange and behorned, this first alien doesn’t seem to belong to an existing Star Trek species, but it reminds us a lot of the Andorians, who have antenna stalks growing out of their heads. The Andorians are a key species in Star Trek lore, since they were one of the founding members of the United Federation of Planets, alongside Humans, Vulcans and Tellarites (pig people, basically).

Though, again, this probably isn’t some sort of radically revisionist Andorian.

So who or what is this Star Trek: Discovery alien? Is it a singular beastie, like the salt sucker of Star Trek episode “The Man Trap,” or a single representative of a whole, starfaring people? Could it possibly even be a crewmember of NCC-1031?

Star Trek: Discovery doesn’t premiere until 2017, so we have a while yet before we know all the answers.