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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Tardigrade (macroscopic) article.
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Official name[]

Given the "official" title "The Tardigrade in Space" by Starfleet Science for this creature, it might be worth noting that this article title and the wording "informal term applied to an unknown alien" is no longer accurate. --Alan (talk) 06:31, January 1, 2020 (UTC)

If I'm understanding you correctly, that's just a minor rewrite isn't it? We just have to reword the first sentence right? Is there anything else?
Edit: Pretty sure I fixed it, but I'm leaving the FIX IT marker in case I missed something.
--Noah Tall (talk) 06:36, January 1, 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps, but the qualifier still bugs me. If it weren't a "real" Tardigrade, Starfleet certainly wouldn't use the title if it something else, which the "alien" aspect and so forth implies. --Alan (talk) 06:55, January 1, 2020 (UTC)

Are you suggesting the Earth animal and the space alien should be merged? Bc I don't think that's warranted. "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry" seems to imply the space alien is distinct but got its name by analogy to the Earth animal, much the same way the Northwest Passage is named for the Northwest Passage even though they're not the same. So what about the qualifier? Some kind of disambiguation seems needed. -- Capricorn (talk) 00:56, January 2, 2020 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting anything. The title of the film seems pretty straight forward, as in not making any sort of distinction, and seeing as you are someone who takes things annoyingly literal as gospel, you'd see this too. --Alan (talk) 01:33, January 2, 2020 (UTC)

If you're not suggesting any improvements, than what's there to still bug you? I was just trying to establish why you are posting here, what you are trying to achieve. Sorry if that's annoying to you, but I'm trying my best to interpret you, any improvement on that front is going to come from your side, from you being more explicit on what you think should happen. -- Capricorn (talk) 02:08, January 2, 2020 (UTC)
Strictly speaking, "alien" probably shouldn't be used as a qualifier, since that makes it very Human-centric (i.e. the Earth tardigrade is really an alien species to anyone other than a Human or other Earthling). The space tardigrade is really no different than any other species in the galaxy and shouldn't be handled any differently. The question then becomes what *should* the qualifier be? -- Renegade54 (talk) 15:55, January 2, 2020 (UTC)
What about "space"? Or... give the Earth-bound one a disambiguation of "Earth"... -- sulfur (talk) 15:57, January 2, 2020 (UTC)

I'm given the impression from the title of the film that "Tardigrade" is the universal term for a creature consisting of many (sub)species, as in, its own classification. Otherwise they would have been more careful, or at least more specific, not to confuse it with the ones found on Earth. Was the one from the film the same moose-sized species as the one found on the Glenn? Are they even intended to be same species? I think people are too hung up on the initial 2250s definition Burnham gave it, when the post-2280s definition from the film is clearly less definitive. --Alan (talk) 16:30, January 2, 2020 (UTC)

The Earth species were described as "microscopic cousins" of the Tardigrade encounted by Discovery at one point, so that does lend some credence to the family of subspecies interpretation. -- Capricorn (talk) 17:16, January 2, 2020 (UTC)

Actually, in reviewing "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry", the distinction was right there in black and white all along: Tardigrade (microscopic) and Tardigrade (macroscopic). --Alan (talk) 20:07, July 8, 2020 (UTC)

And fixed. --Alan (talk) 19:50, August 5, 2020 (UTC)

Tardigrade similarities to Yagghorth[]

It seems to me that the concept of the Tardigrade and its relationship to the Spore drive is similar to the concept of the Yagghorth (β) and its relationship to Psion Jump Drive from the novel Crossroad (β). Would it be an appropriate topic for this page? --Sarpiedon (talk) 16:54, March 27, 2020 (UTC)

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