Titan Fleet Yards

“Journey to Babel” was one of the few TOS episodes that explored the nature of the Federation. The Enterprise is tasked to transport delegates from Federation planets to Babel for a conference about the possible admission of Coridan into the Federation. The journey to Babel is interrupted by an Orion agent posing as Andorian ambassadorial aide Thelev.

At the moment we join the Enterprise, the ship is in orbit of Vulcan, waiting for the Vulcan delegation to arrive. In total, the Enterprise is taking 144 delegates to the Babel conference, 32 of which are ambassadors. This could be a ballpark estimate for the size of the Federation at this time.

Ambassadors Surak, Shras and Gav.

The most prominent Federation delegates that feature in the story are of course the Andorians and Tellarites, two races that would eventually come to prominence as the founders of the Federation. A number of other aliens were created for the background scenes.

Purple alien

The first obvious alien we see among the delegates is a purple skinned woman. She appears in the corridor when Kirk and McCoy exit Kirk’s quarters, and is seen standing next to the door during the reception, before walking around and mingling with the guests.

Purple alien sharing a drink with a delegate.

Interestingly, there are also purple aliens in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. It could be these were intended as a tribute to the purple alien seen in TOS, and therefore of the same unidentified species.

Purple alien in The Voyage Home

Purple alien in The Undiscovered Country (behind the scenes)

In novels, several aliens with purple skinned appear. The Huanni are depicted in Christie Golden’s The Last Roundup and in Keith R.A. DeCandido’s Articles of the Federation as purple-skinned Federation members with elongated ears. In the Stargazer series, the Cataxxians are bald purple-skinned humanoids, and in the Corps of Engineers e-book range, the Icorians are described as purple or grey skinned humanoids. I do not know whether any of them were specifically supposed to be the aliens seen in “Journey to Babel”.

Woman in colorful dress

An Asian woman in a colorful dress can be seen among the guests standing outside Kirk’s quarters. She is later seen standing in a corridor talking with another delegate, and later is seen mixing with guests during the reception.

Woman in red dress

A woman in a red dress is seen walking through the hallway, and mingling with guests during the reception.

Federation official

This backgound character wears the same uniform as High Commissioner Ferris from “The Galileo Seven”. Of all the recycled costumes, this one actually seems to work in the context of the story. The man in the Federation uniform is probably a commissioner or other government official attending the conference.