Energy cloud

An energy cloud or energy being is a shapeless lifeform supposedly comprised of pure energy, even though it usually appears like a cloud of smoke.

For some strange reason, many science fiction franchises, including Star Trek, seem to think that these "energy clouds" are the ultimate life forms; yet another annoying brain bug. Such beings have appeared since TOS and continued to be seen in Voyager.

Notable examples

TOS

• Zefram Cochrane's "Companion" was stated to be electricity and ionized hydrogen.
• The Organians were said to have "evolved" into non-corporeal energy beings.
• Kirk once hunted an energy cloud that drained the blood of its victims and could only be destroyed by an antimatter explosion for some reason.
• A pure energy alien possessed several different people and the Enterprise's computer in the middle of a killing spree. This same alien was supposedly responsible for the murders of Jack the Ripper.
• Sargon and his race supposedly transformed themselves into formless beings of pure energy after they destroyed the surface of their world.
• The Enterprise is actually invaded by an "energy storm".
• The Enterprise crew is forced to engage in hand-to-hand combat with Klingons on board by a being that lives on "hate"
• The Enterprise transports a Medusan ambassador who has superior navigational abilities because of his non-corporeal (and madness-inducing) form.

TNG

• The Enterprise-D picked up such a being who eventually possessed Jean-Luc Picard and beamed both itself and Picard into the void of space to get back to its own people.
• A brilliant human scientist once implanted his "consciousness" into Data
• Deanna Troi was impregnated by such a being once.
• Q tormented a group energy beings known as the Calamarain, and they came back for revenge when he temporarily lost his powers.
• Zalkonians are supposedly in the middle of just such an "evolutionary transformation" (again, completely distorting the entire concept of evolution).
• The Paxans possessed Troi to get the Enterprise to leave them alone.
• An unnamed alien removed the "consciousness" from several hundred criminals and banished them to another planet that served as their prison. These "consciousnesses" could possess other living beings and even Data.
• Such a being seduced female ancestors of Beverly Crusher for many generations

Voyager

• The USS Voyager encountered a living cloud that the crew initially thought was a nebula.

Babylon 5

• The Vorlons are a race that is compose principally of energy.
• Human telepath Jason Ironheart transformed into an energy being as a result of Psi Corps experiments.
• In the B5 movie "River of Souls," an entire race spontaneously "evolved" to an incorporeal form in one generation.