Crystalline Entity The Crystalline Entity was a powerful , spaceborne creature characterized by a crystal line structure that resembled a large snow flake . It had warp speed travel capability , formidable size , and the ability to consume all life on a planet or starship . ( ) Thousands of deaths have been attributed to this entity . The creature was destroyed in 2368 . ( ) Dr . Kila Marr was one of the Federation ' s foremost experts on the Crystalline Entity , studying twelve attack sites including Forlat III . ( ) Physical Composition . The Entity functioned as a giant electromagnetic collector and needed constant power , converting organic matter into energy . Once the Entity ravaged a planet , the planet ' s natural resources were completely stripped . No further life would be able to grow for many years . Everything , including vegetation and bacteria , was completely converted . Bitrious matter was usually deposited in the Entity ' s wake , as were elevated levels of hydrocarbon s , lanthanide s , and nitrate s . The Entity was unable to penetrate rock lined with both kelbonite and fistrium . Both metal s needed to be present in order to refract the Entity ' s absorption power . The shields of a starship were also impervious to the Entity . ( ) History . The Entity attacked the Omicron Theta colony in 2338 , stripping all living material and killing many inhabitants , including Raymond Marr , Kila Marr ' s son . Colony residents Drs . Noonian and Juliana Soong both fled during the attack aboard an escape pod , although Juliana Soong was severely injured . ( ) The android Lore was an ally of the Entity and responsible for luring it to Omicron Theta . In 2364 Lore was revived and promptly tried to " feed " the crew of the to the Entity . The " Enterprise " s shields were enough to protect it from the Entity , and Lore was eventually transported into space . The Crystalline Entity retreated to parts unknown . ( ) In 2368 , the Crystalline Entity destroyed the fledgling Federation colony on Melona IV . Two colonists , including Carmen Davila , were lost in the attack . Most of the colonists survived , thanks to a cavern lined with kelbonite and fistrium . The " Enterprise " rescued the survivors and brought Dr . Marr to the planet so she could further study the attack . She worked with Lieutenant Commander Data in order to develop a technique to communicate with the creature . The " Enterprise " intercepted the Entity after it had killed the entire crew of a freighter , the " Kallisko " . They attracted the Entity by emitting graviton pulses at ten per second from the " Enterprise " , as lower pulse rates had no effect on the creature . The creature approached the " Enterprise " , replying with a series of graviton pulses that the " Enterprise " crew interpreted as meaningful , but which it needed time to decode . Marr increased the pulse rate , eventually trying a continuous graviton emission . The Entity stopped emitting pulses of its own as the emissions drove it into resonance . The " Enterprise " crew tried to stop the emissions , only to find that Marr had isolated the access code for the emission controls . Before the crew could halt the emissions , the resonance shattered the Entity . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Described in the script of the episode " Datalore " as , " " MOVING IN to float close to our starship , the SHIMMERING CRYSTAL COMPLEXITY is very obvious . It looks both very lovely and terribly powerful at the same time . ( . . . ) The huge crystal form , two or three times the size of the starship , SLOWLY SPINNING , pictorially dominating the starship as it floats next to it " ( ) , the entity was eventually visually conceptualized by Andrew Probert in October 1988 ( " The Art of Star Trek " , pp . 64 - 65 ) , though he has stated that while model makers usually closely followed his designs , he considered the Crystalline Entity the only exception to this rule , as the final product differed radically from his concept drawings . ( ) In its very first appearance , the Crystalline Entity was one of the very first CGI sequences used in the " Star Trek " franchise . It was built and rendered by Chris Alsop at The Post Group ( ) . Conceived and constructed well before the breakthrough of the technique , CGI was in 1987 a very costly , and , even more importantly as far as a week - by - week television production was concerned , a very time consuming proposition , as Visual Effects Coordinator Ronald B . Moore has dryly observed , " " This was very early in the development of CG to be doing something like this for television but we were game . It took a long time to build the model and it was extremely costly . When the show was finished and we were watching the final results I remember Rob " [ Legato ] " commenting that we could have painted a tumbleweed white and shot that . It would have cost less and we would have been done much sooner . I think he was right : it might have worked just as well . " " ( " Flying Starships " , p . 41 ) The very first full - textured CGI effect in Star Trek was the Genesis file in . On 11 April 2012 director Robert Meyer Burnett confirmed and released the first image of the , in , remaster ed Crystalline Entity for the Blu - ray Disc edition of TNG Season 1 . However , as the original CGI files of the entity were lost , the model was recreated with the use of the latest CGI techniques at CBS Digital in the software , as was confirmed by Michael Okuda , " " Yes , the original Crystalline Entity was created on a computer system that probably no longer exists . CBS Digital ' s Niel Wray rebuilt it from scratch , retaining the original design , but making it more beautiful than ever . " " Visual Effects Coordinator Sarah Paul elaborated , " " There was no film element for it and Max went , " Oh yeah , that was originally created in 3D . " , which we did not have the 3D files for . When we don ' t have an element like the crystalline , we hand it off to Niel , and they will literally remodel and do the entire shot over . " " Wray added , " The crystalline entity , I ' m pretty proud of . The 3D team did an amazing job . You look at the original and it just looks kind of flat and dated . I think of the time period , and I ' m blown away that they were able to do something like that to that level way back then . We don ' t want to go through this and try to re - imagine it or create something totally new . So what we were trying to do , was to get as close as possible to the original visual effects shot . We spent like a week recreating that model . I mean , there is nothing that exists , so we had to do it all by eye . The level of complexity is pretty amazing . With HD resolution you ' re having so much more detail , so we had to kinda bring up the quality level a little bit , but we tried to leave it as close to the original as possible . " ( TNG Season 1 Blu - ray - special feature , " Energized ! Taking The Next Generation to the Next Level " ) Apocrypha . In the non - canon novel " Orion ' s Hounds " , the encountered a number of these creatures , along with the entities seen in and other spaceborne lifeforms . These beings were given the collective term " cosmozoans " . Another , more powerful , Crystalline Entity appears in " Star Trek Online " . The Tholian s seem to worship and protect it . The Crystalline Entity makes an appearance in the 1999 PC game " " , although it ' s called the " Crystal " Entity . The Crystalline Entity also appears in Strange New Worlds VII as one of several parties that attempts to seize the Guardian of Forever , only to be driven off by the Horta .