The Star Trek Animated Series was produced in 1973 and 1974 as a follow-up to the original Star Trek Series.
Notably, Larry Niven wrote an episode for the series entitled The Slaver Weapon, which was adapted from a story called The Soft Weapon (published in Neutron Star (collection)) at Gene Rodenberry's suggestion.
The Animated Series took advantage of animation's ability to have non-human like aliens with the Kzin and Niven inserted the Kzin into the Star Trek universe in the Animated Series. With that, aggressive cat-like aliens stepped forward to challenge the Federation and its Starfleet and various games and films have been lightly peppered with Kzinti references ever since.[1]
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