I'm sure this has been brought up HUNDREDS of times, but was there ever any canon explanation for why the Klingons suddenly "mutated" from the ones we see in TOS to the ones we see in the movies and TNG? If there isn't, any speculations on the matter?
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
The Klingons don't discuss it with outsiders. Posted by Cadet Sorak (Member # 874) on :
Is that from "Trials and Tribble-ations?"
Ok, so does anyone have any ideas? Anything? Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
The only theories that I know of were put forth in that episode which were genetic mutation or viral invection. At least the Klingons acknowledge that. But of course, you have to wonder if Kirk and company ever asked the same questions.
Well, I do remember another theory... different Klingon races on the same planet. May help explain the TNG-style Klingons on Enterprise. But overall, nothing concrete in the way of explanations.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Well, before Enterprise I remember an amusing theory where the TOS Klingons were a genetically engineered sub-species of Klingons designed solely to infiltrate, understand, and fight Humans. Doesn't make much sense, but it sounded amusing at the time. Heh.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Well, the fact that Kang, Koloth, and Kor all appeared on DS9 with modern makeup, along with the modern makeup on ENT Klingons, is a pretty clear sign that we're just supposed to believe that the race *always* looked like that. The "Trials and Tribble-ations" line by Worf was simply for the benefit of the viewers, a little joke by the writer for our amusement.
-MMoM Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
The main problem there, if you are trying to think logically, is that you'd think that one of Bashir or O'Brien would have known that Klingons looked a bit different back in the day. Kirk's battles with them apparently being a bit famous and all.
I always preferred the "They always had the bumpy foreheads, we just didn't see them" answer (which also works for the Romulan ridges), but "Trials and Tribble-ations" buggers that up. Unless you ignore the line.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
This may well be just a case of some Klingons having ridges and some not, just as if an alien saw an asian or black man he might think that all humans looked exactly like their only example. Mabye they are kind of Klingon albinos with some recessive qualities.... Also, Klingons were doing some really dis-honarable things back then, so mabye the houses just wiped them all out with the tribbles. Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
There's also the evidence that Kahless had a bumpy forehead. Worf's statue of him fighting his brother and the cloned Kahless to name a couple.
However, I've noticed that the Klingons were not just changed in their appearances. To me, it also seems as if they underwent an attitude readjustment during the same time that their appearances changed. It's like they got meaner and more irrational when they got the bumps. It could just be my imagination, though.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: This may well be just a case of some Klingons having ridges and some not, just as if an alien saw an asian or black man he might think that all humans looked exactly like their only example.
Well unfortunately, as I said, the SAME INDIVIDUAL KLINGONS (namely Kang, Kor, Koloth, and Kahless) have appeared as both the old and new versions. What, they ALL had plastic surgery in the past century?
-MMoM Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
I bet they did all get plastic surgery, and I blame the supermodels and fashion magazines of mid-23rd century Q'onos. They made the ridgeless Klingons feel weak and ugly, so a massive cultural movement began where all of them went under the knife to reach the Klingon beauty ideal.
Damn magazine editors and models. They've always know how to kill a person's self-esteem.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Perhaps the idea of genetically engineered soldiers does make some sense... if Kor, Koloth, and Kang received plastic surgery after the High Council decided that the entire program was just a bad idea.
And later Klingons don't discuss it with outsiders because it was such a silly idea. Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
ok, my theory is a bit of a doozy, but it fits the facts.
during the temporal cold war, the Future-guy was giving out genetic enhancements to the Suliban like they were candy, as rewards and tools to be used. we know the Klingons were involved too, of of FGs main goals in the pilot was to mess with Klingon politics.
perhaps, at some later date (temporal cold wars can't really be limited to smaller scope--even if Archer ends the whole thing, there may still be instances of other places in the timeline where FG tampered, even if its chronologically after his defeat) future guy may give a girf of genetic ability to Klingons.. we know the Suliban have the ability to disguise themselves as other species.. like the chick who kissed Archer in the pilot ep. so maybe this ability is dispersed in the Klingon gene pool and used for some reason. Kang, Kor, Koloth all receive the ability to reshape their faces and appear less Klingonish, as do many other Klingons.
Then they switch back to normal Klingon appearance at will for the movies.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
I remember a line in either an episode of contemporary Trek (TNG/DS9/VOY) or in a book or something where a Romulan is complaining about the 23rd-century technological alliance between the Romulans and Klingons. He or she said "they got all the best of our culture and we got the worst of theirs". That's the best commentary I've ever seen on how the Klingosn went from sneaky to honorable and the Romulans the converse.
As for the foreheads... I had no problem with the old explanation -- that they were always supposed to be that way but TOS didn't have the budget for it. I would have been even happier if Kor, Kang, and Koloth had shown up on DS9 with the same sort of subdued ridges Chang had in ST VI. I'd have less of a problem with that than their sudden turtlehead manifestation. "Trials and Tribble-ations" just pisses me off...
--Jonah
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
Back during TNG's 3rd season I submitted a script to the show that dealt with the Klingons pretty head-on (pun intended). Unfortunately, my agent landed my script at the Star Trek offices right around the time Sins of the Father was being shot, and they went a different direction that my idea, so that was that.
My take on it (this is long before old Klingons started showing up with bumpy heads) was that "Klingon" was the traditional name of the Warrior caste, and that anyone who was a Warrior of the Empire was a "Klingon". The guys we saw on TOS would have been humanoids whose part of the Empire most closely butted up against the Federation, and were thus the ones Kirk tended to encounter. In my script these guys were the ones who traded ships with the Romulans, which totally pissed off the "real" Klingons, who then reduced them to "subject" status and ground them down under the Empire's heel.
Mind you, the script wasn't ABOUT this, but it was a subtext that came as the plot advanced and we met such subject races (think of Eastern Bloc countries) who were unwilling members of the Empire. (I was interested in the morality of being allies with a race of conquerors who most certainly ruled entire civilizations by force.)
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I think the quote was from "The defector".
Mabye the Hurq genetically experimented on the klingons and it took a while for them to find a way to reverse the process....that would explain Kang, Kor and Koloth as being childhood victims of the Hurq and later being "fixed" by Klingon science....
Does'nt explain Enterprise though.... Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
i think the genetic manipulation that allows them to be bumpy headed, switch to smooth headed, then change back to bumpy headed is the best explanation.. the suliban/future-guy idea occurred to me when i saw broken bow.. its obvious that FG was disseminating chameleonlike shapeshifter abilities and would have the ability to do so again later, and that he purposely limited his gifts to control the situations they would lead to..
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Ok, I haven't read the 1st page I just realised as I clicked reply but...
I originally thought that the ridges maybe a result of Praxis blowing up (or the shonky practices that eventually lead to the Praxis explosion). And since the Romulans were having some sorts of 'dealings' with some Klingons at the time - see Duras Family - it might have resulted in a Romulan side-effect as well - the brow ridges. But only to a lesser degree. See Ambassadors Nanclus and Kait-Lyn Dar.
Then along comes Enterprise and throws another spanner in the works. Now all I can thing is... FASHION!! Yes the ridges might have been a fashion thing and might be able to be filed down. Worf is very proud of his ridges and those of Alexanders AND The non-ridgless time seems to be an embarrasing subject. Maybe ridges are as Embarrasing as Safari-suits!?!
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
quote:I originally thought that the ridges maybe a result of Praxis blowing up (or the shonky practices that eventually lead to the Praxis explosion).
The implications of the film's title, Star Trek VI, seem to have passed you by. And to think they changed the title of the play The Madness of George III in case people wanted to see the previous two installments. 8)
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
..and I still can't find a tape of American History IX...
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poet:
quote:I originally thought that the ridges maybe a result of Praxis blowing up (or the shonky practices that eventually lead to the Praxis explosion).
The implications of the film's title, Star Trek VI, seem to have passed you by. And to think they changed the title of the play The Madness of George III in case people wanted to see the previous two installments. 8)
Vogon - WHAT THE FUCK!?! What is there in what I said - silly or stupid - or material to be made fun of!?!?!? What does what I said - i.e. the Klingon physiology altering their long term appearance due to massive ecological and environmental damage - got to do with the title!?! WTF!?!
*boggle*
That is very annoying.
Are you saying that I think Klingons only had ridges in TUC?? The problems with Praxis and the Klingon Empire to produce such an effect would have been decades in the making - hence the subtle ridges in the movies moving to the full blown - mountain-ranges in TNG and beyong.
That's a mute point now, now that Enterprise has shown they had ridges then. So one would have to put the TOS thing into a 'fad' phase.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
um.. even though the ridges in VI were subtle, the ridges in the previous films were anything but.. especially as far back as The Motion Picture, which had the largest Klingon heads observable.
We weren't making fun of you.. just your stupid theory. And it is a moot point.. although after this discussion, i do wish it HAD been a mute point..
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Mute, Moot same dif. The idea was that it was some screw up cause of the fucked conditions of Q'OnoS and presumably elsewhere. This is seen in the screwed Green sky of TNG compared with the nice day seen in Broken Bow.
BUT it doesn't work anymore - Enterprise saw to that.
Well the TMP ridges were just a 'line' compared with the TSFS/TFF ridges. Then the TUC ridges - look... sanded down again.
I'm going with the 'fad'/'fashion' theory. It's basically bone - I'm sure it wouldn't hurt them to sand it down. Look at Valkris' 'ridges' in TSFS - maybe she was just getting out of the 'no ridge' fad. Or it was still stylish amongst females? Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
In one of the Final Frontier books, Peter David (through Mackenzie Calhoun) makes an apt observation about the differences between the TOS and the TNG Klingons & Romulans. He states that during the TOS period, Klingons were honorless, narrow-minded thugs whose lot in life was to just cause trouble for the Federation. On the other hand, TOS Romulans were a very honorable, traditional people even though they were adversaries. However, in TNG, those roles were inextricably reversed for the two races.
On another interesting note, When Star Trek III was in production, Leonard Nimoy wanted to abandon the new Klingon look shown in TMP in favor of returning to the Original Series look. The motivation being that the latex bumpy foreheads wouldn't work well glued to an actor's face (sigh...). Someone else even wanted to change the Klingon species entirely to humanoids evolved from crustaceans. However, apparently the "bumpy head" look won out in the end.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
That explains my theory of mind-controlling Hurq horseshoe crabs....... Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
Six years ago, I put together a website about the Klingon differences. It was on Geocities, I have no idea if it's still up and I don't know the address. Point is, I think I reached some pretty decent conclusions. The facts I used (remember this was before Enterprise):
1) Kahless had ridges 1500 years ago.
2.) Kor, Koloth, and Kang didn't have ridges in the 2260s (TOS), but at least Kang had them in the 2290s ("Flashback") and they all had ridges in the 2370s ("Blood Oath").
3.) Andre Bormanis, then science consultant and now writer, wrote a book called Science Logs in which he referred to Klingons developing a genetically engineered "battle class."
4.) I asked Robert H. Wolfe, then a DS9 writer/producer, about some of the theories. He said that the writers did have an explanation for "Trials and Tribble-ations," but replaced it at the last minute for the easy laugh. He also said that of two theories I mentiond, they were both wrong, but one was more wrong than the other. One of the theories was FASA's "altered to look human" explanation for TOS.
My conclusion? The official explanation that was never said on air was probably that given by Bormanis. The TOS Klingons engineered themselves into the TNG Klingons in an effort to be bigger badasses. This is why Wolfe said that one theory wasn't as wrong as the other: the FASA theory involves alteration, but in the wrong direction. Knowing writers, they probably ignored Kahless. Knowing fans, we would come up with a fix. I did.
Klingons have always had ridges, but they developed them at middle age. Kor, Koloth, and Kang were fairly young (30s) and so were their crews. In the 2260s/70s, they engineered a battle class that had ridges from birth, and that's what we saw in TNG.
Of course, now Enterprise shows youngish Klingons with ridges, so it's all shot to shit. But it's an interesting historical note, and I'd like to know just what explanation the DS9 staff came up with afterall.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote: Klingons have always had ridges, but they developed them at middle age. Kor, Koloth, and Kang were fairly young (30s) and so were their crews. In the 2260s/70s, they engineered a battle class that had ridges from birth, and that's what we saw in TNG.
Of course, now Enterprise shows youngish Klingons with ridges, so it's all shot to shit. But it's an interesting historical note, and I'd like to know just what explanation the DS9 staff came up with afterall.
A 'battle class' turns into the whole Klingon Species - and even the original klingons decide to become 'battle class' members themselves - seems even more far fetched.
Plus Enterprise wasn't the only one to show young klingons with ridges (when did that happen by the way?) We've got Alexander and the 'kids' from "Birthright". Little B'Elanna. SP? Duras' son. Pretty good cross section of the community.
I still think it's a whole fashion thing... maybe even a Klingon navy fashion thing - like the Sailors on Earth wearing bell-bottoms!! Want to join the Klingon Fleet - you must sand down your ridges. This is an embarrasing thing - and probably quite unhealthy.
Maybe they wanted to 'look' like Humans - as a fashion craze. Instead Kang going into the barber for a "Rachael" he gets a ridge-sanding! Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Plus Enterprise wasn't the only one to show young klingons with ridges (when did that happen by the way?) We've got Alexander and the 'kids' from 'Birthright'. Little B'Elanna. SP? Duras' son. Pretty good cross section of the community."
Young == less than middle-aged. And the young Klingons w/ ridges in the TNG era are specifically addressed in his theory.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote: Young == less than middle-aged. And the young Klingons w/ ridges in the TNG era are specifically addressed in his theory.
Ok, I don't get what you are saying... Are you saying that Kiddie-Klingons didn't have ridges in TNG!?!
Alexander was like 2 Earth-years old in "Reunion" and had ridges.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
He's saying that ORIGINALLY, Klingons developed ridges when they matured, possibly around 40-ish. At some point between TOS and TNG, the Klingons genetically altered themselves to have ridges from birth.
I'm quite keen to hear if you're right regarind Wolfe's theory. But that's not likely to happen.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
But, as I said before - how likely is it that this 'Battle Class' of Klingons began to dominate the entire population!?! I.e. everyone's offspring now have ridges from birth!?!
It has to be a. something potentially embarrasing (probably more-so to a klingon) b. something that allows a group of klingons to not have ridges between (at least) the dates of 2265 and 2270.
Fashion or a fad would fit this category.
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: But, as I said before - how likely is it that this 'Battle Class' of Klingons began to dominate the entire population!?! I.e. everyone's offspring now have ridges from birth!?!
Ever hear of genocide? Deliberate germline engineering of all children for a few years? A gene-altering nanovirus released by the battle class to eliminate the weakling naturals? If the battle class was designed to revere Kahless (perhaps to keep their berserker rage in check), their guilt over having perpetuated any of these honorless crimes could lead to TNG Klingons not wanting to talk about it.
Irrelevent, in light of Enterprise.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
This is all rather irrelevant simply because there is no satisfactory answer to this and I'd bet good money that the powers that be wouldn't touch one with a 50ft barge pole. Indeed the attitude shown in T&T show just how seriously this is taken. It's not like Trek has an otherwise spotless record when it comes to continuity.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Maybe we should start calling the TOS Klingons 'Super-Soldiers?' 8)
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I know it was a joke there Vogon - but the whole thing is the TOS Klingons are the SAME as the TNG era Klingons - cause of Kang, Kor and Koloth.
Thus what would change the appearance of these Klingons and their crew for around 5 years that is embarrasing to the klingons and wasn't widely known about.
I'm sticking with fashion...
Look at what McCoy wears in TMP! LOL! Gold Medallions and wide lapels! Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Which is far different than if he had, say, sawn off his nose.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
but boy would his face be spited!
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Well what if McCoy had MAJOR plastic surgery - that would be more like it.
I'm surmising that the ridges can be just sanded down.
Or maybe they just wore wigs over the ridges!?! Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
How many of your bones have you "sanded down"?
Actually, it's somewhat interesting to note that, despite their no-pain-no-gain ethos, Klingons don't seem to be very big on the sorts of ritualistic body modifications we might expect. They don't even appear to have tattoos.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Maybe the ridges were worn down by excessive headbutting competitions?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Well what if McCoy had MAJOR plastic surgery - that would be more like it."
So, basically, you're saying that head-filing is the Klingon equivalent of breast implants, and the entire planet decided to pull a Pamela Anderson all at once.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Either that, or they all became members of the WWE.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Well it mightn't be as drastica a procedure as plastic surgery - it might be like cutting hair to us.
Hair might be a better analogy
Just because you see a bunch of red-necks with Mullets doesn't mean we all have them.
Ridge-shaving might have been a Klingon Military stipulation or just some fad at the time!?!
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
Since the Klingon ridges tend to be along what in Earth anatomy is the sagittal crest (the ridge of bone along the midline of the top of the skull), which serves for the attachment of the temporalis muscle (which works the mandible), it'd be pretty stupid to "sand down" said ridges. Well, unless you want to reconnect the muscles to bone, or you don't mind not chewing. Posted by Cadet Sorak (Member # 874) on :
quote: How many of your bones have you "sanded down"?
They're Klingons, we're not. We're not supposed to act exactly alike.
quote: Actually, it's somewhat interesting to note that, despite their no-pain-no-gain ethos, Klingons don't seem to be very big on the sorts of ritualistic body modifications we might expect. They don't even appear to have tattoos.
They don't *appear* to have tattoos, but I know some Humans who have tattoos in not-so-visible places.
quote: Since the Klingon ridges tend to be along what in Earth anatomy is the sagittal crest (the ridge of bone along the midline of the top of the skull), which serves for the attachment of the temporalis muscle (which works the mandible), it'd be pretty stupid to "sand down" said ridges.
Are we forgetting here that Klingons are NOT Humans? They're alien, remember? They have vastly different physiology than us, as McCoy and Crusher have complained about frequently.
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
quote:Originally posted by Cadet Sorak: Are we forgetting here that Klingons are NOT Humans? They're alien, remember? They have vastly different physiology than us, as McCoy and Crusher have complained about frequently.
One thing I've always been irritated by in Star Trek is the sloppiness shown in the handling of biology (don't even get me started in their idiocy regarding DNA). They want these humanoid aliens to be alien, but they don't have the slightest inkling about what constitutes a species. The very definition of "species" is a "a group of similar individuals that can usually breed amongst themselves and producer fertile offspring". Humans can't breed with chimpanzees (think of the mother-in-law problems...), even though we're virtually indistinguishable from them genetically.
And since these "aliens" make the same facial expressions as humans do, that indicates a virtually identical musculature. Furthermore, the very "fact" that humans can (and apparently do) boink and have babies with all kinds of humanoids tends since to support this. If these different "races" are able to mate and have kids, as has been seen numerous times, the psysiology can't be that different.
Then there's TNG's "The Chase" which made canon that many of these humanoid species were of the same genetic heritage.
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
I blame the Preservers.
"The Chase" doesn't explain much beyond why everyone has similar DNA, so there's gotta be some reason there are so many physical and cultural similarities. For instance, why do most male aliens shave and most females have long hair? Why do most female aliens wear dresses while males wear pants? Why does almost every alien language use the same phonemes, a small subset of those found on Earth alone?
Most aliens, including Klingons, are way to human for "The Chase" to have any bearing on the level of convergence. The easiest explanation is that the Preservers are responsible for all the humanoid aliens, tweaked to fit their environment and eat the local fauna's biochemistry. They could even be designed to interbreed. It also explains why they are all at the same technological level.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
A Preserver-like player operating in the recent past still wouldn't explain all the supposedly "ancient" yet staggeringly parallel cultures. We'd virtually have to assume that everybody was branched off the same litter within the century, and given false memories and biological, geological and written histories...
As long as we hesitate with that, we could go back to "The Chase" and simply accept that these smart proto-humanoids had the means necessary to create all the current humanoid life in their image. Not just spread some DNA goo around - but create a whole preplanned future where every species, regardless of the evolutionary path, would inevitably coverge to bipeds of the known Trek attributes.
Given their expert manipulation of the DNA of the modern species, I think they could have pulled this off. Their tampering ensured that future DNA (4 *billion* years in the future!) would not only act as a roadmap if halfway properly assembled, but would also converge into an invasive program that would hijack any suitable piece of instrumentation and turn it into a holoprojector. Surely it could even more easily have been tampered to ensure the birth of trouser-wearing biped males who wear short hair, trousers and low heels.
As for the other thing, the modern species being on the same technological rung... I think that's better explained by saying that
a) it just isn't true - we have observer bias because the Starfleet heroes avoid the primitives, and the advanced beings avoid the Starfleet heroes, and
b) when it's locally true, it's because of the usual things - big wars that wipe the slate clean and create a "year zero" every now and then, synchronized escalation of power between important species and subsequent destruction of unimportant and less developed ones, a general policy of even the benevolent empires forcing their subject races to start marching apace with the leading race...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Timo: A Preserver-like player operating in the recent past still wouldn't explain all the supposedly "ancient" yet staggeringly parallel cultures. We'd virtually have to assume that everybody was branched off the same litter within the century, and given false memories and biological, geological and written histories...
Not neccessarily. All of the human humanoids from TOS, for instance, could have been abducted from Earth over the last few thousand years, which would explain the ridiculously high amount of apparent parallel evolution. The Andorians, though, might have been a trial and error adaption proccess beginning with Homo erectus, so a designed prehistory isn't neccessary because no species (presumably) remembers their own evolution. The Preservers could then, occasionally, tinker with their creation to get whatever cultural outcome they want.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: As long as we hesitate with that, we could go back to "The Chase" and simply accept that these smart proto-humanoids had the means necessary to create all the current humanoid life in their image. Not just spread some DNA goo around - but create a whole preplanned future where every species, regardless of the evolutionary path, would inevitably coverge to bipeds of the known Trek attributes.
Given their expert manipulation of the DNA of the modern species, I think they could have pulled this off. Their tampering ensured that future DNA (4 *billion* years in the future!) would not only act as a roadmap if halfway properly assembled, but would also converge into an invasive program that would hijack any suitable piece of instrumentation and turn it into a holoprojector. Surely it could even more easily have been tampered to ensure the birth of trouser-wearing biped males who wear short hair, trousers and low heels.
Maybe. My problem is neurology. Even on Earth, there are plenty of cultures in which men don't wear trousers, women don't shave their armpits/legs, men don't shave their faces, and so on. It can't be programmed into our DNA, or we'd all do it, so it has to be cultural... and the only people we know of who screw with cultures are the Preservers.
I submit that the proto-humanoids didn't realize that the humanoids who would read their message would be as convergent as they were. They were expecting races more like the Saurians, Anticans, Selay, Gorn, Antedians, and others who are "humanoid" in shape, but not in details. These sorts of races, and humans, are the only pure descendants of the proto-humanoids by my reckoning. All of the others, who look like humans with funny ears and foreheads and need little help to breed, are Preserver manipulations.
Either way, you get somebody wanting trousers and smooth faces on their men, and skirts and long hair on their women. Maybe the proto-humanoids are more parsimonious, but these seem to be "new" developments they couldn't influence. There is, of course, the occasionally posited idea that the Preservers are the proto-humanoids.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: As for the other thing, the modern species being on the same technological rung... I think that's better explained by saying that
a) it just isn't true - we have observer bias because the Starfleet heroes avoid the primitives, and the advanced beings avoid the Starfleet heroes, and
b) when it's locally true, it's because of the usual things - big wars that wipe the slate clean and create a "year zero" every now and then, synchronized escalation of power between important species and subsequent destruction of unimportant and less developed ones, a general policy of even the benevolent empires forcing their subject races to start marching apace with the leading race...
Now that is a good idea.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
We already know that there are quite a few highly advanced races hanging around in one form or another. Most of them were seen in TOS, but they're definitely there.
The Thasians, the Metrons, the Organians, the Melkot, the Calamarain, the Bajoran Prophets, the Caretakers... hell, even the Borg maybe.
Who knows what form these aliens had in the past? Who knows how many others might have disappeared? Wasn't there some TOS episode about aliens who destroyed themselves in a civil war hundreds of thousands of years ago?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield".
IT HAD THE RIDDLER IN IT!
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
no they destroyed themselves that year. and they had ships that were invisible. not cloaking devices, just invisible.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I was under the impression that the people of Cheron could have destroyed themselves anytime during the fifty thousand years preceding the episode.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
No, it was the one where three individuals had preserved their thought patterns in weird spheres, and ended up taking over Our Heroes' bodies.
Dammit, I forget the episode title! But I remember that Spock got to play the bad guy then...
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
did they seiously say that? retards.
MM: Return to Tomorrow?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yes! "Return to Tomorrow"... that was one of the ones with Diana Muldaur. I got confused when I was recalled the title at first because I thought it was a time travel episode... but that was "Tomorrow is Yesterday." Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Did who seriously say what?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
No, he was just kidding.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Kosa (Member # 650) on :
Cadet Sorak, This very professional site has a section on it. Star Trek Dimension
It�s in the Investigating trek section. Proceed to the Biology section.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)