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.
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"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.
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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...
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...
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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?
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posted
no they destroyed themselves that year. and they had ships that were invisible. not cloaking devices, just invisible.
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posted
I was under the impression that the people of Cheron could have destroyed themselves anytime during the fifty thousand years preceding the episode.
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posted
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...
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posted
did they seiously say that? retards.
MM: Return to Tomorrow?
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posted
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."
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-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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