posted
I'm serious here. In Trek, they're apparently sentient and technically competant, and great navigation experts. Fine, I can dig that. But are we to assume that in Trek, that true sentience and communication arose naturally? Are we just waitng for someone in Trek history to invent the universal translator, switch it on at SeaWorld, and have the first garbled words come back be "It's about FREAKING TIME!!!"?
Have there been instances of trek fanon or literary canon that deal with earth cetaceans, and just how we got talking with our planet's pelagic people?
posted
Well, apparently, the humpback whales (or their evolutionary predecessors) were actively conversing with the giant-salami-and-soccer-ball-probe aliens in prehistoric times, at least according to Spock's (implicitly correct) conjecture in STIV. And he did communicate telepathically with Gracie the humpback. (She told him she was pregnant and that she was unhappy about the way her species had been treated by Man.)
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
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posted
Although we shouldn't necessarily assume, just from that, that humpback whales are intelligent in the same way that humans are. That is, I mean, they clearly aren't tool-users, for instance.
Were I In Charge, I don't think I'd put, say, dolphins wandering around in excursion suits, ala at least one TNG novel, I think. They can be useful without being the same kind of conscious entity as, say, a Vulcan or an Andorian. That is, barring some Brinian uplifting in the backstory.
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posted
Yah, one novel has them as sentient members of Starfleet and able to sense some kind of subspace disruption, or something. I don't know if it was an Earther Dolphin though.
The only canon reference to dolphins in Star Trek, at least as regards them being aboard starships, is Geordi's line to the Ferengiwhilst trying to distract him from bugging the lucky old geezer who got to guard Kimala: "Have you seen the dolphins?" This suggests that there are in fact dolphins aboard the Ent D, but in what capacity is unclear. They could be part of Crusher's zoo for all we know.
posted
I tend to think that the dolphin/whale/earth cetacean/human relations is a fairly recent development in the trek universe. Maybe something that happened after Kirk and company brought back the humpback whales, someone decided to investigate (maybe out of guilt for all the years of hunting and Seaworld crap ) the possibility of formal relations as equal beings. And as a result, wouldna ya know it, turns out the cetaceans make pretty dern good starship navigators...better than going blind looking at those Medusan fellows anyway. So the dolphins, being smaller and easier to transport have a go at it. The whales, on the other hand, remembering the way the humans piloted ships in Trek IV, graciously declined the offer.
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posted
Fuck the entire notion. Seriously- it's stupid as hell.
I've actually gone swimming with dolphins (a perk of living in south florida) and while they're bueatiful, highly responsive animals, they're animals.
No smarter than dogs as far as sentience or verbal communication.
They'll never be sentient because they never had to evolve that way to survive- like sharks, they reached a point where their design was optimal for their place in the ecosystem, and unless Trek's universe somehow altered them via eugenics, they'll remain cute animals that we project human emotions onto.
They are also not always the nicest sea creatures-people tink "flipper" and forget that these are predators.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Not in the way that hunting and devouring prey is our prime motivation- sentience and inteligence has made us masters of environs not our own, while animals subsist on their instincts to get by.
But your mileage may vary, and you may love the notion of whales and dolphins as somehow being sentient but us somehow missing it all these years.
Personally, I thought it made STIV's premise pretty flakey. I once saw a show where they had a talking dolphin as a crewmember....what was it again? Hmmm....lets see now...
Oh yes- total shit.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Jason, I think we need to remember that this is the Star Trek Universe we're talking about here -- the same Star Trek Universe where species from opposite ends of the galaxy with totally different biochemistries can interbreed and produce viable (not to mention FERTILE) offspring and in which evolution apparently occurs at a MUCH faster rate than in Real LifeTM...
Besides, I'm pretty sure that studies have shown dolphins and whales to be significantly more intelligent than dogs, i.e., on par with primates such as chimps. I am waaay to lazy to dig up sources for that, though.
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
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posted
It depends on your testing though- yes, tey likely are[/ as smart as chimps...
but I'm not serving on a starship with a chimp as navigator. Not even Furious George.
Then again, I'm one of the few that thinks Distant Origin was an incredibly stupid- STUPID idea. (makes choking gestures toward all involved in that shitty episode's writing).
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
I agree that it (like much [though not all] of Voyager) was shitty, but it's canon.
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
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posted
Seaquest. That was the show with the talking dolphin. But it was a translator and the dolphin sounded kind of like a retard. They had a cool little dolphin scuba suit for him and everything.
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posted
Well....so is Janeway turning into a salamander. And an entire episode devoted to ships supposedly not being to turn while at warp (bookended by episodes showing Voyager doing just that several times).
(shrugs)
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Dark Mirror. That was the episode with the dolphin crewmember or scientist who could tell that, dimensionally, something was rotten in Denmark. His dialogue was really stupid, and really he was just a MacGffin to alert the crew that they'd crossed into the Mirror Universe.
posted
These are some of the reasons why I didn't like Brin's "Uplift War" series (plus the fact that he had these aliens living in the sun....) I'm not seeing and can't understand this desire to turn dolphins and chimps into sentient beings equal to humans.
But Planet of the Apes was cool (both versions). Go figure.
One of the Trek novels, "Probe" focused on the Probe from ST:IV. I've not read the book to see how involved the cetacaens are, though.
From Barns and Nobles:
quote:Ten years have passed since Captain Kirk and the EnterpriseTM crew brought back hump-backed whales from the twentieth century to communicate with the mysterious Probe which threatened Earth. The Probe is returning to Earth and has plotted its course, and the Enterprise must continue to delve into the mystery of its language, and its cosmic purpose to save Earth once again.
This adventure relates a saga of whales and the Starship Enterprise's attempts to save the earth.
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) the possibility of formal relations as equal beings. And as a result, wouldna ya know it, turns out the cetaceans make pretty dern good starship navigators...better than going blind looking at those Medusan fellows anyway. So the dolphins, being smaller and easier to transport have a go at it. The whales, on the other hand, remembering the way the humans piloted ships in Trek IV, graciously declined the offer. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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