What would a half-Andorian, half-Vulcan child look like?

[Pauln6]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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Indeed. There is more drama and conflict in exploring the role of a hybrid in society than that of a character of a single planetary origin. And Star Trek is a drama first and foremost.

I actually don't agree with this at all. In the history of Trek we have had only one Human-Vulcan hybrid and numerous pureblood Vulcans. I don't think that the stories focusing on the pure Vulcans had less drama and conflict. In fact, only a tiny part of Spock's established history revolved around his human heritage. It's the same with Troi - why not just make her an empathic Betazoid and focus on giving her race a culture and idiosyncracies (instead of plot-busting telepathy)? It's all in the writing and I just think that half-breeds are so cliche that they can represent lazy writing.

There are also numerous ways of doing hybrids that don't involve standard interbreeding. These include rescue from an alien civilisation (Worf, or Seven), genetic transformation (Delenn, Tuvix, Lyta Alexander), disguise (Seska), body swaps/possession (Sargon, Pah Wraiths, Tokra). Generally if an alien species is interesting I don't think you need the millstone of being a hybrid to give the character drama. Trois is the classic example. She was woefully underused and her half-human heritage added no drama at all because she was a poorly conceived character.

[Kain]

As I see it, Troi was made half-human just to have weaker telepathic abilities than full Betazoids. She could only sense feelings, because if she could read minds it would be too easy to solve every problem in the series as soon as it was introduced. Not that she was used at her full potential in the series anyway, but whatever...

Also, using the same principle, wouldn't a Human-Vulcan hybrid like Spock be able to become way more logical than a full Vulcan, because, as a Human in comparison to the Vulcans, he would have weaker feelings to suppress, since Vulcans have way stronger feelings than Humans?

[Pauln6]

Kain wrote:

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As I see it, Troi was made half-human just to have weaker telepathic abilities than full Betazoids. She could only sense feelings, because if she could read minds it would be too easy to solve every problem in the series as soon as it was introduced. Not that she was used at her full potential in the series anyway, but whatever...

Also, using the same principle, wouldn't a Human-Vulcan hybrid like Spock be able to become way more logical than a full Vulcan, because, as a Human in comparison to the Vulcans, he would have weaker feelings to suppress, since Vulcans have way stronger feelings than Humans?

Yes but if they hadn't made Betazoids powerful telepaths in the first place, they would not have needed to make Troi half-human to put the genie back in the bottle.

Spock was a more powerful telepath than most Vulcans and I don't think tehy ever really made much of his human heritage - or at least nothing that wasn't also attributed to full-blooded Vulcans in later series.

I love Andorians actually. Best thing Enterprise did was to finally give them some air time. Both species have a lot of inherent traits. Mixing and matching them would be a bit of a nightmare.

[StarryEyed]

Kain wrote:

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...wouldn't a Human-Vulcan hybrid like Spock be able to become way more logical than a full Vulcan, because, as a Human in comparison to the Vulcans, he would have weaker feelings to suppress, since Vulcans have way stronger feelings than Humans?

Actually, the current thinking is that emotions are hard-wired into a human brain and that it would be physiologically impossible for a Human to process information without an emotional bias.

As to combining the two, it would be like trying to build a plasma TV by combining the parts from a CRT TV and an LCD TV. Simply not possible.

[Finn]

SpyOne wrote:

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A few thoughts:
I don't know if ENT weighed in on this, but I seem to recall when Data was doing one of his verbal data-dumps about comparative views on mating that he said Andorians married in groups of 4. Trek Lit seems to have taken that ball and run with it to the idea that Andorians have 4 genders..

Having four genders doesn't necessarily mean four sexes... There ARE some cultures here on Earth where there are THREE genders.

[teacake]

Finn wrote:

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Having four genders doesn't necessarily mean four sexes... There ARE some cultures here on Earth where there are THREE genders.

Are you referring to the eunuchs in India?

[DevilEyes]

SpyOne wrote:

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I believe the only time we have had an on-screen mention of a crossbreed that wasn't "Human-something" it was Klingon-Trill. Trek seems to follow the convention of many Fantasy settings that humans can breed with almost anything.

Uuummm, Cardassian-Bajorans hybrids? Two of them in fact - Ziyal, and Dukat's other half-Bajoran child, with Mika the cultist - which apparently get conceived naturally and even come as a surprise?

[neozeks]

Pauln6 wrote:

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Yes but if they hadn't made Betazoids powerful telepaths in the first place, they would not have needed to make Troi half-human to put the genie back in the bottle.

I'm curious. I remember that in some of the novels I've read they could read people's minds, but was that really established in the show? I don't remember TNG quite so clearly but I always assumed telepathy worked just among themselves and other telephatic species. You mean Lwaxana could have read Picard's mind (as in full thoughts, not just emotions) at any time?

[StarryEyed]

neozeks wrote:

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I'm curious. I remember that in some of the novels I've read they could read people's minds, but was that really established in the show? I don't remember TNG quite so clearly but I always assumed telepathy worked just among themselves and other telephatic species. You mean Lwaxana could have read Picard's mind (as in full thoughts, not just emotions) at any time?

Yup. They didn't seem to have the ability to project thoughts onto others or manipulate them telepathically but they could read most species easily. In that regard, they were much more powerful telepaths than the Vulcans. They just had problems with four-lobed species like Ferengi and Dopterians.

[Nerys Ghemor]

StarryEyed wrote:

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Dude, you're speaking about a subject you obviously know absolutely nothing about. That is never a good idea. If you have no problem with impossible creatures on Star Trek, that's fine but don't try to argue that they are actually believable. Hybrids are flat-out impossible outside of being genetically engineered and grown in a lab. That is not an opinion.

Unless we make the presumption that some of the humanoid species are either subspecies, or belong to the same genus.

For political reasons this would NEVER be acknowledged (as we saw in "The Chase"), but IRL we have the example of the Felidae for successful, viable interspecies breeding within the same family (and in a couple of cases across genus lines). A serval-house cat hybrid has actually been established as a viable breed of pet, and without any genetic manipulation whatsoever. The offspring, known as Savannahs, are healthy and fertile.

I would not think all Trek species would be compatible, by any means.

But, in terms of believability, I would actually believe a Cardassian-Bajoran child more readily than a human-Vulcan one. If we consider Cardassians to be therapsids and NOT reptilians, and interpret onscreen evidence to suggest that they have iron-based blood, then compatibility there makes more sense than expecting two entirely different blood types to actually mate successfully unless heavy genetic manipulation is involved (which may explain why Spock had almost nothing human about his outward appearance).

[StarryEyed]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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...Unless we make the presumption that some of the humanoid species are either subspecies, or belong to the same genus.

That works for Vulcans/Romulans and MAYBE Humans/Betazeds. We already know the Vulcans and Romulans have a common origin and one might be able to make a case that the same is true with Humans and Betazeds but when you look at species like Human-Vulcan or Human-Klingon or Andorian-Vulcan or Cardassian-Bajoran, forget it. Notwithstanding the scientific illiteracy of some of the posters here, we know how genetics works and we know that natural hybrids between such disparate species is impossible. Even genetically engineered unions are hard to see.

TNG-The Chase was a nice effort to try to fix the mess they created. Unfortunately, the writers either didn't understand how evolution works or they underestimated the scientific knowledge of the typical Trek nerd. Even if there was a base commonality between all humanoid species, it would still be impossible for disparate species like Humans and Vulcans to reproduce. The physiological differences are enormous. It's not just blood chemistry - although that would be plenty enough to make Human-Vulcan Hybrids impossible. Vulcans have very-high body temperature, very-high heart rate and very-low blood pressure. All the organs would have to function completely differently. As other posters have already pointed out, Humans have FAR MORE in common with great apes than we would with Vulcans and we (thankfully) can't mate with those.

[Nerys Ghemor]

IRL, yeah, I agree that nothing like that could ever happen. But for the purposes of the Trekiverse, I think we have to go with the "same genus" theory and assume heavy genetic engineering on the part of the Progenitors with further engineering by the affected species.

[StarryEyed]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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IRL, yeah, I agree that nothing like that could ever happen. But for the purposes of the Trekiverse, I think we have to go with the "same genus" theory and assume heavy genetic engineering on the part of the Progenitors with further engineering by the affected species.

Ah yes, for the purpose of the Trekverse.

Fortunado: For the love of God, Montressor!

Montressor: Yes, for the love of God.

My apologies to Edgar Alan Poe.

I will acknowledge that we definitely have to turn a blind eye during much of our viewing of our beloved Trekverse. I for one, wish the need was less obvious and less often. Thus I highly discourage Vulcan-Andorian Frankensteins.

[Nerys Ghemor]

(Ooooh, I LOVED that story, and a lot of Poe's work. A forerunner to Lovecraft, but unlike Lovecraft, not so horrifying that I can't read it without nightmares. Hm...come to think of it, maybe Poe is more of a forerunner to Hitchcock. )

In my own case I had to do a lot of story work to ensure that despite appearances, the Cardassians were more similar to other species underneath than it might appear.

But a Vulcan-Andorian hybrid...that's one that in my own writing I would definitely have to nix completely, even WITH genetic engineering.

[StarryEyed]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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(Ooooh, I LOVED that story, and a lot of Poe's work. A forerunner to Lovecraft, but unlike Lovecraft, not so horrifying that I can't read it without nightmares.

The Cask of Amontillado didn't give you nightmares? Maybe I was wrong about hybrids; you might have some Cardassian genes after all.

Can't you imagine Andrew Robinson in the role of Montressor?