Rahda

I think more mixed ethnicity characters is likely. We are mostly of mixed heritage now so on a globally United Earth, you would expect that to be magnified.

I don't try desperately for an in-universe explanation for casting choices. Didn't work for Cumberbatch. They need to up their game and cast more diverse actors, not look for an excuse for the status quo.

 

How do you figure that? How much "mixing" is happening in countries with homogeneous or near homogeneous populations?

 

Humans have never really been homogeneous. Our ancestors travelled far and wide before settling in remote locations. What we think of a homogeneous populations are usually that due to lack of contact with other ethnicities due to isolation and transporters would bring an end to that. The new isolation would be on colony worlds.

 

Still not buying it. How much immigration is happening to China, India or Japan?

 

Japan has a declining population so I'd imagine quite a lot but don't look at a snapshot, look at trends across centuries. Humans emigrated out of Africa, interbred with Neanderthals in Europe and they didn't colonise Australasia in one pop. People travelled from island to island with varying sea levels affecting how isolated they then became. China probably had low variation in remote areas but along the Silk Road ? Travelling inland vs settling on the coast?Transporters make everywhere accessible. Diversity would become the norm.

 

I'm talking about today though. How much "mixing" is really happening in Asia and Africa? Japan's declining population doesn't really say much about it's immigration levels or the number of mixed race people there.

 

It's hard to know. I would suspect that native and immigrant populations mix everywhere to some extent. Figures in 2015 were that 1 in 30 Japanese marriages were with a foreign national. Certainly Japan has relaxed it's visa system due to its severe labour shortage.

But in the context of 200 years in the future, with populations being so mobile and there being no bar to long distance relationships, multi-ethnic relationships and children might well be the norm.

 

I just read an article that said that China has 30 something million more men than women. That will lead to intermarriage. Or WW3. Whichever happens first.

 

But will those brides be coming from places like Africa, Europe and Western Asia or from places closed to home?

 

Ah the consequences of little emperor syndrome; the double edged sword of institutionalised sexism. Most likely women from the country will be tempted to the city and rural communities will gradually die off.

There are practical problems to poorer Chinese communities locating and securing foreign brides but if those were removed, such as by transporters, then it would be a free for all.

 

So, was it a wig or not ?

 

Although @Talos IV does not appear to have answered which memo this refers to, @Harvey found it for me in the Roddenberry papers. It's item 7 in a document titled Gene Roddenberry's Rough Notes on "THAT WHICH SURVIVES" final cut 10-29-68. A couple of other notes from this memo:

1. Too much standing around, arms behind their backs when they are carrying on a conversation; as they have their instruments, etc., have them moving and taking readings and carrying on conversation at the same time[...]

5. Talk to Doohan about overplaying.​

 

No one knows. The thread has veered off course. Helm won't respond, Captain!!

 

If WWIII really involved bombing big cities to the ground, it would stand to reason that China and India and other off-camera places would be the ones hurt - odds are that there would be no big cities in the locations we see, such as the former United States or the former Europe. The minimum size for big really ought to be 10 million at the very lowest, and then sixty of those would go down to allow for the quoted casualty figures. Bigger is better there - and the bigger, the more focused the mayhem is on China, India and the current Third World.

This might not affect whether Rahda can exist. But it might affect her hairstyle! Disguising might be culturally prudent for those previously targeted...

In any case, agreed that intermarrying isn't much of an issue around the globe today, and probably won't be even tomorrow when half the people in Japan are speaking Portugese. But global adoption of hairstyles certainly is.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Eh, it's just one of those threads where the initial question was answered very quickly, so things went off into their own direction. They can be fun.

 

It's amazing how threads can get hijacked. Does anyone here have a good recipe for cheese enchiladas?

 

Except the question wasn't answered. And you're right, some of those threads can be fun. This one is. Some, however, are . . . well, uh . . . .

 

Not many of Khan's supermen were South Asian either. I think that suggests ethnicity in the 90s being more mixed in Star Trek's alternative history or possibly that the Eugenics programme was made up only of certain wealthy families.

China's and India's populations with large rural populations are huge although global warming may significantly impact on low lying nations like Bangladesh which will impact infrastructure. Large rural populations would survive city bombings to a large degree.

 

But for all we know the descendants of rural populations might be less interested in emigrating to alien planets, or joining Starfleet, and perhaps less qualified to do so, than the descendants of the populations of the bombed cities would have been.

 

Iowa is pretty rural. ;-p