Well, Shras was a real Andorian. Thelev was the Orion spy who'd been surgically altered.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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Shras is the best Andorian.
Definitely the creepiest. Reggie Nadler's facial expression when he says the word "MURDER" is glorious nightmare fuel and I love it.
As policy, maybe not. But in practice…. there have been multiple references to segregated Federation starships. In TOS, the USS Intrepid is said to have an all-Vulcan crew in “The Immunity Syndrome.”
In DS9’s “Take Me Out To The Holosuite,” the implication that Starfleet allows one of their captain’s to practice outright discrimination against all non-Vulcans is part of the reason I’ve always not exactly liked that episode as the fun romp it’s supposed to be.
It implies there’s no work based equal-protection, anti-discrimination equivalents in the Federation.
On that note, TAS--the continuation of TOS--had Arex and M'Ress as members of the 1701.
A live action version of these characters will be great to see
There is a reason he was cast as the vampire in 'Salem's Lot. And that was probably it.
And in an alternate timeline, an Andorian was first officer, Thelin.
The original point was someone said there aren’t enough alien personnel on SNW.
I’m not sure what TOS has to do with that!
Seems to be staffed by the "Big Four": Humans, Vulcans, Tellerites and Andorians.
There's even a Denobulan serving on the Enterprise in Season 2, a species that was among the first encountered by humans after breaking the warp barrier.
A visit to Vulcan from Amok Time:
MCCOY: Yeah. Hot as Vulcan. Now I understand what that phrase means.
KIRK: The atmosphere is thinner than Earth.
Spock's (dis)comfort from The Deadly Years:KIRK: The atmosphere is thinner than Earth.
SPOCK: I have a question for the doctor. (Kirk leaves) Doctor, the ship's temperature is increasingly uncomfortable for me. I've adjusted the environment in my quarters to one hundred twenty five degrees, which is at least tolerable. However, I
MCCOY: Well, I see I'm not going to be making any house calls on you.
SPOCK: I wondered if perhaps there was something which could lower my sensitivity to cold.
MCCOY: I'm not a magician, Spock, just an old country doctor.
The ambient temperature on the Intrepid was probably ~125 F (~51.7 C). MCCOY: Well, I see I'm not going to be making any house calls on you.
SPOCK: I wondered if perhaps there was something which could lower my sensitivity to cold.
MCCOY: I'm not a magician, Spock, just an old country doctor.
Too hot for human McCoy and me. "Yeah man, but it's the dry heat." Also on the reverse, there is no 23rd century medicine/treatment to alleviate Spock's sensitivity to cold suggesting that Vulcan's find the Enterprise too cold. (I guess he could wear a coat, but I think coats are not stocked anymore by the Quartermaster...anyone remember poor Sulu in The Enemy Within? and Chekov and guards in Spock's Brain 
). Andorians like it even colder, Humans stink and Tellurites probably stink worse, etc.No, mixed crews are not biologically practical. One or two might put up with the extreme discomforts for reasons, but in general, most want it comfortable.
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Not to mention crewmembers would be more efficient and less prone to making mistakes if they are not sweating or freezing while on duty.
Supposedly Majel did a screen test as M'Ress for TMP, or at least it was discussed. But the pics have never surfaced so it probably never went beyond discussions. I suspect a live-action version would be much more like the Kelvinverse Catians from Into Darkness - basically humans with tails. Although something like the Cats musical movie with CG fur might be fun.
Yeah. Alot of people think of "segregated ships" and insert a bit too much real world baggage into it. There are quite a few completely reasonable, logistical reasons why it makes sense.
There's clearly enough alien crew that don't mind or can otherwise be comfortable enough to serve on mostly human crews, but it's certainly not a ridiculous notion that it could just make alot more sense to keep like-groups together.
We have a different view of these types of issues from our modern day perspective. We get, perhaps rightfully so, defensive about racial issues. That shouldn't be the case in the future. It's just not as sensitive.
"Vulcans like it hot and think humans smell bad? Ok, then put Vulcans on a ship together that's more comfortable for them."
It's really not unreasonable, at all.
Yeah, as I said a few pages earlier: Equating alien characters with minority immigrants is doing no one a favour.
The whole point of aliens is that they are freakin' different. As much as I want humans to live in harmony with dolphins, I'm not going to complain about segregated living spaces.
Whereas the whole point of immigration/racism debates is that we are all humans, the same friggin' species, and the separations artificial/enforced/meaningless.
So this is really an apple/oranges thing. Which is not helped at all by having half-human/half-aliens, which IMO is much more a result of the Flash Gordon/Princess of Mars era of science fiction.
So yeah, /rant over, I know no solutions, but the problem constantly keeps up. Babylon 5 also has separated alien districts. No, it's not apartheid. It's aliens. They literally should have different living conditions.
The whole point of aliens is that they are freakin' different. As much as I want humans to live in harmony with dolphins, I'm not going to complain about segregated living spaces.
Whereas the whole point of immigration/racism debates is that we are all humans, the same friggin' species, and the separations artificial/enforced/meaningless.
So this is really an apple/oranges thing. Which is not helped at all by having half-human/half-aliens, which IMO is much more a result of the Flash Gordon/Princess of Mars era of science fiction.
So yeah, /rant over, I know no solutions, but the problem constantly keeps up. Babylon 5 also has separated alien districts. No, it's not apartheid. It's aliens. They literally should have different living conditions.
This has been bugging me for years. When we say something like "Vulcans have no emotions" (yes, I know, but that was how it started) or "Klingons are inherently violent" (NOT really how it started) it pings on our ears like "the Irish are drunks" or "Mexicans are lazy",
We're literally talking about a different species. There are vast similarities because of story choice and, of course, casting availability. But when you have a race that will literally die if they don't mate on the seventh year then that's not just an artificial cultural difference.
Those wouldn't be the reasons to separate crews though.
It would be the physical differences. Humans don't have this issue between races... we're all generally comfortable in the same environments, skin color and ancestry don't really matter.
With aliens... some of those thing DO matter.
We have the Benzites who must wear that funky atmospheric gadget to be able to work in the same environment as humans. And Elaysians who come from a planet with very low gravity, needing an anti-grav chair and servos to be able to function in Earth-similar gravity levels. There might be other species who would need to wear a sealed respirator or a pressure suit or something.
Kor
Kor
Agreed. For TOS I think it's arguable that a number of the "planets" in the UFP were intended to be the numerous human colonies we saw*, with a few friendly aliens added to the mix, from TNG on it seemed that most species largely lived only on their homeworld.
*=the Star Trek Technical Manual went with the assumption that the founding Federation members were several human colonies and Vulcan, although I'd argue that the amount of mystery surrounding Spock and Vulcans in TOS would indicate that they were a more recent addition to the Federation.
Yeah, I've always thought that Star Wars, literary science fiction and more money for alien makeup were the big driving factors for now having aliens everywhere in Trek, with the foremost likely being the most important.
While I think having more aliens around can add to the interest, my issue is there are so many that they all kind of get shortchanged into having monocultures. I sometimes wonder if say there were only six races making up the Federation, then those races and their cultures could be fleshed out in a more interesting manner.
The Zaaranites in TMP wore full face respirator masks - fun fact: the Zaaranite makeup included their entire head face and all, even though they were never seen without their masks on screen, I sort of like that they did that.
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