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Does Star Trek support Ancient Astronaut theory

btw, as to trek or trek personnel (in this case the shat himself) and ancient astronaut bollocks

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... i guess he needed the money

Nimoy hosted In Search Of..., for a while. Which covered a lot of different fringe subjects.
 
Nimoy hosted In Search Of..., for a while. Which covered a lot of different fringe subjects.
as a heavy smoker he needed lots of money for tobacco - i'm german which means i have no idea what in search of was; what i know (and where nimoy was involved) is in search for spock.
 
To be fair, is the human building of pyramids actually canon?

*runs*
I was about to point out Daniels said so on Enterprise, but after double checking all he mentions is time travelers observing the construction of the pyramids with no mention to who actually built them. That's nebulous enough that Memory Alpha shouldn't accept "humans built the pyramids" canon according to their strictly canonical only policy.

But as we all know, that policy is very haphazard in how it's applied and ultimately it just.
 
I was about to point out Daniels said so on Enterprise, but after double checking all he mentions is time travelers observing the construction of the pyramids with no mention to who actually built them. That's nebulous enough that Memory Alpha shouldn't accept "humans built the pyramids" canon according to their strictly canonical only policy.

That's not nebulous at all, because there's no rational basis for doubt. You're getting the burden of proof backward there. The burden is on the less likely idea. Obviously humans built the pyramids in reality, so that would be the default assumption in a fictional universe unless there is explicit evidence to the contrary. Heck, even "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" said that humans did the actual building of ancient pyramids, cities, etc., even if Kukulkan supposedly gave them the plans.
 
That's not nebulous at all, because there's no rational basis for doubt. You're getting the burden of proof backward there. The burden is on the less likely idea. Obviously humans built the pyramids in reality, so that would be the default assumption in a fictional universe unless there is explicit evidence to the contrary. Heck, even "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" said that humans did the actual building of ancient pyramids, cities, etc., even if Kukulkan supposedly gave them the plans.
It was meant to be a joke about Memory Alpha and their supposed "strictly canonical only" policy which only gets applied to things they don't like. Like when they tried to say Adira on Disco is not canonically non-binary because they were never explicitly stated on-screen to be non-binary. Yet MA does refer to the Captain of the Yorktown in TVH as Joel Randolph despite the fact that name is never used onscreen at all, not even in the movie's credits and therefore should be ineligible under a "strictly canonical only policy."

And before anyone starts, yes, I am aware MA does now acknowledge Adira is non-binary. But trust me, that took a lot of teeth pulling.
 
That's not nebulous at all, because there's no rational basis for doubt. You're getting the burden of proof backward there. The burden is on the less likely idea. Obviously humans built the pyramids in reality, so that would be the default assumption in a fictional universe unless there is explicit evidence to the contrary. Heck, even "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" said that humans did the actual building of ancient pyramids, cities, etc., even if Kukulkan supposedly gave them the plans.
but then who the fuck is daniels (that S is just too much) - better ask an expert like dr daniel jackson

... i guess now it's me who's got to run
 
If Roddenberry hated the Ancient Astronauts speculation, how did an episode like "Who Mourns for Adonais?" get made?
Its been a while since I’ve seen that episode, but I always took the main thrust of that story to be that the Greek gods were basically parasites.

They didn’t provide humanity with anything really, and demanded worship to ingratiate their own ego and power. And, like Kirk does to Apollo, humanity basically had to force them off of Earth.

It’s not a story of humanity being helped by ancient astronauts that provided knowledge and guidance. It’s a story of how humanity overcame alien invaders, who were petty and vain, to forge our own path.

It fits the general theme of TOS where the crew of the Enterprise rejects false gods wherever they go and believes societies have to be based on the empirical reality of who and what they are, and what they can do for themselves.

Side Note: I’ve always wondered if the names Vulcan and Romulan imply that the Greek gods also visited ancient Vulcan too? And that’s the reason why those societies have those names, that they had encountered them too and it left a cultural memory.
 
They didn’t provide humanity with anything really, and demanded worship to ingratiate their own ego and power. And, like Kirk does to Apollo, humanity basically had to force them off of Earth.
At the end of "Who Mourns", Kirk credits the Olympians with kickstarting Western civilization, but Apollo tells Lt. Palamas that humanity eventually turned their backs on the them, so I guess it's somewhere in the middle.
Side Note: I’ve always wondered if the names Vulcan and Romulan imply that the Greek gods also visited ancient Vulcan too? And that’s the reason why those societies have those names, that they had encountered them too and it left a cultural memory.
This is probably influenced by Trek novels, but I always thought that Vulcan and Romulan were human descriptors and not what they called themselves in their native languages.
 
This is probably influenced by Trek novels, but I always thought that Vulcan and Romulan were human descriptors and not what they called themselves in their native languages.
That is from the novels. As far as the shows go, we know Romulans at least actually do call themselves Romulans. In the Enterprise Minefield, Hoshi is translating the message from the Romulan ship and says "they claim to have annexed this region of space in the name of something called the Romalan Star Empire." T'Pol then corrects her and says "it's pronounced Romulan." And then goes onto provide details of incidents involving an alien race who identified themselves as Romulans that have been reported by various races over the years.

Meanwhile, there was a Voyager episode where Tuvok was surprised to find out the world Vulcan existed on Earth for hundreds of years prior to First Contact. Maybe not as conclusive as the Romulan example, but also strongly hints that Vulcan really is their name for themselves.
 
This is probably influenced by Trek novels, but I always thought that Vulcan and Romulan were human descriptors and not what they called themselves in their native languages.

Yes, that was obviously the intent in "Balance of Terror" -- that their twin planets were named Romulus and Remus by humans, after the twins from Roman mythology. After all, the two species barely communicated during the war, so of course humans' name for them came from humans. It would be ridiculous for the inhabitants of twin planets to call themselves names that coincidentally sounded like twins from human mythology, which is why it was so damn stupid when ENT: "Minefield" claimed that the Romulans called themselves that.

As for Vulcan, given that Roddenberry's original idea was that Spock was "possibly half-Martian," I strongly suspect that Vulcan was originally intended to be the hypothetical Solar planet of that name that was once suspected to exist within Mercury's orbit. That theory was debunked in the early 20th century when Einstein's General Theory of Relativity accounted for the anomalies in Mercury's orbit that Vulcan had been proposed to explain, but the idea of Vulcan persisted in fiction for decades. It wasn't until "Amok Time" that Vulcan was more or less clearly established as an extrasolar planet, so I suspect the original intent was that it was "our" Vulcan, and perhaps that was changed when the show's science consultants pointed out that Vulcan's existence had been disproven.

Anyway, it's entirely natural to expect that humans use our own names for alien worlds instead of theirs, in the same way that English-speakers refer to Deustchland as Germany, Suomi as Finland, Nihon as Japan, Zhonghua as China, Bharat as India, etc. So if an alien planet's or species's name in Trek corresponds to an existing word in Earth mythology or culture, it should be taken as highly likely that the name is a human substitute for whatever the indigenous name is.


Meanwhile, there was a Voyager episode where Tuvok was surprised to find out the world Vulcan existed on Earth for hundreds of years prior to First Contact.

I think you must be misremembering this exchange from "Concerning Flight":

DA VINCI: Well, this er, fascinating conversation has left me as dry as Vulcan.
TUVOK: Vulcan?
DA VINCI: An island off Sicily. Have you been there?
TUVOK: No.
DA VINCI: Pity.

It makes no sense to suggest that Tuvok, who had been in Starfleet on and off for over 80 years at that point, would have never come across the knowledge that the name "Vulcan" existed in any context in Earth history. Surely he would've known it was the name of the Roman god of fire and volcanoes, and indeed the etymological origin of the word "volcano." He just wasn't expecting to hear it used as a place name by a historical holodeck character.


If anything, Enterprise seems to imply that the Vulcans' own name for their planet is Minshara.
 
Yes, that was obviously the intent in "Balance of Terror" -- that their twin planets were named Romulus and Remus by humans, after the twins from Roman mythology. After all, the two species barely communicated during the war, so of course humans' name for them came from humans. It would be ridiculous for the inhabitants of twin planets to call themselves names that coincidentally sounded like twins from human mythology, which is why it was so damn stupid when ENT: "Minefield" claimed that the Romulans called themselves that.

As for Vulcan, given that Roddenberry's original idea was that Spock was "possibly half-Martian," I strongly suspect that Vulcan was originally intended to be the hypothetical Solar planet of that name that was once suspected to exist within Mercury's orbit. That theory was debunked in the early 20th century when Einstein's General Theory of Relativity accounted for the anomalies in Mercury's orbit that Vulcan had been proposed to explain, but the idea of Vulcan persisted in fiction for decades. It wasn't until "Amok Time" that Vulcan was more or less clearly established as an extrasolar planet, so I suspect the original intent was that it was "our" Vulcan, and perhaps that was changed when the show's science consultants pointed out that Vulcan's existence had been disproven.

Anyway, it's entirely natural to expect that humans use our own names for alien worlds instead of theirs, in the same way that English-speakers refer to Deustchland as Germany, Suomi as Finland, Nihon as Japan, Zhonghua as China, Bharat as India, etc. So if an alien planet's or species's name in Trek corresponds to an existing word in Earth mythology or culture, it should be taken as highly likely that the name is a human substitute for whatever the indigenous name is.




I think you must be misremembering this exchange from "Concerning Flight":

DA VINCI: Well, this er, fascinating conversation has left me as dry as Vulcan.
TUVOK: Vulcan?
DA VINCI: An island off Sicily. Have you been there?
TUVOK: No.
DA VINCI: Pity.

It makes no sense to suggest that Tuvok, who had been in Starfleet on and off for over 80 years at that point, would have never come across the knowledge that the name "Vulcan" existed in any context in Earth history. Surely he would've known it was the name of the Roman god of fire and volcanoes, and indeed the etymological origin of the word "volcano." He just wasn't expecting to hear it used as a place name by a historical holodeck character.


If anything, Enterprise seems to imply that the Vulcans' own name for their planet is Minshara.
exactly, and whatever horta calls her home planet nobody in starfleet can pronounce anyway so janus VI it is

but (and that's big BUT) why do we call them vulcans after they made first contact? did they tell us anything about their planet? we should have called them the guys with the strange ears which means gone through earth mythology to find something that centers around the ears not the weather on their planet.
 
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but (and that's big BUT) why do we call them vulcans after they made first contact?

Why do we still call the Nihonjin Japanese, the Bharati Indians, the Deutsch Germans? Why wouldn't they still call them Vulcans? Why do you think that needs explanation when it's so commonplace in real life?
 
Why do we still call the Nihonjin Japanese, the Bharati Indians, the Deutsch Germans? Why wouldn't they still call them Vulcans? Why do you think that needs explanation when it's so commonplace in real life?
i think it's illogical to start calling them vulcans right after first contact (we just don't know enough about them to use that analogy) so 'our' name for them should be more straight forward (hence the ears). but i'm sure if we ever meet people with pointy ears in real life we will call them vulcans if we can't pronounce their proper names bercause now our 'mythology' has connected vulcans with pointy ears.

why do you call us germans? because the romans invented that word for us (it's also older than deutsch*). btw, nobody calls the romans anything but romans (i guess their aggressivenes plays a role here).
 
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