Lanthanites. Canon, speculation, questions, wishful thinking.

[Detached Nacelle]

Captain Ake is reportedly half-Lanthanite, and implicitly half-human, so I guess that means they're aliens.

Not necessarily. We would say someone was half neanderthal half human if they were a hybrid of that, doesn't make neanderthals aliens just a different species of hominid.

Now I wonder if Daniels is part Lanthanite as he is more than 200 years old at this point so must have something in his more or loss extending his lifespan. If he is his lineage would be much smaller as he looks older and a younger age.

 

[matthunter]

I had to look up "F2 hybrid." Apparently it's a term from botany referring to the second-generation offspring of F1 hybrid plants. I think to apply to humanoids, it would have to be a case where both parents were the same half-and-half mix, e.g. two Vulcan-human hybrids. That doesn't seem like it would happen very often.

I guess by "when Klingons are involved," you're referring to Alexander Rozhenko (3/4 Klingon and 1/4 human) and Miral Paris (vice-versa). As for non-Klingon examples, we've seen several characters who were 3/4 human and 1/4 Betazoid: Devinoni Ral from TNG: "The Price," Walter Pierce from TNG: "Eye of the Beholder," and Thaddeus and Kestra Troi-Riker from Picard. Neelix and his sister Alixia were 7/8 Talaxian and 1/8 Mylean. Simon Tarses from TNG: "The Drumhead" was 3/4 human and 1/4 Romulan.

Which, in genetics terms (it also applies to animal breeding, not just plants) would be "backcrossing".

Neelix would be considered pure enough Talaxian by UK cattle breeding rules (i.e. you can register an animal as, say, a Hereford if it has no more than 1/8th of another breed in its genetics).

 

[Christopher]

Not necessarily. We would say someone was half neanderthal half human if they were a hybrid of that, doesn't make neanderthals aliens just a different species of hominid.

Fair point, although then you get into the weeds of how to define the word "alien," a term that historically only meant a foreigner (as in "illegal alien") and has only been widely accepted outside of prose science fiction as a term for extraterrestrials since the 1960s-70s. If people can refer to someone from a different country as an alien, I suppose the term could be applied to someone of a different Earth-native species.

I wasn't sure whether a hominin subspecies would be given a name ending in "-ite." When applied to people, that usually means a native of a place, like a Manhattanite or a Tellarite. However, it can also mean an adherent of a philosophy or practice, like a Luddite. And "lanthanite" (which in real life is the name of a category of rare-earth minerals) comes from a Greek word meaning "to lie hidden," so presumably Lanthanites are called that because they were hidden among humans for so long. Which does suggest they might be a native subspecies.

Now I wonder if Daniels is part Lanthanite as he is more than 200 years old at this point so must have something in his more or loss extending his lifespan. If he is his lineage would be much smaller as he looks older and a younger age.

Oh, you mean Kovich. It's already established that human longevity is greater in the future, given McCoy's survival to the TNG era, and this is 800 years further ahead, so there's no reason to assume that Daniels/Kovich's longevity is in any way unusual for humans of that era. Although Daniels did tell Archer he was "more or less" human, so he could have genes from any number of long-lived species. Longevity is a commonplace alien trait in science fiction, after all.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

Fair point, although then you get into the weeds of how to define the word "alien," a term that historically only meant a foreigner (as in "illegal alien") and has only been widely accepted outside of prose science fiction as a term for extraterrestrials since the 1960s-70s. If people can refer to someone from a different country as an alien, I suppose the term could be applied to someone of a different Earth-native species.

I wasn't sure whether a hominin subspecies would be given a name ending in "-ite." When applied to people, that usually means a native of a place, like a Manhattanite or a Tellarite. However, it can also mean an adherent of a philosophy or practice, like a Luddite. And "lanthanite" (which in real life is the name of a category of rare-earth minerals) comes from a Greek word meaning "to lie hidden," so presumably Lanthanites are called that because they were hidden among humans for so long. Which does suggest they might be a native subspecies.

Alas we may never know for sure but it's one of those things that we will debate and pick at for decades.

Interestingly I guess the Voth can't be called aliens if one goes strictly the extraterrestrial definition. I've never heard a foreigner referred to as an alien here in the UK only ever by US speakers, but I don't know if that's the result of it being just an Americanism or it just falling out of usage here.

Oh, you mean Kovich. It's already established that human longevity is greater in the future, given McCoy's survival to the TNG era, and this is 800 years further ahead, so there's no reason to assume that Daniels/Kovich's longevity is in any way unusual for humans of that era. Although Daniels did tell Archer he was "more or less" human, so he could have genes from any number of long-lived species. Longevity is a commonplace alien trait in science fiction, after all.

Yeah humans were described as hitting 140 the same way we today would talk of someone hitting 100. There has to be limits with how far the body can be pushed though but Daniels does have other lineages rattling around in there, enough for longevity not enough for a prosthetic.

 

[Christopher]

Interestingly I guess the Voth can't be called aliens if one goes strictly the extraterrestrial definition.

I think they could. Their forebears must have been taken from Earth more than 65 million years ago, but the Voth claim their history in the Delta Quadrant stretches back only 20 million years. Since the Voth pride themselves on the ancientness of their claim to their territory, they wouldn't settle for claiming 20 million years if they'd been around three times as long. So it stands to reason that their subsapient ancestors were taken off Earth by some kind of alien explorers or zookeepers or whatnot, and the Voth are what eventually descended from them some 40-odd megayears later. Thus, they could validly be called a non-terrestrial species, though descended from terrestrial ancestors.

I've never heard a foreigner referred to as an alien here in the UK only ever by US speakers, but I don't know if that's the result of it being just an Americanism or it just falling out of usage here.

The Online Etymology Dictionary says "alien" in the sense of "foreigner" dates back to the 14th or 15th century, so it was definitely part of British English at one point (derived from French).