A Human alien

[Christopher]

Charles, is there some reason you're ignoring my repeated questions about whether you're proposing a human progenitor or a humanoid one?

But yes, Star Trek already has a bit of a "small galaxy" feel in that it covers a quarter of the galaxy in the Federation and it's only a hundred inhabited planets. Meaning, despite appearances, the galaxy is a largely vastly uninhabited place filled with lots of barren rock.

Err, no, not even close. I think you're conflating the two very different categories of what the Federation has explored (which, according to the TNG series bible, was about 19% of the entire galaxy as of the beginning of that series) and what actually constitutes its territory. It should be easily understandable that those are two very different things. Heck, right now we've got space probes exploring Mercury, Vesta, and the moons of Saturn, but that doesn't make those locations part of United States or European territory.

If anything, ST is clearly in a galaxy that's overloaded with sentient species. Just look at all the multispecies crowd scenes in various movies and shows, all the one-shot aliens we never see again. There's obviously no shortage of life in the Trek galaxy.

Privately, I tend to like the "small galaxy" postulation because I prefer the idea that somehow humans will make it to be beings like the Q and will remain until the end of this wonderful universe of ours.

What?? Once again, you seem to be talking about two entirely unrelated subjects as if they're the same thing. What does the size of the galaxy have to do with the longevity of a culture?

I'm not particularly bothered by cultures which can potentially exist forever as well either since presumably after you reach a certain age you will cease to change because you've accumulated a certain amount of wisdom.

That is a very strange, sad notion. Learning isn't something that's supposed to stop when you get to a certain point. It's a lifelong process. And since the universe is always changing around you, it would be suicidal to refuse to change with it. Stagnation is a strategy for extinction, not eternal existence. And it would really, really suck to be immortal and have every day be exactly like every other day. It wouldn't be a life worth having at all, let alone forever.

Besides, culture is what matters to me as opposed to genetic legacy.

Well, culture changes and evolves far more swiftly than genes do. Even cultures that claim to be perpetuating ancient traditions are usually far more mutable than they pretend. At the very least they go through cycles as the balance between conflicting forces within them shifts back and forth.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Err, no, not even close. I think you're conflating the two very different categories of what the Federation has explored (which, according to the TNG series bible, was about 19% of the entire galaxy as of the beginning of that series) and what actually constitutes its territory. It should be easily understandable that those are two very different things. Heck, right now we've got space probes exploring Mercury, Vesta, and the moons of Saturn, but that doesn't make those locations part of United States or European territory.

Almost the entirety of the Alpha Quadrant by TNG doesn't necessarily mean that there's boatloads of more worlds. You're correct there could be a lot of worlds that are not part of the Federation but equally possible is that it really does rule the majority of it (the same as the Romulans and Klingons)

What?? Once again, you seem to be talking about two entirely unrelated subjects as if they're the same thing. What does the size of the galaxy have to do with the longevity of a culture?

Metaphorical "small galaxy" as opposed to literal. I.e. that the Star Trek universe is a place that we've already got a handle on the majority of the main powers thereof.

]That is a very strange, sad notion. Learning isn't something that's supposed to stop when you get to a certain point. It's a lifelong process. And since the universe is always changing around you, it would be suicidal to refuse to change with it. Stagnation is a strategy for extinction, not eternal existence. And it would really, really suck to be immortal and have every day be exactly like every other day. It wouldn't be a life worth having at all, let alone forever.

It depends if you consider at any point if there's an ideal personality and attitude to take. Change is not, by itself, good. It's just change.

 

[Christopher]

You're still completely ignoring the single question that's giving me the most trouble here. Why won't you answer? It's a very simple question.

Almost the entirety of the Alpha Quadrant by TNG doesn't necessarily mean that there's boatloads of more worlds. You're correct there could be a lot of worlds that are not part of the Federation but equally possible is that it really does rule the majority of it (the same as the Romulans and Klingons)

...

Metaphorical "small galaxy" as opposed to literal. I.e. that the Star Trek universe is a place that we've already got a handle on the majority of the main powers thereof.

Have you even seen Star Charts? Here's the galaxy map from it:

http://ucip.org/sims/science/newmaps/quadrants.jpg

The volume of space explored by the Federation is a tiny fraction of the galaxy as a whole, and it's much vaster than the actual political territory of the Federation, which is that tiny white circle in the middle. (The 19% figure in the original TNG bible is hard to reconcile with what was later established about the more compact Federation; it may refer to what's been charted by remote probes like the one that charted the Idran system in the Gamma Quadrant.) What's known of the galaxy by the 24th century is nowhere remotely near the majority of its powers or inhabitants.

It depends if you consider at any point if there's an ideal personality and attitude to take. Change is not, by itself, good. It's just change.

And it's inescapable. Like I said, the universe is always changing around us whether we like it or not. Staying the same can work fine as long as your environment stays the same, but once it changes, you need to adapt or go extinct.

There is no truly "ideal" way of existing except growth and openness to novelty. The universe is governed by entropy; all things tend toward decay. If you try to stay unchanged, you just guarantee that you'll deteriorate and backslide. That's why so many entrenched institutions become corrupt and decadent and eventually get overthrown by new ones. The only way to stay healthy is to stay active and adaptive.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Yes, on the other hand, you could say that "being compassionate but not stupid" is a universal constant. Also, just because you don't go from democracy to fascism doesn't mean you're not backsliding. There's a number of ways to maintain a consistent culture and attitude without being a static evolutionary dead-end.

Though you raise very good points and I concede on the galaxy point.

*bows head*

 

[Christopher]

But the timescale of a culture -- a few thousand years -- is a blink of an eye compared to the timescale of a species -- a few million years -- or a galaxy -- a few billion years. What constitutes an extremely long and successful run on the former scale is practically nothing on the larger scale. I know it's a difficult thing for the human mind to grasp; it's hard to comprehend large numbers like millions or billions of years because they're so profoundly beyond our experience, so we tend to grossly underestimate the difference between thousands of years and billions of years -- leading to nonsensical notions like the idea of a single species or culture outliving an entire universe. It's a matter of proportion. What's effectively forever on a human scale is a very brief time on a galactic or universal scale.

 

[xortex]

I didn't know the Homo sapien species will only last a couple of million years. What's the next stage in our evolution. I thought culture never dies and is passed down. Some things remain the same, fixed and last forever and are not reducable, are they not, like styrophoam. Things constantly evolve and figure out how to survive even death like the Borg. Don't they? Changing and evolving are two different things, are they not?

Trek universe building doesn't have to be a hard science. People like unifyied approaches to things even if they are just lies. The truth may be a paradox itelf as in a false truth. What's true for you may not be true for me next thursday or two years ago or in another reality or universe, etc.. Though the truth can never be a lie, I guess a lie can be true to some extent.

 

[Charles Phipps]

But the timescale of a culture -- a few thousand years -- is a blink of an eye compared to the timescale of a species -- a few million years -- or a galaxy -- a few billion years. What constitutes an extremely long and successful run on the former scale is practically nothing on the larger scale. I know it's a difficult thing for the human mind to grasp; it's hard to comprehend large numbers like millions or billions of years because they're so profoundly beyond our experience, so we tend to grossly underestimate the difference between thousands of years and billions of years -- leading to nonsensical notions like the idea of a single species or culture outliving an entire universe. It's a matter of proportion. What's effectively forever on a human scale is a very brief time on a galactic or universal scale.

I suppose it depends on your interpretation of human importance. In real life, I honestly don't believe in aliens. I believe, quite seriously, in the trillions of systems in this universe there is no other intelligent life. There never will be intelligent life and if humanity dies, that's it for any meaning the universe may have barring unseen extra-dimensional deities.

We're a tremendously "young" species but whatever importance exists in this universe depends entirely on the interaction of sentient life with the otherwise empty cosmos. A single culture, a thousand years old or not, is more important than a forty billion year old empty galaxy. Now, obviously, we can't imagine what a culture older than a million years or even a billion years could possibly be like because (as far as we know) we're the oldest intelligent species in the cosmos.

It's fun to imagine with science fiction what an "Elder Race" might be like - something which has seen the early forming stars and planets and come away with a "time abyss" perspective. Humans have often speculated on this with gods but we rarely get an idea of what aliens who are literally older than dirt might be like....or how the human race might change if we alter ourselves to be immortal and last til the end of the cosmos.

I didn't know the Homo sapien species will only last a couple of million years. What's the next stage in our evolution. I thought culture never dies and is passed down. Some things remain the same, fixed and last forever and are not reducable, are they not, like styrophoam. Things constantly evolve and figure out how to survive even death like the Borg. Don't they? Changing and evolving are two different things, are they not?

Trek universe building doesn't have to be a hard science. People like unifyied approaches to things even if they are just lies. The truth may be a paradox itelf as in a false truth. What's true for you may not be true for me next thursday or two years ago or in another reality or universe, etc.. Though the truth can never be a lie, I guess a lie can be true to some extent.

I got all of what you're saying and heartily agree.

 

[xortex]

But what will survive will be very different. In a million years we'll be the Klingons and they'll be the humans or Vulcans. That's the question - survive how? It may not be worth it if it's the Borg's solution.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Yeah, there was an experiment in my philosophy class where we talked about the importance of survival vs. ethics.

Becoming Borg is definitely not worth the survival of the genome. Simultaneously, were Earth to be destroyed but humanity's values to live on with say, the Bajorans then it might be alright.

 

[xortex]

I'm curious what the outcome of that class was. Does anything trump survival?

 

[Charles Phipps]

The hypothetical basically boiled down to, 'if you knew your descendants would be nothing but evil FOREVER then survival wasn't worth it - even if it was the extinction of the human race.' Basically, some saying they'd prefer their children to not exist if they were Nazis forever (some used other cultural values - religion came up a couple of times) while others believed if there was hope for a culture to save itself then humanity should always try to survive.

 

[Christopher]

I suppose it depends on your interpretation of human importance.

Importance on what scale? All measurements are relative.

In real life, I honestly don't believe in aliens. I believe, quite seriously, in the trillions of systems in this universe there is no other intelligent life. There never will be intelligent life and if humanity dies, that's it for any meaning the universe may have barring unseen extra-dimensional deities.

Well, first off, I don't see what that has to do with a discussion of the Star Trek universe. And second, current scientific evidence is increasingly suggesting that life is probably extremely common in the galaxy. About a decade ago there was a vogue in "Rare Earth" thinking, arguments suggesting that habitable planets like Earth were profoundly uncommon in the universe, but most of the arguments supporting that notion have been debunked by subsequent research, and we've been discovering gobs of extrasolar planets in recent years, as well as finding liquid water in places within our own solar system that we never would've expected. It seems increasingly unlikely that we would be the only life in the entire universe.

 

[rfmcdpei]

No species or civilization is as monolithic as sci-fi tends to portray them. They have diverse factions and subcultures that tend to branch off from one another and pursue different paths.

A month ago we talked about how the modern Vulcans have produced at least two major civilizations, the civilization of 40 Eridani and the civilization of the Romulans, and possibly multiple smaller offshoots including populations like the Rigellians. The planet Vulcan may be unified, but the Vulcan species? Not hardly.

Spoiler: Re: Axis of Time

For instance, in the Axis of Time subplot of WTC, I did indicate that the Vulcanoid from the future had never heard of Vulcans, Romulans, or the Federation, implying that a lot of cultural knowledge had been forgotten, but the species, or a descendant of it, lived on. And I did hint at the end that Shiiem's people, who came from further ahead than the Vulcanoids, were in actuality a far-future descendant of humanity.

So even though knowledge may be lost by some, it may still survive elsewhere in the galaxy. After all, it is a very huge galaxy.

Regardless of authorial intent, there's still several ways that could be seen. Maybe Shiiem has a very good poker face. Maybe Shiiem is as unfamiliar with the cultural labels that ancient cultures of her species used as the average person might be of (say) the languages of Italy in the early Roman Republic. All that can be said conclusively is that, interacting with people of a couple dozen thousand years ago, Shiiem herself didn't act as if she was aware of their history. That is far from confirming that Shiiem's era is without knowledge of this epoch.

In several millennia, never mind millions of years, the identity of different humanoid groups may stop being relevant as migration and intermarriage creates a new mixed population. If you're an Argelian married to a half-Betazed/half-Deltan living on Bajor and there's no obstacle--cultural, biological and technological--to producing fertile offspring, how long will thee different populatons remain distinct? The Federation of Jena Noi's era might well think that the "human speces" includes--among others--once-isolated planetary populations that, brought into the galaxy, are interfertile with others.

 

[rfmcdpei]

But the timescale of a culture -- a few thousand years -- is a blink of an eye compared to the timescale of a species -- a few million years -- or a galaxy -- a few billion years. What constitutes an extremely long and successful run on the former scale is practically nothing on the larger scale. I know it's a difficult thing for the human mind to grasp; it's hard to comprehend large numbers like millions or billions of years because they're so profoundly beyond our experience, so we tend to grossly underestimate the difference between thousands of years and billions of years -- leading to nonsensical notions like the idea of a single species or culture outliving an entire universe. It's a matter of proportion. What's effectively forever on a human scale is a very brief time on a galactic or universal scale.

I suppose it depends on your interpretation of human importance. In real life, I honestly don't believe in aliens. I believe, quite seriously, in the trillions of systems in this universe there is no other intelligent life.

I think that's pretty pessimistic since I can think of five classes of Earthly animals--primates, cetaceans, elephants, and pigs among the mammals, corvids among the birds, and the cephalopods way over on the invertebrate side of the family separated by a billion years of evolution--which seem quite intelligent, including the debated potential for tool use, language, and even cultural transmission.

 

[rfmcdpei]

Yes, on the other hand, you could say that "being compassionate but not stupid" is a universal constant. Also, just because you don't go from democracy to fascism doesn't mean you're not backsliding. There's a number of ways to maintain a consistent culture and attitude without being a static evolutionary dead-end.

Christopher, how did you envisage the workings of the Manraloth civilization that had unified the Milky Way Galaxy and its environs for millions of years?

It's fun to imagine with science fiction what an "Elder Race" might be like - something which has seen the early forming stars and planets and come away with a "time abyss" perspective. Humans have often speculated on this with gods but we rarely get an idea of what aliens who are literally older than dirt might be like....or how the human race might change if we alter ourselves to be immortal and last til the end of the cosmos.

Isn't that what the Q are?

 

[JD]

^Yeah, I'm really into Apes and it's kinda scary at times just how human like they can be when it comes to the stuff that you mention.

 

[Idran]

And second, current scientific evidence is increasingly suggesting that life is probably extremely common in the galaxy. About a decade ago there was a vogue in "Rare Earth" thinking, arguments suggesting that habitable planets like Earth were profoundly uncommon in the universe, but most of the arguments supporting that notion have been debunked by subsequent research, and we've been discovering gobs of extrasolar planets in recent years, as well as finding liquid water in places within our own solar system that we never would've expected. It seems increasingly unlikely that we would be the only life in the entire universe.

To be fair, Charles said he doesn't believe there's any other intelligent life. There is something of a big jump between life being common and intelligent life being common. It's possible (though personally, I think unlikely) that intelligence is a rare or even unique solution to the evolutionary pressures our species underwent.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Oh yes, I have no doubt there's huge numbers of worlds covered in algae and maybe even small animal-like lifeforms of various types or another. I just note that thinking rationale thought is something that is quite possibly unique given the comparative rarity of Earth-like planets and the occurrences which lead to human life evolving.

How this links to my previous point is that the importance of the universe to me, as a reader, links directly with its tie to intelligent life.

 

[Christopher]

Spoiler: Re: Axis of Time

Regardless of authorial intent, there's still several ways that could be seen. Maybe Shiiem has a very good poker face. Maybe Shiiem is as unfamiliar with the cultural labels that ancient cultures of her species used as the average person might be of (say) the languages of Italy in the early Roman Republic. All that can be said conclusively is that, interacting with people of a couple dozen thousand years ago, Shiiem herself didn't act as if she was aware of their history. That is far from confirming that Shiiem's era is without knowledge of this epoch.

Uhh, you're getting your characters mixed up. Shiiem was a male character belonging to the Zcham species. The Vulcanoid female was Temarel of the Chenar species.

And my intent was simply that Temarel didn't recognize the names "Vulcan" or "Romulan." I didn't specify any further. There are many reasons why that could be, for instance, a change in the nomenclature as the language evolved.

Christopher, how did you envisage the workings of the Manraloth civilization that had unified the Milky Way Galaxy and its environs for millions of years?

Well, their extreme longevity sort of slowed the clock somewhat, making a single generation far longer and encouraging them to plan for the very long term. But even so, I tried to make it clear that they were not a single unchanging culture, but an ever-evolving complex of cultures adapting to the ever-changing needs and composition of the galaxy's inhabitants. A rigid, stagnant society could never keep the peace over the long term because it couldn't adapt to shifting circumstances.

Oh yes, I have no doubt there's huge numbers of worlds covered in algae and maybe even small animal-like lifeforms of various types or another. I just note that thinking rationale thought is something that is quite possibly unique given the comparative rarity of Earth-like planets and the occurrences which lead to human life evolving.

As I said, the notion that Earthlike planets are rare has been increasingly discredited in recent years.

And I've always found it sloppy reasoning on the part of the "Rare Earth" proponents to claim that arguments in favor of a low probability of Earthlike planets translated to a complete nonexistence of other Earthlike planets. "Few" is not the same as "none," especially with such a huge sample size as the galaxy. There are as many as 400 billion stars in the galaxy. Even if there's only one chance in a hundred million of a star system supporting intelligent life, that would still translate to several thousand sapient species.

How this links to my previous point is that the importance of the universe to me, as a reader, links directly with its tie to intelligent life.

I have no idea what this sentence means. Are we still talking about anything connected to Star Trek?

 

[Charles Phipps]

I have no idea what this sentence means. Are we still talking about anything connected to Star Trek?

Short version: I only really care about the Star Trek universe as it relates to intelligent interesting life. The longevity of the universe as a whole and the cultures thereof don't really enter into it. I would like, however, for us to be able to get a full picture of it and I don't mind ancient elder species.

For example, if we find the Organians are 4 billion years old and are still the same, I wouldn't mind.