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Archer IV and planet naming

In my mind Kling is essentially the Klingon word for honor. Klingon could mean people of honor.

Stardate magazine once did an article on Klin points, a way to measure your status within the Empire. They had an example of how you could actually lose points due to a promotion (smaller ship, not likely to see combat, etc). All a part of Klin'Zha, the perpetual game.
 
Again, see my comments re: "Yesteryear." It's still possible to believe that the companion world exists; it's simply that the depiction of that world presented in the theatrical edition's matte painting was deeply problematical on many levels. "Yesteryear"'s version isn't quite so astronomically or geologically ludicrous, nor as badly designed a painting.

If I was bother by ludicrous science I wouldn't watch Star Trek. It's not ludicrous in the way that The Great Vegetable Rebellion was on Lost in Space but it's hardly Nova. Take out all the ludicrous elements and you wouldn't have Star Trek any more.

Amanda would be more likely to have a child with a gorilla or a killer whale or a bunch of broccoli than a Vulcan, for example.

Keep it at least fairly plausible (Flint's home looking like an Rigellian fortress is plausible. Making it look like the house from the Brady Bunch isn't). Maybe Flint had been to Rigel and liked the architecture. It wasn't even a distraction to me, let alone something that needed to be "fixed".
 
Amanda would be more likely to have a child with a gorilla or a killer whale or a bunch of broccoli than a Vulcan, for example.
How do you know? Have you read a textbook on Vulcan genetics lately? We have no idea how likely it would be for Amanda to conceive a child with a Vulcan. Our real-world 21st century science can't speak to that in the slightest.
 
How do you know? Have you read a textbook on Vulcan genetics lately? We have no idea how likely it would be for Amanda to conceive a child with a Vulcan. Our real-world 21st century science can't speak to that in the slightest.

Err, yes, it can. It should be obvious that a life form that evolved on an entirely separate planet would have even less relationship to us than another organism that came from the same evolutionary heritage as ourselves.

It's a common fallacy that science is incapable of saying anything about things we haven't directly observed. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is. The whole point of scientific theory is to extrapolate the underlying rules beneath our observations so that we can predict the outcomes of situations we haven't encountered yet. If you can demonstrate, say, that gravity works consistently on the Earth, the Moon, Mars, and everywhere else you measure it directly, and that the motions of stars and planets follow the same laws of gravity that your direct measurements showed, then you can state with great confidence that gravity will behave the same way on a planet you've never seen or visited -- because you understand the universal rule that lets you see beyond the limits of mere observation.

To offer a more familiar example, if you know that driving into a wall at 30 MPH will wreck your car in your city, then you can be reliably sure that if someone in a distant country you've never visited crashes their car into a wall at 30 MPH, it'll have the same effect. Even in everyday life, it is possible to make predictions beyond directly observed events by understanding the underlying ground rules.

In this case, the ground rule is that procreation is only possible between organisms that belong to the same species or to very closely related species. We don't need to know about life on other planets to know that's true about us. We know for certain that the only things we could procreate with would be fellow members of genus Homo. And that's a genus that evolved on this planet. It won't have evolved on another planet. There'd be no direct relationship there, not even a remotely close one -- unless some alien race like the Preservers had transplanted actual hominins evolved on Earth to that other planet.

Anyway, I don't know why you feel the need to object in scientific terms, however misinformed. We're talking about a work of fiction where alien characters symbolize human attributes. Interspecies breeding is a fictional conceit and a metaphor, nothing more. There's no reason to argue that it's something that could actually happen, because the shows that depict it are not making any such claim.
 
There'd be no direct relationship there, not even a remotely close one -- unless some alien race like the Preservers had transplanted actual hominins evolved on Earth to that other planet.
Which is definitely not the case for Vulcans, given their "copper-based blood."
Interspecies breeding is a fictional conceit and a metaphor, nothing more.
Agreed.
 
Which is definitely not the case for Vulcans, given their "copper-based blood."

Right. How the hell did Spock or Amanda even survive the pregnancy? Their biochemistries would've been toxic to each other. (Although some sources have suggested there was extensive medical help required to make it possible.)
 
We;ve also had Cardassia Prime as well as Cardassia III, IV & V. Just because a planet is in the same system doesn't mean that they all have to follow the sane numbering system. For all we know the other planets were the 3rd, 4th and 5th that the Cardassians colonized. They could be the George Foreman of aliens, naming all their major colonized planets Cardassia #.

(Background note - George Foreman named all five of his sons George - George Jr., George III, George IV, George V and George VI as well as a daughter named Georgetta). There's no reason to suspect that an alien race would follow the same naming conventions as humanity.
 
There'd be no direct relationship there, not even a remotely close one -- unless some alien race like the Preservers had transplanted actual hominins evolved on Earth to that other planet.
But that's part of the point. Although we can make pretty concrete assumptions about Vulcans not being genetically related to us, given their copper-based blood, Trek has on more than one occasion suggested that the reason we see so many two-armed, two-legged humanoids running about the galaxy is because there was some alien force involved beyond simple evolution. TOS gave us The Preservers. TNG gave us the aliens from "The Chase". And so forth.

So why is it not possible that, say, a human and a Betazoid can successfully mate because an alien race seeded both the worlds and ensured compatibility?
 
But that's part of the point. Although we can make pretty concrete assumptions about Vulcans not being genetically related to us, given their copper-based blood, Trek has on more than one occasion suggested that the reason we see so many two-armed, two-legged humanoids running about the galaxy is because there was some alien force involved beyond simple evolution. TOS gave us The Preservers. TNG gave us the aliens from "The Chase". And so forth.

So why is it not possible that, say, a human and a Betazoid can successfully mate because an alien race seeded both the worlds and ensured compatibility?

Well, of course you can make whatever assumptions you want about the imaginary, fictional universe they created, but that's not what we're talking about here. What you yourself said was (emphasis added), "We have no idea how likely it would be for Amanda to conceive a child with a Vulcan. Our real-world 21st century science can't speak to that in the slightest." So you yourself cast this as a discussion about the real scientific likelihood of the premise. And my response to that was that, hell yes, present-day science can speak meaningfully to the likelihood of that fictional conceit. Of course a work of make-believe can pretend it's the case, but science can say authoritatively that it's an unrealistic conceit.


The klingon word for honor is Ba'tlh. As in Batleth. Sword of Honor.

Actually it's just batlh, no glottal stop. Bat'leth is a simplified spelling/pronunciation of batlh'etlh, from batlh for "honor" and 'etlh, beginning with a glottal stop, for "sword."
 
The klingon word for honor is Ba'tlh. As in Batleth. Sword of Honor.

Actually it's just batlh, no glottal stop. Bat'leth is a simplified spelling/pronunciation of batlh'etlh, from batlh for "honor" and 'etlh, beginning with a glottal stop, for "sword."

Oh details, details...

Oh, actually, I seem to recall (read: made up) that the pronunciation with the glottal stop is from the southern continent, whereas all the Klingons we've seen are (conveniently) from the north.

Yes, that should do it...

:D
 
Surely the Klingons have or had multiple languages, or at least dialects, across their world and history.
 
Spock could have been genetically enginneered from his parent's DNA. It may be the case the extensive medical treatments may have been needed during pregnancy, but is that impossible for 23d century Vulcan doctors?
 
But, surely Archer IV should be the fourth planet in the Archer star system, in the same way Earth and Mars are Sol III and Sol IV? Meaning there are at least four planets and a star named for him?

Assuming the "Strange New World" planet is indeed Archer IV, who's to say that it isn't already the fourth planet in the system? I'm not aware of any references to that effect. We have no idea how many other planets were in the system. So it could indeed have been the fourth.

As for planets one through three: Perhaps Archer asked that they not be named after him, because he didn't visit them personally. Archer IV was a big deal, because he and his crew actually went there and explored it themselves. That's the best I can come up with.
 
How the hell did Spock or Amanda even survive the pregnancy? Their biochemistries would've been toxic to each other. (Although some sources have suggested there was extensive medical help required to make it possible.)
It's a common misunderstanding that mother and child share a blood supply during pregnancy.

It's possible that Amanda during her pregnancy had a artificial placenta (I'm thinking a biologically grown creation), that would act as a bridge between her wholly Human body and Spock's hybrid body. Like all placenta it would permit oxygen, fluids, wastes and nutrients to pass through, acting as a filter isolating Amanda and Spock from endangering each other. Spock in his embryonic sack would have no contact with Amanda except through the umbilical cord, the same as all Human children.

Spock may or may not have directly received Amanda's Human antibodies (which is standard), the placenta might have filtered these out, with little Spock receiving antibodies in some another fashion.

:)
 
^But what about nourishment? The only food/biomass source a fetus gets is what comes in from the mother's system. Wouldn't Amanda have to take copper supplements or something to ensure that the developing Spock got enough copper to avoid a serious metal deficiency? And might the excess of copper in her diet cause her the opposite problem?
 
Spock could have been genetically enginneered from his parent's DNA. It may be the case the extensive medical treatments may have been needed during pregnancy, but is that impossible for 23d century Vulcan doctors?
That's how the Terra Prime group created T'Pol and Tucker's child.Though the child died, Phlox said the technique would work after certain errors were fix.
 
Hmmm, perhaps a continuous subcutaneous copper infusion device, like a insulin pump? Which would have a catheter leading to the artificial placenta, Amanda would have it periodically refilled. this could also be how Spock received antibodies and other substances Amanda couldn't safely provide.

(I'm making this up as I go Christopher)

:)
 
^But what about nourishment? The only food/biomass source a fetus gets is what comes in from the mother's system. Wouldn't Amanda have to take copper supplements or something to ensure that the developing Spock got enough copper to avoid a serious metal deficiency? And might the excess of copper in her diet cause her the opposite problem?

In the future, I'm sure there would be many ways to get the copper into the child's body without endangering the mother. An implant that releases copper placed under the fetus' skin, perhaps.
 
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