I would have appreciated the 32nd century be made more distinct from the 23rd century without DIS medical white as a fourth uniform division color, lol. That is an unfortunate change from the pre-streaming status quo IMO.
Fan reactions to Starfleet Academy's female Jem'Hadar/Klingon hybrid character
- Thread starter jctechwizard
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I mean, we saw medical white in the TOS films, and on the Kelvin and alternate Enterprise so it's not a streaming thing.
I think the point is supposed to be that it didn't happen in the Holy Berman era, which is now considered the text book definition of what Star Trek is despite being considered filth twenty years ago.
As we've learnt from Doctor Who bringing back venerated showrunners after 20 years can be disastrous.
The Bermite Heresy is a stain on all of Trekendom ! Strike it from the Holy Word!!
The Cult of Terry does not believe you are of the Body!
It's called racism. "Woke, blah, blah, blah."
It requires the intelligence level of a ferret to bring up such things, and I'm being unkind to the ferret in the comparison.
The Jem'Hadar represent another very interesting variation on the theme of sentience. In the Star Trek universe we see many kinds of sentience, the unified sentience with discrete units being but instances of the hive (the Borg), the non-solid sentience, capable of both unified and discrete agency (the Changelings), the non-corporeal sentience (the Prophets, the Q, etc), bound to linear time or not, and at the other end of possibilities, the androids and the clones where sentience may be limited (for the Jem'Hadar), undefined (like for the Vorta) or enhanced (like for Data).
If anyone here has read The Left Hand of Darkness, it should also be clear that permanent "dual-genderedness" is a minor property when compared to the potential for a species to develop, progress and explore. In particular, within species that are dual-gendered, the characteristics that we assign to human genders may or may not hold for other naturally occurring or created species.
With all this said, I cannot see why the Founders would have bothered with giving a gender to creatures that they absolutely never meant to be able to proliferate on their own, outside of Founder control. To the contrary, they were given a short life, as well as a dependency on a substance that seems to be both their endocrine and catabolic fuel (ketracel-white). Giving them any kind of reproductive drive and capability would have been very dumb and self-defeating. Giving them "shadow" DNA or any possibility to mutate viably is probably also completely off the table and the Jem'Hadar probably have disease-resistant, but otherwise very simple genomes. A genome that is very stable and robust to attack probably make them very hard to modify, by the same token. (Hard but no impossible, as that demonstrated by one stranded Jem'Hadar who discovered that it was not dependent on ketracel after all...)
A gendered Jem'Hadar would have to be a different species from the ground up, to each and every one of its cells, which is not too hard for the Founders to create when you think about it. Maybe Odo had something to do with it. Giving each created species a chance to develop on its own in its own niche, and making the creation of a species a sizeable responsibility instead of a convenience.
This also would suggest that Jem'Hadar may simply mean "creature" or "child-being", without referring to its exact makeup or appearance? Likewise Vorta could have just meant "drug dealer" or "intermediary"?
Assuming that the Jem'Hadar of the 24th century must be male because of their agressivity and their insistence on hierarchy is just an artefact, IMO, due to their being creations of human fantasy. A Klingon or a Vulcan would not come to the same assumption.
Opinion disclaimer as always, cheers for now
Excuse me, but where exactly does the notion that the Jem’Hadar of the 24th century were “non-gendered” come from? Sure, we never saw Jem'Hadar females, but the ones we did see were usually very clearly identified as male, were they not? I can’t remember them making it a point that the Jem'Hadar had no gender, just that the Dominion wasn’t breeding female ones.
Also, considering the story of how the Founders found the Vorta and genetically engineered them into their loyal servants (with both male and female Vorta being cloned) I don’t think it’s too far fetched to assume there being a similar backstory for how the Jem'Hadar soldiers came to be. I don't think it was ever mentioned (nor intended by the writers) that they were created by the Founders from scratch, so I assume just like the Vorta they were an existing Gamma Quadrant species that had developed naturally (probably with both male and female specimens) and the Founders merely changed their genetic makeup to make them the drug-controlled soldiers they became.
I think it’s fascinating that some fans seem to find a female Jem’Hadar such an outlandish concept, 800 years after the Dominion has been defeated.
Also, considering the story of how the Founders found the Vorta and genetically engineered them into their loyal servants (with both male and female Vorta being cloned) I don’t think it’s too far fetched to assume there being a similar backstory for how the Jem'Hadar soldiers came to be. I don't think it was ever mentioned (nor intended by the writers) that they were created by the Founders from scratch, so I assume just like the Vorta they were an existing Gamma Quadrant species that had developed naturally (probably with both male and female specimens) and the Founders merely changed their genetic makeup to make them the drug-controlled soldiers they became.
I think it’s fascinating that some fans seem to find a female Jem’Hadar such an outlandish concept, 800 years after the Dominion has been defeated.
I agree with the assertion that the Jem'hadar were not created from scratch. My head canon is that the founders originally used some other species before they encountered the Jem'hadar. The Jem'hadar resisted the Dominion proving to be much more effective warriors than the current Dominion soldiers. When the Jem'hadar were finally conquered, there punishment was the eradication of every female Jem'hadar and the surviving males being genetically altered into first gen Jem'hadar. They were also placed under the supervision of the vorta as the founders thought it would be poetic justice to have predators controlled by prey.
Nurse Chapel had a red cross in the arrowhead badge on her uniform (aka, the "delta"). A fourth division, or subdivision of science at the very least, was implied way back in TOS, before fire was discovered.
I just hope they stick the landing of elaborating on Lura Thok's background, whatever it turns out to be.
I didn't see any indication in DS9 that the Jem'hadar had limited sentience.
Though in one instance (in canon at least), a Jem'hadar had a mutation which made him not require the white.
Which might imply that the dependency itself is a genetic alternation, if the DNA contained instructions that could lead to one not requiring it. Because that would be one hell of a mutation otherwise.
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I doubt they'll elaborate any further than "I grew up on [Planet] and joined Starfleet because [Reason]. Also [Personal Detail like dead parent(s) or some such]."
We're not going to get some sort of exposition dump explaining that after the Dominion War ended and Odo rejoined the Great Link and introduced reforms, the Jem'Hadar were granted their freedom and developed a culture and society as detailed over and eight hundred year time period culminating in Lura Thok's birth.
“And that dear viewer is where Jem’Ha’Bosoms come from. Join us next week when we discuss why everyone BUT Admiral Vance eats fresh grown apples and why he’s not allowed near the reclamation deck.”
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