Hybrid Species

[STIntergalactic]

I was just reading an article on wikipedia about mules and it got me thinking about hybrids in Star Trek. The specific example I was think of was (and please forgive spelling mistakes, I don't feel like looking them up) Miral, daughter of Tom and B'Elanna Torres (did I get them all right?).

Would it have been more likely, that their daughter have been fully human? I'm by no means a biologist or a geneticist, but it seems like with Tom having 100% human DNA, his half of the DNA that went into his daughter would most likely couple itself with B'Elanna's human DNA. Does that make any sense?

 

[Finn]

Uh? why? We don't know enough about the interspecies genetics of trekverse. But the odds are the half of B'Elanna's genes given to Miral would have a lot of Klingon DNA. There is a very small chance B'Elanna would give her offspring all of her Human traits and none of her Klingon traits.

 

[STIntergalactic]

Yeah, I guess your right. You can't really speculate about the pairings of unknown (and fictional) DNA.

 

[FalTorPan]

SantaKirk said:
Yeah, I guess your right. You can't really speculate about the pairings of unknown (and fictional) DNA.

Why not?

 

[STIntergalactic]

OK, then...I guess you can always speculate. You can just never be sure.

 

[Red Ranger]

People,

I don't recall if they ever specfically addressed the difficulties until that ep of ENT with Trip and T'Pol's short-lived child, but I think hybrids need special help being conceived. Makes sense to me consisering that while humanoid, Klingons and humans spawned on different worlds snd are different species. But then again, we saw instances where hybrids, like the Klingon-Romulan woman Worf took a fancy to till he discovered her half-Romulan heritage, must have been conceived without outside chemical intervention because of their status on a hard-scrabble colony world.

As a side note, it would have been cool if either B'Elanna or another regular character had been half-Romulan and half-Klingon. Imagine the divided loyalities of someone in that situation, imagine the angst!

Red Ranger

 

[Forbin]

Trek made it look far too common and far too easy. I can't imagine two thoroughly different species (and I'm talking as different as an octopus and an elephant)being able to produce an offspring without laboratory assistance.

 

[Anwar]

There was that mega-retcon by Ron Moore that gave most of the Trek Races a shared ancestor, but I don't think that would count for a lot.

Anyways, I don't think K'Ehylar needed special assistance to have Alexander, and the Klingon/Romulan camp didn't need any help for them to have Klingon/Romulan hybrid kids.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

The way I see it is some species can conceive without intervention but some other species can find it so difficult that help is required, take Worf and Jadzia for example, they needed help to try and get pregnant but theres no reason to believe a Romulan and a Klingon also needs that kind of help.
For all we know humans and Andorians can easily conceive a child but an Andorian and a Denobulan cant.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

We also know that Worf was the only person on the ship who was a capable donator for that injured Romulan. So they must have more in common than a Romulan and a human or a human and a Vulcan.

 

[erastus25]

Red Ranger said:

As a side note, it would have been cool if either B'Elanna or another regular character had been half-Romulan and half-Klingon. Imagine the divided loyalities of someone in that situation, imagine the angst!

Red Ranger

They kinda did that with Tora Ziyal. It was Cardie/Bajoran, granted, but the same principle was at work.

As for the "difficulty" and need for extra help, who's to say that in the 24th Century it is necessarily that hard? For all we know they just need to take a few pills and it will work. I mean, think about medicine in 1657, compared to today. A similar growth could occur over the next 350 years.

 

[WillsBabe]

I don't know much about biology. However, if I'm right in thinking that hybrids are sterile then it seems that people like Deanna Troi and K'Ehylar wouldn't (shouldn't) be able to have children.

 

[JD]

WillsBauble said:
I don't know much about biology. However, if I'm right in thinking that hybrids are sterile then it seems that people like Deanna Troi and K'Ehylar wouldn't (shouldn't) be able to have children.

Technially, yeah. But perhaps part of the above medications allow the offspring to become fertile.

 

[captcalhoun]

don't much about biology, don't much about history, don't know much about geography...

*notices everyone staring as he sings. shuts up and wanders off*

 

[STIntergalactic]

I don't claim to be an A student, but I try to be.

 

[InklingStar]

But maybe by being an A student, baby

We can have our hybrid kids, you see!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Anwar said:
There was that mega-retcon by Ron Moore that gave most of the Trek Races a shared ancestor, but I don't think that would count for a lot.

Nope, it wouldn't - maybe the basic building blocks of life came from the same original source but evolution from that point would have progressed independently and every species of different planets would be more different than a peony and a blue whale would be on Earth, because at least the peony and the blue whale are the product of the SAME evolution.

Every hybrid from Spock on down is a bioengineered freak.

 

[Blueicus]

Perhaps the progenitor DNA that was seeded contained various subatomic creatures/nanobots/markers that facilitated mutations towards a humanoid form, or perhaps some other technobabble was used .

 

[Red Ranger]

erastus25 said:

Red Ranger said:

As a side note, it would have been cool if either B'Elanna or another regular character had been half-Romulan and half-Klingon. Imagine the divided loyalities of someone in that situation, imagine the angst!

Red Ranger

They kinda did that with Tora Ziyal. It was Cardie/Bajoran, granted, but the same principle was at work.

As for the "difficulty" and need for extra help, who's to say that in the 24th Century it is necessarily that hard? For all we know they just need to take a few pills and it will work. I mean, think about medicine in 1657, compared to today. A similar growth could occur over the next 350 years.

Erastus25:

I hadn't forgotton about Ziyal, but I always thought it would be even more problematic for a half-Romulan/half-Klingon, considering the even longer historical enmity between both races.

And I think your explanation makes the most sense of any of the others -- a simple question of centuries of studying the similarities between humanoid species, despite having evolved on different worlds.

Red Ranger

 

[Alidar Jarok]

There were half-Romulan/half-Klingons in Birthright