In Star Trek inter-species sex and offspring are common. There's Spock, B'elanna, etc. Would this be anything more than a fantasy even if we met another humanoid species? I mean, on earth all life seems to have come from a single self replicating molecule in the distant past and most species on our planet can't mate with each other. Why would Vulcans and humans be able to coming from completely different planets? Is this simply explained the same way that the abundance of very-humanlike-species are explained by the ancient humanoids that seeded the Star Trek universe with their genetics?
Inter-species relations.
- Thread starter captain-brad
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That various species can readily mate and produce offspring is, I think, one of those fantasies/near-impossibilities that you just have to accept if you watch Trek. Here on Earth, even really closely related species either can't mate or if they can, they almost always produce sterile offspring (e.g., horses and donkeys producing mules). Now, you could justify the relative ease of interspecies reproduction, if you find such a thing necessary, by assuming that advances in reproductive medicine are at least partly responsible (we do get some hint of then when K'Ehleyr talks about her parents), but that simply won't explain everything, e.g., how Dukat managed to father children with various Bajorans. I wouldn't think Terok Nor would be a place where a such services were easy to come by, but hey, Dukat was a resourceful fellow...
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Yeah, I don't think this would really be possible. Though on a show with FTL travel, transporters, and universal translators, that's not really saying much.
Not to sound crude, but the basic sexual act may even make things incompatible. It seems that Vulcans and humans are anatomically and physiologically similar reproductively, if Trip and T'Pol can do it (so to speak). The same is true of humans and Klingons, humans and Trill, even Klingons and Trill.
But there must be some species in which the mechanics of reproduction preclude producing offspring.
But there must be some species in which the mechanics of reproduction preclude producing offspring.
To be perfectly blunt, sex between human and alien would fit the very definition of bestiality.
And would likely be regarded by many religious humans as a mortal sin.
And would likely be regarded by many religious humans as a mortal sin.
Perhaps it is due to the discovery by the crew of the Enterprise-D in "The Chase" that a forebear humanoid species seeded the galaxy with the genetic material necessary to create life.
It would depend on how said religion interpreted what a "being in the image of God" is. If you hold that it is the DNA that makes one a child of God, then your comment would stand to reason. But if you believe it is the soul that gives you personhood, and is what was fashioned in God's image, then you're not so likely to interpret that form of interspecies relationship (between two sentient humanoids) as a problem.
Most likely, a religion, or interpretation of a religion, that accepts evolution is less likely to have a problem. Since the point of ensoulment/knowing God could not be identified, then it could well have happened before the species had exactly the same DNA as it does now. A religion that believes that is going to be a lot less likely to claim that sentient aliens don't have souls or any other such nonsense. (In the Trekiverse, based on what we see, it would be obvious nonsense, in my opinion as a believer, to claim that sentient aliens are anything but beings of equal status to humans.)
As to the mechanics of interspecies relationships, I have always assumed there are different degrees of compatibility, that may be determined by how much the evolving species' genetic material "submitted" to the Progenitors' seeding. Species like humanity may be among those whose native characteristics were suppressed to a greater extent, hence less "unique" stuff to interfere with interspecies reproduction. Under my theory, a species like humanity is likely to find that their genetic material "submits" as well to the other species, in a lot of ways, whereas other species may find that theirs doesn't do so as easily.
I can link a more detailed, coherent essay I wrote on this subject, if anyone is interested.
A redundant discovery (well, a redundant script) given the very same discovery by Kirk and Spock in The Paradise syndrome.
I'm ashamed to admit I had forgotten about the Preservers when I posted earlier. It's been a long time since I've seen "The Paradise Syndrome." Is it possible that the Preservers and the Ancient Humanoids were the same species, or that perhaps one of those two species followed in the footsteps of the others?
As seen in ENT:Terra Prime.
It is my understanding that it was at one point considered to mention in The Chase that the ancient Humanoid species was the Preservers, but that never made it to the finished show. I don't know how far along it did make it.
Personally, I would have gotten a kick out of it.
the time scales are all wrong for them to be the same species. The Chase people were active hundreds of millions of years ago before any other life evolved, and are long extinct. The Preservers were active a few thousand years ago when they moved those people to the planet. no way they can be the same.
Cool. Obviously in real life it couldn't happen like this, but for the purposes of the Trekiverse I figured this would work.
http://www.adastrafanfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=267&chapter=1
^Nice job, Nerys. As good an explanation as I can imagine anyone coming up w/.
Thanks...it's certainly not authoritative, just my non-canon theory! Glad you liked it! 
Not quite the same thing or in the same timeframe. All the Preservers did was transplant a species (and a particular subset of that species) from one planet to another. This happened well after humanity evolved on Earth. It wouldn't account for inter-breeding with non-humans, unless every humanoid species was decended from a single group the Preservers planted across the Galaxy.
It seems that there are two different species who spread genetics from system to system. We know about the Preservers--but the one I call the Progenitors, for lack of a better terms, the ones we saw in "The Chase," seem to have been billions of years before the Preservers (the ones responsible for Miramanee's people).
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