TNG's - "The Chase" wasn't the first Star Trek episode to give an explaination of why there was so many humanoid type races across the Star Trek Galaxy.
From TOS - "The Paradise Syndrome":
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From TOS - "The Paradise Syndrome":
The thing about the Preservers is that their only known achievement is a single act of transplantation in the 16th-18th century or so, far too late to account for the known histories of any of the major Trek species.
The Preservers' own account of their achievements also sounds dubious. They actually failed to rescue the primitive cultures they transplanted from Earth: all of them have been destroyed, as Spock reports them mixed and mangled by being forced together. They'd probably have been better off left on Earth.
And never mind that the effort of "rescuing" involved placing these peoples on a deathtrap planet in the first place...
Transplantation no doubt happens (and Preservers-style "transplantation" of small groups is described in several spinoffs, usually involving a criminal gang abducting primitive slaves for nefarious purposes), but it's peanut gallery stuff compared with what it takes to actually make humanoids common and indeed predominant in the galaxy...
Timo Saloniemi
The Preservers' own account of their achievements also sounds dubious. They actually failed to rescue the primitive cultures they transplanted from Earth: all of them have been destroyed, as Spock reports them mixed and mangled by being forced together. They'd probably have been better off left on Earth.
And never mind that the effort of "rescuing" involved placing these peoples on a deathtrap planet in the first place...
Transplantation no doubt happens (and Preservers-style "transplantation" of small groups is described in several spinoffs, usually involving a criminal gang abducting primitive slaves for nefarious purposes), but it's peanut gallery stuff compared with what it takes to actually make humanoids common and indeed predominant in the galaxy...
Timo Saloniemi
Those progenitors spread their genetic material billions of years go. That is a lot of time and evolution will create quite a bit of differences between the races.
Vulcans and Romulans on the other hand are really practically the same species. The Romulans ancestors came from Vulcan and that was just a few thousands years ago. Not enough time to really evolve much differences biologically. I wish TNG wouldn't have screwed up the looks from the Romulans. It was much better and made much more sense when they looked just like Vulcans in TOS.
But the point of "The Chase" is that evolution gets no chance - the aim of the ancients was to create people who'd live together in peace and harmony and crossbreed a lot. So whenever evolution tries to detract from that somehow, the biotech marvel kicks in and alters the course of the evolution. Possibly only within the forced evolution of the specific sapient bipeds, while leaving the rest of the fauna to fend for itself. Possibly a bit earlier, so that all the Great Apes today are compatible with Vulcans and Klingons even though only one subspecies got selected for turning into sapients.
Again, no need to assume nature plays a role there...
But "The Enemy" does not feature differences between Romulans and Vulcans. Indeed, differences between species are explicitly a non-issue, as Crusher is testing all the species aboard for possible donor potential.
No disagreement there. But now we can be happy with the concept that alien species can have their own racial variation, too (and it's not the dull old skin color, either - or at least not only that).
Timo Saloniemi
CRUSHER: We thought it would be like working on Vulcans, but there are subtle differences. Too many of them.
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PICARD: You haven't found a compatible ribosome donor?
CRUSHER: The lab is still processing the tests. Early results indicate humans have far too many bio-rejection factors. I've also ruled out the Vulcans we've tested.
Given the separation of the two peoples is on the scale of millennia at most, it's pretty remarkable that they are biologically so different. It would be like having an Ancient Briton in a London hospital today and being unable to find a donor.
Potential explanations would include some kind of significant mutation or genetic engineering post separation (on either side), or that the two were already separated going back much further than their leaving for Romulus. It could also be that this particular Romulan had some characteristic which made him a very rare match, and Crusher was wrong to assume it was a species based problem.
The Romulan forehead ridges probably came from them being so frowny all the time. Or they went all Neolutionist and they're actually implants.
Racist in Star Trek episodes or in other media?
Generally, not on Star Trek (although the Trek progenitor is, of course, white
)I'm referring mostly though to the old trope of ancient aliens being responsible for the achievements of 'primitive' cultures, such as the pyramids.
Yep. If you believe some of the Ancient Alien stuff, we wouldn't know how to wipe our rears if it hadn't been for aliens.
I am pretty sure they came from interbreeding with Remans.
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Remans didn't exist when the change was made.
And if they had existed back then, they didn't have the budget for ridges
Hell, back then they didn't have the budget for Vulcan/Romulan ears. It's why they had Helmets for the Romulan Centurions. Both less expensive and less time in a makeup chair.And if they had existed back then, they didn't have the budget for ridges
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Yes. I've mentioned it before that ancient Egyptians were just as intelligent and just as clever as we are today.
Sure, we have more knowledge of things, but they had human intelligence and 1000+ years of pyramid building experience in order to use that intelligence to figure out how to do them right.
The thing is, the two quotes put together nicely show that the blood compatibility issue transcends species borders - Crusher isn't limiting her search to the Vulcans aboard, or apparently even starting out with them!
Healing the poor sap appears to be running into all sorts of problems before the blood compatibility issue arises. But that the Romulans are biologically distinct doesn't appear to be related to the compatibility question at all.
But our good doctor there is convinced that modern donors exist - it's just that those Londoners and a handful of Manchesterites inside the hospital walls that day aren't compatible, and there doesn't appear to be any guarantee that somebody from modern Colchester would be a better match to this patient who hails from from ancient Camulodunum.
This doesn't mean it wouldn't be remarkable that the old-timer is biologically distinct, in some ways that don't affect the compatibility issue. Something weird must have happened. Luckily, though, Star Trek offers more potential solutions than the scenario above, just as you say.
Yup. Imagine the poor doctor being amazed at the old man's sickle cell anemia because she has never seen a black man in London, England or indeed the entire United States of Brittany, due to that rift going back to the Roman times...
This has the added advantage of taking into account our TOS heroes already having a working knowledge of the average differences between Vulcans and Romulans (they did say the sensor readings in "The Enterprise Incident" were distinct in careful analysis). Something "beyond the norm" must be surprising Crusher here. Either the patient is a freak to a degree, or then the Romulans did something to themselves that only took effect after the TOS era.
Timo Saloniemi
It's amusing how many practical decisions made due to budget constraints during the production of TOS have led to fan arguments about "canon."And if they had existed back then, they didn't have the budget for ridges
Or to what really makes Star Trek Star Trek. If not for budgetary concerns, transporters might not exist - teleportation is a cool scifi concept, but if it hadn't happened to be that faking it credibly was in fact cheaper than faking shuttlecraft credibly, we simply wouldn't have it.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Well, it was more in the Forbidden Planet motif in that originally, the 1701's Saucer section would detach and land on a planet. That's what GR originally envisioned - and while they determined it could be done - they didn't fell just doing two to three stock versions and changing the sky color would look 'credible' after a few episodes. It worked for space shot because hay space does look the same (black with stars). I mean hell, Star Trek often got called for all the planets often looking the same; but just colored differently; so it probably would have been worse with a recycled 'Saucer landing' shot.
So, that's when they came up with the space to ground matter transporter.
Of course this is why - when TNG was conceived - GR HAD to have an element of the script that showed the 'Saucer seperation/re-docking'. It looked ridiculous (IMO) them too - which is probably why, in seven seasons - they showed it three times - twice in Season One and once in Season 3 (and originally Riker was against using it in BoBW.
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