Reasons for evolution

[retroenzo]

If we assume that 'The Chase' tells us that all humanoid species spawned from the same basic appearance, what's your theory for why certain races evolved the way they did? Why have Vulcans and Romulans got pointed ears? Why have Klingons got ridged foreheads? Why have Cardassians got reptilian necks?

Feel free to be as sensible or as silly as you like.

Personally, I think that Bajorans invented the graphite pencil before they invented any kind of sharpening equipment so they evolved a nose shaped to sharpen pencils...

 

[2takesfrakes]

So very few animals on Earth are bipedal, I never really noticed that, before, now that I think on it. There are Birds and Kangaroos, of course. After that ... I don't know. One would've expected at least some 4-footed alien races, in STAR TREK, with those kinds of odds. A centaur, at some point, would've been acceptable ...

 

[retroenzo]

So very few animals on Earth are bipedal, I never really noticed that, before, now that I think on it. There are Birds and Kangaroos, of course. After that ... I don't know. One would've expected at least some 4-footed alien races, in STAR TREK, with those kinds of odds. A centaur, at some point, would've been acceptable ...

Completely agree. Admittedly they only had a TV budget to work on but when I saw Species 8472 I loved them! Wanted more aliens like this.

 

[2takesfrakes]

With STAR TREK, it does seem that once an animal gets to walking on its hind legs, the natural next step for it is Warp Drive. Like the Cat-headed aliens we saw in Captain Kirk's trial during TVH. Or the fish-headed aliens in TNG that Fleetwood Mac embodies, or the cobra-headed ones, from another TNG show ... it all seems to be about standing on your own two feet, rather than banging rocks together.

 

[retroenzo]

Star Trek's not really alone in that respect though. We get the same kind of thing in Doctor Who, Stargate, Babylon 5, Farscape... And until Hollywood starts employing actual aliens, we're going to have to make do with humanoid aliens, puppets, models or CGI.

 

[Spot261]

So very few animals on Earth are bipedal, I never really noticed that, before, now that I think on it. There are Birds and Kangaroos, of course. After that ... I don't know. One would've expected at least some 4-footed alien races, in STAR TREK, with those kinds of odds. A centaur, at some point, would've been acceptable ...

TV budget, time constraints, limitations on sfx, yadda yadda.

Of course, one could postulate that if four limbs are the norm for mid - large scale animals then extensive tool use only really becomes feasible once two limbs are freed up. One cannot build a warp drive without bamgimg a few rocks together.

 

[Tracy Trek]

Somewhere I read that the pointed ear of Vulcan was better for hearing in their thin atmosphere, a thinner atmosphere than earth.

Star Trek's not really alone in that respect though. We get the same kind of thing in Doctor Who, Stargate, Babylon 5, Farscape...

Well, in Stargate, many of the so called aliens were actually descendants of humans who had been taken from earth to serve as slaves. Of course the true appearance of the bad aliens (the Goa'uld) was not humanoid and the true appearance of the good aliens (the Asgard) was bi-pedal but a lot smaller. But both races used different methods to appear to be human.

Babylon 5 had some interesting races. For the most part, they were mostly humanoid. However the Shadows reminded me of Voyagers Species 8472. And my interpretation of the Vorlons was they were the basis of angel myths on all the different worlds.

 

[Timo]

I think that it's not the differences we have to explain, nor the similarities. Both flow naturally from the mechanism itself.

The ancients of "The Chase" wanted the galaxy to be filled with sapient humanoids forever. They didn't directly spawn those humanoids, though. Instead, they rigged natural evolution to produce those at some point, all across the galaxy. They didn't remove evolution: it still happens, until this bit of programming kicks in. On us, it perverted monkeys into apes into humans. On Cardassia, some innocent lizard may have been the victim - just like some innocent lizard was the victim here on Earth the first time around, resulting in the Voth. There would be cruelty to the full range of animals, and sometimes plants. Whether what happened on Earth would be more or less perverse than the average twisting of evolution's arm isn't easy to tell; any native theory of evolution would be based on the apparent fact that the theoreticians themselves had supposedly evolved, and would see nothing unnatural in it regardless of the actual facts of the matter.

Naturally, after the first few rounds of this, plenty of lesser gods would emerge, and those would have their own agendas of filling the galaxy in their images. Most of them wouldn't know the genome programming trick or anything comparable, and would resort to cruder methods, such as transplanting some of the already abundant biped stock and perhaps then tweaking their genome in certain more conservative ways.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[2takesfrakes]

Somewhere I read that the pointed ear of Vulcan was better for hearing in their thin atmosphere, a thinner atmosphere than earth.



Well, in Stargate, many of the so called aliens were actually descendants of humans who had been taken from earth to serve as slaves. Of course the true appearance of the bad aliens (the Goa'uld) was not humanoid and the true appearance of the good aliens (the Asgard) was bi-pedal but a lot smaller. But both races used different methods to appear to be human.

Babylon 5 had some interesting races. For the most part, they were mostly humanoid. However the Shadows reminded me of Voyagers Species 8472. And my interpretation of the Vorlons was they were the basis of angel myths on all the different worlds.

Believe it, or not, I've never watched Babylon 5 - which is surprising to me, because I've always liked Bruce Boxleitner in anything I saw him in. There was a TV movie out, some years ago, where he starred as the President, whilst Jeffrey Combs starred as a terrorist with a biological weapon, of some kind.

I never watched any of the Stargate TV shows, either, because I said to myself, "let me see the movie that all this is based on, first ... and let that decide it for me, if I want to watch the rest of it, or not." Stargate is alright, for what it is - but I wasn't overly impressed.

It was a kind of a happy accident, though because that's when I discovered Mili Avital, whose slave-girl character has this awkward romance with Daniel. When her rose was in bloom, she was just about the most beautiful creature that's probably ever existed! Outside of stuff like that, I barely know anything about these shows ...

 

[ItIsGreen]

Believe it, or not, I've never watched Babylon 5 - which is surprising to me, because I've always liked Bruce Boxleitner in anything I saw him in. There was a TV movie out, some years ago, where he starred as the President, whilst Jeffrey Combs starred as a terrorist with a biological weapon, of some kind.

I never watched any of the Stargate TV shows, either, because I said to myself, "let me see the movie that all this is based on, first ... and let that decide it for me, if I want to watch the rest of it, or not." Stargate is alright, for what it is - but I wasn't overly impressed.

It was a kind of a happy accident, though because that's when I discovered Mili Avital, whose slave-girl character has this awkward romance with Daniel. When her rose was in bloom, she was just about the most beautiful creature that's probably ever existed! Outside of stuff like that, I barely know anything about these shows ...

Stargate SG-1 is infintely superior to Stargate the movie. Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O'Neill is much better than Kurt Russell's dull portrayal (although in canon it's the same character, there's an in-joke that it might be a different person as the show spells his surname with 2 L's, the movie with only one). The other spin-off shows diminish in quality, but later seasons of Atlantis are as good as some of SG-1.

I watched bits of Babylon 5, never really liked it. The shockingly bad CGI had at least something to do with that. And that it seemed to me at the time to be some kind of weird Tesco Value Star Trek.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I appreciate the recommendation and the insight! Really ... I do ... but I don't really watch that much television, anyway. I never did. Me mum taught me that too much telly is bad for the soul, and so I was encouraged to do anything else, wherever possible. Like anything to do with Art, for instance. I do watch movies, pretty often, and of course, I'm a STAR TREK fan and I love TNG with every fiber of my Inner Child's being! But I don't really go out of my way to watch TV - that's why you don't normally see me on the forum about that, here.

 

[φ of π]

If we assume that 'The Chase' tells us that all humanoid species spawned from the same basic appearance, what's your theory for why certain races evolved the way they did? Why have Vulcans and Romulans got pointed ears? Why have Klingons got ridged foreheads? Why have Cardassians got reptilian necks?

The aliens were kind enough to do that so that the Humans would be able to tell them apart. There was a slight hiccup involving the Klingons but that's been resolved now.

But realistically (or at least as realistic as you can get in Star Trek) probably for the same reasons some Humans have almond-shaped eyes, or red hair, etc.

 

[ItIsGreen]

I appreciate the recommendation and the insight! Really ... I do ... but I don't really watch that much television, anyway. I never did. Me mum taught me that too much telly is bad for the soul, and so I was encouraged to do anything else, wherever possible. Like anything to do with Art, for instance. I do watch movies, pretty often, and of course, I'm a STAR TREK fan and I love TNG with every fiber of my Inner Child's being! But I don't really go out of my way to watch TV - that's why you don't normally see me on the forum about that, here.

Fair enough. I'm not going to drag this thread much further off topic, other than to recommend watching "Children of the Gods", the SG-1 pilot, which is really more like a 2-hour TV movie. It gives more of an indication of what the show is like vs the film - it really doesn't retain much, other than the concept of the Stargate itself. A lot of the show is very gung-ho high adventure, and surprisingly similar in lots of ways to TOS, as I've seen other people around the board mention.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I will be looking into it, thank you, again! You know, I wasn't even going to watch BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, but I kept hearing so much great press about it, particularly about the Starbucks character ... I hung in there, for the 1st Season, but the Cylon woman was too Seven of Nine-ish for my liking, for one thing. I also didn't like Starbucks sleeping with Boltar (sp.), whose association with the Cylon woman was just ridiculous. I kind of lost patience with BSG. I'm beginning to wonder if STAR TREK: The Next Generation hasn't spoilt me. It's a hell of an act to follow ...

 

[Tracy Trek]

I never watched any of the Stargate TV shows, either, because I said to myself, "let me see the movie that all this is based on, first ... and let that decide it for me, if I want to watch the rest of it, or not." Stargate is alright, for what it is - but I wasn't overly impressed.

Some things about the plot of the movie were retconned for the series, to work better in the series and made it more interesting in my opinion.

It was a kind of a happy accident, though because that's when I discovered Mili Avital, whose slave-girl character has this awkward romance with Daniel. When her rose was in bloom, she was just about the most beautiful creature that's probably ever existed!

I like Mili Avital's portrayal of the character better than the actress who played her in the series. She is lovely. I liked the movie version of Lt. Ferretti more than the series version. However, I like the Daniel from the series better because I don't like James Spader much.

Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O'Neill is much better than Kurt Russell's dull portrayal (although in canon it's the same character, there's an in-joke that it might be a different person as the show spells his surname with 2 L's, the movie with only one).

I think they even mentioned this joke in one of the episodes. Like, "There's another Col. O'Neill, he spells it different". Also there was one episode where he was butting heads with Sen. Kinsey (Ronnie Cox). Kinsey says something like, "I'm going to put you on report". O'Neill says, "That's O'Neill, with 2 "L". At the same time he's holding up 3 fingers, (ring, pointer and middle).

 

[2takesfrakes]

I like Mili Avital's portrayal of the character better than the actress who played her in the series. She is lovely. I liked the movie version of Lt. Ferretti more than the series version. However, I like the Daniel from the series better because I don't like James Spader much.

James Spader does seem to have been miscast, in hindsight. His character was more geekish than he was really capable of pulling off, though I thought he did a respectable job. I heard there was supposed to be a sequel to the movie, completely apart from ALL of the television series. How they were going to do that, I don't know. But I stopped hearing anything, so I guess it's in development hell, or something happened.

DS9's wormhole was a STARGATE, of sorts, was it not? And what the hell came through it, every week? Humanoids, straight from the Gama Quadrant. Some so Human, it was embarrassing! Why even call them aliens? They didn't even bother giving them strange noses. They just had Lick & Stick tattoos on their foreheads, if I'm not mistaken ...

 

[ItIsGreen]

I think they even mentioned this joke in one of the episodes. Like, "There's another Col. O'Neill, he spells it different". Also there was one episode where he was butting heads with Sen. Kinsey (Ronnie Cox). Kinsey says something like, "I'm going to put you on report". O'Neill says, "That's O'Neill, with 2 "L". At the same time he's holding up 3 fingers, (ring, pointer and middle).

The quote was,
"It's "O'Neill," with two L's. There's another Colonel O'Neil with only one L, and he has no sense of humour at all."
Which was a nice subtle 4th wall break, poking fun at the film, where Kurt Russell plays O'Neil very straight.

Have to say, I never got the three-fingers joke, until you just spelled it out. I thought it was just Jack being goofy

And another thing you just reminded me, mentioning Ronny Cox; the show had a bit of a fondness for casting Trek actors in various roles - ones that spring to mind off the top of my head are John DeLancie, Armin Shimerman, Jolene Blalock, John Billingsley, Marina Sirtis, Connor Trineer, Colm Meaney, and of course Robert Picardo. There are loads of Trek references in it too - a fun show to watch if you're a Trek fan.

 

[retroenzo]

James Spader does seem to have been miscast, in hindsight. His character was more geekish than he was really capable of pulling off, though I thought he did a respectable job. I heard there was supposed to be a sequel to the movie, completely apart from ALL of the television series. How they were going to do that, I don't know. But I stopped hearing anything, so I guess it's in development hell, or something happened.

Not a sequel - they want to reboot their original idea. They're ignoring the series because the creators of the movie (Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin - those from Independence Day) had originally planned it as a trilogy anyway. The TV series took the story in a completely different direction than from what they wanted and they hated it. Now the Stargate TV universe has ground to a halt, they want to get their version back up and running.

However I echo the sentiments of those that recommend it. I'll be honest and say that I thought the movie was a bit 'meh'. It felt such a formulaic movie that I thought it was forgettable when I first saw it. However the TV series blew my mind. It was so entertaining. Richard Dean Anderson's O'Neill is hilarious to watch and Michael Shanks does so much with Daniel that I can't watch James Spader's take on it any more. The new characters they brought in are great and there's a few guest stars from Trek that show up. John de Lancie, Armin Shimerman, Robert Picardo (he even becomes a regular of sorts in Stargate Atlantis).

Just don't ask the Stargate cast if they think replicators are good ideas...

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Environmental factors on each planet most likely caused each race to evolve differently.

Vulcan's hot and dry conditions saw them evolve an inner eyelid to protect their eyes from sun and sand, maybe the larger ear surface was a way to cool their blood. The Klingon homeworld could've had a large number of predators, so the Klingon's with the denser musculature and bone structure survived and passed on those traits to their offspring, who sought out other such mates, which made finding a male/female with larger brow ridges was preferred.

 

[Tenacity]

If you look at the depictions of the characters is some of the comic (but not all of them) the character don't look like Humans with makeup, but instead like they are of different species.

Cardassians look like they're snakes, with small oval heads, Vulcan faces (including Spock's) are very angular and they are overtly green in complexion.

Prior to seeing The Chase for the first time, I assumed that the different species on the show were far more different looking that what we were seeing on screen.