The Drayans-A little observation

[Joel_Kirk]

These were the aliens in the episode 'The Innocence'...

They are born looking like adult humans, and as they age, they look younger (to humans)...and younger...etc...

I believe it was established that they are isolationists, but there may be some--once the Delta Quadrant is explored again--who join Starfleet.

Now, I think it will create a certain 'interesting' situation to have an Admiral who looks as if he or she is the same age as your little 11, 12, 13 year old niece, nephew, daughter....or even a Captain who looks as if he or she is the same age...

Believe it or not, I'm reminded of the character Dr. Zee from BSG 1980 (Yes, THAT show!) and the young character who was wise beyond his years...and probably was way older than he looked.

Not too mention, I kind of wonder if you have a situation similar to the Miles/Keiko in 'Rascals'....spouses who look 'young' but are actually years older....?

 

[Lazarus]

To be honest the whole concept is a pretty shitty idea - giving a story a supposedly science fiction 'twist' when there is no real need for one.

What possible evolutionary reason could there be for a person to be born as a wrinkled, elderly-looking creature and 'grow' into a youthful child as they get older? How are these fully-grown individuals carried to term and born? The whole thing is full of common sense flaws.

Unnecessary concept introduced just for the "Wow, the children were actually adults all along" reaction that it was intended to illicit in the audience. Would've worked as an episode just the same had they just left them as children.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

To be honest the whole concept is a pretty shitty idea - giving a story a supposedly science fiction 'twist' when there is no real need for one.

What possible evolutionary reason could there be for a person to be born as a wrinkled, elderly-looking creature and 'grow' into a youthful child as they get older? How are these fully-grown individuals carried to term and born? The whole thing is full of common sense flaws.

Unnecessary concept introduced just for the "Wow, the children were actually adults all along" reaction that it was intended to illicit in the audience. Would've worked as an episode just the same had they just left them as children.

Too, it seemed like another idea on the Ocampa...and another take on Benjamin Button.

I'm guessing Benjamin Button was a novel before it was film; I'm not sure if the novel came out before this particular episode....

 

[Wicca who Wonta]

I guess they must have an alternate way of being born as it might be hard to give birth to a full grown adult the traditional way!

 

[mirandafave]

Saw it all before on Mork and Mindy!

 

[Guy Gardener]

Me too.

Hey Joel? Did this episode of Voyager come out before 1922?

F. Scott Fitzgerald is Oooooooooooooold school.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I guess they must have an alternate way of being born as it might be hard to give birth to a full grown adult the traditional way!

Yeah, that would be painful the traditional way...

*shiver*

Saw it all before on Mork and Mindy!

Me too.

Hey Joel? Did this episode of Voyager come out before 1922?

F. Scott Fitzgerald is Oooooooooooooold school.

^^

Ahh, so the guy who did 'The Great Gatsby' did the short story....

Interesting...

And I forgot Mork and Mindy had the same concept....

 

[Kai Winn]

there were a lot more common-sense violations in this episode. the leader of the drayan visitors to voyager was a prelate, not the title of a technician, and they exchanged some spiritual-philosophical-religious babble before kate led them to the boiler room. why not haul them to the muslim-prayer room first?
they got along nicely in the infirmary again, agreeing on outlandish ideas of existence, then the prelate gets a phone call, and is all of a sudden in bad temper. why? she didn't learn about tuvok crashing on the moon in this moment.
and why do dogmatic people like that who are hostile to technology use starships, anyway?

 

[Jeri]

I think this story comes not under the "science fiction" label, but rather the "speculative fiction" label; more like some of the twists in stories on The Twilight Zone. They can't be explained; it's just shakes things up for a different perspective.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

^^

That's an interesting thought.

I may have to watch the episode again to give an opinion on that...

Youtube is my friend...

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I think this story comes not under the "science fiction" label, but rather the "speculative fiction" label; more like some of the twists in stories on The Twilight Zone. They can't be explained; it's just shakes things up for a different perspective.

Okay, I saw the episode a second time...(I recalled the first time I saw it was when the episode initially aired!)

The interesting thing is: TZ was at its best when a 30 minute show, because it had to tell its story...and leave the audience thinking about the twist in the end. When TZ became an hour-long show, things dragged...and the stories weren't as strong. Although, I do know there are some hour-long TZ episodes I've enjoyed.

With 'Innocence' it's not clear--as aforementioned--why the Drayans suddenly become hostile and defensive. It's not clear why the 'older' Drayans suddenly don't realize their death ritual.

Even Tressa suddenly becomes 'mature' and realizes that Tuvok reminds her of her grandson.

And, how did the 'young' Drayan woman--Alcia--know that humans (and Klingons, and Vulcans...Bajorans, etc) grew up--or down, depending on the viewpoint--when no one mentioned anything about it in the episode? The Drayans weren't on the ship for that long seemingly for any information on cultures to be passed along....

As the character Augura(sp?) said, 'Questions, questions, too many questions...'

I'm going on a light rant here, but I think--from a writing standpoint--that more could have been built up; I found myself asking at the end, 'Okay, why didn't Alcia just ask the Voyager crew to help them get back the adult/children and Tuvok so they can go about their ritual, rather than firing blasters leading them on a chase...and so on...and so on...'



Still, I think the idea of the Drayans are interesting. I would like to see them turn up in a VOY novel or something.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

This was done before on Star Trek in the TAS episode The Counter Clock Incident, although the people aged backward because time flowed backward in their dimension.

 

[Timo]

What possible evolutionary reason could there be for a person to be born as a wrinkled, elderly-looking creature and 'grow' into a youthful child as they get older?

What reason do we have to think that evolution has anything to do with it?

If I were the master of the finest nuances of my species' biology (as any technologically advanced culture eventually must be, and the Drayans were explicitly said to be technologically advanced), I certainly would see merit in engineering my species so that it never experiences the ultimate downsides of aging. I might be averse to actual immortality, for various reasons - but I would still be free to build in a "good death". A second childhood is a nice and easy way to go, for the "child" (see anti-aging used as analogy to senility in e.g. Simmons' Endymion).

The episode basically suggests that this engineering happened within three generations of the episode - that Alcia's great-grandfather did the necessary modifications, and cut contact with the outside universe like Neelix says. The planet has a glorious past of extreme technological advancement, so it's probably perfectly possible for a single generation (or even a single individual) to come up with this new way of dying. However, this is not solidly established, and the engineering might have happened millennia earlier, too.

There's nothing whatsoever in the episode to suggest that the Drayans are born old. Rather, it seems that their life is an arc that starts with childhood and ends in childhood, with a span of about a century.

The only really implausible part here, from the scifi point of view, is that ALL Drayans seem to come to die on that small moon. That would require a massive logistics effort, even if the population is only a few million individuals strong. Yet all we hear of is a single crashed shuttle that only delivered a handful of "children".

Perhaps Alcia's great-grandfather's movement hasn't really caught up quite as well as Alcia tries to claim, and only a minority of the population chooses to come and die on that moon? Or perhaps everybody would like to, but only the elite can choose that dying location?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jeri]

...the people aged backward because time flowed backward in their dimension.

Yeah...we really don't know why we experience time in the fashion that we do. It's just customary to us, as some other fashion would be customary to beings experiencing it.

 

[Lynx]

I have a personal theory about the Drayans which is that they have some sort of circular aging. They might be born as children, then become old around the time they are 50 and then age backwards after that.

Otherwise I would find it hard to imagine a Drayan woman giving birth to a full-grown old man.

 

[Timo]

Yeah; once again, nowhere in the episode is it suggested that Drayans are born old or fully grown. All we know for sure is that in their nineties, they look like preteens - and in the middle of their lives, they look like adult humans in their forties. We have no data on what they might look like when six years old. Or when seventy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I have a personal theory about the Drayans which is that they have some sort of circular aging. They might be born as children, then become old around the time they are 50 and then age backwards after that.

Otherwise I would find it hard to imagine a Drayan woman giving birth to a full-grown old man.

Yeah; once again, nowhere in the episode is it suggested that Drayans are born old or fully grown. All we know for sure is that in their nineties, they look like preteens - and in the middle of their lives, they look like adult humans in their forties. We have no data on what they might look like when six years old. Or when seventy.

Timo Saloniemi

I have to agree with Timo.

Sidenote: While watching this episode, I want to believe that Tim Russ was channelling(sp?) Leonard Nimoy; some of the mannerisms were definitely TCS (The Classic Series) Spock...

 

[Admiral Shran]

I think it will create a certain 'interesting' situation to have an Admiral who looks as if he or she is the same age as your little 11, 12, 13 year old niece, nephew, daughter....or even a Captain who looks as if he or she is the same age...

I hope that everyone accepts this as a fact of biology by the time the Drayans join the Federation.

The whole TNG crew, even Data, go batshit crazy in "Rascals" when they have to take orders from a 13 year old Captain. Nevermind that it was still Jean-Luc Picard. Considering this, I think humanity, and the rest of the Federation, have a long way to go.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I think it will create a certain 'interesting' situation to have an Admiral who looks as if he or she is the same age as your little 11, 12, 13 year old niece, nephew, daughter....or even a Captain who looks as if he or she is the same age...

I hope that everyone accepts this as a fact of biology by the time the Drayans join the Federation.

The whole TNG crew, even Data, go batshit crazy in "Rascals" when they have to take orders from a 13 year old Captain. Nevermind that it was still Jean-Luc Picard. Considering this, I think humanity, and the rest of the Federation, have a long way to go.

Very true...

 

[RegFan]

The Ocampa are another species with impossible biology. The fact that their population grows despite women only giving birth once in their lives can be explained with twins and triplets, but I refuse to believe that one year old Kes looks and acts like twenty years old human. And they only live nine years. A normal human childhood lasts over ten years! Even if they were really talking about (possibly longer) Ocampa years, it still feels impossible.

I like the idea of "circular aging". They look so much like humans that they must procreate the same way as humans. And I don't think any woman could give birth to an "old" man.