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Vaughn - ageless?

Who's to say that standard medical treatments won't do a lot to combat the aging process by the 24th Century?
They don't seem to have been too effective on McCoy when we see him in "Farpoint"...
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that he was supposed sick or something when he was on the E-D in "Farpoint".
 
^IIRC, Bashir talked her out of it.

No, he tried to talk her into it. At first, she didn't want to. When she finally did, he was breathing on his own, though still had no higher brain functions and was basicly still braindead.
 
Let me guess, if Vaughn ever wakes up, he's going to make a 100% recovery like in practically every other Hollywood production?
 
I have no more trouble believing that in the 24th Century, Vaughn could be a physically active officer in Starfleet than I do believing that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, 70-something-year-old Patrick Stewart could be an action hero. It just depends on the person.

But Patrick Stewart is only 71 now. He wasn't even over 60 until Nemesis.
 
Who's to say that standard medical treatments won't do a lot to combat the aging process by the 24th Century?
They don't seem to have been too effective on McCoy when we see him in "Farpoint"...

McCoy may have chosen for whatever reason not to avail himself of all the anti-aging treatments that were available. Instead he may have opted to allow himself to age more naturally.
 
But Patrick Stewart is only 71 now. He wasn't even over 60 until Nemesis.

Yes, and Picard was at least a decade older than Stewart. As of NEM, Picard was 74, played by a 62-year-old man. Which shows something about the extended longevity of the era.


McCoy may have chosen for whatever reason not to avail himself of all the anti-aging treatments that were available. Instead he may have opted to allow himself to age more naturally.

If that were so, he'd never have made it to 137. The oldest verified age that's ever been reached is 122.

Remember, what's been suggested is that human life expectancy in the 24th century is around 140, and McCoy was already pushing that. Elias Vaughn is only a shade over 100. So if McCoy's the equivalent of, say, an 85-year-old today, that would make Vaughn the equivalent of about 60. And that's assuming they've had identical access to longevity treatments, which isn't likely, since Vaughn was born much later. Presumably geriatric science advanced between McCoy's prime and Vaughn's prime, so by the time certain longevity-enhancing treatments were invented, it might've already been too late for them to do McCoy much good, if we assume they only retard the aging process rather than reversing it. So it might be more like McCoy's the equivalent of 85 and Vaughn's the equivalent of 50.
 
I've wanted to suggest something for a long time, but since it might be considered a story idea, I've not discussed it here ever.

However, let me try it in spoiler tags:



in "The Deadly Years" McCoy and most everybody in command ended up rapidly aging due to radiation emitted from a passing comet-like object. An adrenalin based drug manages to bring everybody back to their initial age, and from then on, everybody affected apparently ages normally. What if they hadn't been cured, but were forever aging due to the initial "disease", but now at a rate reduced to be like normal aging. Perhaps over the years, McCoy notices that his gene's were altered via the radiation, and that if he chose to, if he recieved the adrenalin-like drug again, his "age" would again reset to what it initially was before being exposed, and the "aging clock" would again be reduced to a much slower rate. This could also be applied to everybody who is still alive, except, of course, Chekov, having the "good luck" of being unaffected to begin with. McCoy has been holding off from retrying this drug, perhaps satisfied with old age, but perhaps he eventually changes his mind?
 
That does sound like a story idea to me.

The transporter is the obvious gateway to immortality. It's been done before. Twice.
 
I think that one could extrapolate that, in addition to McCoy's very advanced age in TNG making it a little hard to compare him to Vaughn (a 137 year old man is almost old enough to be a 100 year old man's grandfather, after all), McCoy was never portrayed as the picture of peak physical conditioning. He's not weak by any means, but he was never a man of action in TOS and definately by the movies he seemed to be rather frail, while Kirk and some of the others faired a little better health-wise.

As others have pointed out, that's no different than today. I once saw an 82 year-old bodybuilder whose level of physical health probably rivaled that of many men in their fifties. Meanwhile other men don't even live to their 80s, find themselves bedridden or in wheelchairs, and so on. Genes, lifestyle, environment, and a host of other things determine a person's health later in life. I imagine, given what we know of Vaughn's background, that he has spent his life as a man of action, and probably maintained himself well in order to meet the demands of his career, combined with the better care that allows greater longevity in Trek. So at 100 he is fit, perhaps even near peak level, and may well surpass many in his age class in terms of 24th century health standards.
 
Err, the novels are "produced" in New York.
You know what I meant, Mr. Literal.

You know, I'll grant that Christopher is sometimes more literal than is reasonable, but I agree with him on this bit. Calling the TREK novels "Hollywood" is just bullshit. It's trying to write off all forms of entertainment media as though they're all the same and all produced by the same people holding the same values, talent, and tendencies, and it's just not true and it's just not fair.

I mean, hell, Christopher himself is one of TrekLit most prolific authors these days, and he lives in Ohio! That's about as far from New York or Hollywood as you can get, culturally-speaking.
 
As others have pointed out, that's no different than today. I once saw an 82 year-old bodybuilder whose level of physical health probably rivaled that of many men in their fifties.

My Uncle Harry is in his eighties, just about twice my age, and when we went bicycling together last year I had trouble keeping up with him. Which is, of course, because he's been cycling every day for decades, and I haven't.


I mean, hell, Christopher himself is one of TrekLit most prolific authors these days, and he lives in Ohio! That's about as far from New York or Hollywood as you can get, culturally-speaking.

Well, I wouldn't go that far. Cincinnati is a city with a rich arts community. We've had a good number of Hollywood movies filmed here over the years, and a lot of big Hollywood names have come from here, from Theda Bara, Doris Day, and Tyrone Power to George Clooney, Hudson Leick, and Rocky Carroll. And the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music has what's widely regarded as the best theater program in the nation, which has provided many fine actors to both Broadway and Hollywood.
 
^Yeah, I'm kinda staggered to know that she lived here and was only a couple of years younger than me. For all I know, I could've met her as a child, though she moved away by high school, I think. But I don't remember ever knowing a girl named Hudson (or Heidi, as she's occasionally been billed).
 
Err, the novels are "produced" in New York.
You know what I meant, Mr. Literal.

You know, I'll grant that Christopher is sometimes more literal than is reasonable, but I agree with him on this bit. Calling the TREK novels "Hollywood" is just bullshit. It's trying to write off all forms of entertainment media as though they're all the same and all produced by the same people holding the same values, talent, and tendencies, and it's just not true and it's just not fair.

I mean, hell, Christopher himself is one of TrekLit most prolific authors these days, and he lives in Ohio! That's about as far from New York or Hollywood as you can get, culturally-speaking.

DNFTT, guys.
 
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