Come now, Bill you're a man of the world. I think you can figure it out.
What Has Discovery Added To Star Trek Lore?
- Thread starter Kane_Steel
- Start date
Yup, that was it. Guess nobody really thought much further beyond that line of dialogue. Had they stuck to that, I always figured pure Vulcans may have even pointier ears and greener skin.
We ultimately kinda got that with Worf, a Klingon orphan raised by humans, combining his reverence for Klingon culture with his human upbringing.
"Mudd's Women" is the third episode written - one of the candidates for second pilot, I believe. In early episodes to come, we'd also hear McCoy refer to Vulcans as having been conquered, presumably by humans, a lot of variant terminology - "Vulcanians" and interestingly "the Vulcanian expedition" suggesting that early contact with Vulcan was recent - and Chapel's somewhat personal curiosity about how Vulcans "treat their women." Of course, no one knew much about either Vulcan culture or Vulcan physiology either - as far as we knew.
Well, Harry Mudd could tell from appearance that Spock was "part Vulcanian." This was before we ever saw any "full Vulcanians" and turned out there wasn't any noticeable visual distinction.
Kor
Sure there is. They have pointed ears, upswept eyebrows and sallow complexions.
More or less.
Again, in the context of that time Mudd's comment was no more than good old American Frontier racism. The women, somewhat more naive perhaps than Harry, see an officer serving in what was clearly a very human, Earth-centered organization - Starfleet - as simply an officer. In westerns you saw many characters who were part of groups of settlers, or soldiers, or cowboys singled out as Indians or part-Indians on the basis of their complexions or some other presumed racial signifiers - the identification was generally unfriendly.
The fact that he was an officer in Starfleet was enough to justify the assumption that he was part human or adopted as human.
I meant any noticeable visual distinction between a "part Vulcanian" and a "full Vulcanian," not visual distinctions between either of those and full humans.
Kor
Certainly. That conquered remark even reminds me that "Hide and Q" implied that the Federation "defeated" Klingons, as to explain why Worf was an officer, before the writers ever fleshed out what exactly went down with Federation/Klingon relations between Kirk and Picard era. Wesley even refers to Klingons as being part of the Federation.
The frontier western mindset certainly explains why Spock was portrayed as the sole alien on board, even if later episodes and shows retconned that into being that Starfleet was part of a Federation of Planets, rather than purely an Earth vessel.
Be weary, be weary.
I'm thinking maybe once a year....?
He'd have been assumed to be human because he was serving in what at that point in production was being treated as a fleet made up of human beings. That he was anything other than completely human would have been Mudd's inference from his appearance. Mudd remarks upon it in an attempt to get under Spock's skin - he's hoping to offend Spock by noting the likelihood that one of his parents was not human.
MUDD: You're part Vulcanian, aren't you. Ah well then, a pretty face doesn't affect you at all, does it. That is, unless you want it to. You can save it, girls. This type can turn himself off from any emotion.
EVE: I apologise for what he said, sir. He's used to buying and selling people.
Mudd's being a bad guy, a racist. Eve is immediately established as a good and empathetic person.
Just say some genetic engineering was involved. I think it's been mentioned that it was only banned on Earth. Sarek and Amanda really wanted a kid, some Vulcan doctor who was friends with Sarek took some pity on them and helped them out an then they doctored the results and just said that Spock was a test tube baby.
I think Voyager even mentioned that some minor alterations were sometimes required when it came to Tom and B'Elanna's kid. So they might not even have to hide it.
As has been noted, there are interspecies characters all over Trek, several conceived in Romulan prison camps, etc.
As was pointed out many decades ago, we have more genetically in common with bread mold than we ever possibly could with something evolved on another world.
No, "The Chase" doesn't fix it.
It's just a dumb, scientifically nonsensical idea.
As was pointed out many decades ago, we have more genetically in common with bread mold than we ever possibly could with something evolved on another world.
No, "The Chase" doesn't fix it.
It's just a dumb, scientifically nonsensical idea.
Oh, I think it's the only scientifically sensible idea in the whole of Star Trek.
I mean, we can tell zip about how alien intellect might behave, or what technologies it might come up with. But the very definition of intellect would bring with it two things we can absolutely count on: playfulness and vanity.
Intellect is play. It's games, but ones played on a fictional, speculative level, for the needs of the future. In a corollary of Murphy's Law, if a frivolous pursuit can be dreamed up, it will. And every species will look inward even when looking forward. Vanity projects for creating More for Me and indeed More Me are the thing we will encounter wherever we go, on and off Earth.
The how is irrelevant and left as an exercise to those who partake in the play. There is no why.
Timo Saloniemi
I mean, we can tell zip about how alien intellect might behave, or what technologies it might come up with. But the very definition of intellect would bring with it two things we can absolutely count on: playfulness and vanity.
Intellect is play. It's games, but ones played on a fictional, speculative level, for the needs of the future. In a corollary of Murphy's Law, if a frivolous pursuit can be dreamed up, it will. And every species will look inward even when looking forward. Vanity projects for creating More for Me and indeed More Me are the thing we will encounter wherever we go, on and off Earth.
The how is irrelevant and left as an exercise to those who partake in the play. There is no why.
Timo Saloniemi
Then you're misinformed and mistaken.
So it stands to reason Klingon women have two wombs. Why don't we see any Klingon twins (besides what the Duras Sisters are packing)? Or quadruplets or octuplets? Potentially Klingon women could carry a litterPerhaps the fetuses fight it out to the death inside the womb with the victor claiming the glory of birth
Damn it, the double sex organ conversation actually got interesting. Here's a theory - The redundant womb is rarely used, and in Klingon culture it's not seen as producing true offspring. Voq was born this way and it's why he's called "son of none".
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