TOS - Is There in Truth No Beauty?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Aren't Vulcans' mental powers supposed to be the product of their intense training and discipline?

At least, I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be the reason why the Romulans don't have a bunch of psychic spies running around.

Yes. It's part of Vulcan evolution I believe. The fact that Romulans have never once been shown to have any psychic powers indicates that suppression of emotion to drastic degrees is where it comes from.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

This does put two strong theories in mind: 1) Humanity somehow unintentionally created all humanoid life in the galaxy; Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, Betazoids, etc. with human features which would explain why humans have no more challenging passion in their works like making a 30-ft centipede whit tendril for limbs (or in Chuck's case selling the their existence to the DEVIL=>JANEWAY), probably from WW3 that must have caused a lot of trauma to suppress.

2).All humanoid life "looks" human because humanity refuses to see the real forms of the aliens, its easy for any human today to cloak his perception of reality with just pheromones. Since most of the aliens would have feature that would accurately place them away from the "humanoid" category; i.e. Klingons would have backward legs and stretched face like a gorilla with musculature and dense claw-hands.

I don't what is true in-universe of Star Trek, but my choice would be the latter since humans aren't really adapted yet to see what space really is or if they so ignorant of what Order really is that the entire species became tyrants. But if the former is true, then that would peek interest for Star trek humans being idiot creator gods.
And if any of you bring up that stupid TNG: The Chase with those stupid precursor humans in this talk I'll have Janeway cook your children(and future children) and force you to eat them!

It's been established in both TOS and TNG that seeds were planted across the galaxy and that all shown humanoid races in the show share a common ancestor.

[Fianna]

Y'know, it's just now occurred to me: if the Romulans did have psychic abilities, just like the Vulcans, it'd be entirely in-character for them to keep that a closely guarded secret from outsiders, so that no one knows to guard against psychic Romulan agents.

[Mecha82]

This does put two strong theories in mind: 1) Humanity somehow unintentionally created all humanoid life in the galaxy; Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, Betazoids, etc. with human features which would explain why humans have no more challenging passion in their works like making a 30-ft centipede whit tendril for limbs (or in Chuck's case selling the their existence to the DEVIL=>JANEWAY), probably from WW3 that must have caused a lot of trauma to suppress.

2).All humanoid life "looks" human because humanity refuses to see the real forms of the aliens, its easy for any human today to cloak his perception of reality with just pheromones. Since most of the aliens would have feature that would accurately place them away from the "humanoid" category; i.e. Klingons would have backward legs and stretched face like a gorilla with musculature and dense claw-hands.

I don't what is true in-universe of Star Trek, but my choice would be the latter since humans aren't really adapted yet to see what space really is or if they so ignorant of what Order really is that the entire species became tyrants. But if the former is true, then that would peek interest for Star trek humans being idiot creator gods.
And if any of you bring up that stupid TNG: The Chase with those stupid precursor humans in this talk I'll have Janeway cook your children(and future children) and force you to eat them!

It's been established in both TOS and TNG that seeds were planted across the galaxy and that all shown humanoid races in the show share a common ancestor.

It's similar to Macross then were humans, zentreadi and all other races were all created by super ancient civilization called Protoculture.

[Madner Kami]

Y'know, it's just now occurred to me: if the Romulans did have psychic abilities, just like the Vulcans, it'd be entirely in-character for them to keep that a closely guarded secret from outsiders, so that no one knows to guard against psychic Romulan agents.

Given the largely "physical contact only" telepathy of Vulcans, that would not be a secret hard to keep, I'd say.

[King Green]

This does put two strong theories in mind: 1) Humanity somehow unintentionally created all humanoid life in the galaxy; Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, Betazoids, etc. with human features which would explain why humans have no more challenging passion in their works like making a 30-ft centipede whit tendril for limbs (or in Chuck's case selling the their existence to the DEVIL=>JANEWAY), probably from WW3 that must have caused a lot of trauma to suppress.

2).All humanoid life "looks" human because humanity refuses to see the real forms of the aliens, its easy for any human today to cloak his perception of reality with just pheromones. Since most of the aliens would have feature that would accurately place them away from the "humanoid" category; i.e. Klingons would have backward legs and stretched face like a gorilla with musculature and dense claw-hands.

I don't what is true in-universe of Star Trek, but my choice would be the latter since humans aren't really adapted yet to see what space really is or if they so ignorant of what Order really is that the entire species became tyrants. But if the former is true, then that would peek interest for Star trek humans being idiot creator gods.
And if any of you bring up that stupid TNG: The Chase with those stupid precursor humans in this talk I'll have Janeway cook your children(and future children) and force you to eat them!

It's been established in both TOS and TNG that seeds were planted across the galaxy and that all shown humanoid races in the show share a common ancestor.

While, true it is canon by the director its not canon by the eyes of the fans due to such an abuse of the Deus Ex Machina idea. I would probably go with Theory 2 due to Chuck accurately predicting that humanity hasn't left the "crib" of its suppressing nature of refusing to accept what it perceives, TOS had a good foundation of the "common ancestor" idea before it was admitted in 1981 in the Baltic States in the original Kgnirallenvic Research Station at Dig Site 41 for Archaeological Studies of Ancient Britannia, they changed the Research Station's name though, but instead found 7000+ year old hominid remains that were almost on the path-set from China's Early establishment or royalty, which you can only see in the Forbidden City.
TNG though, only focused on how much cash they can abuse from that "common ancestor" idea and the result was the poorly rendered proto-humans(I would call them step-parents or god-parents though) with an absolute headache-filled chase scene with techno-babble that feels like the state of Georgia crawling up you virgin ass.

I know well of the Baltic history and Britain's attempt to create a duplicate Balkan nation to con Russia for power and becoming a vassal nation.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

This does put two strong theories in mind: 1) Humanity somehow unintentionally created all humanoid life in the galaxy; Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, Betazoids, etc. with human features which would explain why humans have no more challenging passion in their works like making a 30-ft centipede whit tendril for limbs (or in Chuck's case selling the their existence to the DEVIL=>JANEWAY), probably from WW3 that must have caused a lot of trauma to suppress.

2).All humanoid life "looks" human because humanity refuses to see the real forms of the aliens, its easy for any human today to cloak his perception of reality with just pheromones. Since most of the aliens would have feature that would accurately place them away from the "humanoid" category; i.e. Klingons would have backward legs and stretched face like a gorilla with musculature and dense claw-hands.

I don't what is true in-universe of Star Trek, but my choice would be the latter since humans aren't really adapted yet to see what space really is or if they so ignorant of what Order really is that the entire species became tyrants. But if the former is true, then that would peek interest for Star trek humans being idiot creator gods.
And if any of you bring up that stupid TNG: The Chase with those stupid precursor humans in this talk I'll have Janeway cook your children(and future children) and force you to eat them!

It's been established in both TOS and TNG that seeds were planted across the galaxy and that all shown humanoid races in the show share a common ancestor.

While, true it is canon by the director its not canon by the eyes of the fans due to such an abuse of the Deus Ex Machina idea.

Nice. Reminds me of what you might call a headcanon.

[CharlesPhipps]

Star Trek, despite its premise, is not about meeting aliens.

It's about meeting humans.

Hence why they need to be similar to us in order to do metaphors about war, poverty, HMOs, or holoporn.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Star Trek, despite its premise, is not about meeting aliens.

It's about meeting humans.

Hence why they need to be similar to us in order to do metaphors about war, poverty, HMOs, or holoporn.

Well that's the narrative parallel. Star Trek is a prominent example in mainstream with its rich introspective narrative of cultural reflection. Not sure how it ranks with that among sci-fi in general but it's significant. Still though there's fruit in examining it comprehensively and being conscious of how it stretches that narrative at moments. Especially without breaking those moments apart from your own idea of the canon.

[Beastro]

Star Trek, despite its premise, is not about meeting aliens.

It's about meeting humans.

Hence why they need to be similar to us in order to do metaphors about war, poverty, HMOs, or holoporn.

It's a Sci-Fi spin on a lot of old Western stories where the plots dealt straight up with cultural differences.

A good example is the stock plot of a Chinese man's queue being cut off and the protagonist having to stop him from enacting blood vengeance on the asshole cowboy who did the act. Another is how ever single TV Western seems to have at least one episode dealing with a Japanese Samurai who found his way to America, and for whatever reason, needs to kill himself (The interesting bit if, unlike the Chinese queue one, the Samurai stories can split between talking the guy out of seppuku while others resolve the matter with him killing himself despite Western protestations).

It doesn't take much to rearrange either turn them into simple Klingon/Generic-Warrior-Race-o-the-Week plots.

Well that's the narrative parallel. Star Trek is a prominent example in mainstream with its rich introspective narrative of cultural reflection. Not sure how it ranks with that among sci-fi in general but it's significant.

It's only real competitor in the pop culture sphere is Rod Serling's impact through not just the Twilight Zone but many other things he wrote or was involved in.

I watched Seven Days in May and instantly felt his hand in it before I checked and found he wrote the screenplay. It his style of show where discussing the issues at hand is what comes first. I can disagree with the two sides taken (IMO, they were both right and wrong, the problem was how they were split on issues that ultimately made both wrong), but I can appreciate watching a movie that really wanted to talk about one of the major issues of the Cold War right as the Vietnam War began to get going for the US, that is containment vs confrontation.