sexy+2 advantage

[Dan Gurden]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Miymaani:
In the case of Andorians/human matings, cobalt causes brain damage and birth defects to humans (that's why that cobalt glass is all in the windows of antique shops rather than on Mom's table: it took a while to figure it out. )

</font>

This is where this board is useful. I didn't know this, and now can take the relevant data into account...

As for non-productive matings, that just requires sexual compatibility, I wouldn't consider it akin to bestiality, my reasons for this are simple.

It is a mating of two intelligent beings, not one intelligent and one animal... It is a difference, and to be honest I hadn't even considered the 'social outcast' view of things before... It could be interesting to explore, but most certainly isn't for me...

Of course extremes are right out.

In the past I have turned away 1/4 Betazoid, Klingon, Vulcan and Deltan crossbreeds... No Surprise, and even a 1/2 Klingon/Vulcan that depended on Vulcan women undergoing ponn far, which I dont accept in my universe...

On the whole halfbreeds are more than a +6 advantage to get the best of the stats, there does need to be a rational about them...



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DanG.

"Hi, I'm Commander Troy McClure, you might remember me from other academy training holo-simulations as, Abandon Ship, the quickest way out, and I sense danger, 101 things you dont need a Betazoid to know..."

http://www.theventure.freeserve.co.uk

[spyone]

2 points in one post (so my ideas are on sale)

1) Fertility is one issue, compatability is another. While you may find that Benzite to be sexy, there is still the question of whether the parts match.
Cardassians and Bajorans have parts that match. As do Klingons and Humans, Humans and Bajorans, Humans and Vulcans, and Humans and Romulans, Humans and Trills, and Klingons and Trills.
Ferengi seem mainly interested in people with hands (with which to carress the ears), so we are unsure about the rest.

2) It does seem that in Star Trek, as in many Fantasy RPGs, that Humans are capable of breeding with almost anything, even with races incapable of breeding with each other. If you choose to maintain this as Truth in your campaign, you should probably come up with a reason.

(What I mean by "incapable of breeding with each other" above is NOT those races that have become infertile (who all seem to want Kirk to save their race), but ... We've seen a Romulan-Human and 2 Klingon-Humans, but this is not proof that there could be a Klingon-Romulan out there.)

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You're a Starfleet Officer. "Weird" is part of the job.

[Dan Gurden]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by spyone:
1) Fertility is one issue, compatability is another. While you may find that Benzite to be sexy, there is still the question of whether the parts match.
Cardassians and Bajorans have parts that match. As do Klingons and Humans, Humans and Bajorans, Humans and Vulcans, and Humans and Romulans, Humans and Trills, and Klingons and Trills.
Ferengi seem mainly interested in people with hands (with which to carress the ears), so we are unsure about the rest.
</font>

Canon examples of genetic compatibility also covers Klingon/Betazoid, Betazoid/Human, Romulan/Klingon...

Off the top of my head. One of these conflicts with your later comments and will be address immediatly after the refresh...

However it should also be noted that although Klingon/Trill is 'parts matching compatible, and capable of producing offspring without major medical help (see 'Children of Time'), Bashiers comments in 'Sacrifice of Angels' indicates that such an un-aided pregnancy is dangerous to the parent...

Add Worfs comments about how a human would not survive a coupling with a Klingon (I assume by later evidence to the contrary that this was bragging, maybe its the heavy objects and Worf got a nerf padded room when he got lucky ), this indicates that all is not 100% compatible with Klingon... Which does strangely support many of the arguements here... Both for and against.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by spyone:
(What I mean by "incapable of breeding with each other" above is NOT those races that have become infertile (who all seem to want Kirk to save their race), but ... We've seen a Romulan-Human and 2 Klingon-Humans, but this is not proof that there could be a Klingon-Romulan out there.)
</font>

However the episode 'Birthright' does show Romulan/Klingon compatibility...

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DanG.

"Hi, I'm Commander Troy McClure, you might remember me from other academy training holo-simulations as, Abandon Ship, the quickest way out, and I sense danger, 101 things you dont need a Betazoid to know..."

http://www.theventure.freeserve.co.uk

[This message has been edited by Dan Gurden (edited 08-15-2001).]

[John Raynor]

A thought for anyone running a time travel
campaign:

It's reasonable to assume that, in the
Federation's far future (say, five hundred
years or so after the "Next Generation" era),
there will be a *substantial* number of
people whose ancestry can *only* be
determined through genetic testing.

I vaguely recall that a holographic
projection of the gene-seeding "ancestral
humanoid species" shows up in a "Next
Generation" episode. I'd say that (to
varying degrees, depending upon quirks of
heredity) these people would look a lot like
that...

In the *far* far future of the "Star Trek"
universe, it wouldn't be surprising if *most*
of the galaxy's humanoid population ended up
"blended

[Lindal Vol]

I am curently playing in a campaign where the CO of the USS Argentina ( A Rigel-class)is A half Betazoid-half Vulcan. How exactly this came about she hasn't said but the character is always contradicting herself. One minute very caring the seeming cold and callous. All in all it makes for good roleplaying.

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"What do you mean We are in the Neutral Zone? This is BAD!!" -Captain Jordan Macallister, USS Daytona

[spyone]

Dan:

Good catch. I forgot all those.

Any others I've forgotten?

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You're a Starfleet Officer. "Weird" is part of the job.

[ComaBoy]

Here's something I've been considering for a while: wouldn't the Sexy "advantage" be a lot more complicated depending on who is on the perceiving end? [Remember the scene in Generations when the Duras sisters are revolted by Beverly's appearance on their viewscreen?] A Sexy Vulcan might be able to take the cube root of twenty digit numbers in his/her head. A Sexy Pakled...well let's not go there...
Of course an Ugly -1 disadvantage probably wouldn't be PC

[Robbert Raets]

>something to be said for the potential dramas involved in people of different species who *are* in love, but *can't* have children.

They do this in the DS9 episode 'chimera', IIRC. Laas says he and his 'mate' broke up because childeren were important for her.

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Fate protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise.

[spyone]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by ComaBoy:
A Sexy Vulcan might be able to take the cube root of twenty digit numbers in his/her head. A Sexy Pakled...well let's not go there...
Of course an Ugly -1 disadvantage probably wouldn't be PC </font>

EDIT: I was originally rebutting this, but I re-read the advantage and changed my mind. At least as it appears in the TOS rulebook, Sexy covers both appearance and interpersonal interaction (you personality, your voice, your attitude). However, it also says that Kirk proves that persons affected by this advantage "don't nessicarily have to be of the same species", which certinly implies that the GM can rule that the Cardassians don't find you Sexy.
However, I will post the stuff I'd written since some folks might find some of it interesting.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2"> </font>

Well, I would say that Sexy, as written, was intended to reflect appearance. As such, a person able to do a cube root to twenty digits would not be sexy (nessicarily), but a person who looks like they can take the cube root to twenty digits would.

And a inter-species "Sexy" advantage requires that there be certian things that all races find attractive, at least on a subconscious level.
Some sweeping generalizations. Male humans tend to be attracted to signs of fertility. Female humans tend to be attracted to signs of survival capabilty and to signs of "good providing" which generally means wealth. And both genders are attracted to any kind of display intended to attract a mate.
So, if all species share certain signs of female fertility, all of them will be attracted to certain signs. For instance, IIRC all Star Trek races' adult females have breasts similar to human females. So, while there will be a variety of preferences of style, all races' males will likely find them attractive (as an indicator that the female is old enough to breed).
This actually carries over well into Star Trek. The Lady Grilka found Quark attractive after he demonstrated power. While it was not a Klingon kind of power, it was a power that worked in Klingon society. (IIRC. It's been a while.) Worf demonstrated to Troi that he was not only strong of body and character, but that he was sensative. In fact, it was his relations to Alexander that attracted her to him, so he was demonstrating to her that he was a good father. This works for humans, and apparently half-Betazoids as well. Jadzia was attracted to Worf for other reasons.

What I'm saying above is, if a Ferengi woman would find Ebeneezer Scrooge a strangely compelling man, and would probably be attracted to him. So long as the male is displaying traits that would make him successful in ways or areas that are important to the female, she will be attracted to him. At least a little.

I've wandered.

I thought Sexy was intended to reflect appearance, or other characteristics detectable at range . The character possesses subtle inherant traits that are visable and are considered signs of a good mate by a majority of memebers of the opposite gender from the majority of races.

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You're a Starfleet Officer. "Weird" is part of the job.

[ComaBoy]

Spyone- Nicely done! I like that interpretation of the advantage.

[Aldaron]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Dan Gurden:
...The key here, Is Genetic Compatibility...

Humans seem to be (In Rodenberrys vision) compatible accross the galaxy, which means that genetically you have far more in common with an Alien than your dog...

...During TNG they finally explained this compatibility, as well as the 'Humanoid with bumpy forheads' key to most alien species.

Basically all humanoid life was seeded by progenitors in ancient times, and allowed to develop and evolve on their own.

But basically, in the Trek universe, we all come from the same base genetic stock...

I hope that helps.

</font>

Hmmm...that's always been my problem with the "progenitors seeding life in the galaxy thingie".

We know from All Good Things that the progenitors didn't seed humanoids. All they did was fling a few self-replicating molecules onto Earth, Q'onos, Vulcan, Betazed, etc, etc. These molecules eventually formed DNA and eventually, us.

Not only did they form us...they also formed my dog, my goldfish and that damnable magpie that keeps waking me up at 0630 every morning.

IOW, seeding self-replicating molecules still doesn't make an alien closer to me than my dog. We may both have come from the original DNA stock, if you will, but ultimately, that Klingon, or Betazoid, or whatever, went along the evolutionary path on Q'onos, or Betazed, while we followed along ours. Our little shrew-like ancestors, who giggled with glee when the dinosaurs were dying out, eventually gave rise to both me, and [/i]my dog[/i]. They didn't give rise to Betazoids or Bajorans - some other little critter on their worlds, millions of years in the past, was doing that.

I guess what I'm saying is, that if the progenitors sowed DNA say, 1 billion years ago, then that is when we diverged from the other humanoid aliens. Humans and canines only diverged in the last 50 million or so years.

In that sense, I'm 20 times closer to my dog than I am to a Betazoid. Obviously, there must be a lot of similarities at a genetic level for us to have such morphological similarities...but sleeping with one of 'em?

Ugh!

Now where's my dog gone...

[Aldaron]

Sorry about the double-post!

[This message has been edited by Aldaron (edited 08-21-2001).]

[Diamond]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">We know from All Good Things that the progenitors didn't seed humanoids.</font>

No, we don't know that at all. Clearly, if no native life evolved on Earth, the Preservers wouldn't have placed humans there. Thus an uninhabited Earth, no Starfleet and no Enterprise in the "All Good Things" possible-parrallel.

The Preservers obviously seeded HUMANOIDS and not the basic molecules of life. For many well-supported reasons. First, if they had merely spread the basic molecules of life, that would NOT explain why there are so many humanoid life forms out there. If they merely spread the basic molecules of life, the sentint beings would have the same range as Earth creatures- from Octopi to reptilian to mammal. Not all humanoids with bumpy faces.

Second, "All Good Things" shows us just the opposite of what you have concluded it does. Picard is in danger of stopping the evolution of life on Earth NOT by diverting a Preserver seeding ship, but by messing up the primordial pool where life was about to (pardon the tense, it's hard to be accurate when such time travel is involved) evolve naturally. You saw that on the screen... Q explained it.

Finally, in the TNG episode where they discover strong evidence of the Preservers, they have to get DNA from the various humanoids of the galaxy and put them together to figuire out the scientific mystery. If the Preservers had been merely spreading the basic forms of life which later evolved, the scientists in that episode would have been after ANY life from from the various planets. And Microbe DNA information MUST have been in their medical databases.

There are strong reasons to conclude the Preservers spread humanoids. They even said as much that was their aim, through their DNA-encoded computer-message.

(Incidentally, consider the preserver power- the information encoded in humanoid DNA, when combined from all over the galaxy [or at least Alpha Quadrant] formed a computer program which could interface with a unknown input/output device [a Federation Tricorder] and deliver it's message! Amazingly advanced computer science)

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[Aldaron]

<font color=blue>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We know from All Good Things that the progenitors didn't seed humanoids.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, we don't know that at all. Clearly, if no native life evolved on Earth, the Preservers wouldn't have placed humans there. Thus an uninhabited Earth, no Starfleet and no Enterprise in the "All Good Things" possible-parrallel.

The Preservers obviously seeded HUMANOIDS and not the basic molecules of life. For many well-supported reasons. First, if they had merely spread the basic molecules of life, that would NOT explain why there are so many humanoid life forms out there. If they merely spread the basic molecules of life, the sentint beings would have the same range as Earth creatures- from Octopi to reptilian to mammal. Not all humanoids with bumpy faces.</font>

Agreed - if Star Trek had maintained strict scientific accuracy in this - which it hasn't, for many other well-supported reasons. The simple fact of the matter is that the dialogue of the episode specifically mentions, on several occasions, that the seeding took place four BILLION years ago.

And this is exactly my point regarding inter-species relationships! That a Betazoid is further removed from a Human (in an evolutionary sense) than an octopus or reptile, since their evolution and ours diverged further back - 4 billion years, according to The Chase.

<font color=blue>Second, "All Good Things" shows us just the opposite of what you have concluded it does. Picard is in danger of stopping the evolution of life on Earth NOT by diverting a Preserver seeding ship, but by messing up the primordial pool where life was about to (pardon the tense, it's hard to be accurate when such time travel is involved) evolve naturally. You saw that on the screen... Q explained it. </font>

I know. And my contention is that the Progenitors (not the Preservers, BTW; they were relocating Native Americans only 10 - 20,000 years ago. The Progenitors - which is simply my terminology for the people represented by Salome Jens in The Chase went back a lot further than that) had either just seeded the pre-DNA genetic material into Earth's primordial soup, or were about to pop in after Picard and Q left and drop their package - again, into the primordial soup.

<font color=blue>Finally, in the TNG episode where they discover strong evidence of the Preservers, they have to get DNA from the various humanoids of the galaxy and put them together to figuire out the scientific mystery. If the Preservers had been merely spreading the basic forms of life which later evolved, the scientists in that episode would have been after ANY life from from the various planets. And Microbe DNA information MUST have been in their medical databases. </font>

Umm...I really think you need to watch The Chase again. I just have, in the last hour, to confirm my position. The Enterprise crew were indeed after ANY life-form. Picard wondered at what Galen, the Federation's foremost archeologist, was doing on a planet which had no civilisation at all (he was, of course, getting DNA samples from ANY life-form there). The Klingon captain destroyed the biosphere of one planet to prevent anyone picking up ANY life-form from there after he'd gotten his bit. Gul Ocett threatened to destroy anyone trying to get a DNA sample from the uninhabited planet where she, the Klingons and the Enterprise first met. The final planet, where they eventually saw the hologram of the Progenitor, had a bit of lichen that everyone was ready to kill each other over to prevent the last DNA sample from falling into the "wrong" hands. Beverly and Picard eventually found the last fragment in a bit of fossilised organic material in the dirt.

<font color=blue>There are strong reasons to conclude the Preservers spread humanoids. They even said as much that was their aim, through their DNA-encoded computer-message.</font>

Yes, it was their aim. And they set the DNA up to eventually evolve into humanoids.
To illustrate my point, allow me to quote several lines of dialogue from the episode (bold emphasis is mine):

Beverly, to Picard, Data and Geordi when they are discussing the algorithm encoded in the DNA strands:
"This fragment has been part of every DNA strand on Earth since life began there. And the others are just as old. Someone must have written this program over four billion years ago".

To which Picard replies:
"So, four billion years ago, someone scattered this genetic material into the primordial soup of at least nineteen different planets across the galaxy."

And Data adds:
"The genetic information must have been incorporated into the earliest life-forms on these planets, and then passed down through each generation."

Later, when ordering Beverly to construct a star-chart based on the information coded in the strands of theirs, and the DNA obtained from the Klingons and Cardassians, Picard specifically tells her to correct the chart for four billion years of galactic drift. And, of course, the map is absolutely correct, after she does this.

The Progenitor herself specifically states:
"Our scientists seeded the primordial oceans of many worlds, where life was in its infancy."

So, my original position still stands completely. In light of just having watched the episode again, I'll reserve my assertion that all the Progenitors did was seed pre-DNA, self-replicating molecules on Earth (since the Progenitor said "where life was in its infancy"); I'll keep that as "opinion", rather than canon. That said, I still maintain the seeding predates the formation of DNA on Earth. The earliest life-forms on Earth are around a billion years old. These guys were doing their thing four billion years ago, long before Earth had anything remotely like DNA...but I'll still let this one go, for the sake of this debate.

Why? Because the episode simply confirms what I've been saying all along: that our evolutionary path diverged billions of years ago. According to the episode itself - four billion years ago. The fact that we've ended up looking similar is just engineered convergent evolution - a shark and dolphin are superficially similar; doesn't mean they're in any way remotely like each other. In fact, a dolphin is far closer to me than it is to a shark, and the shark is far closer to my goldfish than it is to a dolphin.

Same applies here. A Betazoid and a Human, while superficially similar, conclusively and unarguably split off onto separate evolutionary paths four billion years ago.

Every single life-form on Earth is far closer to humans than any of the humanoid alien species.

So my point remains - having sex with an alien, however humanoid and attractive they may be, is really a form of bestiality. You would be having sex with a totally different species - one far, far more removed from you than a dog or cow would be!

'Nuff said...

"Kahlua...here girl! Here girl!"

Oh man...I'm sick!


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"Every atom in our bodies was forged in the furnace of ancient stars - it is our destiny to return home..."

[This message has been edited by Aldaron (edited 08-23-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Aldaron (edited 08-23-2001).]