Old, older Romulans??

[Tarbas]

How old can following species become?

Romulan
Klingon
Cardassian
Ferengi

and the most difficult

Founder

Thank you

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Star Trek Alpha Squad -
"United they stand"

[qerlin]

AS old as your need 'em to be, Tarbas. It's your game!

Woo, hoo! This, I believe is my 100th post!

[Tarbas]

Haha very funny. I now that I can decide how old they are or how old they can become. I need a timeframe. Can Romulans become as old as Vulcans? As far as I know they are weaker. i think the answer is interesting. Is a Founder able to live until he is killed?

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Star Trek Alpha Squad -
"United they stand"

[Roxby]

I would think that Romulans, being virtually identical, genetically, to Vulcans could live just as long as a Vulcan.

I think the problem is that in their cut-throat society that many of them don't live past middle age.

As for the founders, I am inclined to think they are very long-lived; and possibly if they die within the link, their bodily material may be reabsorbed.

But that's purely speculation. I don't think there's any precedent.

R

[This message has been edited by Roxby (edited 01-20-2001).]

[Sarge]

I don't think a founder could die unless he couldn't get back to the link. It seems to me that in the link they're all one entity, and sometimes they allow a part of the entity to separate itself and leave temporarily.

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<<<<

LUGTrek isn't really dead. Not as long as we remember it.

[Cochrane]

TNG Player book lists lifespans.

[Tarbas]

Cochrane, you mean the Players Guide?
There are only the lifespan of Federation Races mentioned

Roxby, maybe, but you have to keep in mind, that the Romulans aren't on Vulcan anymore. As far as I know they already lost the special vulcan inner-eye-lid and are physically weaker than Vulcans.

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Star Trek Alpha Squad -
"United they stand"

[Cochrane]

If I recall, the Klingons were there, and besides, it could be used as guidelines.

[Roxby]

Originally posted by Tarbas:
Cochrane, you mean the Players Guide?
There are only the lifespan of Federation Races mentioned

Roxby, maybe, but you have to keep in mind, that the Romulans aren't on Vulcan anymore. As far as I know they already lost the special vulcan inner-eye-lid and are physically weaker than Vulcans.

in two thousand years????

How different are we humans from our ancestors alive during Christ's time? That was two thousand years ago.

[Michael Brinkhues]

Quite different in size due to dietary reasons. Although stronger for the same reason. Add all the tourists that came through (at least here in europe) and you get a quite different genetic makeup

Example: My family is german in origin. In the 30 years war one of my forebearers (fathers side) married a swedish female (result: My familie is an average 5-10 cm taller than common here) and another on the mothers side an italian male (Result: Most person from my mothers line can pose as a south european after a week in the sun, hair, facial color and form etc.)

Add to this the fact that the romulans live on a different planet (other radiation level etc) and used either none or a very early warpdrive and one can assume a few mutations.

The other idea is that they have genetically engineered it away due to social (The early Romulans are portrayed as a poor society that didn't waste anything) or health reasons (like the way some african cultures operate their males)

Michael

[Roxby]

Size differences due to nutritional factors, sure; differing strengths, different gravity, different nutrition genetic drift, OK.

But I don't think any one human race has developed a few extra toes or some other lasting, dramatic mutation in the past 2,000 years.

Hey - there's a depletion in the ozone. Maybe *We'll* have nictitating membranes for our eyes by the 41st Century.

c'mon guys... environment is one thing. Genetics is another. most significant changes to a species' morphology takes upper-hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

If we had a breeding rate of an insect, it might be a different story. take fruit fly's for example... the mutate rather quickly; but a race whose life expectancy is longer than ours, their birthrate should be even lower than ours.

R

[Michael Brinkhues]

Roxby said:

If we had a breeding rate of an insect, it might be a different story. take fruit fly's for example... the mutate rather quickly; but a race whose life expectancy is longer than ours, their birthrate should be even lower than ours.

While I agree that natural mutation in a big enough populace won't be fast enough for this to happen, there are some questions:

• How many persons left Vulcan and how many made it to Romulus? If they were close to the genetic treshhold in diversity they might have used the whole treatment (Artificial insemination, artificial wombs etc) to get their "clan" up to strength (AFAIK original vulcan society was like the Highland clans with Psionics and those early Rommys where the most militant around)
  
• If they deemed their size to small and genetic diversity not big enough (again: clan structure = a lot of relativs) they might have either added some genetical engeniering (thereby adapting to the new environment) or some in-breeding (if the technology wasn't there). And what happens if near-treshhold population breeds among itself can be seen throughout earth history. Most of the times the result is weaker than the original populace in less than a millenia. Most colonies only escaped this through the constant infusion of fresh genes from home and cross-breeding with the locals

Michael




[This message has been edited by Michael Brinkhues (edited 01-23-2001).]

[Cochrane]

As for the Ferengi, how long had it been since Zek took a vacation? How old do you think he would have been at that time?