The Theory Behind A Human/Vulcan Child

[Distracted]

The "cloning" process in Similitude was not precisely a clone. The principle was biological pseudobabble and was supposedly related to some sort of "larva" which mimicked the genetic material injected into it, but the result only lived 15 days. Not a reasonable substitute for a real human. And the whole "genetic memory" thing was stupid. Sim should have had the mental capacity and motor skills of a days old infant. But that would not have been good drama.

An artificial womb which allows the complete laboratory gestation of an infant might be theoretically reasonable, though. Or even a device allowing for the extremely premature delivery of a developing fetus, allowing it to be removed in the first trimester once the organs have developed but before the child is large enough to put a strain on the mother's system, to come to term in the lab and be "decanted" instead of born. Many SF stories I have read hypothesize the existence of technology like this.

[Aikiweezie]

Personally... for me it's not combining the DNA that was the issue... due to the hominid commonality pointed out in that TNG episode... its the nature of the pregnancy and the compatibility of host and fetus.

It was solved for me in Similitude.
Carrying a pregnancy to term would depend on the sentimentality of the parents.
If bearing a fetus to term would endanger it's and the mother's lives... why put someone through that when it's safer and a live infant is guaranteed.

peg

Do you mean growing the fetus in an "artificial womb" kind of thing? I guess I'm sentimental. That seems icky to me. Not wrong, just weird. Don't know why - my son is adopted, and although i didn't carry him myself, I didn't watch him develop inside a big see-through vat either.

[pdsldl]

Gestation outside the womb might sound icky but if that's the only option to have their own child then I can't see either Trip or T'Pol objecting. It would seem feasible to me that doctors started out with such pregnancies being in an artificial womb making the genetic manipulations easier then progressed to allowing the mother to carry the child and performing surgery to do the manipulations then put the fetus back in it's mother. I've read things that say that artificial wombs are possible or nearly possible now so a century from now it should be common place.

You needed a full on agree option in the poll. Even if the science isn't perfect it's 150+ years in the future and the romantic in me allows for suspension of disbelief with the whole Sim idea and TnT having their own child, especially after losing Elizabeth.

[Silverbullet]

I aggree with Distracted, Sim was not exactly a Human. He was a Larva that could mimic a Human body perfectly yet was not itself Human. What always bothered me about Sim was that he was a Larva (in the deleted scene he admits that. T-Pol says "Desert Larva" and Sim says yes, I want to learn about my own species.) A Larva is just a stage. Sim then would not die after 15 days but go on to its next stage. He did, however, die on the Operating Table which probably saved some problems. Since I am on the subject. Where did the identity of Sim come from? Sim was a seperate Identity from Trip. So, where did Sims identity come from. He admitted to a seperate Identity when he told T-pol that he didn't know if the feelings he expressed were his or Trip's

[justTripn]

OK, I can't resist. Here is the opinion of a "Lorian expert." Human-Vulcan offspring are in stories for allagorical purposes. They are the physical emodiment of a love that conquers obstacles. All that is required for a cannon-friendly Human-Vulcan birth is some demonstration that this outcome was "difficult" and required some sort of intervention to bring a child to term. (Yes, I also heard Roddenberry interviewing Sarek.) Failing that, I would even go with a birth would have been incredibly unlikely, but not impossible, without intervention. There is no scientific theory that would be compatible with a Human-Vulcan birth, so the less said about the science of it, the better. A little bit of handwaving, confined to a sentence, and I'll be satisfied. For story purposes, the conception shouldn't be TOO TOO difficult, because that just plays into the objections of the Terra Primers: IT IS MONSTROUS TO ATTEMPT SUCH A THING!!! For our little Star Trek morality plays we don't want it to be monstrous to attempt such a thing.

In my story, Lorian was born in one of Phlox's biocylinders. The next child was carried in the uterus with Phlox administering an antirejection drug to T'Pol. I've read stories where the conception was natural and accidental, but then their was a miscarriage. And I've read stories where it simply wasn't explained. Elessar was raked over the coals for implying a presumably unassisted Vulcan-Human birth in Teluride (implied by a future Teluride was populated by decendents of Jack and T'Pol) when Elessar's intention was a love-conquers-all/Destiny type thing. Throwing aside science and flying off into the mystical is a completely accepted plot device in popular science fiction. I noticed it in the last Star Trek movie. When Abrams was asked how Kirk found Spock in the cave, he said, he actually had had some dialogue to explain it, but the real reason was It was DESTINY. The fans just wanted to see it, so it HAD to happen!

I believe that there were some mystical elements in Battlestar Gallactica too. Wasn't Starbuck supposed to be "like an angel" or something? And she mysteriously disappeared in a moment in her last scene.

So please don't delve to much into the science. It's inevitably going to be BAD science if it explains a Human Vulcan conception. The story you need to tell takes precidence.

Also, although it is established cannon that a Human Vulcan conception is difficult, there are other species that seem to interbreed with no trouble. Is this true? I am referring to Star Trek episodes where a crew gets stranded somehow on a planet or in time, and all their offspring carry on, intermarrying and reproducing, as seen on a really cool epsiode of Deep Space Nine as well as on E-squared. OH! And that little girl born on Voyager, Miriam? Was that her name? She was half human and half something else.

[Silverbullet]

In my Star Trek Encyclopedia there was a Species with Copper and Iron based Blood. Don't ask me the name as I only glanced at the Pargraph and the contiued on. It would take me a week to find the thing again. The people who wrote the Encyclopedia had a whole bunch of species in it. That was one of them It would Seem that in the Trek world Copper and Iron based could mix.

It also said that Vulcan MALES experienced Pon Farr. No mention of Females having Pon Farr. It if is Canon then Females dont have Pon Farr.

[Ezinma88]

Wow, it all suddenly made sense.... until Distracted's post, that is.

Does this mean that there's just no way a vulcan and a human could conceive without medical intervention (never mind carrying the baby to term)?

[Distracted]

In the Trekkiverse anything is possible. In the real world even beings as closely related as horses and donkeys can't interbreed without creating sterile offspring. Take your pick. Or not.

[Aikiweezie]

Wow, it all suddenly made sense.... until Distracted's post, that is.

Does this mean that there's just no way a vulcan and a human could conceive without medical intervention (never mind carrying the baby to term)?

Even in the real world unexplained things happen. I can't tell you how many people I know who were told they could never have kids went on to get pregnant without any intervention. I also know people who could never conceive and their infertiity was unexplained.

[Distracted]

But that's between humans, in which successful conception is possible if you can just get viable sperm and an egg together. Chimps and humans share 98% of their DNA. A chimp and a human could do the nasty all they wanted (ewwww) and never produce a viable embryo. It's biologically impossible without laboratory intervention. Not that anyone would ever want to try it. At least I hope not.

[Aquarius]

But that's between humans, in which successful conception is possible if you can just get viable sperm and an egg together. Chimps and humans share 98% of their DNA. A chimp and a human could do the nasty all they wanted (ewwww) and never produce a viable embryo. It's biologically impossible without laboratory intervention. Not that anyone would ever want to try it. At least I hope not.

Educational -and- giggle-worthy. I love it!

[Ezinma88]

Well, fornicating with chimps aside.... (he, he!)

I've been wracking my brains to remember if there were any human/alien surprise pregnancies.... For some reason Tom Paris and B'elanna Torres vaguely spring to mind. But, she was half-human... so that might not count

I think you may be right Distracted. Not sure why, but it makes me kinda sad.

[Distracted]

Hey, like I said. This is Trekkerneverland. All the races are out there interbreeding like bunnies without any problems at all. Didn't you know that?

[pdsldl]

If we start demanding that the science in science fiction be real it may get very technical and boring. I just want it to be plausible to the average viewer not the science geeks. Sim met that standard and if Trip and T'Pol had a child with the intervention of Phlox or other doctors it would have been fine. Unassisted, naturally occurring impregnation would not. Even with my limited understanf=ding of genetics etc... I know it's not anywhere near plausible that that could occur.

[Distracted]

The problem with that assertion is that there are thousands of SF fans who are also "science geeks", so writing for a SF audience requires more stringent standards. I personnally prefer my SF to conform to current known science and then take off from there. Of course it's limiting, but that's the challenge. It takes more imagination and intelligence to believably extrapolate from known science. Just pulling things out of thin air doesn't require nearly as much effort.