Not sure why I was thinking about this particular thing, but I was.
In Star Trek, it is shown that many of the main peoples in the galaxy share common dna via being seeded on their various planets by some sort of long gone progenitor race.
There are a few children from crossbreeding as important characters in the show(s); B’elanna, Spock, Troi, Alexander Rochenko, and Sela show that Klingons, Betazoids, Vulcans/Romulans can produce viable offspring with humans (viable in the sense that they will survive and live to adulthood) and that Romulan/Vulcan can mate with Klingons and have children.
I’ve never seen (that I can recall) any episode featuring or even mentioning children further down these lines of genetic heritage. Does Alexander grow up to have kids? Does Sela have a mate and family on Romulus? Deanna Troi had a kid but that was a weird episode and kid and I’m not sure it really counts for this thread. What about the small colony or pow camp or whatever it had become at the time that Warf encountered it? Did any of those klingon vulcan/romulan crosses ever get out into the galaxy and start families and have kids with say Betzoids or humans or whoever?
Does the interspecies breeding in Star Trek result in sterile children or not?
No, the hyrbrids are apparently viable reproductive beings. There is a lot of examples in the extended novels and the like, but a clear example comes from the series Enterprise - in episode E2 they encounter an alternate version of the Enterprise which had been flung back in time over a hundred years.
The ship in question had become a generational ship, which had children aboard that were at least 4th generation from the original crew - including humans and at least 2 additional species. Sorry, someone may not have seen the episode, so being slightly vague to avoid additional spoilers.
Similarly, there is an entire plot thread about involvement in the “Temporal Cold War” in which they recover the body of a federation crew member from the 31st century, which Dr. Phlox scans and detects multi-generational DNA fragments from several alien species including Vulcan, Terrelian, and Rigelian, while otherwise appearing to be predominantly human.
Again, the degree to which the interbreeding occurs without medical support has varied tremendously between the various novels, and AFAICT has not been directly addressed within the canonical universe. The death of Elizabeht, the genetically engineered child of human Tucker and Vulcan T’Pol was ascribed to flaws in the cloning process, but that there was no genetic reason it could not be accomplished. So sadly, still no direct evidence of medical assistance requirements.
I knew that about Alexander’s mother (didn’t remember her name though) and it slipped my mind as I was mentally listing all the cross bred children I knew of.
I did know B’Elanna and Paris got together but did not know they had a child
Additionally, I did not know that Tucker and T’Pol had a child via any method.
Voyager and Enterprise were the two series that never really got me caught up in them.
I somehow parsed the thread title as INBRED children in Star Trek, and flashed back to the rather infantile behavior of the didn’t-look-like-kids children in Miri.
I think we were supposed to think of them as 9-12 year olds with Miri a notch older and on the cusp of puberty (and hence susceptibility to the disease). But they looked like 27 year olds and acted like nursery school 4-year-olds. “Bam bam on the head” or whatever that was.
Ya’ll forgot Simon Tarses from the TNG episode “The Drumhead” who was one-quarter Romulan (he had lied on his Starfleet application and claimed to be one-quarter Vulcan).
It’s my hazy memory, which may well be wrong, that when K’Ehleyr was introduced, she said that her gestation had required medical assistance.
Not mentioned yet, I think, Naomi Wildman was a recurring character on Voyager - she was half-Human, half-Ktarian. I also have a vague memory that may well be wrong that in the flash-forward episode referenced above, she had children, as well.
According to Memory Alpha, in one alternate timeline depicted in Endgame, Naomi Wildman had a daughter (father unidentified, the daughter looked similar to Naomi at the same age, human but with forehead horns).
In The Making of Star Trek, it’s stated with regard to Spock’s parentage that “…conception and pregnancy when properly planned and controlled by technicians of the highly advanced school of medicine can be brought to full term.”
So Spock was presumably something of a test-tube baby.
Yep, this is the sort of thing I was talking about, if you look at writers, contributors, and the likes, this is generally the take - the hybrids require deliberate effort to be gestated and survive to term. But . . . most people only consider what happens ‘on screen’ as canonical. So, hopefully @gdave can find a clip or other mention confirming that for K’Ehleyr.
I found the script for “The Emissary,” the episode in which K’Ehleyr was introduced. The specific mention is kind of vague, but does indicate that it was not automatic:
Yes, she had a Klingon father and a Human mother; she explicitly says so when they first pull her out of the little space probe she was using as a transport, and Dr. Pulaski asks her about her unusual vital signs. In her conversation with Troi, she notes that she has her mother’s sense of humor, which tends to get her into trouble.
I knew that about Alexander’s mother (didn’t remember her name though) and it slipped my mind as I was mentally listing all the cross bred children I knew of.