I’m curious about both the ‘in-universe’ reason and the design reason for the series.
I believe at least Vulcans and Klingons are something like four times (!) as strong as the equivalent human, though I’m not sure about the other races.
What is the reason for this?
Thanks in advance!
They come from planets with heavier gravity?!
There isn’t, I don’t think, any general reason given. And aliens as a whole aren’t shown as being more powerful than humans. Some are, some aren’t. I bet Wesley Crusher could kick a Binar’s ass, for example.
Scientific reason and consistency are two things you rarely find in Star Trek (put us in a geostationary orbit over the planet’s north pole!). And why do different races all look so human to begin with? You’d expect an alien race to be as different from humans as humans are to squids. But then it’s hard to take an actor and quickly put him in makeup so that he looks like a floating tentacle monster. It’s the same with artificial gravity. At best it’s a stupid waste of energy, but you need something to explain why your earth-bound soundstage where you are filming doesn’t behave like deep space.
The main reason is probably to differentiate them from humans. See, they look like humans, but they are really strong, so they are clearly not humans, right? You could make them weaker than humans, but then they’d barely be able to walk. You wouldn’t respect them if they were weaklings, so making them stronger makes them something that we humans have to fear. Don’t mess with a Klingon. He’ll rip your arms out of their sockets.
Klingons are supposed to be intimidating, so that makes sense for them. With Vulcans, I think the idea is that they are naturally fearsome, but they control their beast-like strength through logic which makes them civilized.
That said, humans are pathetically weak for our size. Part of it is that our muscles have evolved to be weak. If you look at our closest cousins (chimps, gorillas, orangutans, etc) their muscles are much stronger than ours. We humans have a genetic defect that caught on for some reason, and the result is that it makes our muscles weak. Maybe it caught on because it forced us to use our brains more than our strength, who knows. Another thing is that the muscle attachments for chimps, gorillas, etc. are further down on the bone, giving them much more leverage. Combine the extra strength in the muscles with the better leverage and let’s just say you never want to get into a wrestling match with an adult chimp (and to make things even worse they tend to want to bite off your face, fingers, and genitals - so really, stay away from chimps).
Vigorous hand-waving ensues.
Shortly after leaving the Enterprise, Galen’s transport vessel is attacked and boarded. When the Enterprise arrives, a critically injured Galen is beamed to Sickbay and, before he dies, he apologises to Picard for his earlier rude remarks. Picard decides to investigate Professor Galen’s research, an investigation of Galen’s ship yields no results other than a series of seemingly random number blocks.
After studying the ambiguous number blocks for hours, the discovery is made that these fragments are compatible DNA strands which have been recovered from different worlds all over the galaxy. The crew eventually believe that they have discovered an embedded genetic pattern that is constant throughout many different species, and it is speculated that this was left by an early race that pre-dates all other known civilizations. This would ultimately explain why so many races are humanoid.
(put us in a geostationary orbit over the planet’s north pole!).
Ummm…you do know that it is possible to place a astronomical body (including a spacecraft) in orbit around a star, that parallels the orbit of a planet, don’t you?
And, if so positioned, it might be possible to remain at a relative position to as planet’s North Pole? You might have to apply engine thrush for station-keeping, but you could do it.
I believe Roddenberry wanted the audience to identify with them better. (Not to mention a bit of makeup was much more feasible on the budget of a 60s TV show than a realistic giant puppet.)
You do have species like Gorn and especially the Tholians that aren’t very human, but they’re outliers.
Doesn’t it also (sort of) explain why cross-breeding which results in fertile offspring is possible?
Could be. I don’t remember if that was brought up in the episode.
I don’t think it was mentioned, in fact that particular practice and effect was never mentioned in any of the series that I recall, it was just taken for granted. Which I suspect was intentional by Roddenberry, originally as a socio-political statement on race relations.
There was a lot more inter-species hanky-panky than there ever was anything LGBT or Q (no, not that Q), at least back in the day (I haven’t been watching the various iterations or movies in the past dozen years or so, maybe they’ve caught up).
It also has to do with the whole “planet of hats” concept, where each species of alien is known for one special trait. Humans, in contrast, are typically generalists, who are decent in most aspects, but rarely the best in any of them. This allows them to be better in some respect than all aliens, but worse in others. Hence humans are usually only average in strength, making it easy for there to be multiple species which will be stronger.
Also, people don’t tend to find strength contests all that satisfying. It’s more fun (especially in a more cerebral SF series) if a strong foe is defeated by intelligence, logic, bravery, etc. rather than by physical strength. Hence why even the stronger species members (like Worf in TNG) are usually weaker than the enemy aliens. If Worf is too weak, then you instantly know all the humans will be too weak, too, since they are weaker than Klingons.
I’m sure there are other reasons, but that’s all I can think of right now that hasn’t already been stated.
Well, not to me. Neither did the androgynous race, one of whom decided they wanted to be female and fall in love with Riker. I’ve heard there were supposed to be gay and/or lesbian couples on TNG but I didn’t see them, and believe me, I really looked. If they were so far in the background that I missed them, it’s not especially encouraging.
Klingons might be a bit more robust and aggressive, but I don’t think they’re significantly stronger than humans. The humans were holding their own against the Klingons when they got into a fist fight on Deep Space Station K7 in “The Trouble with Tribbles.” Vulcuns on the other hand are typically portrayed as being much stronger than humans. In an episode of Strange New Words, Spock absolutely manhandles a few pirates.
That’s one of those things that seemed to change with their appearance. The smooth-headed and ridge-headed Klingons are biologically distinct in-universe.
Granted, the ridged Klingons weren’t outrageously stronger, or else the Human Augment virus wouldn’t have been appealing to them. But they did seem to get a strength upgrade between TOS and TNG, at least. Worf is supposed to be stronger than everyone but Data.
But then that wouldn’t be an orbit, now, would it? It would be using thrusters or impulse engines to maintain a position over the North Pole.
Anyway, I learned to cut the newer Star Trek movies and shows some slack by attempting to re-watch TOS and finding it’s actually pretty terrible on all fronts.
I don’t remember any particularly impressive feats of strength demonstrated by Worf or any other Klingon. In TNG, we learn that Klingons are pretty hearty because they’ve got some redundant organs and in DS9 it’s clear they can handle their blood wine better than humans can. But when push comes to shove, the crew of DS9 repelled the Klingon boarding party in a fight that involved a lot of hand-to-hand combat.
Yeah, Worf was supposed to be a badass. But I don’t know if it was just because he was a Klingon or because he was also the chief of security. I think his badassery was mostly just lip service so he could serve as a punching bag to let us know how badass the threat of the week was. Though he did have a few episodes where he was able to beat up on folks. But as written, I don’t believe Klingons are significantly stronger than humans. Just more aggressive as they come from a warrior society that encourages such behavior.
I feel like I should get some serious nerd credit by participating in this discussion.
I won’t get too spoilery, but episode 2x01 of Strange New Worlds has some data points on this topic.
Canonically, Vulcans are three times stronger than humans. Faster, too.
It’s owed to the fact that Vulcan has a higher gravity and thinner atmosphere than Earth-normal. That’s why Spock was able to trounce Kirk in a fight in TOS: “Amok Time”.
Is there some link between strength, and the gravity of different planets? It’s been many years since I saw any of the shows. Probably in most cases technology made gravity differences a moot point.