The death of Nimoy reminded me that in the Star Trek universe the average lifespan of a vulcan is about 200 years. What about the other races? Are humans still about 80 years in the star trek universe or has it grown?
What about Ferengi, klingon, romuluns, etc?
Memory Alpha-Life Span
I don’t recall, but I have a book “Star Trek The Worlds of the Federation” stored away that has the details on each Star Trek species.
Are they wearing a red shirt?
Human lifespan has extended. The first episode of TNG has a brief appearance by Dr McCoy, aged 137. The novels had him live to at least 150. There have been a few scenes of similarly aged humans.
Klingon lifespan is inconsistent. Some episodes show then as maturi8ng and ageing somewhat more rapidly than humans. Worf’s son reached adulthood in about 10 years, for example. However, some episodes of DS9 had Klingons from TOS, and played by the same actors. They were older, but not ancient.
It’s hard to predict longevity, when the leading cause of death is glorious violence.
I don’t see an inconsistency. Maybe they do hit puberty earlier than humans but still live much longer. Why do the two have to be connected?
Also, Alexander was a quarter human (through his mother), so who knows how that might affect his system.
I just gave Alexander as one example. Some episodes show Klingons as getting old more rapidly than humans. See foe example the future scenes in All Good Things, where Worf has clearly aged more than Riker or Picard.
There was a lot about Klingon life in the novel The Final Reflection, which was widely taken as canon before TNG contradicted it. It gave maximum Klingon lifespan as about 50 years, though most die in battle a lot younger.
With Klingons, too, we have to consider the differences between different ethnic groups, social castes, and, of course, augment virus infectees and their descendants.
The last one’s probably the biggie—the old Klingons we saw on DS9 originally appeared as “smooth headed” (retconned to be genetically augmented) Klingons on TOS, and thus might easily have extended lifespans from being low-level genetic supermen.
IIRC, at the beginning of TNG, Picard was intended to be in his 70s, which was meant to be equivalent to Patrick Stewart’s mid-40s. So, human longevity has been improved, and we age better as a consequence.
Cite that Picard’s age was given as 70s at any time during TNG’s TV run. Specific episode name, please.
Biologically, it usually is. The age at which species reach reproductive capability is correlated with total life span. (This is not to say there might not be exceptions.)
I just checked Memory Alpha, by the way. It has Picard born in 2305 and commanding the E-D from 2364 to 2371, which would make him 59 to 66 during that time.
In the real world, on Earth. Trek is a fantasy in which intelligent design is true but is called evolution, and Klingons are not earthlings.
Cite that ‘IIRC’ means anything other than ‘I’m running on memory’.
Rereading my earlier post, I was needlessly snarky. In penance I shall send you a couple of liters of Romulan ale.
Actually, weirdly enough, checking the ‘background’ section on MA, my recollection was rather hilariously wrong (Picard was intended to be rather close to Stewart in age)…but actual canon moved closer to my recollection of the intent than the actual intent was.
Well, of course Picard was getting older. Time was passing!
The Ocampa have a lifespan of only 9 years, with females only able to become pregnant once at age 4 or 5.
This is so obvious that I didn’t bother to state it. The question was whether there was any inconsistency between having Klingons mature at a young age, and being long lived. I pointed out that, biologically speaking and based on what we know of Earth, there is (although I also said there were exceptions even on Earth).
It’s clear that the writers of Star Trek didn’t particularly care about biological reality. It’s an absurdity that intelligent species that evolved on different planets look so similar to humans, and a practical impossibility that they be interfertile (especially if they were so different as to have green blood). This doesn’t mean that it can’t be mentioned that this is not, in fact, consistent with biology.