Xindi Biology and other stuff

[honeybee]

Moving this from the T'Pol's father thread:

SB Wrote:

I can't remmeber the Episode but Archer was on an Aquatic ship. I keep wondering how the E;ectronics (computers and whatever) was handled. the Damned ship is filled with water but the electronics would have to be all over the ship unless the Aquatics could see in the dark. If a heavyly shielded cable somehow broke Zap, Dead Aquatucs all over the ship as they would be electrocuted unless the Cable shorted out but still some of them would be fried. Also, the Aquatic ship is supposed to be faster than the other Xindi ships. A ship that could carry the enterprise would have to be HUGE. Enterprise is not THAT small. None of the Aquatic Ship business makes any sense. For that matter neither do t he Aquatics. All of the other Xindi are Bipedal quadrapeds. They have more or less a humanoid build. The Reptilians looking the most alien. The Sloths, Aboreal and the Humanoid Xinidi less alien. Never bought into the five being the same species.

Archer was on an Aquatic ship, and it was in some kind of reverse fishbowl so he could breathe. The Aquatic language was based on on whale sounds, ironically. Perhaps Star Trek's other irrational probe of doom, the one from The Voyage Home, was built by Xindi Aquatics.

I suppose you don't want to think too hard about it, but there's plenty of precedent in SciFi for advanced, sentient water dwelling species. Dune springs to mind. And since in the Dune universe the Aquatic species controlled space travel by being able to "fold space" and create wormholes - they were extremely powerful. If I recall correctly, however, the species in Dune had evolved into sentience on land. After awhile, they went back into the water, the way scientists believe whales and dolphins have.

What does strike me as peculiar with the Xindi is the lack of opposeable thumbs. I can believe that they could develop some sort of work-around in order to have electricity and various technologies underwater, but how they would do this without opposable thumbs bothers. Unless, as someone theorized in the other thread, they evolved super intelligence and were able to trade for technology with the more humanoid land, dwelling Xindi. Say, they started trading access to fishing spots and underwater minerals, and then the humanoids built stuff for them. At some point, I was always expecting an Xindi Aquatic to tell someone "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

We did see an underwater city in Azati Prime, and maybe the Aquatics needed a city so they could interact with other species and trade for technology.

And yes, the Xindi Aquatic ship was absolutely enormous, enough to carry Enterprise back to Earth in Zero Hour.

[aadarshinah]

If I remember Dune correctly, the "aquatic" pilots weren't really aquatic. They were humans who lived in a liquid-gas atmosphere of melange and, because of that, had super psychic abilities but bodies that had atrophied - or hyperevolved - or something - from disuse. They piloted the ships with their minds, while other, non-melange-using, humans built and maintained the ships.

The upshot of this is, hands are needed for building things like ships - at least ships as we would recongize them. I suppose I could see the humanoids or the arborials building ships for the aquatics, but considering how everyone always said that the aquatics' ships were fastest, I think it's unlikely they would put tech they don't use themselves on ships they give to another species...

Which also begs the question, wasn't the Xindi doomsday weapon constructed by the aquatics? And how?

[honeybee]

Yes, as I said, Dune makes it clear that the aquatic species was once humanoid amd land dwelling. Scientists know that whales and dolphins once had appendages but lost them when they moved back into the oceans. I'm defining aquatic loosely, as in living in liquid-filled tanks in space.

The Xindi Aquatics probably had valuable knowledge and other commodities they could trade with the humanoids in exchange for building stuff for them. And, probably evolved into thinkers rather than doers.

[aadarshinah]

I only meant to point out that, from what I understood, the pilots were humans at birth and the melange changed them, making them mutated people instead of a new race/sub-species. But I could be wrong. It's been a couple years since I read the original Dunes.

Still playing Devil's advocate, even if the aquatics were thinkers, they'd have to give their ship/engine plans to someone to build their ships. Seems strange that no one would rip off these plans for their own ships, but maybe they have some killer lawyers...

[WarpGirl]

OK for the most part, the Xindidon't really interest me other than being the arch-enemies. But I admit the Aquatics facinate me... So because I am a SeaQuest girl from WAY back, and Darwin the dolphin was a huge love-of-my-life... What if the Aqautics had the ESP abilities researchers believe dolphins have on a greater level? Maybe they don't need thumbs because they can use their minds?

According to the Woodshall Ocianagraphic Institute, people who swim with dolphins their brainwaves alter because of the dolphin's ESP. There has been research that it can help people with siezers.

All in all, maybe the Aquatics have super Dolphin ESP.

ps my spelling is atrocious!

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

My own pet theory is that someone, for whatever reason, genetically manipulated the original Xindi creatures into sentience. That's the only way to make sense of the notion that they're all related somehow, despite the huge difference between especially Aquatics and Insectoids. If you look closely they all have some ridges on their foreheads and cheeks, presumably done just to give a visual cue that they're all Xindi, but could be a vestige of the original genetic engineers.

That could explain how the Aquatics can build ships. Once they're sentient they learn to remotely control machines and robots left by the genetic engineers. I see no way they could accomplish this all by themselves no matter how intelligent since they live under water.

[honeybee]

That's a good theory, KTR.

Maybe one sentient race of humanoids evolved - and either the genetically modified themselves or another intelligent race genetically modified them, say by fusing their DNA with fish or insects or lemurs or birds - and voila.

Why I am having visions of a dolphin showing up and offering to tell us how to find the Higgs Boson if we give him an underwater ipod?

[Silverbullet]

Honeybee, wouldn't opposable thumbs be a problem for the Insectoids too? I believe that they just had a hook sort of affair at the end of their arms.

[WarpGirl]

I love KTR's theory that is possibly the coolest idea I've ever heard regarding the Xindi.

[honeybee]

Honeybee, wouldn't opposable thumbs be a problem for the Insectoids too? I believe that they just had a hook sort of affair at the end of their arms.

Yes. Indeed. We would have to apply the same logic to the Insect guys as we would to the water guys.


This whole evolution thinking reminds me of my first grade science textbook, which listed "use of tools" as one of the benchmarks of man's intelligence. That very week I saw footage of an otter using a rock to break open shellfish. It was a valuable lesson about trusting first grade science textbooks. I remember asking a family friend who was a biologist about it - and he said that the list of human traits in my textbook was at least twenty years out of date. Always check your facts, always look at the date of your textbook.

[EntAllat]

At some point, I was always expecting an Xindi Aquatic to tell someone "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

What does strike me as peculiar with the Xindi is the lack of opposeable thumbs. I can believe that they could develop some sort of work-around in order to have electricity and various technologies underwater, but how they would do this without opposable thumbs bothers. Unless, as someone theorized in the other thread, they evolved super intelligence and were able to trade for technology with the more humanoid land, dwelling Xindi. Say, they started trading access to fishing spots and underwater minerals, and then the humanoids built stuff for them.

That always perplexed me too. I like the trade-relationship theory and I came up with two other possibilities:

1) I would think that species like that would have a symbiotic relationship with some other kind of life form that could move and manipulate the physical world in a way they couldn't. In turn, the aquatic-bound species would provide something that was absolutely necessary for the the other species to survive. It could be related to their aquatic physiology, their sonar or maybe it's reproductive.

2) I don't like this other possibility as much because it's a more fantasy than science-fiction: (But hey, we've got telepathic species, right?) What about something akin to telekinesis as an way to move and manipulate objects?

[aadarshinah]

I'm liking the telekinesis. Not only does it give them a way to build things, but you could argue they use it to power their ships in some way, like the telepresence unit in season 4. Probably fewer electronics in the water than if the aquatics were trying to maintain a warp core. Would also explain why the other species haven't mooched off their faster engine ideas over the years.

[WarpGirl]

I like the symbiosis theory. When you think of it, the entire earth and all of its creatures are in a symbiotic relationship with each other. Even Us humans... So why not have a society with sapient beings interconnected despite being different creatures. The Xindi Avians got obliterated and caused great havoc within the system. How is it different in our world when a creature is extinct. The havoc is merely contained.