Life Span

[Kotik]

That said, it probably wouldn't have hurt Trip and Archer to have a few more salads. I know they were trying to milk the contrast with T'Pol but seriously Veggies and salads are yummy!

Sorry, dear. But I didn't make it to the top of the food chain to eat weeds I would go bonkers if I had to live without meat. Evolution made us omnivores, living as a herbivore is a choice.

[WarpGirl]

Hey I'm an omnivore! But they didn't really show Archer and Trip as omnivores, Potatoes are considered a starch, not veggies by the health officials.

[EntAllat]

If Earth really has improved so much after the Vulcans made First Contact, and taking into account that surely there were some serious medical advances given the Eugenics and Augments stuff ... I agree with the average Human life-span moving into the 120's by the 2100's.

As for Trip, I could see him going beyond the average both naturally or through some other means, be it Vulcan life-style and influences or the sort of thing that the novels did.

In the ENT Twitterfiction last September our group had Archer, Reed and Tucker all spending some time hiding from bounty hunters on a planet in the Briar Patch. The BP was mentioned in ENT in The Augments but it was also mentioned as the home of the Ba'ku in Star Trek: Insurrection (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Ba%27ku). (For those who don't remember, that centered around a radiation that causes the aging process to decelerate.) Phlox couldn't explain the odd readings he got from the three of them when they returned to Enterprise and that's going to be our reason why Trip can live a long life with T'Pol and Archer lives into the AU Kirk's time.

[aadarshinah]

Like te idea, EA, but, to play devil's advocate, considering all the trouble the Augments caused, I don't see gene manipulation as being a viable way of extending one's life in Star Trek. Oh, to fix some issues - that hearing thing Picard had, etc - but not to extend life. Whatever increases in lifespan are the result of better standards of living, in my opinion....

though, random related question, with all the random dying red shirts and such, what is the average life expectancy of a Starfleet officer?

[WarpGirl]

Considering the danger, I'd think the average life expectency of a SF officer is a little below average. By all rights, every member of every ST crew should be dead 1000nd times over. Scotty trapped in a transporter pattern buffer????????

[EntAllat]

Like te idea, EA, but, to play devil's advocate, considering all the trouble the Augments caused, I don't see gene manipulation as being a viable way of extending one's life in Star Trek.

I'm not saying they used gene manipulation. But the situation that created the Augments likely resulted in all kinds of other medical advancements, ranging from the power and accuracy of various types of medical equipment the research techniques, knowledge etc. It could be the era where the bio-scanners came from. Any or all of those could be used to treat diseases earlier or more effectively, improve health and slow down the aging process in other ways, known or unknown to the researchers and physicians, all with the result that the average life-span starts to climb towards the physical limits of the telomere.

though, random related question, with all the random dying red shirts and such, what is the average life expectancy of a Starfleet officer?

I think it depends on the color of your shirt. If you wear Spock-blue or Kirk-gold I think it gets you reincarnated several times ....

[Linda]

Yeah, your life expectancy drops to less than one TOS episode if you are an Enterprise crew person wearing a RED shirt.

[WarpGirl]

Particularly, if you are MU Malcolm! I was bummed when they did that.

[aadarshinah]

Yeah, your life expectancy drops to less than one TOS episode if you are an Enterprise crew person wearing a RED shirt.

I dunno. Once you make it to Lt., even as a red shirt you've got a chance. And if you're a commander or a captain it's almost impossible for you to die. So either they weed out the weak ones early, or the aditional pips come with special magical powers. Or some sort of portable Holtzman sheild. Not entirely sure which.

[Linda]

You are right. Its canon to be cannon (fodder) if you are a red shirt of the enlisted persuasion rather than of the officer persuasion.

[Silverbullet]

That was one of the things that made TOS fun. You knew the guy with the Red shirt was a goner as soon as he appeared. It was just how he was going to get it. The discovery of the Redhirts body and McCoy's famous line "He's dead Jim" I am not sure if any Red shirts made it through a whole Episode.

[aadarshinah]

I've been rewatching TOS... actually, its been so long for some of them it's like seeing them for the first time... I've yet to see one make it through the entire episode. Though I'd forgotten about the blue shirt committing suicide in "The Naked Time".

Which brings me to my lifespan point. In TOS, most the crew seems fairly young, with the exception of the occasional wisened doctor or captain. No pushing forty crewmen or anything. My best recollections of TNG and DS9 have the same, though I do recall seeing an older crewmen (white hair and all) in the cafeteria of "Deathwish" in VOY. As for ENT... well, of the human crew, Archer or, possibly, Hayes, was the oldest, which, honestly, isn't very....

[Silverbullet]

Archers age. When I watched Broken Bow there was a shot of what looked to me like a Teen holding a model and then the caption "Thirty Years later" Archer. If Archer was a teen in that shot and 30 years later he must hve been in his mid 40's when Broken Bow started. I doubt if he was 39 because the young teen didn't look like a nine year old. I know that Bakkula was 47 when the series started but that means nmothing. So how old was Archer?

T'Pol is different. she is a young woman by Vulcan standards but sounds old when she gives her age inEarth years.

Wasn't trip 32 when the series started and 34 inthe third season?

Anyone know for sure. I mean Canon.

Sb

[aadarshinah]

I think, according to cannon, Archer was 40 when Enterprise was launched. Since T'Pol was almost 66 at the end of the 3rd season, she was 62 at the lauch. Now, according to memory alpha, Trip was born in 2121, making him 30 at the launch. However, in Broken Bow - the novelization, not "Broken Bow" the episode - I think it mentioned Trip as being 9 years younger than Archer, which would make him 31.

Still, it's curious how few people over 40 ever seem to appear on Star Trek. Though, in 2009 movie, there are scenes that show older, presumabily enlisted, crewmen.

[Silverbullet]

If ARcher was 40 then the boy in the episode would bve 10 and that was not a ten yar old boy. I guess I will have to view it again.

I don't trust memory alpha because I do not believe it is difinitive. I wish like Hell that the writers had been a little more careful. Too much sloppy wiritng.