Why does D&D have bears?

[Desdichado]

My snipe-o-meter is a bit out of calibration since the last coupla years I've spent much more time at NTL and Circvs Maximvs than at ENWorld. So I wouldn't put it past me to snipe without meaning to or even realizing it. I've seen Grozny, Stalingrad and Vicksburg break out on messageboards, and we were nowhere near that.

 

[pawsplay]

Clearly not, because humans and Vulcans can produce offspring, as can humans and Klingons, and humans and Betazoids.

I think the "clearly" you are looking for is "clearly humans and Vulcans should not be able to produce offspring together."

It seems likely that not only did aliens seed worlds with the same base DNA, but that that DNA either somehow carried a pattern in it, moving the various lifeforms toward the same basic shape and genome, or that the aliens (or other aliens) continued to muck about (and continue to do so even now) within the Star Trek universe.

In other words, what the progenitors seeded was not DNA at all, but nanomachines that would genetically re-engineer the races at some future point in time. Or something. The "same base DNA" is what I'm talking about.

Let's say the aliens visited Earth 25 million years ago, and Vulcan around the same time, and distributed some DNA. They leave. 25 million years later, humans and radishes have diverged by 25 million years from each other. Meanwhile, Vulcans have diverged 25 million years from a different ancestor. Therefore, humans are more closely related to radishes. Unless humans and radishes did not evolve on Earth, humans and radishes are cousins and Vulcans are distant cousins.

 

[Korgoth]

For example, rather than Equus Caballus, the common horse, I will populate my setting with those cool wild horses from Krull that can run hundreds of miles in an hour and whose hooves produce flames when they strike the ground. That kind of thing. That just seems far more appropriate for fantasy.

As King of Notquitereallyhorsebutcloseia, I proclaim that our main military unit shall be the cavalry unit. Though equipped with lances and swords, I likewise proclaim that their primary weapons shall be ramplates and spiked barding. The King's Armies will also be retiring the obsolete "battering ram" siege device in favor of the newly-devised "battering horse".

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think the "clearly" you are looking for is "clearly humans and Vulcans should not be able to produce offspring together."

Except, of course, then when the theory meets the data, data trumps theory. In the Star Trek universe, it is clearly true that humans can mate with Klingons, Betazoids, and Vulcans, and probably others as well. Moreover, it is clear that a human/Klingon hybred is fertile, and able to mate with a human.

Regardless of whatever factors make us view this as unlikely in the real world, it is true in the Star Trek universe. Any theory which does not take this into account, and flatly contradicts it, might be true in our universe, but is not true in the Star Trek universe.

RC

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

DM: The old man comes to you and says, "Beware the owlbear in the Mickle Wood."

Player 1: Wait a second, didn't you say that this world has no bears?

DM: It doesn't. This is an owlbear.

Player 2: I didn't think it had owls either.....?

DM: No. It doesn't.

Player 3: So why do they call this creature an owl-bear anyway?

RC won this thread a long, long time ago.

 

[Eric Tolle]

Which means humans are still more closely related to a radish than a Vulcan.

Carl Sagen used artichokes in his monograph on this subject, long long ago. Fans immediately responded with the idea that Spock was the product of genetic engineering combining Humans and Vulcans. Which STILL leaves the problem that humans and artichokes are more closely related, and so it should be easier to create a human-artichoke hybrid.

Because of that, I always wanted to play Ensign Pointytop, the half-artichoke, struggling to deal with his two radically different cultures, humans, and well, plants. Drama! Angst! The horror of going to the mess deck and seeing several of his cousins sliced open, cooked, and drenched in butter!

 

[Geoff Watson]

In a campaign I was playing in, the DM had a race of evil elves with shadow powers.

After the players mistook them for drow a few times, he said "They're NOT DROW, dammit!"

So the players called them "not-drow" for the rest of the campaign. (Eg "I'll charge the not-drow cleric.")

I can't remember the name the DM gave them.

Geoff.

 

[jdrakeh]

The horror of going to the mess deck and seeing several of his cousins sliced open, cooked, and drenched in butter!

Mmmmm. . . genocide has never been so delicious

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Mmmmm. . . genocide has never been so delicious

You obviously never ate halfling.

"By the Gods, they look like children!"
"I know. It's hard to kill just one!"

 

[pawsplay]

Except, of course, then when the theory meets the data, data trumps theory. In the Star Trek universe, it is clearly true that humans can mate with Klingons, Betazoids, and Vulcans, and probably others as well. Moreover, it is clear that a human/Klingon hybred is fertile, and able to mate with a human.

That's not data, that's scientific ignorance.