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The Vidiians vs the Alpha Quadrant?
Posted: 2010-05-25 04:23pm
by Rossum
The
Vidiians are one of the races in the Delta Quadrant who's whole 'thing' is that they are infected with a 'phage' disease that is slowly destroying them and they steal organs from other races to survive. I'm not exactly sure what the political landscape is in the Delta Quadrant, but I don't think we saw any other major races in the area who were constantly at war with the Vidiians for being psychotic organ stealing sociopaths.
I'm curious how the major powers of the Alpha Quadrant would react if they had the Vidiians for neighbors.
Suppose Starfleet discovered another giant wormhole similar to the one near Deep Space 9.
The Alpha Quadrant end is located at some point at the edge of Federation space that is otherwise strategically unimportant but could be accessed by Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, or Ferengi forces if they really wanted to go there.
The Delta Quadrant end however, is pretty far into Vidiian space but within traveling distance of some native Delta Quadrant races who want to flee the sector to avoid Vidiian oppression/enslavement/organ harvesting/experimentation/murder.
This takes place some time after the Dominion War and there are no other major threats at the time, the Voyager crew have made it home and given their account of their journey, and initial contact has been non-violent so far (a few ships of refugees from the Delta Quadrant have come through but they stopped).
How would the powers in the Alpha Quadrant react to the Vidiians? If war breaks out, who would fire the opening shot? Is there a chance the Vidiians might actually behave like ethical sapient beings and get along with everyone else?
Re: The Vidiians vs the Alpha Quadrant?
Posted: 2010-05-25 06:35pm
by Eframepilot
The Vidiians could get away with their organ harvesting because they were the most advanced species in that part of the Delta Quadrant. Almost no one else had transporter technology, while the Vidiians could beam the organs right out of you by shooting you with a hand weapon. That's somewhat more advanced than Federation tech. However, they weren't advanced enough beyond Voyager that they could prey on major Alpha Quadrant species. Probably the Federation and others make sure that the Vidiians leave them alone, by blockading the wormhole if necessary. If they're feeling nice they might help cure the Phage (which got done by George Costanza, supposedly).
Re: The Vidiians vs the Alpha Quadrant?
Posted: 2010-05-26 03:59pm
by lord Martiya
Hadn't the Phage got cured by a think tank of alien supergeniouses?
Re: The Vidiians vs the Alpha Quadrant?
Posted: 2010-05-26 07:04pm
by The Romulan Republic
According to their claim. Given the thuggery and corruption of the think tank in question, they could easily have been lying.
Re: The Vidiians vs the Alpha Quadrant?
Posted: 2010-05-26 09:49pm
by Temujin
Rossum wrote:How would the powers in the Alpha Quadrant react to the Vidiians? If war breaks out, who would fire the opening shot? Is there a chance the Vidiians might actually behave like ethical sapient beings and get along with everyone else?
Of the major powers, only the Federation wouldn't go Jihad on them. But if the Vidiians don't play nice and stop in the face of Federation attempts to negotiate with them, then I could see even the Federation taking a shoot on site approach. Seriously, the Vidiians mostly came across as assholes in Voyager (except for stealing Neelix's lungs
).
Re: The Vidiians vs the Alpha Quadrant?
Posted: 2010-05-27 03:40pm
by lord Martiya
The Romulan Republic wrote:According to their claim. Given the thuggery and corruption of the think tank in question, they could easily have been lying.
True. After all, Janeway had no way to verify the claim...
Re: The Vidiians vs the Alpha Quadrant?
Posted: 2010-06-27 02:31am
by OsirisLord
What was the reason for why the Viidians couldn't clone new organs so they didn't become the scourge of the Delta Quadrent (besides the Borg, and the Kazon, and Species 48672 or whatever) forced to steal organs from species that might not even be compatible with them. I mean what if a Viidian steals an A+ blood type organ by he's A-. He was better off with the phage.
Re: The Vidiians vs the Alpha Quadrant?
Posted: 2010-06-27 12:28pm
by Temujin
I'm not sure if any reason was ever given, but the idea that races with access to nanotechnology would have a problem curing a biological disease is ludicrous.
As for compatibility issues, that falls into the same rape of biology category as inter-species breeding.
Re: The Vidiians vs the Alpha Quadrant?
Posted: 2010-07-01 12:44am
by Rossum
Temujin wrote:I'm not sure if any reason was ever given, but the idea that races with access to nanotechnology would have a problem curing a biological disease is ludicrous.
As for compatibility issues, that falls into the same rape of biology category as inter-species breeding.
To be fair, there was a Next Generation that suggested that at least humans, klingons, romulans, and vulcans are decedent from an ancient Precursor race who had spread their DNA across the galaxy (they even encoded a message in the DNA and spread it out among the various races so that when a researcher gathered the bits together they got a message that basically said "You are all related to one another, so work together instead of fighting.").
So it could be that in the Star Trek galaxy that most if not all of the humanoid races are are very similar enough in biology to be genetically compatible or allow organ donors. Though hundreds or thousands of generations of being separated would doubtless mess with that. So, yeah... the fact that different humanoid races can interbreed in Trek and a race with sufficiently advanced medical tech can perform organ transplants like that is merely ludicrously improbably instead of being outright impossible.