The Ocampa

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Now, the very short time span of one Ocampan's career in which to advance the state of Ocampan knowledge is another problem.

Who says they wanted to advance their state of knowledge? That's a very human state of mind. They may have been content with what they knew. It is illogical to assume that every culture wants to gain more knowledge. Even earth has had time periods where the advancement of knowledge crawled to virtually nothing, like the Dark Ages. Perhaps the Ocampans were in a 'Light Age' where they felt there was no need to advance their culture because everything was taken care of by the Caretaker.

[Mikey]

You've been saving that up, have you, Thorin?

Seafort - I know about the communicative abilities. I was referring to something more like an implant of ideas and background knowledge such that it will almost seem instictual to the recipient generation.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Now, the very short time span of one Ocampan's career in which to advance the state of Ocampan knowledge is another problem.

Who says they wanted to advance their state of knowledge? That's a very human state of mind. They may have been content with what they knew. It is illogical to assume that every culture wants to gain more knowledge. Even earth has had time periods where the advancement of knowledge crawled to virtually nothing, like the Dark Ages. Perhaps the Ocampans were in a 'Light Age' where they felt there was no need to advance their culture because everything was taken care of by the Caretaker.

What I mean is, if their culture developed naturally, they'd have had to have advanced their state of knowledge over time in order to have achieved the advanced culture they had. If we wish to assume that their ENTIRE culture, knowledge base, everything else was provided by the Caretaker, than much of this becomes moot in a sense since their culture didn't develop naturally. We really don't know exactly the full extent of the Caretaker's influence on Ocampan culture and history; I was looking more in terms of a way to explain them without resorting to the influence of an alien power.

On Thorin's point: I hadn't recalled the stupidity of the notion that each Ocampan mother only had one child. It's a good point, and not only do we have the crazy population problem, but then there's the issue that if the Universe had to be filled end to end with Ocampans a thousand years ago, WHERE DID THEY ALL COME FROM? Going all the way back into their evolutionary past (if they evolved, that is, barring the mere existence of their species being a product of the Caretaker's intervention) then at some point in the past there was a small number of creatures that multiplied. All naturally occurring life on Earth has evolved the general capacity to increase the numbers of their population. How this gets reversed is an intractable problem since any such mutation should get killed off as a harmful mutation.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Purhaps over population created issues at some point. Or purhaps we misunderstood what Kes was saying. She said she could only get pregnant once. She never said how many times she could give birth. It's possible that multiple eggs are fertilized but only develop one at a time.

Kes once mentioned an uncle I believe after the Doctor got upset that she suggested her father's name for Samatha's baby, before we knew it was a girl. If this is true then they must be capable of having more then one child otherwise she'd have no uncle.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Good catch. I recalled that throughout that episode, it was assumed that Kes would have ONE child... but then she has an uncle. This is yet more careless writing by the Voyager writers, but in universe the situation is somewhat confused.

[Sionnach Glic]

Perhaps her uncle was adopted into the family? That would explain how she can have an uncle, yet state that Ocampans can only have one child.

[Captain Seafort]

The idea that Ocampa can only give birth once isn't really a problem provided they give birth to litters. While Kes' uncle is evidence that multiple births occur, the events of "Before and After" show that single births not only occur, but are common enough to occur in successive generations of the same family branch.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Right, but the problem as I see it is that it was assumed that Kes would have one child before she was to become pregnant - the idea of multiple children was never discussed by Kes, Neelix, the Doctor, or anyone else. If Kes knew that litters were possible, why would this possibility be neglected?

[Captain Seafort]

Kes wasn't exactly in the most rational frame of mind at the time, understandably given that she was entering her fertile cycle several years earlier than expected. I don't recall anyone actually discussing the numbers of kids expected with Kes - all such discussions involved Neelix being a self-centred git rather than actually discussing things with his partner.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Fair enough.

[Sionnach Glic]

Good point. Perhaps they do give birth in large numbers. It's the only way to rationalise this stuff, anyhow.

[Captain Seafort]

Good point. Perhaps they do give birth in large numbers. It's the only way to rationalise this stuff, anyhow.

It's a similar situation to Traviss' clone army numbers - canon says one thing, basic algebra says another. In this case the canon implies that Ocampa give birth to one (as in the case of Kes and her daughter in B&A) or two (Kes' grandmother) offspring. Algebra tells us that if this were the case the Ocampa would be experiencing a serious population decline, therefore the Ocampa must routinely produce litters. At least in this case the canon only implies the insufficient numbers, and the single offspring births in B&A may be a result of interbreeding with humans.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

It seems we've solved yet another problem that should never have come up.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

While there may be feasible explanations for their accelerated education/mental growth, I tend to agree that the combination of that with the ability to buid upon and bequeath scientific and technological advancement is pretty dumbfounding. What explanation springs to my mind is something along the lines of a subconscious cultural telepathic conneection, much like a low-level but more or less constant version of the tau of Dune.

They used that explanation in the String Theory novels.