GURPS Star Trek - Canon Vulcans

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Inky

Occasional hassle about the special requirements of alien crew members does seem to crop up in Star Trek, but mainly just at a "local colour" level.

This is mostly played for laughs, however. Like Bolian worries about shipboard plumbing or a Caitan complaining about the limitations of the sonic showers.

I could see incidents where a food replicator computer (or the equivalent) has to issue dire warnings about a particular dish which is comfort food for one species, but deadly poison to half a dozen others.

Another issue, yet unexplored by canon, is "life support wars" - where the Vulcan wants the ship's atmosphere at 0.9 ATM, 35 *C, and 20% humidity, the human wants it at 1 ATM, 20 *C, and 50%, and the Andorian wants 1.05 ATM, 10* C, and 40% (or whatever Andorians consider to be home-like). (That's my rationale for assuming that the first function of Starfleet uniforms is temperature regulation for their wearer, since the standard duty uniform seems to work just fine at just about any temperature from 0-35 *C and keeps everyone from squabbling over thermostat temperatures.)

Originally Posted by Inky

For instance, there's one episode (not sure what series) involving a human who has to use a wheelchair on board their ship because she grew up on a low-gravity world and can't handle normal gravity.

Actually it was a member of a very low-gravity species, the Elaysians, who looked very much like ordinary humans rather than having "light worlder" physiology (other than ridiculously brittle bones). One of the preachier episodes with a strong "handicapable" plotline.

Originally Posted by Inky

It seems like the Klingons possibly can eat normal food, but if catering for Klingons turns up it's usually in the context of precarious diplomatic negotiations, so if they want raw meat and live worms that's what they get. Similar position with the Ferengi.

I'd imagine that the Klingons can eat just about anything given their robust physiologies, but they get dangerously grumpy if they don't get their preferred diet of live, raw, or recently deceased protein-on-the-hoof.

Originally Posted by Inky

McCoy seems far too competent a doctor to have set out on a long voyage knowing that little about one of his patients.

I could imagine McCoy starting off from default with Vulcan medicine, since he regularly seems startled by aspects of Vulcan physiology that even a competent cross-species paramedic should know about. Sheer talent, luck, and hard study gets him up to speed quickly, however. There's an episode where Spock nearly gets killed and Dr. M'benga - an actual Vulcan specialist - steps in.

Originally Posted by Inky

Seriously, though, if the differences between the alien species were more than trivial, a doctor's job on a ship that had more than one or two aliens on it might be completely unfeasible.

Either that or there are as-yet-unknown commonalities to humanoid physiology that make medical treatment far easier. Starfleet doctors seem to be about to do everything from dentistry to heart transplants on just about any humanoid species without too much trouble.

I call it ridiculous bonuses from excellent equipment, very high levels of EO (Medical) and a "core" Pharmacy, Physician, and Surgery skills, and maybe Wild Talent. (But rather pitiable First Aid levels, so instead of trying CPR or putting the patient in stasis they just wave a medical tricorder over them and gravely announce their death.)

Originally Posted by Inky

On ships with Ferengi or other mini species on board, it seems like hassle over providing suitably-sized chairs, equipment, etc. might be part of daily life for the maintenance crew!

I gave Ferengi Size -1, which is generally good enough that they can deal with human-sized equipment. If the issue comes up, things like anti-grav belts which allow limited flight might allow Size -2 or smaller species to function. (Think Rygel from the Farscape franchise.) I also like to imagine that control stations have adaptable interfaces to allow for things like different hand size & layout.

Originally Posted by Inky

I suppose in a game setting like Star Trek, it might make sense to just give all the characters 0-point Unusual Biochemistry relative to each other, the same as how what your temperature range is is a 0-point feature (this may already have been said).

This is how I've designed my Star Trek species. Unless a particular hazard, pathogen, or toxin is extremely common in the universe, or very hard to avoid, being susceptible to a particular very rare substance is just a racial Feature, and the GM can roll vs. 3d to determine how members of a given species react to a newly discovered threat.

For example, Vulcan susceptibility to Trellium-D is a feature, their susceptibility to nitrous oxide is Susceptibility (Rare). My rationale is that Trellium-D is virtually unknown outside of the Delphic Expanse, but NO2 could easily crop up as part of a planetary atmosphere.