Ok, these are the words of a biomedical enineer who has written at least 2 stories on the subjece . . . take my words with a grain of salt. Even though I still maintain that Dr. Klein is a BME, he really didn't act like a knowledgable one in the series in this regard.
1. We could think of Clark as an entirely differnet species. But then how would be and Lois be able to mate at all? Someone that LOOKS so human must have a certain similarity to the human genome. I wonder if it really is enough of a difference to make them infertile.
2. How are his superpowers generated? I've always looked at it as one mutation in one chromosome or several small mutations. I think he still has the same 46 chromosomes, but maybe a few genes that have never been seen before. Or else he wouldn't LOOK human! Those mutations might make him a slightly different species, but he is a lot more closely related to humans than something like apes! I think he would be something like homo kryptonious rather than homo sapien -- and that's only if there was enough mutation to make him a different species.
3. When Dr. Klein said "looks promising", I assumed that meant that Clark had basically a human genetic structure with several mutations. I thought it was more that there was someting wrong with his sperm (sort of like how Yvonne addressed the problem in 'Kidnapped'
)
I think with Clark's fertility problem, there are a lot of different ways to interpret what the show did.
1. Which I don't afree with at all -- Clark is an alien and therefore a different species and can not reproduce.
2. There is something wrong with Clark's ability to have children not at all related to the fact that he is an alien and possibly a different species.
3. Any other reason of your choosing.
Personally, I have always thought Dr. Klein was terribly mistaken and if they would have gone on for one more season, they would have been able to better understand what happened. But, since they didn't, that leaves it up to us fanfic writers
. And I think almost any explanation anyone gives has the potential to be valid as long as you have some support behind it.
- Laura
