How Does An Orion Womans Pheromone Thingy Actually Work?

I think the Orion phermones are an interesting addition to the mythology. Midichlorians were stupid and unnecessary, but that's another topic.
The Seekers novels have an Orion woman who as something of a birth defect I think, doesn't have the Phermone ability, so that's always an option if you want to eliminate the power for that character. She could always rely on looks, talent and the power of suggestion to get things done.

 

Perhaps some Orion women just don't have the ability. Perhaps that contributed to Marta's mental illness. I also wonder if the effects of the Venus drug from "Mudd's Women" have been conflated with the Orion women's ability over the years. While Mendez mentions, "They're like animals: vicious, seductive. They say no Human male can resist them." Orion Vina doesn't seem to have the power exhibited by later Orion Women.

 

I do think this sounds like a fun role play opportunity for all the players involved.
If the phermones get played out in the story the ship's doctor and/or scientist can always come up with something to block the phermones.

 

All more to think about, thanks all!

This player is taking the position that she doesn't want her character to affect the other PCs negatively, so she's open to forms of suppression, but I think she would still like to retain the ability 'in reserve' if the opportunity to use it within the story comes up.

I hate to use the hypospray solution because it's not very creative, but I'm sure it will work in a pinch.

 

I think it would be fun to use it for at least one story before shutting it off.

 

The role play is dice-less, so if she starts using it as a catch-all solution to every problem, I can easily create situations in which its ineffective. Similarly, I hope the Vulcan doesn't start nerve-pinching everyone that looks at the party the wrong way!

 

Dice-less role-play? No no no nonononononono ye gods

 

Ok, I can buy that you don't want to toss Deltans into the mix (especially given how THAT usually turns out...), but dice-less role-play? Now you're just fracking with us.

 

It should be noted that there is no Orion Vina. Vina is an old, supposedly disfigured and possibly dead human woman, plus a set of illusions (that one of the illusions claims is) related to that once-real woman. Whatever the Orion illusion accomplished or failed to accomplish, we must attribute to the general success or failure of the Talosians to bend Pike to their will.

I'd also chalk up Marta as a human, delusional and in green makeup...

Timo Saloniemi

 

By "Orion Vina" I meant Vina pretending to be an Orion. Which is based on Pike's perceptions of them. Mendez's comments might also be from Pike perceptions since he wasn't real.

By that measure, Kirk wears a hairpiece and Spock's ears are fake

 

No, no, what I mean is that we witness Pike dreaming about resisting the wiles of an Orion girl - which should not be taken as evidence for what would happen if Pike really tried to resist the wiles of an Orion girl.

Pike isn't in control of this fantasy; it's being imposed on him by the Talosians. But Pike isn't facing a real, physical thing, either. And the Talosians don't really know what an Orion animal woman is; all they have to go by at this point (before scanning the Enterprise memory banks) is Pike's own knowledge, dreams and delusions about Orions.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Which is exactly what I said.

My second statement is about Marta and the limitations of 60s make up.

 

I was disappointed at the whole concept of pheromones that put a cold, scientific spin on Orion women to explain their magnetism. It reeked of Midichlorians. Simple animal lust for sex was far, far better in my mind, where the woman enjoyed sex and enjoyed it immensely for its own emotional, animal and perhaps artistic expression where the man, while satisfied, was a simple necessity for the woman's pleasure - something difficult to find on a more repressive Earth. THAT concept was much more powerful than pheromones. The scientific explanation ruined it, kind of like when jokes aren't funny when you have to explain them. Or when they explained The Force in the lab.

So I put no stock at all in Orion pheromones. As if men need a laboratory excuse to enjoy sex with animalistic women - a good sign of a story written to the sensibilities of the repressed (or the networks) who can't handle the thought of people having and enjoying sex without an external excuse and being almost forced to do it.

And I think Susan Oliver's Vina has far exceeded all the cheap imitations that have followed. No one has done it better, either in acting or in makeup. Compared to her, they all look like Halloween costumes.

 

Right, I see, my mistake!

Although I wouldn't wonder a bit if James T. Kirk actually wore a wig. Or perhaps something more futuristic but to the same practical effect...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Tribble training has yet to be perfected.

 

I am inclined to believe in the existence of men for whom ``this is a chance to have sex! I have to take it!'' is not the whole of their thinking. It's worth looking for a good explanation why men should lose their reason around Orion women.

(I grant the 'pheromones' is a boring explanation, dully given, and faintly 70s in its styling, but that's a strike against the way this was presented, not against the idea of explaining it. And that there's not necessarily a reason it has to be explained on-screen rather than in fan lore.)