Spoilers ST: Beyond - Surprising fact about Sulu

[Greg Cox]

Now, the tricky part is if the daughter is named Demora, as seems likely. The Captain's Daughter established that Demora was the name of the place where Sulu and Susan Ling met and had their brief fling, and that it was Susan's decision to give that name to her daughter. That would be very hard to reconcile with Kelvin Sulu giving the same name to a daughter who was born something like a decade earlier under completely different circumstances. (Which is a matter of concern to me because The Captain's Daughter is referenced in a number of novelverse works, including one or two of my own books. So it's part of the current book continuity.)

Eh, I say call her Demora in the movies, and quietly forget about that one part in that one novel. That's what we usually do when the shows overwrite the books, as we all understand. I can't imagine that "the current book continuity" will collapse like a house of cards without it.

 

[Idran]

Eh, I say call her Demora in the movies, and quietly forget about that one part in that one novel. That's what we usually do when the shows overwrite the books, as we all understand. I can't imagine that "the current book continuity" will collapse like a house of cards without it.

More fun to figure out/invent a reason for these things, though.

 

[Jinn]

More fun to figure out/invent a reason for these things, though.

Maybe Kelvin-Sulu met his husband too in Demora? In a worst case scenario you could always go with future Sulu from the Prime timeline somehow told past Sulu from the Kelvin timeline.

 

[Skywalker]

If Pavel Andreyevich Chekov can be born a decade earlier in the Kelvin Timeline and still have the same name, I don't see why Demora Sulu can't.

 

[tomswift2002]

Why would Prime Sulu need to be bi-sexual after this movie? The two Sulu's are clearly living 2 very different lives. Couldn't it be that in the Prime Universe Sulu just stayed straight and was a heterosexual, while in the Kelvin universe Sulu is a homosexual?

Also, with the announcement of Sulu being gay in Star Trek Beyond, could this mean that his daughter is a science-fiction thing. And by this I mean, in normal life we know that the only way to get a child is for a male and female to provide an egg and a sperm, either by the natural way, or in a laboratory from in-vitro. But could Sulu's daughter be a product of a laboratory experiment where she was created from combining the sperm of Sulu and his husband? Sure it sounds sci-fi, but then again we are talking about a sci-fi series.

 

[Skywalker]

It's not science fiction, it's close to reality now, in the real world. Stem cells, man. They're pretty cool.

 

[Christopher]

If Pavel Andreyevich Chekov can be born a decade earlier in the Kelvin Timeline and still have the same name, I don't see why Demora Sulu can't.

In general, no. I just meant that The Captain's Daughter offered a very specific explanation for how Demora got her name, one that would make it unlikely for Sulu to give his daughter the same name in a different timeline (because he wasn't the one who named her), so that creates a bit of a clash.

And Kelvin Chekov is only four years older than his counterpart.

Why would Prime Sulu need to be bi-sexual after this movie? The two Sulu's are clearly living 2 very different lives. Couldn't it be that in the Prime Universe Sulu just stayed straight and was a heterosexual, while in the Kelvin universe Sulu is a homosexual?

I've already said a couple of times that that's theoretically possible -- just as it's possible that Prime Sulu could be bisexual while Kelvin Sulu was strictly gay, say. But there are obviously good social and moral reasons why the movies making a TOS character gay is a positive, meaningful thing, so I'd be surprised if the novelists and comics authors didn't want to follow suit, and it'd probably be a bit cowardly to refuse to follow suit and use continuity nitpicks as an excuse.

Also, with the announcement of Sulu being gay in Star Trek Beyond, could this mean that his daughter is a science-fiction thing. And by this I mean, in normal life we know that the only way to get a child is for a male and female to provide an egg and a sperm, either by the natural way, or in a laboratory from in-vitro. But could Sulu's daughter be a product of a laboratory experiment where she was created from combining the sperm of Sulu and his husband? Sure it sounds sci-fi, but then again we are talking about a sci-fi series.

That's hardly even science fiction -- there's already research underway to find a way to let gay couples conceive. A male couple would probably need a surrogate to carry the child, but by the 23rd century, even that might be something men could do.

 

[Skywalker]

In general, no. I just meant that The Captain's Daughter offered a very specific explanation for how Demora got her name, one that would make it unlikely for Sulu to give his daughter the same name in a different timeline (because he wasn't the one who named her), so that creates a bit of a clash.

And Kelvin Chekov is only four years older than his counterpart.

Ah, four years, right. Same principle, regardless.

As for the source of Kelvin Demora's name, maybe Kelvin Sulu and his husband first met on Demora, just like Prime Sulu and Susan Ling did, and they decided to name their daughter after there. Done. Easy. Next!

 

[Jinn]

Actually this means that Sulu is the first character to be considered gay on-screen. I didn't really think about that, but it's about goddamn time.

 

[Christopher]

Actually this means that Sulu is the first character to be considered gay on-screen. I didn't really think about that, but it's about goddamn time.

Well, DS9: "Rejoined" established Jadzia as bisexual, but that was attributable to exotic alien stuff, and it was a revival of a formerly heterosexual marriage, so it's a borderline case. This is the first time with a human character.

 

[Greg Cox]

Honestly, I resist the idea that we need some sort of fancy technobabble explanation for how a gay couple could have a child. That's already a common thing here in the present, for any number of reasons: previous unions, surrogates, adoption, etc. Just off the top of my head, I can think of any number of such families in my own circle of friends, relatives, and associates.

"Demora has Two Daddies" is a book that could already be published.

We might as well search for a sci-fi solution as to why Kirk has a son, despite advanced 23rd-century birth control techniques.

 

[Skywalker]

Honestly, I resist the idea that we need some sort of fancy technobabble explanation for how a gay couple could have a child. That's already a common thing here in the present, for any number of reasons: previous unions, surrogates, adoption, etc. Just off the top of my head, I can think of any number of such families in my own circle of friends, relatives, and associates.

"Demora has Two Daddies" is a book that could already be published.

We might as well search for a sci-fi solution as to why Kirk has a son, despite advanced 23rd-century birth control techniques.

Agreed, but I think the idea here is more about two men or two women having a child who is related to both of the parents, rather than just one of them, which currently is the only way same-sex couples can have children. But yes, modern genetic research seems to be bringing us closer to the day when same-sex parents can have children who truly are genetically related to them both. So by Kelvin Sulu's time it would likely not be an issue at all.

 

[Leto_II]

We might as well search for a sci-fi solution as to why Kirk has a son, despite advanced 23rd-century birth control techniques.

"Oh shit, the condom broke" will probably just as valid a shocked utterance in the 23rd century as it is in the 20th/21st centuries.

 

[Skywalker]

Kasidy Yates got pregnant in the final season of DS9 because Ben Sisko forgot to get his regular contraceptive injection.

 

[Greg Cox]

. But yes, modern genetic research seems to be bringing us closer to the day when same-sex parents can have children who truly are genetically related to them both. So by Kelvin Sulu's time it would likely not be an issue at all.

Perhaps, but why would Demora need to be related to both of her dads, and, more importantly, why would this even need to be addressed? If I run into some same-sex parents at a Fourth of July picnic or a STAR TREK convention, I don't worry myself about how exactly they were conceived or who contributed what portion of DNA. It's just Bill and Jim and their daughter Megan, or Sally and June and their twins . . ..

If it's already that commonplace today, why would it even come up in the future?

 

[Christopher]

Honestly, I resist the idea that we need some sort of fancy technobabble explanation for how a gay couple could have a child. That's already a common thing here in the present, for any number of reasons: previous unions, surrogates, adoption, etc. Just off the top of my head, I can think of any number of such families in my own circle of friends, relatives, and associates.

Sure, but science fiction is also about anticipating real-world advances. As I said, there is real-world research underway to make it possible for gay couples to conceive children together, to have kids that are a mix of both their genes rather than being adopted or conceived with a donor. This is something that may well become possible within our lifetimes, or at least by the end of this century. So it would be unrealistic to portray a 23rd century where that technology hadn't already existed for a long time.

No, there's nothing wrong with adoption or surrogacy or anything else. But there's nothing wrong with combining your genes with your spouse's to produce a child. That's an option that heterosexual couples have by default, so why shouldn't it be included among the options that gay people have, if the means exist? It's not about one choice being more right than the others. It's about giving everyone a full range of options.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'm guess I'm thinking it would be preferable just to treat such a family as commonplace instead of something exotic and futuristic. "Whoa! In the future, gay people will be able to have kids of their own! How radical!"

Hell, we never got a "scientific" explanation for how Spock was conceived, so why fall over backwards to explain how come Sulu has a kid?

 

[Christopher]

I'm guess I'm thinking it would be preferable just to treat such a family as commonplace instead of something exotic and futuristic. "Whoa! In the future, gay people will be able to have kids of their own! How radical!"

But I don't get the impression there's any plan to treat it as exotic. If it's included, it'd be as matter-of-fact as any other bit of Trek futurism. Remember how Roddenberry said in the TOS bible that a starship captain wouldn't stop to call attention to how his phaser works any more than a cop would stop to explain how his revolver works. The futuristic element would just be portrayed as a routine aspect of the world they live in, no matter how remarkable it might seem to present-day viewers.

 

[Greg Cox]

But I don't get the impression there's any plan to treat it as exotic. If it's included, it'd be as matter-of-fact as any other bit of Trek futurism. Remember how Roddenberry said in the TOS bible that a starship captain wouldn't stop to call attention to how his phaser works any more than a cop would stop to explain how his revolver works. The futuristic element would just be portrayed as a routine aspect of the world they live in, no matter how remarkable it might seem to present-day viewers.

But if we don't bother to explain how phasers work, why bother to explain how Demora was conceived? Why call attention to the question at all?

Demora has two daddies, period. That's really all we need to know.

 

[Skywalker]

Oh, I don't think anyone's advocating that the movie should or even needs to call attention to the story behind Demora's conception. We're just saying it will probably be possible and totally commonplace by the 2260s.