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Truly Star Crossed Lovers

bookworm8571 said:
Naw. If it has something to do with reproduction, it makes more sense if both sexes experience it.

They've never explained exactly how it works, but Vulcans are probably ready to reproduce years after they appear physically adult. T'Pol in her mid 60s had not experienced pon farr. Spock was in his mid 30s, but may have had advanced development because he was part human. Pon farr may signal reproductive maturity.
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In that case we should all be hermaphrodites since sperm and ovum have something to do with reproduction lol
According to Memory Beta Vulcan females can get pregnant from age 16, males have to wait till their first Ponn Farr to make a female pregnant then they can reproduce any time after that. Not that MA is canon or anything but that means the woman have to wait for the males to catch to get pregnant lol
 
This reminds me of part of a TOS novel that always seemed a bit creepy somehow. I think it was "The Vulcan Academy Murders."

A human doctor notices something different about an adult Vulcan female colleague whom he has known for some time, though she looks exactly the same. He realizes that... she is now sexually mature! :eek:

Kor
 
Kor said:
This reminds me of part of a TOS novel that always seemed a bit creepy somehow. I think it was "The Vulcan Academy Murders."

A human doctor notices something different about an adult Vulcan female colleague whom he has known for some time, though she looks exactly the same. He realizes that... she is now sexually mature! :eek:

Kor
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There is no quality control on these shitty-assed STAR TREK novels. If you can buy a dead tree one on amazon.com for a penny, you've spent too much. I've only read a couple. One I use to prop up a chair with a short leg and another I use to wrap small trash, like spent chewing gum, and stuff like that ...
 
Some of the novels are better than others. All of the authors have their own interpretation of the characters or things Iike pon farr. I read Vulcan Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah years ago. As I remember, Vulcans in the novel reached physical maturity and legal adulthood at roughly the same age as humans but didn't reach sexual maturity until they were in their 40s or later. This was confusing to humans attending college on Vulcan who were interested in dating an immature Vulcan.
 
I wondered what would've happened if Enterprise had gone 7 seasons and How Trip and T'Pol's relationship was explored further and their bond. I like the storyline of their relationship is explored in the books.
 
bookworm8571 said:
T'Pol in her mid 60s had not experienced pon farr.
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That's not true. From the episode "Bounty":

T'POL: We call it the pon farr, the cycle of mating.
PHLOX: Have you gone through this before?
T'POL: It's not time.

She doesn't answer Phlox's question, but from her knowledge of Pon Farr I'd say it's likely she's had previous experience.
 
She's an experienced, legal adult who knows the facts of Vulcan biology like every other Vulcan over the age of seven. It would be a pretty cruel and illogical thing to allow a young bonded pair to go into their first pon farr completely unprepared, so family members or doctors or their school science teachers probably prepare them well in advance. I don't know if that means she has direct experience of pon farr. If this was not her first experience of pon farr, why wasn't she forced to marry Koss whenever it did happen to her or to Koss? They had supposedly been betrothed since childhood . The writers left a lot open to interpretation, but I lean towards the Vulcan Academy Murder explanation. Vulcans must be physically and mentally mature decades before they reach reproductive maturity. I think T'Pol and Koss didn't get married any earlier because neither of them had gone through pon farr. Their marriage had been scheduled at the beginning of the series so they WOULD be settled before pon farr struck. They both must have been nearing maturity and pon farr was expected.
 
My head canon says that Vulcan females don't experience pon farr on their own. The males induce it in them when they're about to mate. That's why T'Pring was cool as a cucumber in Amok Time. In Bounty pon farr was artificially induced in T'Pol in a similar manner through that virus or whatever it was. And Vorik was somehow able to induce it in B'Elanna on VOY's Blood Fever, despite her not being Vulcan.

Also, my head canon says that T'Pol was indeed betrothed as a child but her intended mate died before they could consummate the marriage. So she went on unmarried for all those years until Koss. That was a late betrothal/marriage arranged by T'Les and Koss's parents. The reason for that is that Koss's parents were secret Syrrannites and that group wanted T'Les (aslo a Syrrannite) to stay at her post to help the cause and not get kicked out due to T'Pol's actions at P'Jem. By marrying Koss and T'Pol they had the excuse of helping the family in-laws. Remember that Kos's daddy was a Vulcan government minister or some such, who could pull strings.

But after the Awakening it was no longer needed and Koss released her from the marriage. Since they never developed a mental Bond it was easy. That Bond T'Pol developed with Trip instead.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
 
Yeah, except for the Enterprise episode where T'Pol said she was betrothed as a child, that she had only met Koss four times and that it was assumed they would eventually develop an affection for one another. Koss's parents arranged the betrothal and they were the ones who were insulted when T'Pol wanted the postponement. I think T'Pol and Koss had the traditional Vulcan arrangement -- betrothal at age 7 after they had both passed the kahs wan and a supposed rudimentary mind link that would trigger the need to mate when one of them went into pon farr decades later. Some Vulcans apparently marry and set up housekeeping before they need to when they hit pon farr, but T'Pol just wasn't that into Koss even though he doesn't seem like that bad a guy and probably would have made a decent husband. I've been watching the episodes on Amazon Prime.
 
I don't buy that Vulcans get have to get married before pon farr. All they need to handle pon farr is a responsible Vulcan adult to help with the finger stroking. Sadly for T'Pol, there was no such person on board - Denobulan fingers just won't cut it! (and may in fact have the opposite effect, given that species' apparent hypersexuality.)

Kevin Thomas Riley said:
But after the Awakening it was no longer needed and Koss released her from the marriage.
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Except Koss released her before the awakening. (see episode "Home")
 
Keep in mind that melding was considered deviant behavior at this point. It's likely that betrothals, including T'Pol's, were done without any sort of mind-touching, simply agreements between the families.

I figure the Syrranites did betrothals with melds, since they followed the true teachings of Surak and were all trained properly, but it would have been on the sly, to avoid persecution or worse by the VHC.
 
I'd speculate that there always had to be some sort of mind to mind contact in those betrothals, if only to summon the couple to each other when pon farr was imminent. There's ritual and taboo and primitive instinct wrapped up in it, which explains why most Vulcans don't talk about it. Maybe they associate mind melds with sexuality and the mind melders with promiscuity and improper use of what is meant to be used only in a limited way for mating purposes. But maybe in some kids the bond didn't take or they could sever it if they had no affinity.

I also wonder if the "very intimate" practice of Vulcan neuropressure, at least certain of the postures, might occur primarily between husbands and wives on Vulcan and serve as a way to enhance a marital bond.

As for Koss, he must have found himself another bond mate or came to an understanding with some other unbonded Vulcan.
 
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bookworm8571 said:
Yeah, except for the Enterprise episode where T'Pol said she was betrothed as a child, that she had only met Koss four times and that it was assumed they would eventually develop an affection for one another.
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IIRC, there was never any specific mention of her being betrothed to Koss at age seven, just that Vulcans normally are betrothed at that age. Thus my theory/head canon (that she was betrothed to someone else at that age) can still work.

eyeresist said:
Except Koss released her before the awakening. (see episode "Home")
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No, it was in Home that T'Pol was forced/persuaded to go ahead and marry Koss. The marriage was then annulled after the Vulcan trilogy episodes, the (new) awakening.
 
I believe she did say in the episode that she had been betrothed when she was a child and it's likeliest that it was to Koss. But they didn't spell it out, so there are a lot of possible interpretations. Mine is that T'Pol was raised in a pretty typical Vulcan way and was betrothed when she was seven to Koss, a perfectly acceptable boy of good family whom her parents selected for her. But she turned out to be a real rebel and Koss left her completely cold. I also think Vulcans reach sexual maturity late and T'Pol had not experienced pon farr or the need to marry anyone until that point.
 
bookworm8571 said:
I believe she did say in the episode that she had been betrothed when she was a child and it's likeliest that it was to Koss. But they didn't spell it out, so there are a lot of possible interpretations. Mine is that T'Pol was raised in a pretty typical Vulcan way and was betrothed when she was seven to Koss, a perfectly acceptable boy of good family whom her parents selected for her. But she turned out to be a real rebel and Koss left her completely cold. I also think Vulcans reach sexual maturity late and T'Pol had not experienced pon farr or the need to marry anyone until that point.
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Well, I for one find it implausible that they would wait 60 years to get married, and that it would also take that long to reach sexual maturity. Hence my theories stated abovethread that would make things work. I think that Koss either was quite young (much younger than T'Pol) or that he was a fairly recent widower. Since none of that is disproved in canon, I'm sticking with my theory.
 
Were Trip and T'Pol realy, truly in Love? They had a mating bond imposed on them for no other reason than due to scratching their itch. But T'Pol could often be dismissive of Trip, as when Surak's writings were published. And Trip would often be dishonest about his feelings, outright lying to her, to not appear weak ... as though he needed their relationship more than she. We wanted them to be "Truly Star Crossed Lovers," but I believe they were just good friends with great benefits.

Even when Elizabeth entered the picture, what's Trip's first reaction? "T'Pol, we're going to discover the truth behind all of this ... together"??? No!!! Whilst he does not accuse her of this outright, he firmly believes - and this is in the final thing - that she's been somehow deceptive regarding having been pregnant, somehow. He quickly realises and accepts that would've been impossible, but his initial feelings are those of distrust. Distrust of the woman he supposedly loves. They did love one another, but it wasn't as strong as their mating bond, itself. It was more loosely woven ...
 
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