Passing Vulcan Katras down

[Lighthammer]

I've recently rewatched season 4 of Enterprise and something just kind of hit me.

We've seen at least two Katras passed from one person to another in the Star Trek universe. The first Spock leaving his Katra with McCoy and the second was Surak having his Katra passed to Archer.


I got me wondering about a what if scenario in relationship to the Vulcan culture. After thinking about it, it got me wondering why Vulcans, as a culture, don't pass some, many or most their katras to future generations kind of like how Trills pass their host's experiences through symbiants.

Thoughts ?

 

[Deks]

Its possible that not all Vulcans would want their Katra's to be preserved.
Some might want to pass them on, others, not so much.

However, those abilities would grant Vulcans practical immortality.
Just make a younger clone version of the Vulcan individual and have they transfer the Katra themselves (or with an assistance of one of their priests).

Though, even that I find to be unnecessary.
Humans in real life were drastically slowing down and reversing ageing in mice (among other things) for the past decade or more.
I find it a bit stupid the Human lifespan by Archer's time would be up to 150 ... they would have the ability to probably live indefinitely way before WW3 actually happened (realistically, the technology can already be applied in humans at least partly... and within the decade, perfected).
Vulcans were even more advanced compared to Humans in Trek... I find it difficult to imagine that technology to reverse ageing was not invented decades before FC (since Trek is based on our real life more or less).

 

[Timo]

Ah, but Trek is based on our real 20th century life. Which is why IMHO we should take every possible step to hinder the development of technologies in the Trek universe, assume at every opportunity that ultraconservative choices are made and promising technologies are abandoned. Especially so as regards any technologies that change what it is to be human...

In contrast, I'd be fine with immortal Vulcans who just regenerate their bodies. Although so far we haven't seen a mechanism by which Vulcans could regenerate bodies, or obtain new ones. (Other aliens have their methods, but apparently Vulcans don't consider them logical enough.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Katra stuff in ENT is based on old Trek novels from the 80's. There's more info here:

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Katra


Also, I wonder how many Katras one can safely store at once? In STXI, Amanda, Sarek and the Vulcan elders were doing something in the Katric Arc (The Hall of Thought by any other name) and "...the essence of [Vulcan] culture was saved in the elders..." despite the planet's destruction....

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I always thought the whole deal was creepy. Just write stuff down for god's sake, you don't need someone carrying around your disembodied sorta consciousness.

 

[Tiberius]

After thinking about it, it got me wondering why Vulcans, as a culture, don't pass some, many or most their katras to future generations kind of like how Trills pass their host's experiences through symbiants.

Thoughts ?

How do you know they don't? Sarek said in Trek 3 that Vulcans usually mind meld with someone when the body's end is near. And how many Vulcans have we seen die? Spock and Sarek. We know Spock did it, and it's entirely possible that Sarek did as well after Picard left, even if another Vulcan had to initiate it.

 

[Deks]

Ah, but Trek is based on our real 20th century life. Which is why IMHO we should take every possible step to hinder the development of technologies in the Trek universe, assume at every opportunity that ultraconservative choices are made and promising technologies are abandoned. Especially so as regards any technologies that change what it is to be human...

In contrast, I'd be fine with immortal Vulcans who just regenerate their bodies. Although so far we haven't seen a mechanism by which Vulcans could regenerate bodies, or obtain new ones. (Other aliens have their methods, but apparently Vulcans don't consider them logical enough.)

Timo Saloniemi

Ah yes... I noticed that Trek mostly showed technologies in practice that we already developed at least a decade (or several) earlier.
In essence, Trek is using what WE were capable of achieving (well, maybe not transporters, replicators, warp drive and shields - but the rest, technology for making abundance and practically limitless/renewable energy is about a century old, and mag-lev technology since 1974 which we could have used by mid 1980's to effectively transform the entire planets transport into mag-lev) - except of course certain things.

Its sad though, so much advanced technology at our disposal back in the day - never used due to 'money'...
If anything, Trek wasn't advanced enough.
They should have been far more beyond what was shown in the 24th century.
But I still find it ludicrous that Trek humans don't have access to technology that would regenerate their bodies into a much earlier state - from a medical point of view, they WAY surpassed it - and we've seen the transporters to have that ability.

Roddenberry was on the right track, but he should have pushed things more.

 

[T'Girl]

I find it a bit stupid the Human lifespan by Archer's time would be up to 150

According to the episode Observer Effect, the average Human lifespan in the mid-22nd century is 100 years. Some individuals would live beyond the average, however 150 years in that time period would be unlikely.

McCoy had 132 years in the TNG pilot, and was quite elderly.

 

[Hando]

^Wouldn't the statistic be skewed? After all these people would have been born in the post-atomic horror, also a lot of colony ships disappeared and so on...
+ McCoy seems to be still alive and kicking.

The transporter ought to be used as a Fountain of Youth, there were 3 occurrences when it was used to change the age of a person - that I can think of. But it may be regulated along similar lines as genetic engineering.

But to the Katras, the seem to behave kind of strange. So let's take a look at the facts.
Syrran transfered only Surak's katra to Archer.
Surak's katra remembers stuff that happened when it was in a previous person or even has memories of the previous host.
Archer was able to find the Kir'Shara, while Syrran was not able to, or was not looking.
A katra is drawn to its original body, or maybe it felt that Spock was alive.
A katra can be moved by a third party.
A katra can be stored in an ark.
It is possible to merge a katra with a person, effect not fully known - the only known example is that of a semi empty person/clone and the original's katra.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I find it a bit stupid the Human lifespan by Archer's time would be up to 150

According to the episode Observer Effect, the average Human lifespan in the mid-22nd century is 100 years. Some individuals would live beyond the average, however 150 years in that time period would be unlikely.

It could be that Archer's Enterprise brought home the discovery which allowed human lifespans to leap up to the 150's? Boosterspice Lite, if you will.
Or possibly one of the speicies from the Coalition of Planets shared something. It was a time of great change.

McCoy had 132 years in the TNG pilot, and was quite elderly.

Bones did often look kind of sickly when he was in his prime...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

He should have laid off the mint juleps, all that sugar will sickify a man.

 

[T'Girl]

Or possibly one of the speicies from the Coalition of Planets shared something.

Space herpes?

 

[Ronald Held]

McCoy could have used all of the medical knowledge and techniques available in the Federation to prolong his life.

 

[Timo]

..Or might have needed to, whereas other heroes simply were healthy to begin with.

The fact that Pulaski, Picard and Keiko O'Brien (plus a couple of nonhumans) had their "physical" ages altered by transporter magic need not have given them extra chronological years to live; for all we know, the strain of rejuvenation shortened their lifespans even when it removed some wrinkles. Similarly, Kirk might have lost ten years of his life to the aging effects of "The Deadly Years" - and twenty more to the arduous adrenaline cure! We never saw these characters grow old in terms of the 100-130 year lifespans, save for McCoy who, as stated, seemed addled.

Timo Saloniemi