Balance of Terror Questions

[Hambone]

I wonder if the Stiles plotpoint wasn't shoed in late in the episodes development. I seem to recall that the Blish novelisation didn't have much of it (only an offhand remark by Spock about "oh, yes, we have a few relatives around here" or something like that.

In early drafts of the script, the "spy-on-board-the-Enterprise" subplot was more pronounced. The original design for the Romulan ship was described as being nearly identical to the Enterprise saucer section; Commander Hanson had a line "...espionage...stealing our designs." So it would seem the Stiles subplot was there from the start.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I always assumed the Amok Time rituals were the only holdover from the ancient times...during Pon Farr the subject loses control of his logic, so you can't have a logical process per se.

That's how I saw it.

 

[Myasishchev]

I always assumed the Amok Time rituals were the only holdover from the ancient times...during Pon Farr the subject loses control of his logic, so you can't have a logical process per se. I agree that the other mystic elements later assigned to the Vulcans seem at odds with what Spock always espoused.

There are Vulcans with different belief systems. Didn't Tuvok once say that he was skeptical about the existence of the katra (immortal soul)?

That doesn't seem very logical. I mean, in at least one case in the 2380s, katras were definitively shown to exist. Spock's resurrection would likely have been heavily documented. I don't see any way around it.

On the other hand, it seems quite clear that the Vulcans, and Surak in particular, were for whatever reason very wary of completely breaking down the barriers of individuality, and such practices were regulated by the institution of the Surakian religion, which appears to have built on, much like Christianity, the old "heathen" Vulcan ways.

In any event, the Vulcans often seemed to be oblivious to their gift and squandering of their talents and I've still not really concocted an adequate explanation for this--rigorous unemotionalism doesn't really explain why the masses would refuse not only functional immortality, but an intimacy that is superhuman in its possibilities.

Let's give it a shot:

Maybe the only ones who can perform such feats are those who have trained their minds to perfection, and those who have trained their minds to perfection have minds too large to go around transmitting whole copies down through the generations, or too powerful to inflict upon the uninitiated.

This somewhat conflicts with Star Trek III's evidence, though, where a katra upload is 1)the Vulcan way, 2)seconds in duration, and 3)not requisite of any particular storage hardware. (This of course makes one wonder why a katra download takes a priestess and eight to twelve hours.)

Supporting the thesis, however, is the notion that McCoy became increasingly messed up over the course of the film. Perhaps this would have occurred regardless of his species; perhaps in time either his own personality would have been totally supplanted by Spock's, or Spock's would have faded and died. The experience of Spock's Genesis-clone, of course, militates for the latter.

Perhaps outside the existence of a shell-body, the "Vulcan way" is just the brief experience of the dead guy's memories and feelings, confined to his friends and family, occurring prior to the decay and extinction of his personality. Maybe that's what Sarek wanted from Kirk--a last few days or weeks with his son, not his son, whole and alive again.And maybe that's what the priestess meant when she said that a total overwrite hadn't been done in ages, even though Sarek insisted that Spock passing on his katra was totally normal and traditional.

Of course, then we have to wonder whether this is a kind of murder, or at least very late-term abortion, perpetrated against Frankenspock, the totally new body which was created due to the Genesis Effect!

Kudos to anyone who could follow this.

 

[Timo]

Why, thank you. It was quite enjoyable...

I'm certainly in the camp where katra transfer is but a partial dump of one's current cranial contents - and a ctrl-C copy rather than a ctrl-X cut at that. It doesn't really amount to much on its own, but will normally evaporate quickly and even in abnormal cases of deliberate preservation will not be capable of being transferred to a new body, not unless said body is an empty canvas and biologically compatible.

That is, in cases like Spock's, or if a Vulcan is hit by a hovertruck and goes braindead after a katra dump, a reintegration is theoretically possible. But an elderly and wealthy Vulcan can't move his katra over to the body of the youngster who was hit by that truck, because it's just plain not compatible. What would survive in such a transfer would be largely nonfunctional, at most amounting to what McCoy or Archer had in their noggins, and typically being much worse.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[stonester1]

Wow. That guy sounds either like he's a loon who's taking that shit way too seriously, or he's playing up the whole Whistling-Dixie persona for the benefit of paying tourists such as yourself.

I kinda suspect the latter. But he's in no way representative of Americans as a whole. I don't think I've ever met anyone who gave a flying frak about the Civil War except as something they might have a personal historical interest in, the way people might be interested in any hobby. Even Civil War re-enactors I've met understand the difference between their hobby and reality, and don't come to the party with live ammo.

Well, Stiles hardly was the representative Starfleet servicemember, either. But it's not out of the realm of possibility that there were a few like him around, especially if the Fleet HAD endured a war that was still remembered, still taught and the fleet still reflected lessons from that war.

 

[stonester1]

I'm gonna go ahead and say it.

I personally never liked the way Vulcans were portrayed in any Star Trek series, beyond Mr. Spock and Sarek. It never made any sense to me that a race totally devoted to logic would be so devoted to the ornate ceremony and near-religious pagentry we saw in Amok Time and Star Trek III. The enigmatic elder Vulcans with their King James English seems totally at odds with the idea of a purely logical race. Archaic rituals don't seem very logical.

It made sense to me. It seems to me that a culture which "FEARED" it's suppressed animal passions, would codify and ritualize aspects, to the point of rote, to create a standardization and an easy way to pass it on. And considering how socially/culturally conscious Vulcan culture is, how conservative it is, again, would support such trappings.

Not that all Vulcans would buy into it, of course, but such ritual makes perfect sense to me. The Vulcans who use them would meditate upon them and what they mean, why they are important to them.

 

[Karnbeln]

I always assumed the Amok Time rituals were the only holdover from the ancient times...during Pon Farr the subject loses control of his logic, so you can't have a logical process per se. I agree that the other mystic elements later assigned to the Vulcans seem at odds with what Spock always espoused.

There are Vulcans with different belief systems. Didn't Tuvok once say that he was skeptical about the existence of the katra (immortal soul)?

That doesn't seem very logical. I mean, in at least one case in the 2380s, katras were definitively shown to exist. Spock's resurrection would likely have been heavily documented. I don't see any way around it.

Maybe it wasn't the existence of the brain pattern featuring in Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock that Tuvok objected to, but the idea of the katra being a person's soul. Some Vulcans may have a similar philosophy to what many have today that you can have living tissue, even with a mind, but it is not truely aware and alive without a soul, and that soul is the katra. The Spock incident could be shown as proof of this. If Tuvok does not believe in the existance of the soul, he would view the katra as the ctrl-c brainwave copy described above, not as a spiritual thing. He believes, therefore, in the Vulcan ability to psychically transcribe one's brain patterns, but not in the katra.

 

[Myasishchev]

Why, thank you. It was quite enjoyable...

I'm certainly in the camp where katra transfer is but a partial dump of one's current cranial contents - and a ctrl-C copy rather than a ctrl-X cut at that.

Stop, you're stealing our hologram!

It doesn't really amount to much on its own, but will normally evaporate quickly and even in abnormal cases of deliberate preservation will not be capable of being transferred to a new body, not unless said body is an empty canvas and biologically compatible.

This may conflict, however, with Surak's katra being carried by Syrran and then Archer, after presumably being ctrl-c'd numerous times in the intervening years by several disciples.

That is, in cases like Spock's, or if a Vulcan is hit by a hovertruck and goes braindead after a katra dump, a reintegration is theoretically possible. But an elderly and wealthy Vulcan can't move his katra over to the body of the youngster who was hit by that truck, because it's just plain not compatible. What would survive in such a transfer would be largely nonfunctional, at most amounting to what McCoy or Archer had in their noggins, and typically being much worse.

It could easily be physically incompatible; but even in the absence of physical incompatibility, it might still be legally/ethically/morally suspect. But still, it seemed that Surak was perfectly okay (even if Archer was getting weird).

This more than anything militates against the presumption that the Vulcans can't prolong their lives into perpetuity through downloading into new bodies, if alongside the resident personalities. Then again, if submersion, fusion, or extirpation are common side-effects of katra transfer, it may explain the borderline-totalitarian uniformity of Vulcan custom--everyone has a quasi-compulsory Surak telling them what to do. It would also be handy in explaining why the Romulans not only abandoned Vulcan, but the otherwise seemingly very useful Vulcan mental techniques.

Maybe it wasn't the existence of the brain pattern featuring in Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock that Tuvok objected to, but the idea of the katra being a person's soul. Some Vulcans may have a similar philosophy to what many have today that you can have living tissue, even with a mind, but it is not truely aware and alive without a soul, and that soul is the katra. The Spock incident could be shown as proof of this. If Tuvok does not believe in the existance of the soul, he would view the katra as the ctrl-c brainwave copy described above, not as a spiritual thing. He believes, therefore, in the Vulcan ability to psychically transcribe one's brain patterns, but not in the katra.

Well, sure, there's that, and a semantic distinction is reasonable and perhaps probable given the source. But that's no launch pad for my screed.

 

[Anticitizen]

This more than anything militates against the presumption that the Vulcans can't prolong their lives into perpetuity through downloading into new bodies, if alongside the resident personalities. Then again, if submersion, fusion, or extirpation are common side-effects of katra transfer, it may explain the borderline-totalitarian uniformity of Vulcan custom--everyone has a quasi-compulsory Surak telling them what to do. It would also be handy in explaining why the Romulans not only abandoned Vulcan, but the otherwise seemingly very useful Vulcan mental techniques.

Now there's an interesting idea.

 

[Anwar]

Wow, makes Surak rather insidious. He trained his mind and discipline to the point that he could "infect" others with his personality and bring a new age of logic forth by basically exerting his mind onto his whole race for the rest of time.

 

[Myasishchev]

Hard to say if it's the case, but, if Surak's katra is floating around, intact, and can be copied, and the Vulcan culture indicates that being like Surak is awesome, it follows that most Vulcans would have Surak's katra disseminated to them.

It then depends on whatever the mechanics of the transfer and carriage of a katra actually entail (on which points canon is purposefully and perhaps wisely vague) to determine whether this is a situation of brainwashing or not. The evidence we do have seems to suggest an subversive effect on the resident mind, but it's a sample size of two--and humans, at that.

Maybe "IDIC" is just something people say.

 

[Timo]

...You mean the same people who say "We as a species do not lie"?

Regarding Surak/Archer, I wasn't intending to disagree much with you. Instead, I wanted to postulate that whatever remained of Surak was not a "living self", an active self-aware being with a goal of survival, speaking through Archer's vocal cords (a situation which logically would make all Vulcans very eager to reserve an appointment with T'Lar), but merely a collection of phrases and catchy ideas that greatly influenced Archer's behavior. Surak lived on as a particularly vivid meme; any Vulcan would no doubt want to do that, as vanity must be universal, but modern Vulcans have far better ways of creating immortal memes than this arcane toying with their katras. Thus, no lines up the stairs of Mount Seleya.

Perhaps Surak indeed was able to equip his meme with an exceptionally great will to perpetuate/multiply; and perhaps there's a bit of Surak inside every modern Vulcan skull, through a variety of meme transfer methods and not just through fingertip-to-temple katra transfers. The key concern would be that this not be particularly enjoyable or effective eternal life, since it's not observed more commonly. A combination of it requiring a Surak-level superhero and it only offering fragmented and unsatisfactory eternity would be sufficient to do the trick.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[willg]

I agree that Stiles' motivation was, shall we say, a bit obscure, but just for the sake of discussion...

Two or three years ago, we visited Shiloh, Tennessee, site in 1862 of a pivotal battle in the U.S. Civil War .*

* Explanation included for the benefit of non-USofAns

After visiting the battlefield (strongly recommended for anybody interested in the Civil War, BTW), we visited a shop that sold relics.

Well, the old guy who sold us a "Yankee" relic talked as though the Civil War had ended maybe 2 years before, as though Yankees had killed his daddy, raped his sister and stolen the family's mule. I am, I swear, not exaggerating. To him, it was recent history. And this even though he knew perfectly well that we pretty much qualified as Yankees, too. He was nice to us, because we were customers and because he wasn't an unkind man (and besides, I went out of my way to mention that I have Southern relatives - my momma didn't raise no fool), but...

He even, and I swear I am not exaggerating about this either, kind of tried to convert us to the Confederacy.

Since I have Southern relatives, including some who do still refer to people as "Yankees," I wasn't too surprised. My husband, however, whose entire family is from the Midwest and who hasn't ever been called a Yankee before, was not amused. But to me it was very funny and very interesting, though more than a bit odd.

So anyway, is Stiles' attitude that far off from the old guy in Shiloh? He was still extremely bitter about events that had occurred 140 years before, and while his may be a somewhat exaggerated attitude, it definitely isn't unique, not in some parts of the South.

Ah, the lost cause!

 

[JustKate]

That's the one. Except that I think you're supposed to put it in caps, like this: the Lost Cause.

And you're also supposed to erect gigantic, somber, ornate monuments full of weeping angels and other High Victorian "died in their prime" imagery.

I forgot to mention that my particular old guy's...vocation, I guess you'd call it, was identifying sites of obscure Civil War battles and erecting monuments on them. I'm guessing about the weeping angles, though.

 

[Nerys Myk]

...You mean the same people who say "We as a species do not lie"?

Regarding Surak/Archer, I wasn't intending to disagree much with you. Instead, I wanted to postulate that whatever remained of Surak was not a "living self", an active self-aware being with a goal of survival, speaking through Archer's vocal cords (a situation which logically would make all Vulcans very eager to reserve an appointment with T'Lar), but merely a collection of phrases and catchy ideas that greatly influenced Archer's behavior. Surak lived on as a particularly vivid meme;

 

[Praetor]

That's the one. Except that I think you're supposed to put it in caps, like this: the Lost Cause.

And you're also supposed to erect gigantic, somber, ornate monuments full of weeping angels and other High Victorian "died in their prime" imagery.

I forgot to mention that my particular old guy's...vocation, I guess you'd call it, was identifying sites of obscure Civil War battles and erecting monuments on them. I'm guessing about the weeping angles, though.

Hey, that's no way to talk about the War For Southern Independence.

Whoa. Brain storm. I can't help but equate the Romulan sundering to the American Civil War, i.e. the Romulans didn't want to do what Surak said they should do, so they left - which makes Stiles' bitterness relating to similar bitterness over the Lost Cause all the more bittersweet, since his Great Enemy went through something 'similar.'

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I can't help but equate the Romulan sundering to the American Civil War, i.e. the Romulans didn't want to do what Surak said they should do, so they left - which makes Stiles' bitterness relating to similar bitterness over the Lost Cause all the more bittersweet, since his Great Enemy went through something 'similar.'

Actually there isn't any overt evidence that the Romulans were the result of a rebellion against Surak. There are some who suggest that the Sundering was Surak's idea in the first place. I think the Vulcan's Soul novels do. His reasoning was that even if Vulcan tore itself apart in civil war, some essence of its people would still remain.

 

[Thor Damar]

^ Now I have a mental image of 'Confederates in Space'.

It certainly provides a more fitting explanation for the Sundering, after all the Romulans are the descendants of those who 'marched under the Raptors wings' indicating that there was a ideological civil war on ancient Vulcan.

As for the Vulcannoid races it has always struck me as odd that only the Vulcans have given birth to a successful successor civilisation , I wonder why we have never seen any Klingonoid offshoots or a separate Cardassian civilisation. We have seen a another human culture in the Neyel, a more xenophobic and aggressive version of mainline humanity but only in the treklit. It would certainly have been interesting to explore the different aspects of our favorite trek races.

Finally before I draw my ramblings to a conclusion I have one question of my own. Is this Lt Stiles the same person who went on to become Captain stiles of the USS Excelsior?

 

[Praetor]

I can't help but equate the Romulan sundering to the American Civil War, i.e. the Romulans didn't want to do what Surak said they should do, so they left - which makes Stiles' bitterness relating to similar bitterness over the Lost Cause all the more bittersweet, since his Great Enemy went through something 'similar.'

Actually there isn't any overt evidence that the Romulans were the result of a rebellion against Surak. There are some who suggest that the Sundering was Surak's idea in the first place. I think the Vulcan's Soul novels do. His reasoning was that even if Vulcan tore itself apart in civil war, some essence of its people would still remain.

I know, but I couldn't help but draw the mental comparison.

^ Now I have a mental image of 'Confederates in Space'.

No no no, it's 'Confederates... In... Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!'

It certainly provides a more fitting explanation for the Sundering, after all the Romulans are the descendants of those who 'marched under the Raptors wings' indicating that there was a ideological civil war on ancient Vulcan.

That was part of my thinking. On the whole though, it almost seems more fitting if the Romulans-to-be went willingly. Of course, this is still workable even if they did leave after a civil war...

As for the Vulcannoid races it has always struck me as odd that only the Vulcans have given birth to a successful successor civilisation , I wonder why we have never seen any Klingonoid offshoots or a separate Cardassian civilisation. We have seen a another human culture in the Neyel, a more xenophobic and aggressive version of mainline humanity but only in the treklit. It would certainly have been interesting to explore the different aspects of our favorite trek races.

Agreed, generally in that I'd like to have seen other off-shoot civilizations. There does seem to be a particular fascination with humanity in the Trekverse.

I think the reason that there are other Vulcanoids might be that the Vulcan race is so much older. I might also argue that they probably don't have as many 'offshoot' races as it might appear, and others, such as the Mintakans, might have simply been 'castoffs' who regressed.

Finally before I draw my ramblings to a conclusion I have one question of my own. Is this Lt Stiles the same person who went on to become Captain stiles of the USS Excelsior?

No. The Captain of the Excelsiori spelled his name 'Styles' apparently. But there are real-world explanations for this sort of spelling-change that could allow for him to be a relative.

 

[Hambone]

Is this Lt Stiles the same person who went on to become Captain stiles of the USS Excelsior?

No. BOT = Lt. Stiles. STIII = Captain Styles. It would have been an interesting homage to the character, though.