Does that really belong here?
Michael Burnham and Pon Farr...
- Thread starter BillJ
- Start date
Does that really belong here?
I'm tired of caring.
I'm sure it is meant to be just friendly banter, but I have to agree that often McCoy comes across just as plainly racist. He is also woefully clueless about Vulcan physiology. He is apparently a former civilian doctor, while the later doctors have graduated from the Starfleet Medical Academy. Perhaps at some point the Starfleet decided that it is better to train their own doctors and make sure that they have at least a basic grasp of interspecies communication and xenobiology. (Not that it helped Pulaski.)
McCoy's statement was conjecture, since just a few hours before he had never heard of Ponn Farr
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Replace the terms 'that stuff in your veins you call blood' with 'that brown stuff on your body you call skin' and as likeable as McCoy comes across, if he was practising in the armed forces today and said that to someone who looked like me, I would expect him to be drummed out of the service or busted to Petty Officer McCoy on the HMS The ship no one wants to serve on
I am not a statistician but I doubt a race that only had sex every 7 years for procreation would have a population that ran into the billions unless 1. It was the norm to have multiple births or
2. They had babies via IVF and the concept of IVF did not exist when the writers wrote Amok Time.
But could their long life span not counter that? Especially if they are able to naturally have children for an equally long amount of time
Their lifespan seems to be over two centuries and who knows how long they remain fertile, possibly over a century. Probably such system would require that intercourse is very likely to result a pregnancy and that infant mortality is low (and Vulcans seem to be many ways much more resilient than humans, so that may be part of that.) In developed counties replacement rate (for population to remain stable) is average 2.1 children per woman. More than that results population growth. I really don't think this would be an issue.
Right after Star Trek VI is probably what did it. Especially with such a high-profile incident. Even though it wasn't a Vulcan: trying to save the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire without even knowing his anatomy? Yeah. That probably didn't look very good.
They barely, barely touch upon it in TMP but McCoy pointed out when he came back onboard, "I heard Chapel's an MD now. I'm going to need a top nurse. Not someone who'll argue every little diagnosis with me." He must've felt threatened that Chapel was more qualified than he was. Note (as an in-universe reason) she's no longer on the ship afterwards.
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I think I'm on record as agreeing with Longinus' stance that Vulcans, generally, only have sex every seven years under the dictates of Pon Farr. It just seems to fit them as repressed secularized pseudo-monks.
There are, of course, tons of exceptions (in my view):
- Those who don't follow Surak or reinterpret his views to allow public emotions (V'tosh ka'tur). They're all about experiencing emotions and sex is an easy gateway to that.
- Those whose pon farr cycle is out of whack. Vulcans aren't completely anti-sex. They'll have it if it's the logical thing to do. And here they are assisting partners (or, perhaps, patients without a partner) in a simple manner that may be life-or-death. For example: Star Trek III.
- Those Vulcans (Sarek, mainly) who take on non-Vulcan partners with non-Vulcan needs. Sarek isn't some sort of sexual deviant. He's a highly respected Ambassador and Federation Councilor. But I feel that his love for Amanda and Perrin probably was showcased in a physical manner, at least to accommodate their necessities if not technically his.
As for the Vulcan seven-year population problem, I feel that it's very likely that pon farr could in fact be a population control mechanism, and their numbers have dwindled from trillions spread across far-flung colonies in Surak's time, to barely a billion or less by the time of TOS (to the point where the Kelvinverse destruction of Vulcan nearly makes them extinct).
But... Tuvok and T'Pel have quite the brood together, over multiple pon farrs (onscreen, at least their daughter was conceived in one). So it's not nearly as bad as the Ocampa one-child conundrum, since they have family sizes that rival our own, within (presumably) the bounds of pon farr.
There are, of course, tons of exceptions (in my view):
- Those who don't follow Surak or reinterpret his views to allow public emotions (V'tosh ka'tur). They're all about experiencing emotions and sex is an easy gateway to that.
- Those whose pon farr cycle is out of whack. Vulcans aren't completely anti-sex. They'll have it if it's the logical thing to do. And here they are assisting partners (or, perhaps, patients without a partner) in a simple manner that may be life-or-death. For example: Star Trek III.
- Those Vulcans (Sarek, mainly) who take on non-Vulcan partners with non-Vulcan needs. Sarek isn't some sort of sexual deviant. He's a highly respected Ambassador and Federation Councilor. But I feel that his love for Amanda and Perrin probably was showcased in a physical manner, at least to accommodate their necessities if not technically his.
As for the Vulcan seven-year population problem, I feel that it's very likely that pon farr could in fact be a population control mechanism, and their numbers have dwindled from trillions spread across far-flung colonies in Surak's time, to barely a billion or less by the time of TOS (to the point where the Kelvinverse destruction of Vulcan nearly makes them extinct).
But... Tuvok and T'Pel have quite the brood together, over multiple pon farrs (onscreen, at least their daughter was conceived in one). So it's not nearly as bad as the Ocampa one-child conundrum, since they have family sizes that rival our own, within (presumably) the bounds of pon farr.
Tuvoks children were less than 7 years apart though.
Infact, anytime we see a collection of Vulcan children, they're every bit as randomised in age as humans, despite Vulcans only having a population of 5-6 billion 200 years after we hit 7.6 billion. Given how generations would work on Vulcanoids, that shouldn't really happen at all with PF being the only reproductive element.
And Romulans don't have it. So either they engineered it out, or it's a responce to growing up on that planet, something in the food chain etc
Infact, anytime we see a collection of Vulcan children, they're every bit as randomised in age as humans, despite Vulcans only having a population of 5-6 billion 200 years after we hit 7.6 billion. Given how generations would work on Vulcanoids, that shouldn't really happen at all with PF being the only reproductive element.
And Romulans don't have it. So either they engineered it out, or it's a responce to growing up on that planet, something in the food chain etc
Were they?
To be fair, the "Green Blooded Son of a Bitch" was after Spock rendered him unconscious, forced a mindmeld, and implanted an entire consciousness into his head without consent. I'd be pretty pissed.
Maybe Tuvok and T'Pel's cycle is out of whack, and they conceive a child on average once every 3.5 years. That would explain the weird "eleventh pon farr" comment by Harry.
Also, Tuvok didn't have his first pon farr until he was about 40, even older than Spock. Maybe he was bonded later in life, or the Excelsior crew controlled it with drugs or something. The pon farr he had on Voyager was later in life, when his sex drive was said to be stronger.
Also, Tuvok didn't have his first pon farr until he was about 40, even older than Spock. Maybe he was bonded later in life, or the Excelsior crew controlled it with drugs or something. The pon farr he had on Voyager was later in life, when his sex drive was said to be stronger.
They looked about 6-11 at best. You'd notice if they were 6, 13, and 20. The one time we see them in Voyager, there's 7 years between all of them.
What episode was this? (Also, aliens. Who knows how they age.)
Given I haven't seen 99% of Voyager in years, it was one of the two or three where Tuvok was injured and going through his past memories, I can't remember all 170 odd of them.
Are you sure? Memory Alpha lists an actor for only one of his four children, Sek. It specifically says that the other children are only mentioned in dialogue.
McCoy:
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Leonard_McCoy
"His legendary feud with the half-Vulcan science officer (borne more from dispute over the merits of emotion versus logic rather than true prejudice) camouflaged the genuine mutual respect and friendship the two had. Over time, the three appeared to form nearly a single personality, with McCoy ever emotional and passionate, Spock ever objective and logical, and Kirk intuitive; the focus, direction and driving force combining the best of the other two."
Right before the following, in TSFS, we get Kirk doing the Vulcan salute and asking how many fingers he's holding up, McCoy saying it's not very damn funny, Kirk claiming his sense of humor has returned and McCoy saying the hell it has. Then Kirk tells him about Spock's mind-meld, and he responds:
"That green-blooded son of a bitch! It's his revenge for all the arguments he lost."
That is humor. In the theater in 1984, we were all laughing our asses off at that.
Let's not make McCoy into some kind of a bigoted bastard, because he wasn't. Maybe sometimes the humor, as scripted, wasn't spot-on, but his whole character needs to be considered without pulling bits and pieces out of context.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Leonard_McCoy
"His legendary feud with the half-Vulcan science officer (borne more from dispute over the merits of emotion versus logic rather than true prejudice) camouflaged the genuine mutual respect and friendship the two had. Over time, the three appeared to form nearly a single personality, with McCoy ever emotional and passionate, Spock ever objective and logical, and Kirk intuitive; the focus, direction and driving force combining the best of the other two."
Right before the following, in TSFS, we get Kirk doing the Vulcan salute and asking how many fingers he's holding up, McCoy saying it's not very damn funny, Kirk claiming his sense of humor has returned and McCoy saying the hell it has. Then Kirk tells him about Spock's mind-meld, and he responds:
"That green-blooded son of a bitch! It's his revenge for all the arguments he lost."
That is humor. In the theater in 1984, we were all laughing our asses off at that.
Let's not make McCoy into some kind of a bigoted bastard, because he wasn't. Maybe sometimes the humor, as scripted, wasn't spot-on, but his whole character needs to be considered without pulling bits and pieces out of context.
Yeah, I was looking too. I don't think there was ever an appearance by his kids in any photo, even blurrily.
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