• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x05 - "Spock Amok"

Hit it!


  • Total voters
    232
We now know T'Pring knows a lot more about Spock's friends and career than we might have assumed from Amok Time.
That sentence kind of assumes that the current events were preexisting in the 60s. They're making it up as they go, and sometimes it just contradicts events or characterisations established earlier in our universe but later in Trek's. Again...

yoda-you-must-unlearn-what-you-have-learned.gif
 
This one was a step back for me. The show has impressed me so much so far though that I believe it’s probably simply a blip.
 
I wasn't going to say anything but since your comment brought "real" relationships into the mix, there's a lot more pressure on the man to not come off as "needy", "desperate", etc. and the difference between seeming as such or not can literally mean the difference between a relationship and suddenly no relationship and a restraining order, etc.

I don't want to sound unequal but the stats are there that men have a higher rate of becoming stalkers, etc. so in our society men try our best to be aloof etc. and ironically "minimize" priority of a relationship (if we're lucky enough to have one) so as not to suddenly find ourselves on the other end of the fine but very, very, very significant line.

Back to Trek, Spock has logic but he also has intuition. If he did dump his entire career for T'Pring, chances are she STILL would have dumped him for Stonn, and he'd have a restraining order on top of the hell he lived through in Amok Time. As it was he barely came out unscathed and just dodged, thanks to McCoy, life imprisonment for killing Kirk under plak tow.

T'Pring was perfectly ok with Spock going to jail for his 2 century long half-Vulcan life and living the rest of his life in guilt and horror that he killed his best friend. That is a MASSIVELY disproportional retribution crossing into un-Vulcan emotional revenge over her arbitrary beliefs that Spock prioritized his demanding job over her some years ago. We have no indication at all that T'Pring was involved in McCoy's efforts to save Kirk's life.
I keep starting to write something in response to this, but all I can think about is how concerned you are with being accused of stalking someone. It seems very personal.

Being respectful and considerate of another is not the same as being needy and demanding (or controlling and threatening and hyper-possessive "if I can't have you no one can" stalker-ish). I have never heard any of my male friends (or my son's friends) make the same argument about why men are (or have been conditioned) to be aloof in relationships - for fear of being accused of stalking someone! If a woman (or a man) says "no I'm not interested" that's pretty much the end of it. Be crushed but move on.

There are a lot of assertions about who these characters are in relation to ourselves. Which is cool I guess. As a writer my inclination is to figure out who and why and what motivates a character. But I'm not seeing the same story as you here. I see T'Pring as less of a bad person and more of a ruthlessly practical person presented with few viable options for saying NO. Sometimes I feel that the intense dislike of her comes down not to how she manipulated the circumstances (using Kirk as her champion) but the fact that she had the temerity to deny a man the use of her body.
 
Last edited:
Based on what we know of T'Pring based on the 3 episodes of Star Trek that she's been in, she's not wrong for wanting a separation from Spock. In both episodes of SNW, we've witnessed him putting duty over the relationship. Yes, it looks like they reconciled this by the end of the episode. But how many other times will this doubtlessly occur before we get to the events of Amok Time? This is a military marriage, and as anyone in the military can tell you, being constantly deployed puts enormous strain on the relationship. Add to that the doubtless constant sniping of her coworkers about Spock and his human half, and Stonn putting the moves on her about Spock not being there, the end of the relationship seems logical.
 
I disagree. Spock concludes at the end of Amok Time that the whole episode had to require a LOT of logical planning, which would take longer than any pon farr we've seen on Trek. Plus Stonn was obviously in the picture long before even if she were undergoing a current pon farr.

She could've, you know, just told Spock about Stonn, ask to break the engagement, and tell him to get together with Chapel or something, especially now that it's established they actually know each other (I think a genuinely caring ex-girlfriend would at least try to help her ex find a new girlfriend to move on with)

Barring some massive retcon in her history in a future SNW episode, T'Pring is a jerk.
She specifically states that the law and the traditions of Vulcan denied her a divorce EXCEPT through ritual combat. What would you have done under those circumstances?
Myself, I might have finished the ritual and kept my piece on the side. But maybe she didn't want to have sex with a man she no longer cared for. Maybe she wanted to be free to marry the person she wanted. The thing is, no one in the sixties gave a crap about what women wanted. T'Pring is a stunningly beautiful plot device. It is we, the fans, that spend time trying to fill in the blanks. Early on in fandom there was fanfiction written where T'Pring is raped and abused for the audacity of her rejecting our hero. (and those stories were written by women).
 
We now know T'Pring knows a lot more about Spock's friends and career than we might have assumed from Amok Time. She knows Spock will go to jail for killing Kirk. She knows enough about Kirk that "If your Captain were victor, he would not want me, and so I would have Stonn."

"If your captain were victor" sure sounds like she's fine with Spock dying.
No. She's listing off possible outcomes. She's not stating a preference. It is probably the outcome she thinks the least likely based on the reasons she presents when Spock asks her to explain. She chose the puny human because he was the least likely to win which guaranteed both Spock and Stonn would live. All this is in the text. But I personally think she jumped at an opportunity when she saw Kirk and McCoy. I think her logic (which was flawless by he way) was totally on the fly.
 
All my military friends say Enterprise Bingo is the most realistic thing ever for Enlisted.

The unbelievable thing is the officers didn't know what it was.

Una and Laan should have sent them off to get some headlight fluid or tank grease.

Yeah, or a BT punch, or to go stand with the crash axe under the MAD boom of a P-3 and wave it over your head to 'calibrate it.' :guffaw:
 
Promiscuity seems to be a word uniquely applied to women.

It's a double standard that acknowledges that men are expected to take multiple sex partners while traditionally, a woman's virtue has been long commoditized. Modern feminism has done a lot to deconstruct those 'traditions', for lack of a better word, but the labels remain.

It's the same double standard that has fathers telling their sons ' go ahead but be careful' when they hit puberty, but then threatening to cut the balls off anyone else's sons coming near their daughters.
 
Not every dad does- I didn't say that to my son, either. It's a generalization on my part, but you know what I mean.
I do, and I have seen the stupidity of that double standard on display. Which is why I threaten all of my siblings potential partners, regardless of gender.
 
I do, and I have seen the stupidity of that double standard on display. Which is why I threaten all of my siblings potential partners, regardless of gender.

My dad was never around when I hit puberty at an early age, so my mother just kept pointing out to me how my oldest brother got his first GF pregnant "... and look what happened with that!"
(Mom wasn't very subtle) ;)

Anyway, I hadn't yet built up the nerve to tell her that at that point in my developing sexual interests,
Girls weren't the entrée on my menu anyway.

(I finally let it slip when I hit 15 and lucky for me, she was fine with it)
 
Last edited:
If SNW ever reaches the point of addressing the events of "Amok Time" directly, I would love someone at the very least pointing out the absurd "logic" that requires trial by combat to get out of a marriage. Or the fact that a basic biological process, the reproductive cycle, is considered taboo to discuss. Things are made so much worse by sticking to these traditions.

When Spock says T'Pring in "Amok Time" had sound logic, you have to fit it in with the idea of what goals is she trying to accomplish. If she just wanted a divorce, I am sure she could have petitioned a UFP court, which I can't imagine would reject her request on the fact it goes against ancient customs. Keeping someone in a marriage against their will is surely a violation of fundamental sapient rights.
 
I love all these points of view! Keep 'em coming! :)

We all do know T'Pring and Spock's arranged relationship is doomed. I will be interested to see whether the writers build it up further to make its demise more poignant.
 
Even though it's in accordance with Vulcan law and customs?
SPOCK: I have killed my captain and my friend. Energize.

[Sickbay]

SPOCK: Doctor, I shall be resigning my commission immediately, of course.
MCCOY: Spock, I
SPOCK: So I would appreciate your making the final arrangements.
MCCOY: Spock, I
SPOCK: Doctor, please, let me finish. There can be no excuse for the crime of which I'm guilty. I intend to offer no defence. Furthermore, I shall order Mister Scott to take immediate command of this vessel.
 
SPOCK: I have killed my captain and my friend. Energize.

[Sickbay]

SPOCK: Doctor, I shall be resigning my commission immediately, of course.
MCCOY: Spock, I
SPOCK: So I would appreciate your making the final arrangements.
MCCOY: Spock, I
SPOCK: Doctor, please, let me finish. There can be no excuse for the crime of which I'm guilty. I intend to offer no defence. Furthermore, I shall order Mister Scott to take immediate command of this vessel.
If Spock would have wanted to fight it he could have and T'Pau would have backed him up.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top