Starfleet Logistics and Pon Farr

[Captain Robert April]

Since McCoy was still hauling Spock's marbles at the time, Spock didn't have any of the mental discipline or the telepathic link to trigger pon farr, it's debatable whether or not he actually was undering pon farr, or just another growing pain from his rapid aging, and Saavik misinterpreted his distress.

In other words, "Amok Time" is the most misinterpreted episode in all of Trek lore, bringing us the slight mishmash of ST III and the utter bilge of Voyager's "Blood Fever".

Why must we assume Spock needed mental discipline (a feature that is entirely lost during the "blood fever&quot or telepathic links to trigger the pon farr? Those things are unquestionably part of the Vulcan ceremonies of Spock's time. They appear to serve as an attempt to regulate the outcome, to some degree, of what what would otherwise be chaos. But couldn't pon farr be a far older element of Vulcan physiology than the logic of Surak?

We might be talking about the wrong marbles here when it comes to what triggers pon farr.

Like McCoy said, this is the price they pay for having no emotions the rest of the time. In other words, pre-Surak, they didn't need a pon farr cycle to regulate the release of intense emotions, they just did whatever they wanted....and nearly killed themselves off in the process.

Spock, in the state he was on Genesis, lacked any of the mental training, plus he had no telepathic link with a prospective mate to trigger a response. Therefore, it's doubtful that he was actually undergoing pon farr, at least not in the modern sense.

 

[Mallory]

Mr. Spook 7, hotlinking images is a violation of the board rules, so I edited your post to remove them. Please keep that in mind in the future, OK?

 

[EEE]

From Webster's Dictionary: ....
...
5: to take as granted or true : suppose
...

Or, as my high school Sunday School taught us:
...
In the movie, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, the bad guy says
...

Common definitions, B-movie quotes and your high school learning makes it obvious you have missed the part about assuming ---->for the purposes of this discussion<----.

You do realize that Star Trek is not real don't you? And that all discussions of this nature are nothing more than mental masturbation? Is it possible you may need glasses? *grin*

As for my personal life, it is none of your business to decide if I should marry, just to understand your drivel. Therefore I shall ask you not to make that mistake again.

Why the hostility? You told me to do something, I gave you two options for my requirements before I would comply. Where did you get that I was making decisions for you? If you really want me to comply with your original request/demand, you still have the other option (but be forewarned, either option may assist you to realize the intent of my original post and make you see the lack of a need to comply. *grin*)

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Spock: No. Nor am I man. I'm a Vulcan. I'd hoped I would be spared this, but the ancient drives are too strong. Eventually, they catch up with us, and we are driven by forces we cannot control ... to return home and take a wife ...or die.

I wonder why the Vulcans get so hot and bothered about getting married.

 

[EEE]

Spock: to return home and take a wife ...or die.

I wonder why the Vulcans get so hot and bothered about getting married.

Well, he did mention that Pon Farr stripped them of their logic! (making them the Vulcan equivalent of insane?) *grin*

 

[Basill]

Like McCoy said, this is the price they pay for having no emotions the rest of the time. In other words, pre-Surak, they didn't need a pon farr cycle to regulate the release of intense emotions, they just did whatever they wanted....and nearly killed themselves off in the process.

Now was this a scientific assessment, or a tongue-in-cheek comment by a typically sarcastic doctor that had already admitted to not understanding the very phenomenon Spock was undergoing?

Spock, in the state he was on Genesis, lacked any of the mental training, plus he had no telepathic link with a prospective mate to trigger a response. Therefore, it's doubtful that he was actually undergoing pon farr, at least not in the modern sense.

Telepathic links are clearly involved in the modern Vulcan process, but I still don't see how mental training comes into this as a trigger. Spock, with all his marbles, fought the onset of pon farr tooth and nail and still succumbed to it despite his mental training not because of it. Now is it possible his connection with T'Pring played some role regardless of their seperation by light years? Maybe. After all he was able to sense the death of the Intprepid Vulcans from a vast distance. But this notion of the necessity of mental training to induce pon farr has me baffled.

I would agree that Genesis Spock didn't go through the exact same scenario as Amok Time Spock, but because he underwent a seemingly severe biological process at a seemingly appropriate "age" it seems likely that the "7 year itch" has some basis in their evolved biology. I would also suggest (i.e. personal opinion) that it is precisely because he didn't have that mental training that he went through it at an apparently earlier age.

 

[Timo]

OTOH, it could be speculated that the telepathic bonding is a cultural procedure implemented to prevent incestual breeding within desert communities: a bonded boy simply has to take the major trouble of going to the community behind the mountains, rather than breeding with his attractive cousin, because the wise old wives of the community introduced this need in him through telepathy.

Admittely, if so, the "reborn" Spock might not experience pon farr at all, nor should any "liberal" Vulcans or Romulans. So the two things could be separate: bonding is cultural but the mating cycle is inborn. Could McCoy still be right about the role of emotion suppression in the mating cycle, then?

Possibly... Perhaps the cycle was bioengineered by those selfsame wise old wives a few thousand years ago, as a logical step that does not require every future generation to actively enforce it. Whether this was a Surakian or pre-Surakian engineering effort would be unknown, but McCoy could well think of it as Surakian without understanding or considering that pre-Surakian Vulcans weren't incapable of using reason...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

There's also the the factor of Spock being able to shake off the effects of the pon farr (granted, via the shock of apparently having killed Kirk) without having consummated the relationship with T'Pring.

I think the telepathic link with one's mate is a crucial part of the pon farr mating cycle. Break that link, and no mating cycle, despite what the idiots on Voyager said.

That, or Vulcan has a thriving prostitution industry, probably defecting Romulans, to deal with all the Vulcan bachelors.