Exactly!
The Great Chronological Run-Through
- Thread starter Deranged Nasat
- Start date
"Bound"
Speaking of mating, this episode explores the consequences of Human/Non-Human relationships and the complications that result, whether intentional or otherwise. As was more than hinted at over the previous episodes, Trip has forged a psychic bond with T'Pol as a consequence of the Vulcan mating process, and this has transferred to him some measure of resistance to other biological lures. Essentially, he's imprinted or been imprinted upon, altered somehow, without any conscious intent on either his part or T'Pol's. On some likely physical level, he recognises T'Pol as his mate. This is a natural result of Vulcan mating, an inevitability. Likewise, the female Orions' reproductive lures can be overpowering to others, to the extent that they knowingly employ them as a means of aiding their expansion, both within their own society and in the interests of that society against aliens. Reproduction of course being the most powerful of biological drives, more so than mere survival, it makes sense that some races have developed potent means of claiming, enticing or marking sexual partners. Seeing how they and their mates, chosen or inadvertent, cope with these biological effects is interesting, especially when they cross species.
This episode isn't necessarily too interesting in and of itself, but it's useful and important for fleshing out the Orions, giving us a sense of how they work and suggesting some interesting nuances that invite further exploration. I should probably say, how they can work, because Orions are nothing if not opportunistic and adaptable. This episode presents the Orions as pursuing a different means of expanding their political and economic influence to most of the races we've met. (More accurately, they have a different primary means; after all, they field armed ships crewed by muscular male soldiers so they're not limited to the one approach).
It's also notable as an approach that might be particularly well suited to competition with other Humanoids, to subvert the expansion of other races. Among Humanoids, militaristic cultures would probably be expected to present a male-driven face to the galaxy (we have an example in the Klingons, and we'll later meet, for example, Cardassians and Talarians). It therefore makes additional sense that Orions would be encouraged to subvert these neighbours through feminine sexuality, among other means. Best case scenario, you can make their forces your own with minimal loss of units. Interestingly, it might also explain how and why the Orions expanded so far and became so decentralized - a given Orion female of the elite would have an easier time moulding an alien state to her influence than she would a place crawling with other elite female Orions. Far less legitimate competition. (Might this also explain why the 24th Century Orion Syndicate is so lacking onscreen in actual Orions? All those Farian, Finnean and Human men we saw might ultimately answer to an Orion woman, or at least an Orion man who quite possibly answers himself to an Orion woman).
These Orions, the Three Sisters and those like them, are taking on a role that places them at some degree of risk - after all, the entire affair depends upon stoking males to heights of aggression and blatantly placing themselves between those competitors, which could blow up in their faces if they don't retain careful control of the situation. To say nothing of the obvious fact that they're among their enemies and potentially at their mercy. That's what's so interesting about it - the Orion females of the elite lineages rule from behind the scenes, yet they also place themselves in the role of front-line soldier. Hiding in plain sight requires that, perhaps.
We see the Orion women as elite soldiers and impellers of their people, working to ensure that the mercantile, criminal or political influence of the Orions is extended, both placing themselves on the offensive and hiding their influence behind a façade; a combination of bold risk-taking and a policy of using others as proxies and decoys. The complexities are intriguing. It's a different, complementary sort of expansion to that employed by races like the Klingons, and it's a nice change from the legions of empire-builders we've seen in the past. We have the same motives, but achieved in a new and interesting way, a way that has a lot of promise for new stories. Appropriate, too, for a race whom so far have been presented as brutally exploitative (slave markets populated by seized captives) yet apparently prefer to feed on the other nations rather than antagonise them directly. Intimidation yet deniability, fluidity yet unyielding toughness; grace yet aggression; these are the paradoxical tools of the Orions.
Orions can be presumed to take an intriguingly multi-pronged approach to moving against an opponent or a competitor. Weaken the rival by sowing dissent and conflict, with well-placed elite females bringing influential males under their sway, allowing for the Orion Syndicate to then muscle in and take control, or whatever else it wants, through more "conventional" means. Also, easing any resistance to that strongman approach due to the insidious influence they already hold over the target, softening them up ready for the other, knowing servants and slaves to take what you as yet can't. Inserting the leaders in behind the scenes first, then having the army they command march over to join them, the leaders having already prepared the way to ensure a "mutually productive" relationship...
? Keeping the host nation as a suitable parasite to the Syndicate, propping them up and undermining them as needed to ensure maximum long-term gains.
Of course, that also suggests that the Orions may in fact sometimes be taking a crowbar to the systems and structures they already covertly control, which as well as showing their masterful scheming also leaves them open to self-destructive behaviours if they misjudge anything. Or to betrayal.
"Ha ha! We just robbed the Japori government!"
"Wait... don't we control the Japori government?"
"It depends on how inclusive the "we" is".
Like the Klingons, they're not a unified people, and are probably working against each other as often as they are in cooperation with each other. This will become very clear when the Three Sisters return, in Rise of the Federation.
Continuity
Speaking of empire-building, Earth is again shown to be stretching its muscles, as it's now thinking of establishing naval bases in other, currently distant systems so that it can expand the reach of Starfleet. The exploratory drive that's always defined Humans and their new political prominence are coming together.
There's reference made to the events of "Borderland", of course, as well as to the very first mission, and the naïve expectation that the crew would rarely if ever have to fight.
Phlox has just been through a sleep cycle. Good thing for the Klingons that he held it off until he got off of Qu'vat!
Speaking of Klingons, this episode confirms that Archer is still wanted in the Klingon Empire - so Harrad-Sar says.
And speaking of Harrad-Sar, or at least his ship, I believe this may be the first time we've seen someone other than Enterprise use a grappler.
Trip and T'Pol are now pretty much officially a couple.
This season has reintroduced (or arguably, introduced properly) the Romulans, fleshed out the Tellarites, Andorians, Klingons and Orions so that we have a good sense of each, and made Vulcans and Humans into equal partners while further defining both. Now, then, Humans are operating as one of several influential nations with something approaching a balance of power between them - this set-up, which began when the original status quo ended in Kir'Shara, defines the Trek setting for the foreseeable future.
First Appearances of Things That Are Important
Navaar, D'Nesh and Maras, along with their senior slave Harrad-Sar, will go on to fill the role of primary villains in Rise of the Federation.
In terms of the first mention of things that will later be important, we have the idea of a starbase; reference to the star system of Berengaria (including reference to the native dragons, as well as a hint of why Berengaria VII will come to be a major Federation world with status suggested to actually approach that of Earth, Vulcan and Andor); Deltans (it will later be confirmed in the novels that Horizon's encounter with them was the first Human-Deltan contact), and the Gorn Hegemony, which is trading with at least part of the outside galaxy. I'm assuming that Orion pheromones don't work on Gorn, so I doubt Gorn space is much of a base of operations for the Syndicate, it must be legitimate trade only.
Next Time: We actually have options. Next up is Rosetta, and/or our first visit to the Mirror Universe, since the two happen at around the same time. Since I'm eager to return to literature at last, I'll do Rosetta next. Since we now have the Earth-among-many-equal-nations setup, it's time to look at the options for building a community out of them. We have a couple of examples to consider. First we have the Thelasian Trading Confederacy, AKA the Old Way, an alliance which is impressive but slowly decaying (it's the Galactic Republic from Star Wars, right down to being ruled by Palpatine), and which shows the Humans to be very promising but still naïve, fitting entirely with how the race has been presented this season. Then we have the Terran Empire, AKA the Quick and Easy way, wherein Human influence was assured in the short term by aggression and conquest, with Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Denobulans, Orions, etc, already unified at gunpoint. After that, we'll have the New Way, the Slow and Honest Way, the way our heroes try.
Speaking of mating, this episode explores the consequences of Human/Non-Human relationships and the complications that result, whether intentional or otherwise. As was more than hinted at over the previous episodes, Trip has forged a psychic bond with T'Pol as a consequence of the Vulcan mating process, and this has transferred to him some measure of resistance to other biological lures. Essentially, he's imprinted or been imprinted upon, altered somehow, without any conscious intent on either his part or T'Pol's. On some likely physical level, he recognises T'Pol as his mate. This is a natural result of Vulcan mating, an inevitability. Likewise, the female Orions' reproductive lures can be overpowering to others, to the extent that they knowingly employ them as a means of aiding their expansion, both within their own society and in the interests of that society against aliens. Reproduction of course being the most powerful of biological drives, more so than mere survival, it makes sense that some races have developed potent means of claiming, enticing or marking sexual partners. Seeing how they and their mates, chosen or inadvertent, cope with these biological effects is interesting, especially when they cross species.
This episode isn't necessarily too interesting in and of itself, but it's useful and important for fleshing out the Orions, giving us a sense of how they work and suggesting some interesting nuances that invite further exploration. I should probably say, how they can work, because Orions are nothing if not opportunistic and adaptable. This episode presents the Orions as pursuing a different means of expanding their political and economic influence to most of the races we've met. (More accurately, they have a different primary means; after all, they field armed ships crewed by muscular male soldiers so they're not limited to the one approach).
It's also notable as an approach that might be particularly well suited to competition with other Humanoids, to subvert the expansion of other races. Among Humanoids, militaristic cultures would probably be expected to present a male-driven face to the galaxy (we have an example in the Klingons, and we'll later meet, for example, Cardassians and Talarians). It therefore makes additional sense that Orions would be encouraged to subvert these neighbours through feminine sexuality, among other means. Best case scenario, you can make their forces your own with minimal loss of units. Interestingly, it might also explain how and why the Orions expanded so far and became so decentralized - a given Orion female of the elite would have an easier time moulding an alien state to her influence than she would a place crawling with other elite female Orions. Far less legitimate competition. (Might this also explain why the 24th Century Orion Syndicate is so lacking onscreen in actual Orions? All those Farian, Finnean and Human men we saw might ultimately answer to an Orion woman, or at least an Orion man who quite possibly answers himself to an Orion woman).
These Orions, the Three Sisters and those like them, are taking on a role that places them at some degree of risk - after all, the entire affair depends upon stoking males to heights of aggression and blatantly placing themselves between those competitors, which could blow up in their faces if they don't retain careful control of the situation. To say nothing of the obvious fact that they're among their enemies and potentially at their mercy. That's what's so interesting about it - the Orion females of the elite lineages rule from behind the scenes, yet they also place themselves in the role of front-line soldier. Hiding in plain sight requires that, perhaps.
We see the Orion women as elite soldiers and impellers of their people, working to ensure that the mercantile, criminal or political influence of the Orions is extended, both placing themselves on the offensive and hiding their influence behind a façade; a combination of bold risk-taking and a policy of using others as proxies and decoys. The complexities are intriguing. It's a different, complementary sort of expansion to that employed by races like the Klingons, and it's a nice change from the legions of empire-builders we've seen in the past. We have the same motives, but achieved in a new and interesting way, a way that has a lot of promise for new stories. Appropriate, too, for a race whom so far have been presented as brutally exploitative (slave markets populated by seized captives) yet apparently prefer to feed on the other nations rather than antagonise them directly. Intimidation yet deniability, fluidity yet unyielding toughness; grace yet aggression; these are the paradoxical tools of the Orions.
Orions can be presumed to take an intriguingly multi-pronged approach to moving against an opponent or a competitor. Weaken the rival by sowing dissent and conflict, with well-placed elite females bringing influential males under their sway, allowing for the Orion Syndicate to then muscle in and take control, or whatever else it wants, through more "conventional" means. Also, easing any resistance to that strongman approach due to the insidious influence they already hold over the target, softening them up ready for the other, knowing servants and slaves to take what you as yet can't. Inserting the leaders in behind the scenes first, then having the army they command march over to join them, the leaders having already prepared the way to ensure a "mutually productive" relationship...
? Keeping the host nation as a suitable parasite to the Syndicate, propping them up and undermining them as needed to ensure maximum long-term gains. Of course, that also suggests that the Orions may in fact sometimes be taking a crowbar to the systems and structures they already covertly control, which as well as showing their masterful scheming also leaves them open to self-destructive behaviours if they misjudge anything. Or to betrayal.
"Ha ha! We just robbed the Japori government!"
"Wait... don't we control the Japori government?"
"It depends on how inclusive the "we" is".
Like the Klingons, they're not a unified people, and are probably working against each other as often as they are in cooperation with each other. This will become very clear when the Three Sisters return, in Rise of the Federation.
Continuity
Speaking of empire-building, Earth is again shown to be stretching its muscles, as it's now thinking of establishing naval bases in other, currently distant systems so that it can expand the reach of Starfleet. The exploratory drive that's always defined Humans and their new political prominence are coming together.
There's reference made to the events of "Borderland", of course, as well as to the very first mission, and the naïve expectation that the crew would rarely if ever have to fight.
Phlox has just been through a sleep cycle. Good thing for the Klingons that he held it off until he got off of Qu'vat!
Speaking of Klingons, this episode confirms that Archer is still wanted in the Klingon Empire - so Harrad-Sar says.
And speaking of Harrad-Sar, or at least his ship, I believe this may be the first time we've seen someone other than Enterprise use a grappler.
Trip and T'Pol are now pretty much officially a couple.
This season has reintroduced (or arguably, introduced properly) the Romulans, fleshed out the Tellarites, Andorians, Klingons and Orions so that we have a good sense of each, and made Vulcans and Humans into equal partners while further defining both. Now, then, Humans are operating as one of several influential nations with something approaching a balance of power between them - this set-up, which began when the original status quo ended in Kir'Shara, defines the Trek setting for the foreseeable future.
First Appearances of Things That Are Important
Navaar, D'Nesh and Maras, along with their senior slave Harrad-Sar, will go on to fill the role of primary villains in Rise of the Federation.
In terms of the first mention of things that will later be important, we have the idea of a starbase; reference to the star system of Berengaria (including reference to the native dragons, as well as a hint of why Berengaria VII will come to be a major Federation world with status suggested to actually approach that of Earth, Vulcan and Andor); Deltans (it will later be confirmed in the novels that Horizon's encounter with them was the first Human-Deltan contact), and the Gorn Hegemony, which is trading with at least part of the outside galaxy. I'm assuming that Orion pheromones don't work on Gorn, so I doubt Gorn space is much of a base of operations for the Syndicate, it must be legitimate trade only.
Next Time: We actually have options. Next up is Rosetta, and/or our first visit to the Mirror Universe, since the two happen at around the same time. Since I'm eager to return to literature at last, I'll do Rosetta next. Since we now have the Earth-among-many-equal-nations setup, it's time to look at the options for building a community out of them. We have a couple of examples to consider. First we have the Thelasian Trading Confederacy, AKA the Old Way, an alliance which is impressive but slowly decaying (it's the Galactic Republic from Star Wars, right down to being ruled by Palpatine), and which shows the Humans to be very promising but still naïve, fitting entirely with how the race has been presented this season. Then we have the Terran Empire, AKA the Quick and Easy way, wherein Human influence was assured in the short term by aggression and conquest, with Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Denobulans, Orions, etc, already unified at gunpoint. After that, we'll have the New Way, the Slow and Honest Way, the way our heroes try.
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Nasat, excellent work as always! I'm curious based on the preceding Klingon discussions, and the 'more varied than we actually see empire', will you include The Final Reflection (or indeed the Rihansu novels) in this series? I guess TFR could be included because Ambassador Tagore is name-dropped in Marco's Declassified story - but of course that was a homage to Ford more than anything else.
"Bound" was difficult to reconcile with other portrayals of Orion females, both in canon (Marta and Devna) and in literature, none of whom seemed to have the level of pheromonal power that Navaar and her sisters had. Hence my proposal that they belong to an elite lineage with greater pheromonal potency than most. Also I figure that all three of them being together in an enclosed space whose ventilation system wasn't designed to cope with pheromones had the effect of concentrating them even more than usual.
And I think I should clarify that my portrayal of the Three Sisters as being the heads of the Syndicate as of the 2160s is not meant to represent their status at the time of "Bound," but rather to be a status they worked their way up to in the interim. During "Bound," they would've been in the elites, but not actually running the whole show yet, which was why they were out in the field.
And I think I should clarify that my portrayal of the Three Sisters as being the heads of the Syndicate as of the 2160s is not meant to represent their status at the time of "Bound," but rather to be a status they worked their way up to in the interim. During "Bound," they would've been in the elites, but not actually running the whole show yet, which was why they were out in the field.
Indeed, but it's still intriguing that the elite Orion women's rule-from-behind-the-scenes approach can, while they're still climbing the ranks, involve placing themselves in a forward position. They can be the sort of generals who lead from the front as well as those who lead from the protected rear, so to speak. Secret generals, of course.
I love the revelation of the Orion women as being powerful and using their sexuality to manipulate the people who from the outside seem to be oppressing and exploiting them. It made them a lot more interesting than the fantasy figures the tv serieses had portrayed them as. Trek lit had made progress on having Orion women who were well developed characters. I think there's probably some iffy continuity reconciling it all, but this and Trek lit developed the Orions into a race that I'm really interested in.
Although it's arguably just as much a sexist stereotype in its own right, the female whose sexuality is an overpowering threat to male dominance. Even if it's presented as empowering, some would say it's still just indulging another male fantasy, of the totally uninhibited seductress. It's tricky to find the right balance in portraying a character like that.
^ Alternatively (or maybe just building on this?), a strength of this episode's portrayal of the Orions from my point of view - and this is a very personal position, so it might not strike others in this way - is that it takes the first steps toward breaking out of the need to find that balance entirely. It renders the Orions' allure disenchanting from both ends, whether they're exploited or exploiters. When you see it with clear eyes, however you see it...it doesn't look good. The episode doesn't just subvert the previous assumption (that the females are non-influential), it does something far more sensible and far-reaching in its implications by demonstrating implicitly the pointlessness or even tragedy of the whole sexual focus. (And it does this by making the sexual allure of the people in question both irresistible and implicitly uncontrollable on their end. No-one, including most definitely the Orion women themselves, can escape it. Well, okay, except T'Pol and Trip, through the power of true love, I mean, er, Vulcan mating bonds*).
There is, essentially, no importance difference between the submissive Orion fantasy woman and the overpowering, dominating female Orion leader. One might even say that this is exactly the point of the episode. They're just two sides of the same coin. That idea - two sides of one coin - is something you've also acknowledged in your post, though putting a particular perspective/spin on things and examining one currency in particular, viewing the Orion females through a certain lens.
Harrad-Sar notes that, "Ah, we males are the slaves", but really all Orions of both sexes are slaved to feminine sexuality or sexual presence, and that holds true whoever we see as being in charge or being powerful. What the Orions cannot seem to do, partly because of their overpowering biological reproductive characteristics, is to throw the coin away. Orion women, due to biology (and likely to cultural pressures on top of that) seem to find it very hard to disengage from their sexuality or sexual allure (if they even wanted to), and the male Orions, or males of other species that they interact with, can never disengage from it either. So they are all defined by it, and if you can't beat it, exploit it for all it's worth! (That works for male slavers and female slavers both).
Who cares who's pulling the strings or making the decisions? It all revolves around the females' sexual status, or is constructed in relation/contrast to that, anyway, whether they're the passive, powerless centerpoint of a structure they play no part in or the secret dominating overlords, or anywhere in between. If you're orientated toward them, as nearly any male around them unavoidably is, then of course it's all a fulfilment of fantasy or an obstruction of cthia, or a confusion of one's own desire/power with that of another, because one can never find balance when one is impelled to relate. Where do you stand relative to the other? Assert yourself or capitulate, or struggle for some balance that you cannot be sure the other will even define in the same way, and would be unachievable anyway.
In a fascinating sense, the manner in which the women-ruling-from-the-harem actually leave their ship here (in the guise of being transferred as property, of course) and put themselves on the front lines, so to speak, is possibly a fascinating instance of them actually challenging their self-inflicted bonds and temporarily escaping that role as the centrepiece, though I doubt they'd see it that way. Well, in part it's that. Yes, okay, the plan is to insert themselves into crewmen's chambers and occupy their thoughts above all other concerns, but they're still initially outsiders on Enterprise, and the female crew, while pacified by the pheromone, are still going to be suspicious and threatening. This is, in fact, a rare and heady taste of freedom for them after all. Which, possibly quite tragically, they can't appreciate. (And your Rise of the Federation has made the Sisters into partially tragic figures in its own way, as much trapped by their status as members of the elite lineages as anything).
The real issue for me isn't a spectrum running between "passively dominated" and "overpowering/dominating", or trying to resolve "someone else's fantasy"/the idea of "empowerment", (IE, me/the other) it's more like an either/or between sexual/reproductive relevance and irrelevance. That spectrum and that dilemma are associated with the first setting, and become meaningless on the second. This episode could, potentially, be read as inviting us onto the second. It goes so far as to dimly suggest that the Orions are in the straits they're in (however their internal dynamics work) because they haven't been able to ever make the naturally sexual irrelevant to them. If one wants to look at it through a lens of female "empowerment", their women will always be empowered, and thus powerless. Or powerless and thus empowered, or whatever. And their males will always be revolving around female sexuality whether they're owning it and bottling it up/selling it or submitting worshipfully to it.
From my point of view, there's only the very dimmest acknowledgement of any of this in the episode, but it's considerably more than I've seen in most other places, particularly on American television, so I really appreciate it on that level, among others. It's a pleasingly sophisticated little piece.
* It occurs to me just now how impressed I am that the episode managed to take the implicit idea of "Trip is immune because T'Pol is his One True Mate" and make it sensible enough that I didn't even see it in those terms until now.
There is, essentially, no importance difference between the submissive Orion fantasy woman and the overpowering, dominating female Orion leader. One might even say that this is exactly the point of the episode. They're just two sides of the same coin. That idea - two sides of one coin - is something you've also acknowledged in your post, though putting a particular perspective/spin on things and examining one currency in particular, viewing the Orion females through a certain lens.
Harrad-Sar notes that, "Ah, we males are the slaves", but really all Orions of both sexes are slaved to feminine sexuality or sexual presence, and that holds true whoever we see as being in charge or being powerful. What the Orions cannot seem to do, partly because of their overpowering biological reproductive characteristics, is to throw the coin away. Orion women, due to biology (and likely to cultural pressures on top of that) seem to find it very hard to disengage from their sexuality or sexual allure (if they even wanted to), and the male Orions, or males of other species that they interact with, can never disengage from it either. So they are all defined by it, and if you can't beat it, exploit it for all it's worth! (That works for male slavers and female slavers both).
Who cares who's pulling the strings or making the decisions? It all revolves around the females' sexual status, or is constructed in relation/contrast to that, anyway, whether they're the passive, powerless centerpoint of a structure they play no part in or the secret dominating overlords, or anywhere in between. If you're orientated toward them, as nearly any male around them unavoidably is, then of course it's all a fulfilment of fantasy or an obstruction of cthia, or a confusion of one's own desire/power with that of another, because one can never find balance when one is impelled to relate. Where do you stand relative to the other? Assert yourself or capitulate, or struggle for some balance that you cannot be sure the other will even define in the same way, and would be unachievable anyway.
In a fascinating sense, the manner in which the women-ruling-from-the-harem actually leave their ship here (in the guise of being transferred as property, of course) and put themselves on the front lines, so to speak, is possibly a fascinating instance of them actually challenging their self-inflicted bonds and temporarily escaping that role as the centrepiece, though I doubt they'd see it that way. Well, in part it's that. Yes, okay, the plan is to insert themselves into crewmen's chambers and occupy their thoughts above all other concerns, but they're still initially outsiders on Enterprise, and the female crew, while pacified by the pheromone, are still going to be suspicious and threatening. This is, in fact, a rare and heady taste of freedom for them after all. Which, possibly quite tragically, they can't appreciate. (And your Rise of the Federation has made the Sisters into partially tragic figures in its own way, as much trapped by their status as members of the elite lineages as anything).
The real issue for me isn't a spectrum running between "passively dominated" and "overpowering/dominating", or trying to resolve "someone else's fantasy"/the idea of "empowerment", (IE, me/the other) it's more like an either/or between sexual/reproductive relevance and irrelevance. That spectrum and that dilemma are associated with the first setting, and become meaningless on the second. This episode could, potentially, be read as inviting us onto the second. It goes so far as to dimly suggest that the Orions are in the straits they're in (however their internal dynamics work) because they haven't been able to ever make the naturally sexual irrelevant to them. If one wants to look at it through a lens of female "empowerment", their women will always be empowered, and thus powerless. Or powerless and thus empowered, or whatever. And their males will always be revolving around female sexuality whether they're owning it and bottling it up/selling it or submitting worshipfully to it.
From my point of view, there's only the very dimmest acknowledgement of any of this in the episode, but it's considerably more than I've seen in most other places, particularly on American television, so I really appreciate it on that level, among others. It's a pleasingly sophisticated little piece.
* It occurs to me just now how impressed I am that the episode managed to take the implicit idea of "Trip is immune because T'Pol is his One True Mate" and make it sensible enough that I didn't even see it in those terms until now.
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I don't think the women are unable to disengage from it; we've seen Orion women like Devna and Gaila who, while still allowing sexuality to be a healthy part of their lives, have been able to set it aside and engage with people on other levels, enabling them to function in other roles like Starfleet officer for Gaila and Elysian councillor for Devna. Although, granted, both of them were operating outside of Orion (or Orion Syndicate) society proper, so it definitely could be a matter of cultural pressure.
Good point on those examples of Orion women taking on roles where they clearly disengage from their sexuality. As you say, they're living outside the Syndicate, and that does suggest that it's a matter of the Syndicate culture reinforcing and emphasising the biological, that even if Orions are naturally highly sexual beings it's really just the culture that makes it difficult for them to be anything other than defined around that. As you noted in earlier posts, the Three Sisters had to be interpreted as unusually potent given the other female Orions we meet who don't seem to share their power. It probably makes sense that those naturally equipped to turn a particular trait into a means of influence would insist on a society that judges people on those traits, or holds those traits to be essential. It's presumably in the interests of the elite females to encourage a culture wherein all females are defined by sexual prowess, because it binds the lower-status females to a cultural identity they can't actually succeed in fully conquering. That might suggest another tragedy of who and what Orions like the Sisters are - they're ironically far more trapped than the lower-status females, who aren't as confined by the double-edged sword of their biology - assuming those other women could take themselves out of Orion society and seek lives elsewhere, that is, which perhaps they can't. Essentially, I imagine many lower-status females are in the position of being unable to actually succeed against the women of the elite lineages - no chance of actually gaining influence themselves - but unable to leave the Syndicate or their Orion society to be something other than the thing that they're comparatively second-rate at.
All in all, I think there's a lot of interesting potential in the Orions as they're depicted here, in so many ways (and I think your work on them in Rise of the Federation is equally well played and provocative).
I also like how Devna is guaranteed a satisfying ending. Even if it's a shame that she can only live up to her potential completely removed from her people and society.
^I still disagree with the use of the word "disengage," as if sexuality were something you could turn on or off. Psychologically speaking, our sexuality is always a part of us, even if it isn't coming into play in the obvious way. It's an integral part of the psyche, something that we balance with the other factors of our psychology, that we bring to the fore when it's needed and that operates more subtly in the background at other times. You can't "disengage" from it any more than you can disengage from the ability to feel hunger or fear or curiosity.
The problem is that you're equating the way the Orions use their sexuality as a tool of manipulation with their sexuality in general. They aren't the same thing at all. It's like the difference between carrying matches so you can start a cookfire and make a nourishing meal and carrying matches so you can commit arson and burn down a factory. You don't have to throw away your matches to avoid being an arsonist; you just keep them in your pocket for when they're useful. Elysian councillor Devna certainly had not disengaged from her sexuality, considering that she wore a skimpy bikini even when sitting on the council. She just wasn't wielding it in a controlling or harmful way.
The problem is that you're equating the way the Orions use their sexuality as a tool of manipulation with their sexuality in general. They aren't the same thing at all. It's like the difference between carrying matches so you can start a cookfire and make a nourishing meal and carrying matches so you can commit arson and burn down a factory. You don't have to throw away your matches to avoid being an arsonist; you just keep them in your pocket for when they're useful. Elysian councillor Devna certainly had not disengaged from her sexuality, considering that she wore a skimpy bikini even when sitting on the council. She just wasn't wielding it in a controlling or harmful way.
I suppose the issue then is one of elusive meanings.
You can disengage from it as I would define disengagement - being hungry or curious doesn't necessarily mean you indulge that feeling, or bring it to the fore. You can just leave it there in the background, either consciously or because your mind lacks the vehicles to take it anywhere. Yes, sexual response or desire is merely a basic impulse, a natural drive and a emotional phenomenon like any other. But in most people it connects to other drives and impulses, quickly colouring their grasp of group dynamics and interpersonal relations, identity and aspirations. It directs them. Sexuality is always there in the car, but when you engage with it, consciously or otherwise, you're giving it the keys - or at least letting it get its hands into the other compartments. You can simply be uninterested in sexuality. The thing is, I imagine this is another area where our definitions are different, because I would include among those who are "uninterested" in sexuality such cultures as Deltans and Risians. They're no more sexual beings than we are hunger beings or fear beings. They've just chosen to incorporate sexuality into their personalities and their cultures in a highly visible manner. Orions, though, are their sexuality, at least in the culture of the Syndicate. They're all trapped by it.
See, I would actually describe your own depiction of the Deltans as being a people disengaged from sexuality - unless they consciously choose to engage with it. Which they do often, because they find it spiritually and emotionally beneficial. But still, to me, they're not a sexually-defined people.
Orions have made sexuality one of the defining foci of their society. Not like the Risians or Deltans, who contrary to what many would believe or claim are not defined around sexuality - sexuality is simply a large and cherished part of their social philosophies.
But she was no longer defined by it, or defining herself by it. As you say, it was simply a part of her, in balance with many other facets, unlike her life in the Syndicate where sexuality is brought to the fore. To me, that is disengaging - letting go of that facet of oneself as integral to identity and letting it fall back into its natural place. Which in Orions is probably a bit more prominent than in most species, as a natural consequence of their biology. But that heightened sexuality doesn't automatically translate to any particular interest in sexuality relative to anything else that they build their lives around.
To put it succinctly: sex isn't important.
Not to me, and I'd strongly argue not even to Deltans or Risians (or to "liberated" Orions like the later-day Devna). But to Orions of Orion, it is. Orion society is pretty much totally centred on (specifically feminine) sexual appeal, and that holds true no matter which of the sexes is seen as running the show, and whether the females in question own and wield their sexuality as a weapon, have no agency in the matter, or anything in between. That's how I see it, anyway.
The society on planet Orion we glimpsed in Silent Weapons and The Light Fantastic seemed no more sexualized than other cultures, IIRC.
Either the Orions moved on socially by the 24th century, or we're seeing a marked difference between the Orion state and the Syndicate.
Would homosexuals be immune to Orion pheromones? Are there Orion males with pheromone power?
Either the Orions moved on socially by the 24th century, or we're seeing a marked difference between the Orion state and the Syndicate.
Would homosexuals be immune to Orion pheromones? Are there Orion males with pheromone power?
Rosetta
By all the xiqai on Orion, a book! At last!
Dave Stern is a reliable Enterprise author, and this is his last contribution to the series. From his former character exploration pieces that also fleshed out the early history of the Earth Starfleet, we now have an inarguably fourth season adventure. Rather than a fledgling space power stretching its wings, Humanity is now poised to assume a leading role in the future of its interstellar community. Here we have a snapshot of the transition period, wherein a still somewhat green and naïve Humanity brushes against an established but declining power, Archer's still-largely-intact-despite-everything idealism clashing with the harshly pragmatic, occasionally self-destructive policies of the Thelasians. We're given a sense of both the positives and negatives of Humanity's status as the eager new blood poised to take a role in shaping the future. That future, we also see, begins to shunt the old and tired aside.
With the Thelasian Trading Confederacy we have not a single prosperous nation but an entire interstellar community, with loosely-affiliated economic, intellectual and political structures that have grown up around and within it. An incredibly old organization that has begun to stagnate, with up-and-coming nations breaking its former stranglehold on trade, eroding its relevance and authority while it's become too tired to keep up. Its leaders have given up on it, interested only in bettering themselves on its dying body while it still remains warm.
It's pleasing that we're given a sense of history to the galaxy, that there isn't a vacuum beyond the explored territories, that this is a lived-in galaxy. The Thelasian Trading Confederacy is an ancient lighthouse of civilization relative to the sprawling Klingon horde next door, or the dangerous Borderland which presumably is also nearby (and is mentioned). Between the Klingons, the Orions, and the insular, protected enclaves of "Vulcan space" (and its adjacent economic competitors for Confederacy trade, like Rigel), we have a prosperous and once inspiring power now collapsing under its own history and past success, rotting from within. In what I'm sure is quite deliberate given some of the details, what we're given here is essentially the Galactic Republic from Star Wars, brought into Trek. It's even ruled by an evil, withered old man who has no interest in the will of the people, only his own benefit, but supposedly stands as a figurehead for the virtue and dignity of his coalition as he lives a double life.
The Trading Confederacy is very centralized - I note that their capital, the megalopolis of Tura Prex, shares part of its name with the trade outpost at Morianne, Prex Morianna. I'd assume the capital's name is therefore "Prime Market" or something like that. Governor Sen's appointment is noted as being part of an effort to retain that centralized control as the Confederacy's authority over trade begins to become more theory than fact. All these young newcomer races breaking past their old warp barriers and no longer dependent on outside middlemen. A welcome look at how interstellar commerce would change as the players shift or advance.
The Trading Confederacy uses a stardate system, has replicators and sophisticated AI, and a "type two" FTL, which is protected by their version of the Prime Directive. I wonder what it is?
There's still a lot of character study in this one, if not as much as in Stern's earlier Enterprise novels. I'm very happy that we got a Hoshi story dealing with the aftereffects of her experience with the Xindi neural parasites. Plus, she's presented doing her job, trying to decipher the needs and overtures of an alien race across a communications barrier.
Continuity
As a piece of foreshadowing, there's one scene which is really quite chilling. As Archer flushes dead Klingons out of an airlock on Sen's orders, he has a creeping feeling that this will one day come back to haunt him. All I could think about during that scene was the Errand of Fury books, in which we learn that the Klingons spaced (er, that is, will space) captured Starfleet personnel out of the airlocks at the Battle of Donatu V. Is this a standard practice in revenge for earlier Human dishonour, after the Klingons find the crew floating in space and come to a conclusion? As I said, that's rather chilling.
The Klingons, of course, have their eyes on the Trading Confederacy's territory, or wish to make the Thelasians' influence their own. We know that the Klingons recently sterilized a swath of their colonies and are also dealing with the aftereffects of the Augment Virus cure and the implications for their social order, so I can see why "expand now, somehow" might be the order from on high. Implicitly they will now annex many of the Confederacy contributor worlds, through politics instead of battle. It helps explain how a society that is itself on the decline manages to nonetheless better itself technologically and remain competitive, moving over the course of the next century from being a powerful but largely tolerable nation of raiders to a genuine superpower poised to take pretty much all of known space (should it come to all-out war with the Federation). The next generation of Klingon warships might be built by the hands of Conani, Maszakians, or H'ratoi, using their technological secrets.
The Klingon D-3 and D-2 classes are mentioned/featured; battle cruisers by category.
The age and spread of the Confederacy is made clear by the sheer number of races and cultures about whom they have knowledge or with whom they've established connections. The Kanthropian Mediators, who are blatantly this Republic's version of the Jedi, only absent the warrior aspect or the magic powers, mention a fair number of interesting facts that are known to them. Among these, knowledge of the Trills' status as a Joined species. Given the great age of the Confederacy, might this knowledge actually be from the Trills' original star-faring age, prior to the sterilization of Kurl?
The leader of the Kanthropian Order is Green. She's not green but she's Green. Just so you know.
Among the goods available here are Kanar and Romulan ale, demonstrating that the Confederacy reaches both markets that are very distant (Cardassia) and those that are isolated and dangerous to penetrate (the Romulan Star Empire). They're even knowledgeable about the "Verengi", though it's mostly rumour.
The Vendorians are mentioned for the first time. Their language fascinates Hoshi due to the unusual nature of its conditional verb forms. I'm assuming that this has something to do with the fact that they're shapeshifters, although that detail isn't mentioned.
More familiar, that is established, faces: Rigelian spice merchants operate out near the Confederacy, and we encounter Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites at the capital. A Denobulan serves as a doctor in one of the local fleets.
The recent Human/Andorian alliance is relevant but not particularly useful; in keeping with the portrayal of the Trading Confederacy as being behind the times and almost wilfully out of date, the local Andorian delegation hasn't heard the news, and isn't easily convinced of its truth.
Deneva is once again described as an essential hub of Human trade and commerce.
"Rigleigh's Pleasure World" is mentioned. Since Sen doesn't know about Humans yet, I'm wondering if the familiar Wrigley's is actually a Human knock-off that outcompeted the original. Let's go to DizNeeland!
Cutler shows up, though she's referred to as Nurse. She does sometimes fulfil a similar role on the team, but she's actually the ship's entomologist. This is Phlox's sickbay, though...
Erika Hernadez makes a cameo, calling in from Columbia. We don't know what Columbia is doing or where it is, but Hernandez is obviously keeping track of what is assumed to be Archer's murder investigation.
A couple of times, "aliens from Alpha Centauri" are mentioned. This can easily be worked around - maybe the race in question isn't actually from Alpha Centauri but was first encountered there and so became "the people from Alpha Centauri", or perhaps Humans weren't the only people to settle in that system. There might be a small alien enclave pre-dating the Human settlements and currently growing alongside them. There's three inhabited worlds in the Alpha Centauri System - there's plenty of room.
Even as Human naivety and idealism run up against the majesty and corruption of the Trading Confederacy, back home arrangements are being made for Earth's own beginner's effort at building a prosperous interstellar community. We're told of a looming conference featuring around a dozen species, and Enterprise is scheduled to make a good impression on the Tellarites by ferrying one of their government officials. Reed and Admiral McCormick share a moment of mutual acknowledgement about the "Earth Firsters", reinforcing the recent revelations that Reed has connections the rest of the team don't, and also acknowledging the rising xenophobia on Earth. I note too that Admiral McCormick is said to have been under a lot of pressure to ensure that command of Enterprise passed to a Human following Archer's presumed death, hence why Trip and not T'Pol is elevated to captain.
Speaking of the Tellarite, he's considered the most important delegate at the conference. He oversees economic development - more evidence for the idea that the Tellarites are businessmen and that their contribution to the galaxy is largely based in this.
First Appearances of Things That Are Important
After being mentioned in "Regeneration", the Bynars appear; a single pair of them. Former Bynars, they claim, so apparently Bynar is not the biological species but the networked culture that almost all of them are a part of - that is, usually the same thing by default, but actually an important distinction.
The Klingon Mind-Sifter, which other books suggest is implicitly something they reverse-engineered from Zalkatian technological artefacts (Archer and co examined a Zalkatian dig back in KRAD's Discovery). Here, General Jaedez has one, acquired originally by Governor Sen during his "campaign" against the Klingons in years past.
Kanar, the drink of a true Cardassian, makes its first appearance. Sen recommends it, for he is worthy of it.
Next Time: As our Earth lays the real groundwork for its own interstellar coalition, we can take a look at an alternate Earth's version, with "In A Mirror Darkly" part one.
By all the xiqai on Orion, a book! At last!
Dave Stern is a reliable Enterprise author, and this is his last contribution to the series. From his former character exploration pieces that also fleshed out the early history of the Earth Starfleet, we now have an inarguably fourth season adventure. Rather than a fledgling space power stretching its wings, Humanity is now poised to assume a leading role in the future of its interstellar community. Here we have a snapshot of the transition period, wherein a still somewhat green and naïve Humanity brushes against an established but declining power, Archer's still-largely-intact-despite-everything idealism clashing with the harshly pragmatic, occasionally self-destructive policies of the Thelasians. We're given a sense of both the positives and negatives of Humanity's status as the eager new blood poised to take a role in shaping the future. That future, we also see, begins to shunt the old and tired aside.
With the Thelasian Trading Confederacy we have not a single prosperous nation but an entire interstellar community, with loosely-affiliated economic, intellectual and political structures that have grown up around and within it. An incredibly old organization that has begun to stagnate, with up-and-coming nations breaking its former stranglehold on trade, eroding its relevance and authority while it's become too tired to keep up. Its leaders have given up on it, interested only in bettering themselves on its dying body while it still remains warm.
It's pleasing that we're given a sense of history to the galaxy, that there isn't a vacuum beyond the explored territories, that this is a lived-in galaxy. The Thelasian Trading Confederacy is an ancient lighthouse of civilization relative to the sprawling Klingon horde next door, or the dangerous Borderland which presumably is also nearby (and is mentioned). Between the Klingons, the Orions, and the insular, protected enclaves of "Vulcan space" (and its adjacent economic competitors for Confederacy trade, like Rigel), we have a prosperous and once inspiring power now collapsing under its own history and past success, rotting from within. In what I'm sure is quite deliberate given some of the details, what we're given here is essentially the Galactic Republic from Star Wars, brought into Trek. It's even ruled by an evil, withered old man who has no interest in the will of the people, only his own benefit, but supposedly stands as a figurehead for the virtue and dignity of his coalition as he lives a double life.
The Trading Confederacy is very centralized - I note that their capital, the megalopolis of Tura Prex, shares part of its name with the trade outpost at Morianne, Prex Morianna. I'd assume the capital's name is therefore "Prime Market" or something like that. Governor Sen's appointment is noted as being part of an effort to retain that centralized control as the Confederacy's authority over trade begins to become more theory than fact. All these young newcomer races breaking past their old warp barriers and no longer dependent on outside middlemen. A welcome look at how interstellar commerce would change as the players shift or advance.
The Trading Confederacy uses a stardate system, has replicators and sophisticated AI, and a "type two" FTL, which is protected by their version of the Prime Directive. I wonder what it is?
There's still a lot of character study in this one, if not as much as in Stern's earlier Enterprise novels. I'm very happy that we got a Hoshi story dealing with the aftereffects of her experience with the Xindi neural parasites. Plus, she's presented doing her job, trying to decipher the needs and overtures of an alien race across a communications barrier.
Continuity
As a piece of foreshadowing, there's one scene which is really quite chilling. As Archer flushes dead Klingons out of an airlock on Sen's orders, he has a creeping feeling that this will one day come back to haunt him. All I could think about during that scene was the Errand of Fury books, in which we learn that the Klingons spaced (er, that is, will space) captured Starfleet personnel out of the airlocks at the Battle of Donatu V. Is this a standard practice in revenge for earlier Human dishonour, after the Klingons find the crew floating in space and come to a conclusion? As I said, that's rather chilling.
The Klingons, of course, have their eyes on the Trading Confederacy's territory, or wish to make the Thelasians' influence their own. We know that the Klingons recently sterilized a swath of their colonies and are also dealing with the aftereffects of the Augment Virus cure and the implications for their social order, so I can see why "expand now, somehow" might be the order from on high. Implicitly they will now annex many of the Confederacy contributor worlds, through politics instead of battle. It helps explain how a society that is itself on the decline manages to nonetheless better itself technologically and remain competitive, moving over the course of the next century from being a powerful but largely tolerable nation of raiders to a genuine superpower poised to take pretty much all of known space (should it come to all-out war with the Federation). The next generation of Klingon warships might be built by the hands of Conani, Maszakians, or H'ratoi, using their technological secrets.
The Klingon D-3 and D-2 classes are mentioned/featured; battle cruisers by category.
The age and spread of the Confederacy is made clear by the sheer number of races and cultures about whom they have knowledge or with whom they've established connections. The Kanthropian Mediators, who are blatantly this Republic's version of the Jedi, only absent the warrior aspect or the magic powers, mention a fair number of interesting facts that are known to them. Among these, knowledge of the Trills' status as a Joined species. Given the great age of the Confederacy, might this knowledge actually be from the Trills' original star-faring age, prior to the sterilization of Kurl?
The leader of the Kanthropian Order is Green. She's not green but she's Green. Just so you know.
Among the goods available here are Kanar and Romulan ale, demonstrating that the Confederacy reaches both markets that are very distant (Cardassia) and those that are isolated and dangerous to penetrate (the Romulan Star Empire). They're even knowledgeable about the "Verengi", though it's mostly rumour.
The Vendorians are mentioned for the first time. Their language fascinates Hoshi due to the unusual nature of its conditional verb forms. I'm assuming that this has something to do with the fact that they're shapeshifters, although that detail isn't mentioned.
More familiar, that is established, faces: Rigelian spice merchants operate out near the Confederacy, and we encounter Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites at the capital. A Denobulan serves as a doctor in one of the local fleets.
The recent Human/Andorian alliance is relevant but not particularly useful; in keeping with the portrayal of the Trading Confederacy as being behind the times and almost wilfully out of date, the local Andorian delegation hasn't heard the news, and isn't easily convinced of its truth.
Deneva is once again described as an essential hub of Human trade and commerce.
"Rigleigh's Pleasure World" is mentioned. Since Sen doesn't know about Humans yet, I'm wondering if the familiar Wrigley's is actually a Human knock-off that outcompeted the original. Let's go to DizNeeland!
Cutler shows up, though she's referred to as Nurse. She does sometimes fulfil a similar role on the team, but she's actually the ship's entomologist. This is Phlox's sickbay, though...
Erika Hernadez makes a cameo, calling in from Columbia. We don't know what Columbia is doing or where it is, but Hernandez is obviously keeping track of what is assumed to be Archer's murder investigation.
A couple of times, "aliens from Alpha Centauri" are mentioned. This can easily be worked around - maybe the race in question isn't actually from Alpha Centauri but was first encountered there and so became "the people from Alpha Centauri", or perhaps Humans weren't the only people to settle in that system. There might be a small alien enclave pre-dating the Human settlements and currently growing alongside them. There's three inhabited worlds in the Alpha Centauri System - there's plenty of room.
Even as Human naivety and idealism run up against the majesty and corruption of the Trading Confederacy, back home arrangements are being made for Earth's own beginner's effort at building a prosperous interstellar community. We're told of a looming conference featuring around a dozen species, and Enterprise is scheduled to make a good impression on the Tellarites by ferrying one of their government officials. Reed and Admiral McCormick share a moment of mutual acknowledgement about the "Earth Firsters", reinforcing the recent revelations that Reed has connections the rest of the team don't, and also acknowledging the rising xenophobia on Earth. I note too that Admiral McCormick is said to have been under a lot of pressure to ensure that command of Enterprise passed to a Human following Archer's presumed death, hence why Trip and not T'Pol is elevated to captain.
Speaking of the Tellarite, he's considered the most important delegate at the conference. He oversees economic development - more evidence for the idea that the Tellarites are businessmen and that their contribution to the galaxy is largely based in this.
First Appearances of Things That Are Important
After being mentioned in "Regeneration", the Bynars appear; a single pair of them. Former Bynars, they claim, so apparently Bynar is not the biological species but the networked culture that almost all of them are a part of - that is, usually the same thing by default, but actually an important distinction.
The Klingon Mind-Sifter, which other books suggest is implicitly something they reverse-engineered from Zalkatian technological artefacts (Archer and co examined a Zalkatian dig back in KRAD's Discovery). Here, General Jaedez has one, acquired originally by Governor Sen during his "campaign" against the Klingons in years past.
Kanar, the drink of a true Cardassian, makes its first appearance. Sen recommends it, for he is worthy of it.
Next Time: As our Earth lays the real groundwork for its own interstellar coalition, we can take a look at an alternate Earth's version, with "In A Mirror Darkly" part one.
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Some of the books do suggest that Orion or part-Orion males can have an effect along those lines, though I suspect that it isn't anywhere near as strong as with many females.
I note that the character that comes to mind here is only part Orion, so who knows how it works when Orion genes are manifesting in a mostly-Human?
By the way, for those Star Wars fans keeping track, we visited Tatooine in Last Full Measure and met Jabba the Hutt; now we've gone to Coruscant and met Palpatine. If Naboo shows up at any point, let me know.
Rosetta is apparently the Enterprise novel I remember the least about. Seriously, nothing here strikes a chord at all.
Could "Wrigley's" just be an Anglicization of "Rigleigh's"? They could feasibly be pronounced the same.
Could "Wrigley's" just be an Anglicization of "Rigleigh's"? They could feasibly be pronounced the same.
To be fair, I mentioned little about the actual plot this time.
Do you remember Hoshi befriending the amnesiac Andorian officer who is thought to have key insights into the alien enemy locked away in her head? Who turns out to be a super-advanced robotic duplicate? And the attackers are the robot army of an ancient, long dead race whose old foe was an alliance of Humanoids, hence the attacks on Confederacy ships?
It's... a little weird, this one.
I disagree. It's not an either-or, on-off sort of question. It's more a question of what balance we maintain between the drives that are always going to be active within us. The libido is a drive that effects our thoughts, feelings, and relationships in more complex and subtle ways than just who we try to copulate with. I'm not speaking in a Freudian sense, since Freud was wrong about most things, but he was right insofar as that certain drives are always a part of our psychology even if they manifest in indirect or unconscious ways. Sexuality isn't something that can be compartmentalized, a module that can be plugged in or unplugged. It's intertwined with so many parts of human nature, affecting them and affected by them -- procreation and parenting, the process of maturation and aging, the development of gender identity and a sense of one's place within a community, the forming of relationships and families, the entire range of our emotions. The actual act of having sex or engaging in seduction is merely an expression of a particular facet of sexuality. As a psychological and social phenomenon, sexuality is something far broader, subtler, and more fundamental than that. It affects the way we think and feel about ourselves and the world around us in ways we don't even recognize.
So you're absolutely wrong about the Deltans being disengaged from their sexuality. On the contrary, they're so constantly and comfortably engaged with it that it's not a distraction to them, not something they're self-conscious about or preoccupied with or neurotic about the way humans in Western society tend to be. It's a relaxed, everyday thing to them, part of everything they do, and so it doesn't stand out. The Orions, by contrast, are much less engaged with their sexuality, because they see it as a tool to be used for personal gain, a means to an economic or political end, rather than something to be accepted and embraced for its own sake. Their surface sexuality is a performance they put on for the sake of power and control, and that makes it detached and superficial compared to the Deltans' easy embrace of their sensuality as an end in itself, as a source of personal fulfillment and social bonding.
No, they've made sexuality a means toward the real defining focus of their society, which is pursuing and wielding power over others. They've subordinated their sexuality to that pursuit of power. So it's not really about sexuality.
By analogy, who is more defined by religion: someone who pursues spirituality sincerely as a source of personal enlightenment and makes no attempt to impose it on others, or someone who makes a big outward show of religious piety in order to gain political power? The latter might look superficially more religious, might act more aggressively religious, but I'd say it's the former who's more genuinely defined by religion, more engaged with it.
I've established in Tower of Babel that Devna, a bisexual woman, is susceptible to female Orion pheromones.
I'm enjoying this conversation a lot.
You and I just have very different angles on this, for all that we're dancing around the same ideas. This happens often, to my delight. Essentially, one of the disagreements between us here is over what constitutes "engagement" and "disengagement", which amusingly we seem to have almost opposite ideas on. I hope I can explain my position in a way that might make some sense to another.
My point exactly. Sexuality seeps into everything, and some people have entire worldviews saturated with it - and this saturation doesn't manifest in their wanting to copulate with everyone or being overtly "horny" all the time, it manifests in their means of relating to others or how they construct a sense of the world, particularly socially. In ways that might not seem to have anything to do with a desire for mating at all. It's always wired in to them, integral. Subtle. Their group dynamics are defined by the powerful reproductive and sexual instincts. The degree to which I personally consider someone a sexual being - that is, how strongly sexual they are - isn't how often they mate or flirt or actually embrace sex, it's how saturated their thought patterns are in the drives and instincts that govern mating and reproductive strategy. The sexual escort who chooses to make an additional living by having sex for practical purposes, or the Risian/Deltan-esque individual with a philosophy that promotes sex as a means of connection on a spiritual, philosophical or socially useful manner, is a far less sexual being to me than, say, the comfortable virgin who unknowingly views everyone through the prism of what their reproductive instincts advise.
Because, as you say, sexuality is so much more than sex. Sex is only a small part of it. Not a very important part, as far as I'm concerned. Certainly not the part that worries me.
(They might disagree with the idea that they're "less sexual" of course. It seems that you would. )
This is the real focal point of our disagreement. To me, a lack of preoccupation means acceptance, and acceptance only comes with understanding. Understanding is only achieved through distance. To me, one who is not self-conscious or preoccupied with something is disengaged. They have separated from it and made their peace with it, and so can then truly exist with it, rather than be compelled by it or locked in power struggle with it. Essentially, to use your religion analogy, the first religious person with the personal pursuit of enlightenment, rather than the imposing zealot. In the case of sexuality, a person who isn't preoccupied with sexuality, on either a conscious or unconscious level, has segregated their sexuality from their sense of self and their relationships to others, and so it doesn't really matter to them, they aren't given to viewing the world from a particularly sexual point of view - and so they can then choose to embrace sexuality as a natural part of their philosophy and their being, not as a rival to their ego. When one is not compelled, one embraces more readily, if they choose to embrace at all. Orions, partly due to biology and partly due to culture, are compelled. Orions cannot know the peace and acceptance of sexuality that Deltans know, because Orions are still engaged with their sexuality, compelled and overpowered by it, locked in there with it. The Deltans have achieved segregation from it, and so can embrace it.
Just as a child cannot fully love a parent, and vice versa, until they have separated the other from their own ego. They compel each other, take comfort in each other, exist in a power struggle that is certainly loving, but the real, most enduring love comes when they learn to distance each other and view each other across the divide. Distance and othering leads to understanding, which leads to acceptance, which leads to peace. Which leads to a healthier unity. As with Surak and the Underlier at Mount Seleya, and the reformation of Vulcan (Spock's World). Deltans are at peace with sexuality - and so achieved a unity and an ease with it. Became one with it by being less involved with it, and so able to incorporate it smoothly. It doesn't preoccupy them.
I also find the idea that one incorporates something into their lives by engaging with it to be a rather standard tribalist perspective that defines integration in terms of the ability to colonise, to make the other your own or unite the other and yourself as a single structure. That one must have their hooks into something if they're utilizing it. That to achieve an easy and free sexuality one must somehow hold tight rather than let go, because the tribalist perspective that most people seem to possess works in terms of circles of belonging and connection snaking back to the self at the centre, a network of what one can claim as their own or claim to belong to, in which outer circles can be drawn back from, ever smaller and tighter, until there is only the self. Most peoples' group dynamics work on a tribal model, and sexual/reproductive understandings are integral to it. I consider that alien.
I would think modern Deltans did too, since they turned their back on colonization and the desire to expand as "noble savage" type behaviours. They are not a structured people but a communal people, myriad individuals dancing around and in concert with one another and sharing connections that are appreciated because of the return to distance and individuality, while suspended in a solution of shared community that has no fixed edges or limitations. Amusingly enough, I always thought your Deltans were a familiar people.
That's a most intriguing way of looking at it, and your position is one I most certainly see the logic of, but I still disagree. Simply because I just don't view these things the way you do, not because I'm claiming you're wrong.
Now that's definitely a fair point. Conceded. I still maintain, though, that while the sexuality is a means to an end and thus isn't the actual cthia of the situation, it's still the case that they are a far more sexual society than any other. Because their worldviews are so rooted in and defined by reproductive strategy.
That depends on what one believes the purpose and meaning of religion to be. Is it about personal spirituality or about social and political identity? It incorporates both of these things and more. Some might say that the first person merely calls themselves religious when really it is their own personal spirituality they're exhibiting (and that this has nothing to do with religion in practice, any more than, as you say, the Orions' focus on sexuality is actually about sexuality), while the second is the person truly grasping the point and purpose of religion and behaving as a religious being. Others would share your interpretation and say that the first person was the more truly religious being and the second disconnected from commitment to actual religion, and see, as you did, the Kai Winns as the sexual Orions of this analogy. Is religion the trappings or the supposed core, the individual engagement or the social network engaged with? If we can't agree on where the emphasis should fall or how to relate to the concept of religion and what we're really discussing, then the answer and the analogy will always be slippery.
In terms of sexuality, who is more sexual? The Deltan or the Orion? The person who likes to sleep around because they find joy and discovery in connecting with people or the person in a bar who unthinkingly uses the implicit suggestion of possible copulation as the sell in a transaction, even if they can't see it or describe it in those terms, while probably not actually seeking to mate at all? I'd say the latter was more engaged with their sexuality, you'd say the former.
One thing I do suspect: the first religious person, the one who seeks personal enlightenment, is far less likely to take an attack or a supposed attack on his/her religion - that is, the social network or tradition - as an offence. It is the second person, for whom religion is a political/social matter, or, if one prefers, simply a crutch for identity, who is likely to make a deal of it, because they've tied their social identity to that religion or the idea of that religion. The first person has obtained distance and so integrates easily and smoothly with anyone, no matter how alien, whereas the second, the zealot imposing their religious ideals or identity on others, has been unable to separate the other from the self. They believe that all must think or act as they do, and believe that they're entitled to abuse others as they abuse themselves. In a similar way, if one has tied other peoples' identity to their sexuality or their status as regards one's own sexuality - i.e. because one naturally and inescapably relates to them in sexual terms and so invariably sees them as, among other things, sexual objects - then an attack on their sexuality will be judged an attack on them, because their identity is, in this person's perspective, tied to it. To call back to one of my earlier posts, they can't throw the coin away. They will struggle to find balance.
I'd trust a Deltan or a Risian far more than I would most people not to view me in the light dictated by animal sexual instinct. Their sexuality does not compel them or define them, it is instead a free and blossoming part of them. There would probably be a very strong sexual aspect to however they viewed me, of course, because that's how they are, they consider sexual relations a normal and uncomplicated part of their life and culture, but they would be divorced from sexuality in that it didn't control them or dictate to them, but instead live in harmony with them.
You and I just have very different angles on this, for all that we're dancing around the same ideas. This happens often, to my delight. Essentially, one of the disagreements between us here is over what constitutes "engagement" and "disengagement", which amusingly we seem to have almost opposite ideas on. I hope I can explain my position in a way that might make some sense to another.
My point exactly. Sexuality seeps into everything, and some people have entire worldviews saturated with it - and this saturation doesn't manifest in their wanting to copulate with everyone or being overtly "horny" all the time, it manifests in their means of relating to others or how they construct a sense of the world, particularly socially. In ways that might not seem to have anything to do with a desire for mating at all. It's always wired in to them, integral. Subtle. Their group dynamics are defined by the powerful reproductive and sexual instincts. The degree to which I personally consider someone a sexual being - that is, how strongly sexual they are - isn't how often they mate or flirt or actually embrace sex, it's how saturated their thought patterns are in the drives and instincts that govern mating and reproductive strategy. The sexual escort who chooses to make an additional living by having sex for practical purposes, or the Risian/Deltan-esque individual with a philosophy that promotes sex as a means of connection on a spiritual, philosophical or socially useful manner, is a far less sexual being to me than, say, the comfortable virgin who unknowingly views everyone through the prism of what their reproductive instincts advise.
Because, as you say, sexuality is so much more than sex. Sex is only a small part of it. Not a very important part, as far as I'm concerned. Certainly not the part that worries me.
(They might disagree with the idea that they're "less sexual" of course. It seems that you would. )
This is the real focal point of our disagreement. To me, a lack of preoccupation means acceptance, and acceptance only comes with understanding. Understanding is only achieved through distance. To me, one who is not self-conscious or preoccupied with something is disengaged. They have separated from it and made their peace with it, and so can then truly exist with it, rather than be compelled by it or locked in power struggle with it. Essentially, to use your religion analogy, the first religious person with the personal pursuit of enlightenment, rather than the imposing zealot. In the case of sexuality, a person who isn't preoccupied with sexuality, on either a conscious or unconscious level, has segregated their sexuality from their sense of self and their relationships to others, and so it doesn't really matter to them, they aren't given to viewing the world from a particularly sexual point of view - and so they can then choose to embrace sexuality as a natural part of their philosophy and their being, not as a rival to their ego. When one is not compelled, one embraces more readily, if they choose to embrace at all. Orions, partly due to biology and partly due to culture, are compelled. Orions cannot know the peace and acceptance of sexuality that Deltans know, because Orions are still engaged with their sexuality, compelled and overpowered by it, locked in there with it. The Deltans have achieved segregation from it, and so can embrace it.
Just as a child cannot fully love a parent, and vice versa, until they have separated the other from their own ego. They compel each other, take comfort in each other, exist in a power struggle that is certainly loving, but the real, most enduring love comes when they learn to distance each other and view each other across the divide. Distance and othering leads to understanding, which leads to acceptance, which leads to peace. Which leads to a healthier unity. As with Surak and the Underlier at Mount Seleya, and the reformation of Vulcan (Spock's World). Deltans are at peace with sexuality - and so achieved a unity and an ease with it. Became one with it by being less involved with it, and so able to incorporate it smoothly. It doesn't preoccupy them.
I also find the idea that one incorporates something into their lives by engaging with it to be a rather standard tribalist perspective that defines integration in terms of the ability to colonise, to make the other your own or unite the other and yourself as a single structure. That one must have their hooks into something if they're utilizing it. That to achieve an easy and free sexuality one must somehow hold tight rather than let go, because the tribalist perspective that most people seem to possess works in terms of circles of belonging and connection snaking back to the self at the centre, a network of what one can claim as their own or claim to belong to, in which outer circles can be drawn back from, ever smaller and tighter, until there is only the self. Most peoples' group dynamics work on a tribal model, and sexual/reproductive understandings are integral to it. I consider that alien.
I would think modern Deltans did too, since they turned their back on colonization and the desire to expand as "noble savage" type behaviours. They are not a structured people but a communal people, myriad individuals dancing around and in concert with one another and sharing connections that are appreciated because of the return to distance and individuality, while suspended in a solution of shared community that has no fixed edges or limitations. Amusingly enough, I always thought your Deltans were a familiar people.
That's a most intriguing way of looking at it, and your position is one I most certainly see the logic of, but I still disagree. Simply because I just don't view these things the way you do, not because I'm claiming you're wrong.
Now that's definitely a fair point. Conceded. I still maintain, though, that while the sexuality is a means to an end and thus isn't the actual cthia of the situation, it's still the case that they are a far more sexual society than any other. Because their worldviews are so rooted in and defined by reproductive strategy.
That depends on what one believes the purpose and meaning of religion to be. Is it about personal spirituality or about social and political identity? It incorporates both of these things and more. Some might say that the first person merely calls themselves religious when really it is their own personal spirituality they're exhibiting (and that this has nothing to do with religion in practice, any more than, as you say, the Orions' focus on sexuality is actually about sexuality), while the second is the person truly grasping the point and purpose of religion and behaving as a religious being. Others would share your interpretation and say that the first person was the more truly religious being and the second disconnected from commitment to actual religion, and see, as you did, the Kai Winns as the sexual Orions of this analogy. Is religion the trappings or the supposed core, the individual engagement or the social network engaged with? If we can't agree on where the emphasis should fall or how to relate to the concept of religion and what we're really discussing, then the answer and the analogy will always be slippery.
In terms of sexuality, who is more sexual? The Deltan or the Orion? The person who likes to sleep around because they find joy and discovery in connecting with people or the person in a bar who unthinkingly uses the implicit suggestion of possible copulation as the sell in a transaction, even if they can't see it or describe it in those terms, while probably not actually seeking to mate at all? I'd say the latter was more engaged with their sexuality, you'd say the former.
One thing I do suspect: the first religious person, the one who seeks personal enlightenment, is far less likely to take an attack or a supposed attack on his/her religion - that is, the social network or tradition - as an offence. It is the second person, for whom religion is a political/social matter, or, if one prefers, simply a crutch for identity, who is likely to make a deal of it, because they've tied their social identity to that religion or the idea of that religion. The first person has obtained distance and so integrates easily and smoothly with anyone, no matter how alien, whereas the second, the zealot imposing their religious ideals or identity on others, has been unable to separate the other from the self. They believe that all must think or act as they do, and believe that they're entitled to abuse others as they abuse themselves. In a similar way, if one has tied other peoples' identity to their sexuality or their status as regards one's own sexuality - i.e. because one naturally and inescapably relates to them in sexual terms and so invariably sees them as, among other things, sexual objects - then an attack on their sexuality will be judged an attack on them, because their identity is, in this person's perspective, tied to it. To call back to one of my earlier posts, they can't throw the coin away. They will struggle to find balance.
I'd trust a Deltan or a Risian far more than I would most people not to view me in the light dictated by animal sexual instinct. Their sexuality does not compel them or define them, it is instead a free and blossoming part of them. There would probably be a very strong sexual aspect to however they viewed me, of course, because that's how they are, they consider sexual relations a normal and uncomplicated part of their life and culture, but they would be divorced from sexuality in that it didn't control them or dictate to them, but instead live in harmony with them.
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