The Vulcans

[Arpy]

Underestimating Vulcans' lack of emotion I think is problematic itself. It suggests that only emotional beings are legitimate ones. It also castrates a great concept for an alien species, and if they're portrayed as emotional as the next race, then 1) who needs 'em, and 2) then we need to get world-building another emotionless race.

That Surak wasn't perfectly emotionless isn't a problem. He isn't Jesus. He isn't a Vulcan god or apex of Vulcan evolution. He was the founder of a philosophy, and one can imagine his later disciples refining his philosophy and finding better ways to embody it. The earliest body-builders didn't look like Schwarzenegger either.

Vulcans are said to have deeply self-destructive emotions, worse than humans. For diversity's sake, I'll take that at face value. Those that were able to suppress their emotions since Surak managed to prosper. Those that didn't were evolutionarily weeded-out over time. Even on Romulus, they're a different people than the ancient Vulcans or they'd not have made survived either.

The rituals are around because logic needs to be learned and self-possession maintained. Why do any of us do things the same way time and again? It helps us regulate our lives. Perhaps Vulcans need the practice of ritual more than humans and others to help self-control -- and not for any metaphysical reasons.

 

[USS Triumphant]

The primitivism of the mating ritual isn't some logical oversight. The whole thing is primitive, it's about bringing the necessary mating urge up out of the mental depths they've all pushed it down into. Raw illogical impulse is what the whole event is about, and the pon farr ceremony reflects that. Trying to make something logical out of it would defeat the purpose.

On the contrary - I believe that keeping the ritual and ceremony is for a *very* logical purpose. A purpose that says, "Your biology is going to drive you to lose your ability to maintain logic and cause you get very very aggressive and to fight for your mate. It's better that we do this (the mating *or* the fighting) in an organized way in a circle with a bunch of other trained Vulcans standing around that can keep you from running off and going berserk than to have the Vulcan Police investigating random deaths and looking at birthdates trying to figure out who is missing that would be in Pon Farr right about now.

 

[Ronald Held]

Many Vulcan rituals deal with emotional situations or traditions that cannot be mastered by disciplines. The concept of no emotions versus passion's master may stem from poor early UT programming.

 

[The Wormhole]

Vulcan rituals and ceremonies seem to be unnecessarily couched in mysticism and/or ancient, "pre-logic" cultural traditions that are no longer relevant to the rationalistic Vulcan society of the 23rd/24th centuries. It seems illogical to maintain them.

Kor

Not to mention, I never got why T'Pau got around sitting in a chair that was carried on the shoulders of her entourage. How exactly is that a logical method of transportation in a technologically advanced society?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Not to mention, I never got why T'Pau got around sitting in a chair that was carried on the shoulders of her entourage. How exactly is that a logical method of transportation in a technologically advanced society?

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[The Old Mixer]

De chair is de chair...vhat can be done?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Vhat dee are about to see comes down from de time of de beginning, vithout change. Dis is the Vulcan heart, Dis is the Vulcan soul... Dis is... our way.

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[2takesfrakes]

Who in the hell is T'Planahoth - the Matron of Vulcan Society? Where did that come from, anyway? Is that from the mind of Harve Bennett, for STAR TREK IV's needs ... or is that something established from The Classic Series? If it hadn't been brought up again in the ENTERPRISE episode "The Forge" I watched recently, I would've never given it a second thought.

 

[Tracy Trek]

Although the name of the ship was never mentioned in the actual film, I read somewhere that the Vulcan's ship in First Contact was called T'Plana-Hoth.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Vhat dee are about to see comes down from de time of de beginning, vithout change. Dis is the Vulcan heart, Dis is the Vulcan soul... Dis is... our way.

I don't know about that "vithout change" part, though:

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[Tenacity]

I take the whole Pon-Farr ceremony and ritual as the Vulcan solution to something that they can't stop, so they figured out a way of channeling and controlling it to the best of their ability. And so it was incorporated into their religious and social structure in ancient times.

I never got why T'Pau got around sitting in a chair that was carried on the shoulders of her entourage.

Status, likely that just the way the attending priestess usually enters place of koon-ut-kal-if-fee .

in an organized way

There is the female version of Pon-Farr to consider to. If a female isn't bonded, when her times come she might attract every male for miles, resulting in a large group riot. By bonding society focuses her attraction on a single individual.

I do wonder if all Vulcan handle this the same way? There is a temptation to do the "planet of hats" thing and have all Vulcan have the identical culture and social structure.

Tuvok wasn't bonded as a child, married a woman he met as a adult, and does experienced Pon-Farr, we never see the marriage ceremony.

T'Pol on the other hand was bonded as a child and married to Koss in a quiet ceremony in her mother's home, there's no suggestion of their experiencing Pon-Farr, and the marriage is later dissolved.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I don't know about that "vithout change" part, though:[/MEDIA]

That part was in my mind when I went with the original version of the video rather than the one that got most of the broadcast time. Also, I wanted y'all to see Carol dance like a boil weevil.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Who in the hell is T'Planahoth - the Matron of Vulcan Society? Where did that come from, anyway? Is that from the mind of Harve Bennett, for STAR TREK IV's needs ... or is that something established from The Classic Series? If it hadn't been brought up again in the ENTERPRISE episode "The Forge" I watched recently, I would've never given it a second thought.

A lot of things in Trek are made up for the episode or movie they first appear in. Not everything is a call back.

 

[The Old Mixer]

That part was in my mind when I went with the original version of the video rather than the one that got most of the broadcast time. Also, I wanted y'all to see Carol dance like a boil weevil.

I was wondering about that...wasn't sure which version of the video was first.

 

[MacLeod]

Well if we are going to mention the band T'Pau really should go with what is probably their best known song.

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[Nerys Myk]

Never heard it or of it.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Looks like it was their biggest hit in the UK (their only #1 there). "Heart and Soul" was their only charting single in the U.S (#4 on both sides of the pond).

 

[2takesfrakes]

STAR TREK and club music ... not good bedfellows!

 

[The Old Mixer]

STAR TREK and club music ... not good bedfellows!

Well that gives me exactly the excuse I was looking for....

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[Nyotarules]

Let's face it - Mr. Spock, Sarek and Tuvok do not represent the typical Vulcan, if the rest of this franchise is anything to go by. There's always some technicality, or trumped-up excuse for it, but Vulcans are seldom portrayed as being stoic ... and dignified. What are your feelings on these people and their world as they've been portrayed in STAR TREK?

It's my judgment, personally, that Spock, Sarek and Tuvok did it the "right" way.

In RL 7 billion humans are not all the same. I would not expect a fictional speices of billions of Vulcans to be all the same, even if most of them follow the same 'religion'.
How many people of the same religion follow it exactly to a tee?