Bats aren't bugs.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
Don’t try to frighten us with your pescatarian ways. Your sad devotion to Cartesian dualism hasn’t allowed you special comprehension of fish cognizance or given you and understanding of their mind’s umwelt.
I understood that reference.
I understood that one too.
^^^ I recognize the frame on that one but the body panels are very different from what I remember… 
Well, some people like random number generators...
Speaking of intelligent random number generators...
The cargo ship from SNW, Finubis was the planet, some one drew a detailed diagram there of.
Going out on a limb, while the artist that drew it assumed a cruising speed of warp factor four, I am going to go to a different direction.
This means that warp factor four is the standard cruising speed, but warp factor five is the low level priority cruising speed. Warp six, the high level.
Speaking of intelligent random number generators...
The cargo ship from SNW, Finubis was the planet, some one drew a detailed diagram there of.
Going out on a limb, while the artist that drew it assumed a cruising speed of warp factor four, I am going to go to a different direction.
This means that warp factor four is the standard cruising speed, but warp factor five is the low level priority cruising speed. Warp six, the high level.
So say we all.
Sure, that is what the Big Whale lobby wants you to believe....
The birds and the bees aren't Vulcan.
Sorry, I'm not really sure what we're talking about anymore.
Sorry, I'm not really sure what we're talking about anymore.
Pigs is pigs.
The thread has entered the Twilight zone. Time to leave it folks and get back to Trek.
My take: there are more haughty, racist Vulcans in the TOS and TNG eras than we probably think.
I second this take. Few of the Vulcans seen in the era were very warm or friendly towards humans. I think Spock does the Lion's share of lifting for perception of Vulcans.
My controversial opinion: a stupid plot in Star Trek fits not make it less Star Trek.
T'Pau isn't exactly kind:
T'PAU: The choice has been made, Spock. It is up to him now.
SPOCK: He does not know. I will do what I must, T'Pau, but not with him! His blood does not burn. He is my friend!
T'PAU: It is said thy Vulcan blood is thin. Are thee Vulcan or are thee human?
(~Amok Time)
Yesteryear illustrates the youth:
[Vulcan]
(Spock watches a group of children verbally bullying another)
BOY: Earther! Barbarian! Emotional Earther! You're a Terran, Spock. You could never be a true Vulcan.
Y SPOCK: That is not true. My father
BOY 2: Your father brought shame to Vulcan. He married a human.
(Young Spock lunges at him, but they dodge him easily)
BOY: You haven't even mastered a simple Vulcan neck pinch yet, Earther.
Deep Space Nine's Solok isn't much better:
SISKO: We can upgrade your inertial dampers by the end of the day, but to begin to overhaul your warp core would take at least a week.
SOLOK: That is most inefficient.
SISKO: War's an inefficient business.
SOLOK: A somewhat unprofessional attitude. However, I have come to expect a lack of professionalism and efficiency on starbases run by human officers.
T'PAU: The choice has been made, Spock. It is up to him now.
SPOCK: He does not know. I will do what I must, T'Pau, but not with him! His blood does not burn. He is my friend!
T'PAU: It is said thy Vulcan blood is thin. Are thee Vulcan or are thee human?
(~Amok Time)
Yesteryear illustrates the youth:
[Vulcan]
(Spock watches a group of children verbally bullying another)
BOY: Earther! Barbarian! Emotional Earther! You're a Terran, Spock. You could never be a true Vulcan.
Y SPOCK: That is not true. My father
BOY 2: Your father brought shame to Vulcan. He married a human.
(Young Spock lunges at him, but they dodge him easily)
BOY: You haven't even mastered a simple Vulcan neck pinch yet, Earther.
Deep Space Nine's Solok isn't much better:
SISKO: We can upgrade your inertial dampers by the end of the day, but to begin to overhaul your warp core would take at least a week.
SOLOK: That is most inefficient.
SISKO: War's an inefficient business.
SOLOK: A somewhat unprofessional attitude. However, I have come to expect a lack of professionalism and efficiency on starbases run by human officers.
I was going to post this in https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/star-trek-the-wrath-of-khan-book-club.320658/ where we are talking about if Saavik crying and swearing (a little) in The Wrath of Khan makes her inherently different from other Vulcans (because the actress and the director were going on the statement from the script that she is half-Romulan) or if this can be dismissed as just a character trait and possible immaturity. Which led us to Spock.
If being half human doesn't make Spock any different emotionally then what is the point of Spock?
Even in Star Trek IV Amanda says that "You're half human. The computer knows that." If Vulcans are as emotional as humans, what does that even mean?
"Spock, ...the retraining of your mind has been in the Vulcan way, so you may not understand feelings. But as my son, you have them. They will surface."
Just like every Vulcan. It's an irrelevant plot then. It almost becomes Spock merely overcoming bad parenting or escaping an oppressive society. (An orthodox religious upbringing?)
Even if we go back to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, what is Spock's struggle? Why is he having this connection with Vejur but Sonak or the Vulcan elders do not?
"I sense the consciousness calling to you from space. ...Your human blood is touched by it, Spock."
His WHAT now? Why does this matter?
The end of TMP is Spock's emotional epiphany. His discovery of joy and friendship for Kirk. Shouldn't we want this for other Vulcans then? Is Spock just really screwed up but otherwise no different from any other Vulcan? Other Vulcans that did not grow up in Sarek's house are just more emotionally stable? (Are Sarek and Amanda the only bad parents on Vulcan?)
Yes, I know, over the years and also in other shows and movies we've learned that Vulcans have intense emotions (I don't think this was introduced until Sarek in TNG, was it?) and that because of Surak (The Savage Curtain) and Kohlinar (TMP) that they have "abandoned" emotion. It's philosophical not biological.
And yes, that makes sense just as it makes sense that Romulans and Vulcans can't be that physiologically different after such an insignificantly short separation. Star Trek famously does not always make sense if you give it that much thought.
But if all this is true then Vulcans merely have other physical differences but not emotional ones. So Vulcans are just racist bastards. In Spock's case it's not even a VISIBLE or PRACTICAL physical difference. They just KNOW that he's "impure". Kirk jokes about Spock having "bad blood". These monsters are serious.
It was never implied that Spock was physically weaker than his Vulcan contemporaries, was it? Or that he mind melded any worse for being part human? (Even Deanna Troi was shown to have compromised telepathic abilities because of her human heritage.) Other than the "human elements" in his blood in Journey to Babel what human qualities has Spock ever had? (If we're taking emotions off the table.) He has pointed ears, he's strong, he has green blood, he's long lived, he's vaguely psychic, and he has emotions that he has to control (just like every other Vulcan apparently).
If we go in this direction (which frankly seems different to me than most of the presentation in TOS and even the films) then this does not appear to be a culture to admire. And Spock in particular seems to have been worse off for it.
If being half human doesn't make Spock any different emotionally then what is the point of Spock?
Even in Star Trek IV Amanda says that "You're half human. The computer knows that." If Vulcans are as emotional as humans, what does that even mean?
"Spock, ...the retraining of your mind has been in the Vulcan way, so you may not understand feelings. But as my son, you have them. They will surface."
Just like every Vulcan. It's an irrelevant plot then. It almost becomes Spock merely overcoming bad parenting or escaping an oppressive society. (An orthodox religious upbringing?)
Even if we go back to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, what is Spock's struggle? Why is he having this connection with Vejur but Sonak or the Vulcan elders do not?
"I sense the consciousness calling to you from space. ...Your human blood is touched by it, Spock."
His WHAT now? Why does this matter?
The end of TMP is Spock's emotional epiphany. His discovery of joy and friendship for Kirk. Shouldn't we want this for other Vulcans then? Is Spock just really screwed up but otherwise no different from any other Vulcan? Other Vulcans that did not grow up in Sarek's house are just more emotionally stable? (Are Sarek and Amanda the only bad parents on Vulcan?)
Yes, I know, over the years and also in other shows and movies we've learned that Vulcans have intense emotions (I don't think this was introduced until Sarek in TNG, was it?) and that because of Surak (The Savage Curtain) and Kohlinar (TMP) that they have "abandoned" emotion. It's philosophical not biological.
And yes, that makes sense just as it makes sense that Romulans and Vulcans can't be that physiologically different after such an insignificantly short separation. Star Trek famously does not always make sense if you give it that much thought.
But if all this is true then Vulcans merely have other physical differences but not emotional ones. So Vulcans are just racist bastards. In Spock's case it's not even a VISIBLE or PRACTICAL physical difference. They just KNOW that he's "impure". Kirk jokes about Spock having "bad blood". These monsters are serious.
It was never implied that Spock was physically weaker than his Vulcan contemporaries, was it? Or that he mind melded any worse for being part human? (Even Deanna Troi was shown to have compromised telepathic abilities because of her human heritage.) Other than the "human elements" in his blood in Journey to Babel what human qualities has Spock ever had? (If we're taking emotions off the table.) He has pointed ears, he's strong, he has green blood, he's long lived, he's vaguely psychic, and he has emotions that he has to control (just like every other Vulcan apparently).
If we go in this direction (which frankly seems different to me than most of the presentation in TOS and even the films) then this does not appear to be a culture to admire. And Spock in particular seems to have been worse off for it.
Could be a little of both. A real person would find it very difficult to repress themselves in a Vulcan-ish way, certainly not to the point where they could claim they don't even feel emotions. The people who do claim to thinking from a place of perfect rationality without being emotion are often deluding themselves about what counts as an emotional response, claiming their own biases and reactive impulses are mathematical reason and dismissing others' differing thoughts as emotionalism that they can ignore.
For Vulcans to work as-advertised, there does have to be something different about them from humans that they can dampen part of themselves down to practical nonexistence.
That's a reductionistic question. We've seen many ways that Spock's dual identity has affected him. It affects how other Vulcans perceive him, whether that perception is valid or not. We've seen many Vulcan characters assume that being "half-human" makes Spock more emotional, even though that is obviously stupid in context of the frequently established canonical fact that Vulcan emotions are intrinsically even more volatile than human emotions. People's beliefs about biracial or bicultural children can obviously have a major impact on their lives and their self-images, even when those beliefs are factually erroneous and based in prejudice.
Also, as with Vonda McIntyre's portrayal of Saavik, what matters is how the character was raised, not simply what's in their genes. Spock wasn't just half-human by genetics -- he was raised by a human mother and a Vulcan father, and both parents' examples influenced his behavior and his self-image, forcing him to choose between them. This has always been portrayed, at least as far back as "Yesteryear," as a matter of human vs. Vulcan culture, not mere genetics -- whether Spock would choose to follow the cultural path of his father or his mother. (We now know that his human adoptive sister had an influence on him as well, though the influence was stronger in the other direction, with Michael Burnham striving to become as Vulcanlike as possible. There's also Sybok, the full Vulcan who chose to embrace his emotions, and who served as more of a negative example for Spock, since Spock didn't want to earn Sarek's disapproval by showing any signs of acting like his elder half-brother.)
It means that many Star Trek writers make the same mistake of assuming Vulcan emotional control is genetic even though we know for an explicit fact that it is not. Writers get things wrong or get lazy sometimes. Racial essentialism blinds people to common sense, and it's unfortunately far too common for science fiction writers to stereotype aliens by race in ways that would be horrifically bigoted if applied to human populations.
In-universe, it could be handwaved that the computer knows that Spock's personal and cultural upbringing was influenced by Amanda being part of his life, and by his awareness of his human heritage. Naturally all of that would affect his self-image in ways that have nothing to do with the genetic potential for emotion.
Again, we're not talking about a real, consistent universe, but a series of fictional stories invented by writers who sometimes make different, contradictory assumptions. Some writers assume Spock's emotion comes from his "human half," even though, again, it's been canonically established many times that Vulcan emotion is intrinsically stronger. Reconciling this inconsistency has always been difficult.
The handwave I used in one of my novels, IIRC, involved something established in a Voyager episode about Vulcan emotional control being based in a particular part of the Vulcan brain. I figured that maybe the specific methods for emotional control that Surak developed are based on that facet of Vulcan neurology and that it's harder for humans or half-humans to use those methods to achieve control. (Although that obviously wouldn't apply to Saavik, since Romulans are biologically Vulcan, differing only in culture, or in superficial forehead structure.)
Why? Spock is an individual, and so is every other Vulcan. They aren't all a single stereotype, and they shouldn't be treated as one. They all have the right to choose their own paths, the same as every other individual.
That wasn't established in "other shows," but in TOS itself. It was established in "Balance of Terror" when Spock revealed that Vulcan had had a warlike, conquering period in the past, and that if Romulans were like the Vulcans of history, they would be fearful enemies. It was established in "Amok Time" when we saw how Vulcans' intrinsic mating instincts overrode their learned veneer of civilization. It was established in "All Our Yesterdays" when Spock reverted to the intrinsic savagery of pre-Surakian Vulcans (as nonsensical as that was). This has always been part of how Vulcans have been portrayed, but unfortunately, different writers haven't always remembered it. We can try to pretend that Trek is a consistent whole, but it's always been fraught with contradictions due to different creators forgetting things or making different assumptions.
The only physiological difference between Vulcans and TNG-era Romulans is forehead shape, and surface phenotype like that is genetically insignificant. Our culture has made up this whole fiction of "race" based on people's different skin colors and hair shapes and eye and nose shapes and whatnot, but those differences account for maybe 6% of the total range of variation in the human genome. The differences that actually matter are not visible on the surface. I could get a blood transfusion from a Black or Asian person with my blood type, but not from a fellow white person with a different blood type; that's a far more biologically meaningful difference than surface appearance. So it stands to reason that Vulcan/Romulan phenotype variation is also a genetically trivial difference.
Well, yes, that's basically the point. Go watch "Yesteryear" again if you doubt it.
Sometimes a biracial child favors one parent's attributes more than another. There are cases of biracial families where one child appears Black and their full biological sibling appears white. And the same can go for the inner genetic differences that actually matter. For instance, I take very strongly after my father and uncles in appearance and behavior, and at 5'10" I'm twice as close to my father's 6'2" height as my mother's 5'2" (though I think I'm shrinking as I age), but unlike the men on my father's side of the family, I still have a full head of hair, since that tends to be determined by the mother's genes. But I'm not halfway between my parents in attributes; I heavily favor my father's side with some subtle influence from my mother's side.
There's also such a thing as hybrid vigor; sometimes hybrids are actually stronger or more capable than pure-bred individuals. Spock has often seemed to be able to meld more easily than other Vulcans; we've seen him able to meld with minimal preparation, while Tuvok needed a couple of hours of meditation ahead of time. I've sometimes thought that might be a case of hybrid vigor.
Of course, since humans and Vulcans are different species, presumably Spock's conception required significant artificial intervention. This was first asserted in Gene Roddenberry's Inside Star Trek record album in the 1970s, and ENT: "Demons"/"Terra Prime" confirmed that humans and Vulcans would need artificial help to conceive a hybrid child. We can presume (and I think the record album asserted) that Spock's traits were deliberately chosen to favor Vulcan advantages.
Again, every hybrid would be different, since the way genes combine is not simple.
Solok was the worst. His entire character arc is “antagonize Sisko”. You’d think being a petty little shit would be deemed illogical.
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