What is THE Worst continuity error in Trek history..?!

[eyeresist]

The most anal review is on IMDB, where someone takes issue over a woman (T'Pol) going through pon farr and her not trying to go back to Vulcan while affected. To me, Spock's line of going home to spawn is only there because of T'Pring.

As I recall, some space disease brought on T'Pol's pon farr unexpectedly, so by the time she got back to Vulcan she probably would have been dead.

I wonder if Vulcans have some means to cancel or defer the pon farr? Sort of like a "little green pill" you can take for those deep space missions.

And do they all go through it at once, or does it take for ever for their cycles to sync up?

 

[UnknownSample]

If so, I picture Spock having just exhausted his stash of them the day before Christine came with the soup... or a wastebasket full of "little green pill" packages in his quarters, after they've become ineffective from overuse... Maybe your better-adjusted Vulcan would con sider that a way of avoiding the challenge of self-control here, rather than facing it. But you can't resist. Well, I'm out of thoughts on this...

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I thought Spock and Christine did have a fling.

 

[UnknownSample]

I thought Spock and Christine did have a fling.

Nope, Spock's Vulcan.
.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Nope, Spock's Vulcan.
.

OK I don't know why but I thought they did in TOS but off screen, and only hinted at.

 

[UnknownSample]

Vulcans are all about suppressing and controlling emotions (love) and urges (sex). They establish this over and over, but for some reason it seems to be a controversial point now. He doesn't get "romantic" in either sense, which is why it's such an affecting moment in Naked Time when he has to turn Christine down, with it feeling tragic. He's genuinely sorry he can't give her what she wants. Though now that the emotional barriers were down , he could possibly , but never mind...
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In This Side of Paradise, it's Spock' s story, an d the story is about that emotional barrier Vulcans won't/can't drop and still be Vulcans. On some level he continues to be in love with .. . Layla? But once the spores are gone, that huge gulf between Spock and other people returns. His Vulcan nature returns, and any possibility of romance dies.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I was never under the impression that we were meant to see Chapel as anything but lovelorn in relation to Spock.

 

[UnknownSample]

I was never under the impression that we were meant to see Chapel as anything but lovelorn in relation to Spock.

We get many short moments that have to do with her unrequited Spock thing. After awhile viewers knew the characters so well that they could underplay it... like their sharing consciousness in "Is There In Truth No Beauty", and her reaction , and you wonder what that was like...

 

[Nyotarules]

Vulcans can have sex and get pregnant any time they want. They typically don't, having a "Victorian attitude towards sex" as its put on Voyager. They only thing ponn farr requires is that at some point every seventh year they have to have sex.

True, I doubt Amanda waited every seven years for sex unless she was a complete prude or used a Vulcan dildo while Sarek watched...

 

[The Wormhole]

True, I doubt Amanda waited every seven years for sex unless she was a complete prude or used a Vulcan dildo while Sarek watched...

"Amanda, what is the purpose of this device? All it seems to do is vibrate..."

 

[Nyotarules]

It never actually states they only have sex once every seven years, merely that there is a necessity to do it then. Doubtless the rest of the tie they dabble

Plus its hard to have a population of billions if one is only having sex every seven years unless they use IVF, artificial wombs or insemination instead. T'Pol seemed pretty blase about sex, Spock seemed more of a prude, a reflection of when the episodes were written.

 

[Nyotarules]

"Amanda, what is the purpose of this device? All it seems to do is vibrate..."

'Its Terran kolinar Sarek'...

 

[Nyotarules]

I'm pointing out that when I spoke with guys like Warped9 and others on the TOS forum, a lot of the folks there (Hardcore TOSers) would rag on about what they hated about modern society and how TOS' 60s values were better.

In fact, it's an attitude I run into often with hardcore TOSers. The swipes taken at modern society like Humanity has devolved since the 1960s and such.

Oh yes the wonderful 1960's mini skirts, full employment, Vietnam war, legal racial segregation, fighting for your right to sit on a bloody bus seat, apartheid..wonderful days...bring em back! ...not

 

[Nyotarules]

Vulcans are all about suppressing and controlling emotions (love) and urges (sex). They establish this over and over, but for some reason it seems to be a controversial point now. He doesn't get "romantic" in either sense, which is why it's such an affecting moment in Naked Time when he has to turn Christine down, with it feeling tragic. He's genuinely sorry he can't give her what she wants. Though now that the emotional barriers were down , he could possibly , but never mind...
-----------------
In This Side of Paradise, it's Spock' s story, an d the story is about that emotional barrier Vulcans won't/can't drop and still be Vulcans. On some level he continues to be in love with .. . Layla? But once the spores are gone, that huge gulf between Spock and other people returns. His Vulcan nature returns, and any possibility of romance dies.

In 'Naked Time' was Spock still engaged to T'Pring? If so, then of course he would turn down Christine perhaps he was never attracted to her anyway. If you don't want someone then regardless of the situation you cannot give them what they want. However with Leila there was some latent attraction in the first place. Consider even when Spock was divorced he never went after Chapel because he never wanted her.
If Vulcans were naturally violent before Surak their biology won't change just because they have a philosophical/religious conversion. Consider the popularity of Christianity in Western Europe may have had a civilizing influence over the milennia on certain practices but human nature has remained pretty much the same for the last 2000 years.
Romulans are just Vulcans without Surak.

 

[Nyotarules]

Besides it is illogical to deny a natural urge such as sex. I think the Syrranites were the Vulcan version of the Puritans. I bet the Kirshira said have as much sex with your bondmate as you want.

 

[uniderth]

Count me in with the crowd that Vulcanian males only mate once every seven years. Although according to Spock extreme feminine beauty can throw off that cycle. Spock relates it as such by comparing Pon Farr to salmon or the giant eelbirds of Regulus Five. Though I think most people fixated so much on the seven year thing that they forgot that the place was just as essential as the time. Spock had to take a mate at that specific place on Vulcan. It couldn't be anywhere else. While this fact has been overlooked by later productions (Voyage), I think you could explain these away through reasons. Tuvok was able to mate with a hologram of his wife. So presumably the conditions of his mating place were reproduced as well, though not mentioned.

 

[Nyotarules]

Perhaps a biologist/geneticist can tell us how sentient humanoid beings who can only mate once every seven years, but yet create a planet of 6 billion people.

 

[Spot261]

Some small conflicting details from later, lesser Treks can't retroactively wipe out the concept of a Vulcan from the original series.

Nor can they be ignored, the canon does not recognise one series as being superior or inferior to another. There are glitches, some of which we can reconcile, some we cannot, some which on closer analysis were never there at all.

If as children closer in age than seven years then barring some convoluted explanation occams razor requires we accept that he at least has not held to any seven year restriction.

Thus to assert pon farr requires a seven year wait in between sexual encounters is to assert a subjective implication (the wait) carries more water than a logical inference based on on screen facts (Tuvok clearly had not observed such a restriction).

My take on this would be that the writer's original intent as inferred was that such a restriction was in place, but as it was never stated on screen later writers have chosen a different interpretation and been more explicit. In the strictest sense, their interpretation becomes canon precisely because of that fact.

 

[Marsden]

Perhaps a biologist/geneticist can tell us how sentient humanoid beings who can only mate once every seven years, but yet create a planet of 6 billion people.

Just my opinion, but they live much longer, 198 is middle aged and too early to retire, no wars, no crime, not very many crimes of passion with no passion. Except for an occasional Kal-if-fee mishap, why would they need so many children to boost the population?

But then, Amok Time never mentioned an interval of time, just that it happened. Then next season in the Cloud Minders, Droxine, a Stratos City Dweller, not a Vulcan, said it's every seven years. Spock does not confirm or deny this, so it could be true but may not be. However, everyone latched on to what Droxie said as carved in stone and that's why it was repeated in later productions. Cause no one is ever wrong in the future.

I think that there really aren't any love children on Vulcan. That Vulcan is such an ordered society that if the psychohistorians or whatever they are called say that each couple should produce x amount of children over y amount of years to keep the population at peak levels without overtaxing the environment then that is what the Vulcans would do. It's logical. If a Vulcan biologically needs to have sex at least once every seven years, that really doesn't mean it's the only time they can, just that they can't forgo it any longer.

 

[Richard Baker]

Perhaps a geneticist can tell us how sentient humanoid beings who can only mate once every seven years, but yet create a planet of 6 billion people.

I have known some couples with fairly large families that have about 5-7 years separating each child. The thing that makes it work is a couple staying together for a while and with the lifespan of a Vulcan being considerably longer that a human, perpetuating the race should not be a problem.