I imagine in the years between TUC and TNG Spock ran into many people who he learned were siblings even he had been unaware of.
Why Are Spocks Siblings So...Dysfunctional?
- Thread starter Dryson
- Start date
Papa was a rolling stone...
Argelius II from Wolf in the Fold
I wish there had been one scene with young Sybok and young Michael, perhaps when Sybok is leaving Vulcan, with each in their own way criticising the other for not living like a typical member of their species, ie the emotional vulcan and the logical human. I don't know if they actually ever met in canon but I could see this as one of those family things where when you have a falling out with your sibling and say lots of shit to hurt them because you feel they've hurt you, which you could easily write Michael as feeling that way because Sybok left, although more likely was forced to leave. On the other hand, I always imagined Kelvin Michael having a good relationship with both Spock and Sybok but this was because she grew up with her parents and only knew Sarek's sons as adults.
I'm still hoping for At Home With the Sareks, featuring Sarek, Amanda, young Spock and Michael (played by their Discovery flashback actors) and teenage rebel Sybok. The first Star Trek sitcom, it writes itself.
I like to think Sybok left just before Spocks pet died in Yesteryear, which happened just before Michael came to live with them. It adds context to his treatment of her when she first arrives (closing the door in her face) and extra tragedy/pathos to how he must have felt when she tried to pull a Lassie on him to get him to let her go later: he was being abandoned by a third close family member in a short span of time.
Coming late to the party, I'd imagine most Vulcans are dysfunctional. They are highly emotional beings that are trained to suppress all emotions. Even in humans and animals such as chimpanzees, a lack of physical and emotional affection causes a "failure to thrive" in which there are physical and cognitive impairments and developmental delays. Since Vulcans are not devoid of emotions by nature, I can't imagine they would truly fare much better to parents who show no affection and who themselves aren't allowed to express joy, sorrow, affection, etc. Other mental disciplines may help Vulcans cope with their self imposed emotional disconnection, but most Vulcans should realistically be social and emotional train wrecks.
Also, possibly as a result of the above, or possibly as a result of isolated desert communities doing their damnedest to inter- rather than inbreed, Vulcan family structures are likely to be highly complicated. "Yesteryear" shows us that Sarek can't keep track of his son's cousins, and a wholly fictional or perhaps usurped "Selek" easily slips in. We really shouldn't expect Spock to be the only child in a cousin-rich society. But we shouldn't expect all of Spock's siblings to be nicely in view and lined up, either.
Considering the desert nature of the planet and the society, it would simply be logical for Vulcan males to spread their seed at every opportunity - and to do so the more actively, the farther away from home they were. Doing it with aliens would simply be in continuum with that, even though it clearly crosses the boundaries of appropriate and is declared "shameful" in aforementioned "Yesteryear". (Or perhaps the marrying bit is the shameful thing, while impregnating as such would be commendable?)
Timo Saloniemi
Considering the desert nature of the planet and the society, it would simply be logical for Vulcan males to spread their seed at every opportunity - and to do so the more actively, the farther away from home they were. Doing it with aliens would simply be in continuum with that, even though it clearly crosses the boundaries of appropriate and is declared "shameful" in aforementioned "Yesteryear". (Or perhaps the marrying bit is the shameful thing, while impregnating as such would be commendable?)
Timo Saloniemi
Spock's clan may be large but spread out over the planet and beyond. Sarek may not bother to keep tabs on relations he does not regularly interact with?
They're probably more interested in comets.
People have different capabilities to retain information.
In "Amok Tine" Spock says:
It is very impressive for a family to have continuity of ownership of land for more than two thousand Earth years. On Earth it is very impressive for a family be be able to reliably trace their ancestry for more than two thousand Earth years - even one thousand years is very impressive, and one and half thousand years is near the absolute limit of accepted pedigree. Many genealogical experts would claim that only the Kung clan, descendants of Confucious, can trace theri ancestry more than two thousand years in the past...
Of course Vulcan pedigrees are likely to have a lot fewer generations per centuryo or millennium that human pedigrees, making tht feat a little less impressive.
Thus the imperial family tree in "fBread and Circuses" icould have be even more generations than Spock's family.
I am uncertain how much of that Kirk was told and how much he assumed. And of course when he says the emperors can trace their line back two thousand years he may merely mean that the the present emperor is a successor to a political positon s established two thousnd yers earlier. But I always hoped that he meant that the persent emperor was descended from that world's alternate version of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and had a two thousnd year pedigree.
Anyway, that gives some idea of the number of cousins in the same lineage Sarek might have, and thus fail to spot an imposter.
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I guess it depends on the definition of cousin. Second cousins might count, but even those are limited by contemporary family size, not by the height of the family tree. So far, we have little data on family size when only Tuvok's biological children have been fully explicated. But two generations of four-child families doesn't yet result in an unmanageable pool of second cousins.
Yet perhaps Tuvok is an exception, and Vulcans generally have dozens of children, and possibly many marriages as well to maintain logical diversity?
Timo Saloniemi
Yet perhaps Tuvok is an exception, and Vulcans generally have dozens of children, and possibly many marriages as well to maintain logical diversity?
Timo Saloniemi
Because no one knows they exist until a plot demands them.
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