Trippin’ With “Older T’Pol"

[AllisonPetra]

One of my favorite Enterprise episodes is E2. Even though I didn’t even know it existed since it was not on cbs.com.

I loved the idea of T’Pol being able to speak to herself – and benefit from the experience that I am sure was costly to gain. Having yourself assure you that you would be okay and to tell you that the man, that she was obviously trying to push away, was the right one for her. It was really something to watch. I also liked the scene with Trip and Lorian in Engineering when Lorian tells him he was a good father.

I saw a link to a deleted scene where that continues and Trip is telling Lorian that he can’t see how he and T’Pol would get together - given their current relationship (and she being just “fine” ) – unless they were stranded somewhere.

What was missing for me, in the episode, is that Trip did not go and visit “older T’Pol”. I think he would have done it. He had feelings for “younger T’Pol” (I think) and here was a T’Pol who shared those feelings.

Wouldn’t he go visit her just to ask her how she was? He strikes me as a man who would see her with his heart - not the years, but the woman he loves (I'm assuming he was way down the love path - wishful thinking? ). I think he would want to know why she finally fell for him – if he made her happy – to tell her that he already had feeling for “younger T’Pol”. Heck, maybe even to ask for some pointers!!!

I could see “older T’Pol” telling him that he should follow his heart too. Telling him that he elicited strong and sometimes frightening feelings in her – and that she could not see her life without him. That would give him all the insight he needed to understand “younger T’Pol”, “his T’Pol”.

That would have been so sweet!

This is why I love FanFic. In The Reconnecting Series there was a scene between "older T'Pol" and Trip. Also, very sweet.

What do you think?

[Alelou]

I agree, it would have been a good scene to see. I'm not even sure they told Trip she existed, but that seems very odd. He and Lorian were speaking so much; how could it have been avoided?

When it comes right down to it, they may have decided they only really had time to do a T'Pol/T'Pol scene or an older T'Pol/Trip scene and just picked the one they felt was more important.

Either that or T'Pol was afraid she'd permanently creep out young Trip with that goddawful old age make-up...

[AllisonPetra]

Either that or T'Pol was afraid she'd permanently creep out young Trip with that goddawful old age make-up...

LOL!! Okay the makeup was bad, but she was about 233 years old. Give the girl a break.

I wondered too if HE knew she was there. I say yes because younger T'Pol discussed the solution with him, based on older T'Pol's research. She would then have to tell him where it came from. No?

I do remember the line "it would awkward" so maybe older T'Pol made the choice. Still, I think our Trip would have "acted right" and made older T'Pol feel the love all over again!

Alelou, this could be a Missing Scene! Hummmmmmmm.

[Enerdhil]

Either that or T'Pol was afraid she'd permanently creep out young Trip with that goddawful old age make-up...

LOL!! Okay the makeup was bad, but she was about 233 years old. Give the girl a break.

I wondered too if HE knew she was there. I say yes because younger T'Pol discussed the solution with him, based on older T'Pol's research. She would then have to tell him where it came from. No?

I do remember the line "it would awkward" so maybe older T'Pol made the choice. Still, I think our Trip would have "acted right" and made older T'Pol feel the love all over again!

Alelou, this could be a Missing Scene! Hummmmmmmm.

Someone quoted in the Forum (don't remember the topic) that the old T'Pol asked to do not meet Trip, don't know if there is any base for it. As for the possible solutions for this dilemma, there are:
- young T'Pol's discussion of older one research does not mean the research was carried recently... It could be stored in a PAD, she gained access and then show it to Trip.
- By the time, Trip does not know how old is T'Pol, so, he can assume she has already died in the past 100 years.
- up to E2, young T'Pol has not willingly told Trip about her age. So, the older one can wish not meet Trip in order to save him of seeing her as an old woman (however, vanity is not a characteristics of Vulcans... )

I believe there is material for several missing scenes...

[Alelou]

Can't. Think. That. Far. Ahead.

Seriously. I wonder if it would have given Trip more confidence than he showed later. Or, maybe he was purposely screwing with T'Pol when he threw his little fit in the situation room later because older T'Pol had give him a clue that walking away could work like a dream. But then he would have walked away so many other times... how many times DID he? ... Okay, my poor early morning brain is beginning to smoke here...

And vanity may not be Vulcan, but T'Pol does sometimes evince a touch of vanity, as with her reaction to the oil painting remark.

I'll take it under advisement. I guess this means, Allison, that you've read them.

[Kotik]

Old T'Pol spüecifically asks, not to tell Trip, that she's still alive :

[E2 - T'Pol's quarters]

T'POL: Hello, Jonathan.
ARCHER: T'Pol.
(she's old, her hands shake, but they sort of embrace)
T'POL: It's good to see you.
ARCHER: Living with humans for so long has changed you. They didn't tell me you were still aboard.
T'POL: You mean, still alive. You look well. How's Trip?
ARCHER: He's fine. If you'd like, I'll have him come by and say hello.
T'POL: That might be awkward.
ARCHER: There's so much I want to ask you. I don't know where to start.
T'POL: I wish we had time to get reacquainted. (hands him a PADD) You must give this to your Science Officer. She'll know what it means.

[Silverbullet]

I always wondered why Trip was not invited to the conference room at the beginning of the Episode since Engineering obviously was going to be discussed.

I have toyed with missing scens too. always thought that they did not carry the scene between the old T'Pol and the young one far enough. Since both the Enterprises had the same crew on board I wondered if they had lived the same sequence of events: Was there a Sim in the other, older, Enterprise; did the Old T'Pol seduce her Trip? did she have the same eerotic dream of being inthe shower with him as the young T'Pol had. If so then the old T'Pol would know that the young T'Pol was lying when she said her Heart didn't know what it wanted. Quite obviously the Young T'Pol did know what her Heart wanted but she denied it to herself. The old T'Pol could have called the Young one on that and told her to get off the dime and confess her love to her Trip.

One other thing: why didn't te old T'Pol tell the young one about the Bond. The old T'Pol and her Trip should have had one too. Why didn't she tell the young one. also, why didn't the old T'Polmention the fact that both she and the young one had Mated with Their Trip and tat they had a mating bond. Much left out.

Food for a missing scene, Alelou?

SB

[Rigil Kent]

I think he would want to know why she finally fell for him – if he made her happy – to tell her that he already had feeling for “younger T’Pol”. Heck, maybe even to ask for some pointers!!!

I could see “older T’Pol” telling him that he should follow his heart too. Telling him that he elicited strong and sometimes frightening feelings in her – and that she could not see her life without him. That would give him all the insight he needed to understand “younger T’Pol”, “his T’Pol”.

And that right there is why he didn't see her on the show. If he had, it could/would have cleared up all sorts of miscommunication between the two, and made the will-they-won't-they stuff even less believable, so the showrunners had to avoid something like that in order to continue the guessing game about whether the two would get together.

Plus, as T'Pold states, such a meeting would be awkward because I'd like to think that Trip is observant enough to realize something is all screwed up about T'Pol (the trellium) and would want to know what was going on. And canon T'Pol (regardless of age) does not like to admit her mistakes, so admitting that? Awkward is a very good word for it.

[justTripn]

T'Pol feels a meeting would be awkward because she is old (she doesn't want young Trip to see her looking this way and scare him away from young T'Pol.) Also Trip, though he is a young version of her dead husband, is still a free agent (he is not married to or obligated to T'Pol in any way.) Older T'Pol wouldn't want to burden young Trip with the heavy obligation to say the right thing as a sort of ghost of her dead husband. What if he didn't say the right thing? He's got no script writer to make this little get together go well. He may be very weirded out by the situation (he's not even dating T'Pol yet), and T'Pol doesn't want to test him and make herself crazy by expecting or hoping for some outcome he can't deliver.

[Alelou]

Fear of freaking Trip out I can buy. Worry that he'll say the wrong thing, I can't. I would think she's old/wise enough and had been married long enough to Trip to not be too worried that this younger version of him might hurt her feelings or something. If she was worried about that, I'd conclude that they had a difficult marriage that ended during a bad stretch, and we have no reason to assume that.

But since she avoided speaking to Lorian about him after he died, it could simply be that the thought of seeing him again, in all his life and youth and loveliness, is just too painful. After all, it's not like she can really have him back again, or that they even belong together in this weird-ass combination. This would be a Trip who doesn't remember the times they shared together.

On the other hand, I'm kind of amazed that she would pass up the opportunity. Maybe Vulcan memories don't fade in the details the way humans' do, but the chance to see a loved one again, to refresh that sense-memory of that person, even a little -- how precious would that be?

[Thot]

LOL!! Okay the makeup was bad, but she was about 233 years old. Give the girl a break.

More like 183 years old (nearly 66 + 117 thrown back in time), but I attribute her appearance to her Pa'Nar-Syndrome since it was - most likely - not cured but the symptoms were treated.

On the other hand, I'm kind of amazed that she would pass up the opportunity. Maybe Vulcan memories don't fade in the details the way humans' do, but the chance to see a loved one again, to refresh that sense-memory of that person, even a little -- how precious would that be?

I think it depence on the way Trip died. If he was pulled away from her without any warning, then the chance to say goodbye in some way would be quite appealing, but if she had her chance to say goodbye... I'm not sure.

If he had, it could/would have cleared up all sorts of miscommunication between the two, and made the will-they-won't-they stuff even less believable, so the showrunners had to avoid something like that in order to continue the guessing game about whether the two would get together.

Plus, as T'Pold states, such a meeting would be awkward because I'd like to think that Trip is observant enough to realize something is all screwed up about T'Pol (the trellium) and would want to know what was going on. And canon T'Pol (regardless of age) does not like to admit her mistakes, so admitting that? Awkward is a very good word for it.

Plus the writer hadn't thought about the mating bond most likely. *grin*

[justTripn]

Plus, as T'Pold states, such a meeting would be awkward because I'd like to think that Trip is observant enough to realize something is all screwed up about T'Pol (the trellium) and would want to know what was going on. And canon T'Pol (regardless of age) does not like to admit her mistakes, so admitting that? Awkward is a very good word for it.

There is no canon indication that T'Pol continued to abuse trellium in the E2 universe. The past abuse has apparently had a permanent effect (as she tells her younger self), but T'Pol seems very poised in the episode E2. I don't think the effects of the abuse are evident to anyone but herself.

T'Pol confesses to Phlox in Damage, I believe and agrees to treatment. Two episodes later we have E-squared. Presumably she continues on the path to recovery in either universe. I wrote a story "Forwards or Backwards" in which her trellium abuse continues in the E-squared universe. HopefulRomantic, my beta (another E-squared expert) loudly protested that aspect of my story. I ran with it simply because I had written the story prior to the DVDs or Chrissies transcripts and I had remembered the sequence of events incorrectly. But now my whole story depended on T'Pol's continued trellium abuse in the E2 universe. So I said, "Oh well, she had a relapse."

Subsequently, Kevin wrote a very impressive, very memorable, story about T'Pol's continued trellium abuse in the E-squared universe. In his story, her continued abuse led to her demotion and helps explain why she is not the Captain of the E-squared Enterprise. I think Kevin's story of T'Pol being a mess in the E-squared universe is one that stuck in our heads. I might be flattering myself supposing that I got the whole apocryphal thing started with "Forwards or Backwards." Maybe I didn't, but if I did . . . SORRY!!!!

For the record, I think Older T'Pol is doing as well as can be expected for her age, and that she is in retirement when we meet her in E-squared. Perhaps she was the captain at some point.

And if you want to believe for the sake of a story that she was a mess in the E-squared universe, you can blame it on panar syndrome, which she was only cured of in Season 4. However being a mess because of panar syndrome should not be something Older T'Pol would need to urgently hide from Trip. It is just a disease that she got through no fault of her own.

[Alelou]

Yeah, she seemed pretty together. She didn't even let Lorian pull his manipulative crap on her. And she was able to give pretty calm advice to T'Pol.

Seriously, though, the make-up was just awful. Old ladies can still be attractive in their own delicate way, but they made old T'Pol look like a cross between Andy Rooney and Golum.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Seriously, though, the make-up was just awful. Old ladies can still be attractive in their own delicate way, but they made old T'Pol look like a cross between Andy Rooney and Golum.

Yeah, that was terrible makeup. Given the show's otherwise great production values, I'm actually surprised they did such a bad job with it.

*****

Maybe Trip wanted to meet T'Pold but was then told that she didn't want to meet him because of the awkwardness?

[justTripn]

OK, Alelou, please, a missing scene where Old T'Pol considers seeing Trip but decides it's better not to freak him out and torpdeo young T'Pol's chances of getting him. But she does sneak over and take a peak at him from a distance, and he sees her and does a double take, but decides, no, it's impossible, it can't be . . . .

PLEASE, please?????