Those Awesome Enterprise Vulcans

[KKGlinka]

I think my favorite part about Enterprise was how it handled the Vulcans. First, they kept popping in and out of the story, which helped create the idea that there was in fact a whole Vulcan society beyond The Token Vulcan on the Starfleet Ship. The show wasted a lot of great opportunities to do political world building stories in favor of alien of the week and t'pol and someone else in the decon chamber. It could have been a great trek series, if it simply had shown some more balls about inventing Federation history, but it wasn't (until the last minute). Still, I liked how it handled Vulcans.

A lot of folks didn't, evidenced by the sheer amount of fixit fic, including official licensed examples such as Surak's Soul. They complained about how cranky, emotional, snippy, expressive, deceitful and downright violent the depiction was. How it blatantly conflicted with what we saw in TOS and... that was the whole bloody point. It wasn't just Humans who changed in ways that allowed for the coalition; Vulcans did too. But let's start at the beginning.

There was this race of deeply passionate people who acted like ADHD kids with guns. It was a disaster and then Vulcan Jesus invented Ritalin. Sure, it turned you into a mopey sourpuss, but at least you could get stuff done in your life without all that violence. They argued over it and Vulcan Jesus sort of died and the Vulcan bible got lost, though second-hand copies of portions of the text survived. Two thousand shaky, bumpy, years later, Vulcan was a lot like Catholic dominated Medieval Europe, but a lot more technologically advanced and they referred to their religion as a philosophy.

Surak's teachings were fragmented, controlled and parceled out by an elite minority. Dissidents and reformists were referred to as terrorists, cultists and outright deviants. Submission to the ruling elite's interpretation of the surviving quotes was more or less enforced by fatwah. Two thousand year old traditions still existed, but twisted out of context. Like, wedding rings in our society? They evolved from the signet rings landowning men used to mark and identify their property, such as a wife. But now they're a well-entrenched romantic symbol of love and fidelity. It's just one example of how traditions become adultered and perpetuate in altered form. There's no malicious conspiracy, but a simple slide into accepted ignorance.

The big tradition that got twisted out of context for the Vulcans was: melding. Not just the full on, two handed mind-meld, but in all its myriad forms, because Vulcans are touch-telepaths. Just like human touch ranges from brushing fingertips, holding hands, hugging, massage, kissing, fondling, sex...rape, assault, murder, so can melding.

My guess is that, because full on melds are a tricky art form, they were restricted to individuals with appropriate training. Unfortunately, social fragmentation, as occurred on Vulcan, combined with suppression of "dangerous" ideas caused the skill to be largely lost. Many Vulcans were doing melds deliberately or by accident and getting Vulcan Parkinsons, hurt or even dying. Naturally, the practice was discouraged until, over time, it became taboo. Any variation of it was bad, just because a palm is an open fist. So by the end of it, you've got an entire race of touch-telepaths who know they're not supposed to touch unless its strictly necessary... but don't know why. Sure, melds still happen during pon farr, over the course of a happy marriage, in secret amongst the religious elite, amongst individual families who passed on the tradition in defiance, but you don't talk about it. You don't want to be one of those filthy deviants, after all.

Blind tradition can be a horrible thing. Think about what pon farr must have been like without a preparatory bond between mates. *cringes* Shoot, I'd have joined an alien spaceship heading off in the opposite direction, for an undetermined period of time, too. At least no one will hassle you if you take the opportunity to try and figure out why touching people makes you feel funny in the head. It's not like therapeutic massage is some form of melding foreplay. That would be ridiculous, right? Besides, you're sort of ostracized as being one of those filthy deviants even though the guy lied to you and you felt horrible afterward, but no one seemed to care. Folks back home just blamed you and the worst part is, you're not even sure what happened. But let's quit reviewing the episode "Stigma".

You'll notice I use physical touch as an analogy to melding. It's one of the basic humans senses, one you can't avoid using. It's also absolutely crucial to normal human pathology. Amongst the many inhumane experiments the Nazis performed, one concerned sensory deprivation on infants. The children were fed, cleaned, kept warm and treated for routine illness, but they weren't touched any more than strictly necessary. The majority of the infants systematically, spontaneously died. Over the years, more humane and restricted experiments were done with adult volunteers, in other countries and though the exact conditions cannot be ethically replicated one thing remains clear: the human mind goes fubar without physical touch.

So imagine you're a Vulcan living in this pre-Kir'Shara (vulcan bible) land where you are not permitted to do such a basic, instinctive, normal, healthy thing as meld. You're not even told the capacity exists. Because even most your elders don't know about it. And the few filthy deviants who do know about melding don't really know what they're doing, either. Of course the Vulcans living in that society were angry, repressed in the wrong way, fearful of stepping out of line and otherwise on a straight track to becoming Romulus 2.0. They were following the same traditions they always had. How could there be anything wrong?

Fortunately, because they made the effort to help out those silly Humans, the Vulcans rediscovered the Kir'shara, learned that all Vulcans were filthy mind-melding deviants, and that "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" was not some useful way to justify border wars, espionage and using other species as buffers against the Andorians and Romulans. It was apparently some lesson about personal humility, samaritan behavior, embracing diversity and asking "why not?" instead of demanding a reason "why?" (Who knew). Then, being logical if nothing else, they accepted the new information and adjusted accordingly, within a single generation. Voila! Spock!

Unfortunately, there were a lot of pointless alien-of-the-week episodes in between those silly decon scenes, before the show got canceled, so we never got to see that social revolution play out. :\

[evcake]

Seting aside that I love alien-of-the-week and decon scenes, this is a great post.
After the lackluster Vulcans of Voyager, the Vulcans of Enterprise were a delight. Soval especially.

[Asso]

Great post, KKGlinka.
You gave voice to my thoughts.

[CX]

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree on pretty much everything, but the melding thing especially. I thought it was one of the most stupid, contrived things they could have come up with, right up there with T'Pol's pon farr.

[Linda]

Interesting and thoughtful post, KKGlinka! I don't agree with everything you said, but do with some of it. But I sure am glad we have another Vulcan aficionado on board at Triax.

At least some of the Vulcans were more than touch telepaths, as noted by Spock in his contact with T'Pring from the Enterprise all the way to Vulcan. Also by the bond between Trip and T'Pol where they could meet in 'the white space'. There are other canon examples but I can't remember them right now. And of course numerous non-canon examples in the published novels.

Please post more on Vulcans and write some fan fic about them if you are so inclined!

[Linda]

Evcake, I love your portly Vulcans avatar!

[Distracted]

Amusing and insightful post, KKGlinka. I'm with you 100%.

[justTripn]

KKGlinka, that's what my story

Brainstorm

is about! E-squared Trip and T'Pol don't know about the K-Shara. They are thrown back in time and are 3rd-season in their opinions with regard to melding. Trip warns his teenage son, Lorian, that it can "fry your brain." And yet it is a natural thing . . .

I like your analysis by the way. That is basically my backstory for "Brainstorm."

I'm about to post a new chapter, if I get the go-ahead from my beta.

[Alelou]

Hurry up, JT's beta!!!!

[KKGlinka]

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree on pretty much everything, but the melding thing especially. I thought it was one of the most stupid, contrived things they could have come up with, right up there with T'Pol's pon farr.

Mm, that's the way it is, sometimes. :/ Can't agree about everything... but then we wouldn't have interesting discussions. Would it help if I mentioned that the most extreme turn in melding attitudes was heavily influenced by Romulan infiltrators seeking to neutralize Vulcan's obvious tactical advantage, via a systematic campaign of misinformation, propoganda, blackmail, murder and misdirection?

No? Well, it was worth a try.

On the other hand, I thought T'Pol's pon farr was super dumb, too. It wasn't just a bad episode, despite the few funny lol bits, but the premise was iffy and the resolution just plain lame. First, in the spirit of pon farr being inspired by the cycle of rut, I honestly think it only directly affects males of the species. Vulcan females are hard-wired to be responsive to it, but as we saw, it's a neural state that can be transmitted by a male, via melding, onto (presumably) any female. (Vorick, B'Elanna).

And viruses... o.O Uh, okay. e_e

Frankly, if they were searching for a plot device, I think having Koss hit pon farr and sympathetically trigger it in her (remotely?) would have been a more dramatic story. Especially if she was still all about not wanting anything to do with him.

Please post more on Vulcans and write some fan fic about them if you are so inclined!

*holds up a finger* Working on that. I suppose, if you wanted to get a vague idea of my writing style, you could dig up A Great Reckoning, which I co-wrote with ShouldKnowBetter, ages ago. How long ago? Well, I don't remember what it's about. But it has pictures.

[Alelou]

Ah, you worked with my favorite Enterprise fanfic author ever. I'm looking forward to reading your own stuff!

I remember enjoying that story. And it has a great ending. Cool artwork!

[panyasan]

I red the story as well, interesting and well written. Good read. And I do like the picture of your avatar, KKGLinkA!

[justTripn]

Submit your story to Triaxian Silk, KKGlinka! We don't have it yet. You know Shouldknowbetter? Of "Rainbow's Foot"? Wow . . .

Ask her to stop by and chat with her fans.

[evcake]

I wish she would, too...her stories are so wonderful.
I wonder if she knows that folks go on discovering and enjoying them.

[Asso]

Yes.