A Hard Bargain: A COMPLETED TnT Story

[CoffeeCat]

Sarek (Spock's father) was born the year after Trip "died" - I checked Memory Alpha

[aeverett]

^ Well but even so little Spock still needs time to grow up to his TOS age. (Which was like 110 years after ENT) Spock was born in 2230 and Elizabeth Tucker in 2154. Oh and I call everyone Dude

Well, it could still work, if we assume the Terra Prime 'doctors' were more familiar with human biology and thus made Trip's metabolic genes more dominant in order to more easily monitor her. Then she would have a human lifespan, so 80 wouldn't be too bad a haul for a human. Even if McCoy does live well past 100, that doesn't mean all humans do, and that longevity could be a byproduct of the late 23rd and early 24th centuries. Back when I wrote this, I was working on a bad timeline, I admit. Still, it could work, if Elizabeth was primarily designed with a 22nd century human template.

[justTripn]

The need to have sex is like totally biological. Hormonal stuff. But still Vulcans do mate and procreate outside pon farr. So I don't really know what they need their pon farr for anyway

Probably for the same reason we need our appendix, none at all. My guess is that it's an evolutionary remnant that is no longer required, yet everyone is born with.

Haven't read the story or the whole thread, but since I proposed the above once myself. I'm just saying, I like the theory.

[TPoptarts]

Well, it could still work, if we assume the Terra Prime 'doctors' were more familiar with human biology and thus made Trip's metabolic genes more dominant in order to more easily monitor her. Then she would have a human lifespan, so 80 wouldn't be too bad a haul for a human. Even if McCoy does live well past 100, that doesn't mean all humans do, and that longevity could be a byproduct of the late 23rd and early 24th centuries. Back when I wrote this, I was working on a bad timeline, I admit. Still, it could work, if Elizabeth was primarily designed with a 22nd century human template.

In the 22nd century though I'd still assume 80 is like too short a lifespan for a human because that's pretty much what the human lifespan is like now, and it keeps getting longer and longer and by the ENT timeline like common diseases etc are practically eliminated and it makes sense to me that human lifespan would be longer in the 22nd century with all the technology. According to In a Mirror Darkly Archer died of natural causes at the age of 133 and Hoshi died a premature death at the age of 117. Neither of them had any Vulcan DNA in them though. So I'd still assume a human/Vulcan hybrid would have a longer lifespan than 80 years. But again that's just me and my assumptions

[TPoptarts]

Uhhh... why do I kinda feel like I'm in an episode of Numb3rs every time I post in this thread??

[Asso]

I had just read "TO Hard Bargain".
Without offense, I found the story very “not beautiful”!
I understand that the writers may want also to astonish, but there are some limits.

[panyasan]

Sorry, my first reaction was Yikes.., i do not like it. Not only are there other ways to get rid of Pon farr (like meditation according to Tuvok (VOY) or the Holodeck solution (see Voyager), but to ask a Andorian or any other guy when she is still grieving over Trips death and having a child with a total stranger, it feels just absolutly wrong. Plus it is not something you can brush off with meditation or a shower and you have to live with the child the rest of your life. Plus the fact that TPol is a sort of victim again...
If she acted like my kind of girl she would choice death, even painfull, above this.
Having said that, the idea of an interaction between Shran and TPol is nice, but not this one. Sorry.

[aeverett]

Sorry, my first reaction was Yikes.., i do not like it. Not only are there other ways to get rid of Pon farr (like meditation according to Tuvok (VOY) or the Holodeck solution (see Voyager), but to ask a Andorian or any other guy when she is still grieving over Trips death and having a child with a total stranger, it feels just absolutly wrong. Plus it is not something you can brush off with meditation or a shower and you have to live with the child the rest of your life. Plus the fact that TPol is a sort of victim again...
If she acted like my kind of girl she would choice death, even painfull, above this.
Having said that, the idea of an interaction between Shran and TPol is nice, but not this one. Sorry.

I didn't realize anyone thought T'Pol's actions were meant to produce a child. She chose an anonymous Andorian because Andorians, unlike humans, are so genetically dissimilar that that no conception would be possible. And yes, she is a victim here. She is a victim of *the_abomination*. This is a consequence story, my interpretation of a plausible scenerio (T'Pol facing pon farr with no mate and no desire to take another mate) resulting from Trip's death.

This is an emotional Kobiashi Maru for T'Pol. This story is supposed to be depressing.

[aeverett]

This post was posted mistakenly.
I was trying to edit my last post.

[Elessar]

The need to have sex is like totally biological. Hormonal stuff. But still Vulcans do mate and procreate outside pon farr. So I don't really know what they need their pon farr for anyway

Probably for the same reason we need our appendix, none at all. My guess is that it's an evolutionary remnant that is no longer required, yet everyone is born with.

Haven't read the story or the whole thread, but since I proposed the above once myself. I'm just saying, I like the theory.

I haven't read the story or the thread either, , but I disagree. I prefer to think it's the only time that a Vulcan is fertile, be it a man or a woman. I mean then it has all kinds of biological connections to keeping the species procreating but also preventing over-population... maybe it used to happen ever 7 MONTHS and Vulcans' discipline extended it. I just threw that number out there, but it's an interesting concept, that their mating cycle has evolved over time.

I don't know, part of me just doesn't like the idea that it's biologically useless. I just think it should have SOME biological significance I guess. And it would help to explain why Vulcans usually have few children.

Sorry, my first reaction was Yikes.., i do not like it. Not only are there other ways to get rid of Pon farr (like meditation according to Tuvok (VOY) or the Holodeck solution (see Voyager), but to ask a Andorian or any other guy when she is still grieving over Trips death and having a child with a total stranger, it feels just absolutly wrong. Plus it is not something you can brush off with meditation or a shower and you have to live with the child the rest of your life. Plus the fact that TPol is a sort of victim again...
If she acted like my kind of girl she would choice death, even painfull, above this.
Having said that, the idea of an interaction between Shran and TPol is nice, but not this one. Sorry.

I didn't realize anyone thought T'Pol's actions were meant to produce a child. She chose an anonymous Andorian because Andorians, unlike humans, are so genetically dissimilar that that no conception would be possible. And yes, she is a victim here. She is a victim of *the_abomination*. This is a consequence story, my interpretation of a plausible scenerio (T'Pol facing pon farr with no mate and no desire to take another mate) resulting from Trip's death.

This is an emotional Kobiashi Maru for T'Pol. This story is supposed to be depressing.

I just wanted to toss in here AEverett that I only read part of your story, admittedly because I have a hard time reading about T'Pol getting it on with an Andorian once I knew what it was about, but that's just a gut reaction. I think T'Pol would go see someone else like Soval or a monk to resolve the issue, but I think that I see that the purpose of the story was to be depressing, to expound on just how tragic and vile it was that Trip had died (ok... let's say... IF, he had died! ). I can appreciate that you are doing a story about what T'Pol would have to go through and how depressing it would be, and I applaud you! I actually had two story ideas for what T'Pol might do if this had actually happened and *the_abomination* had been real.

Now, a lot people won't even read a story like that and just get all hot and bothered THINKING about accepting *the_abomination* as reality. But I don't accept *the_abomination* as reality, not in the slightest, and I would have written that story just because it's an intruiging creative journey. Most people would probably choose not to read it , but I still think it would be a worthwhile story to write. I actually was going to use Ancasta's beautiful title, "I'll Find a Way" from the video she did (I even asked her permission like 6 months ago and she gave it!) to title a story after that, inspired by that music video. Anyone who hasn't seen it should check it out. It's not about Trip dying really, just about them being apart... I think... I can't guarantee... it MIGHT have 'loss' themes to it.

Anywho...

[blacknblue]

I don't think too many people dislike Shran. It's just that a T'Pol/Sharn pairing, for any reason whatsoever, is too much of a stretch for a lot of us to wrap our minds around. I can just as easily see her getting it on with a Tellurite, or a Klingon, or an Orion. Or a Ferengi for that matter. There HAS to be some method established in Vulcan culture to provide for Vulcans whose mates have died. Surely at some point during the course of the thousands of years of Vulcan culture it occurred to them that all these widows and widowers were going to pass through Pon Farr at some point. And that simply permitting them to die without making some effort to provide for their needs was not logical. There has to be SOME mechanism in Vulcan culture that provides an alternative for them to turn to.

[CX]

Sarek remarried. Obviously Koss had someone see to his needs prior to blackmailing T'Pol.

[aeverett]

I don't think too many people dislike Shran. It's just that a T'Pol/Sharn pairing, for any reason whatsoever, is too much of a stretch for a lot of us to wrap our minds around. I can just as easily see her getting it on with a Tellurite, or a Klingon, or an Orion. Or a Ferengi for that matter. There HAS to be some method established in Vulcan culture to provide for Vulcans whose mates have died. Surely at some point during the course of the thousands of years of Vulcan culture it occurred to them that all these widows and widowers were going to pass through Pon Farr at some point. And that simply permitting them to die without making some effort to provide for their needs was not logical. There has to be SOME mechanism in Vulcan culture that provides an alternative for them to turn to.

Ofcourse there is. It's in the story. T'Pol needs only to go to Vulcan. She knows her claim to Shran that her disgraced status on Vulcan would prevent her from getting another mate, is bunk, but getting a Vulcan mate comes with a 98% of pregnancy and an unwanted spouse, once the pon farr is over.

An Andorian male would leave her with neither, and she'd never have to worry about killing him in plak tow, never see him again after the pon farr was quelched, and not have to worry about an emotional attachment forming, as she would with a human male from among her friends on Enterprise. Even the small chance of a pregnancy due to human/Vulcan genetic compatibility would be averted.

In my story, if T'Pol had bowed to her cultural norms, she would have wound up with a child she felt, at best, nothing for, and at worst, resented for not being Trip's. Such a child would grow up in a culture that told them that not being loved by a parent was irrelevant, as their physical, mental, educational, and ultimately professional needs would be met by Vulcan society, but despite the rhetoric, the child would wind up emotionally damaged by T'Pol's neglect (bordering on subtle abuse) of it, and T'Pol believes having said child merely to save her own life would be morally wrong and would have appalled Trip to know she could do such a thing, even in grief over him. Both Trip and T'Pol were moral creatures, and I believe that if that had been the only option, T'Pol would have gone off into the desert to die, mateless, rather than avail herself of the alternative of mating with another.

My story presents an alternative I believe T'Pol would see as the best in a horribly bad situation, the least of all evils, but evil, like *the_abomination* just the same.

Sarek remarried. Obviously Koss had someone see to his needs prior to blackmailing T'Pol.
Sarek remarried. Obviously Koss had someone see to his needs prior to blackmailing T'Pol.

Sure they did, but they are males. They couldn't get pregnant, and Vulcan culture didn't demand they give up their previous careers and interests for that one year thing. They could also avail themselves of meditative alternatives to mating, due to the fact that their neural pathways hadn't been toasted by Trellium D. T'Pol isn't so lucky in my story. She is boxed into a corner.

[TPoptarts]

I prefer to think it's the only time that a Vulcan is fertile, be it a man or a woman.

Then how come in canon they're able to procreate in smaller intervals than 7 years??

[CX]

A lot of people forget about Tuvok. Even I can't remember which episode or which season for that matter he mentioned the ages of his children.