Valjiir

[Buster's Uncle]

Mind you, at least the Blish adaption said Sargon had been there in the globe half a million years, and if the galaxy was seeded with humanoids of identical stock no MORE than 500,000 years ago on improbably similar planets, I don't buy for a second that their descendants would more like us than Tellerites after so long.  It's a suspend-belief-and-don't-think-too-hard-about-that-part thing, IMO...

[Valjiir1]

[ninja'd]

Seeders, of course - this is so self-evidently the reason for humanoids everywhere that I felt no need to get into it more than I did with mentions of Sargon/Preservers, my purpose having nothing to do with WHY humanoids everywhere, but with this being a fact of galactic reality someone like Sarek could have felt the need to react to.  I think I covered observation 3.) sufficient depth already, but I want to elaborate on 1.) and 2.) later this evening when I get caught up on some unrelated things I'm working on.

Looking forward to it.

Roddenberry had to fight to include an Asian and an African American woman.

If you really want, I can point you at some pretty credible research that tends to indicate a more complex reality.  It took me years on forums to grow out of wanting to win arguments on the internet, but Gene was capable of some self-serving stories.

Not trying to win anything here, and I don't doubt it - but I WAS alive when ToS originally aired and I remember the cultural climate very very well.

Yes - but what is considered extrapolation from what we now think of as possible is up for debate, yes?

I'm not sure I follow.

What I mean is, in science fiction, some pretty far-fetched things for the time the work was written have come to pass, so deciding at any given time what is or isn't feasible or even possible in the future depends entirely on one's interpretation of what is possible or feasible NOW.

the idea that 23rd Century Starfleet replicators would be unable to be programmed for Vulcan food is rather ridiculous.

Well, it appeared that they were all eating little cubes of foam rubber, so who can say?  Spock did eat what everyone else was having on a few alien planets (of earth-looking humanoids) a time or two...

As far as can be determined, perhaps - but who's to say those other humanoid people weren't capable of tailoring food to Spock's needs?  And BTW, the 'rubber cubes' is a good example of extrapolations-from-the-time-period thing - In the 60's, people thought future food would all be in cubes or pills 

As far as pheromones go, the fact that they would be different does NOT automatically equate to repulsive.

But it IS almost certainly different than what turns me on.  My dog is far more biochemically compatible, is a good-looking beast IMO, and mostly even smells good to me - but the sexual chemistry just isn't there.  Different isn't bad or anything, but is a problem for the biochemistry.

Yet most cosmetic scents are derived from nature.  Ambergris is from whales, civet from cats, musk from deer.  Not to mention all the fruit and floral scents.  And just because YOU'RE not 'attracted' to your dog doesn't mean there aren't Humans who would be 

Remember, we're dealing with a VERY idealistic future vision; no prejudice, an embrace of difference.

This is precisely what I dislike about a lot of fanfic, pro and amateur, and even the latter half of the run of DS9; where's my optimistic future?  We already have Star Wars (and now SkylarTrek) for constant battles and ship porn.

Yeah, that's a bummer.  And I'm as guilty of that as any fan writer.  Love, peace and understanding gets awful boring when you're looking for good storylines.  And what is SkylarTrek?   

-But if no one has flaws, and there's no conflict, we're left with a very boring Picard speech.  SOME balance is called for.  I'm just sayin'.

And as I just said 

or in Sarek's case, more likely what pon farr wants. 

As I said, it's an idea for some sexy fun  - if you haven't already, which I tend to doubt.   

Well, it hasn't been written down yet.....

There would be any number of reasons why Sarek's childhood betrothed wasn't in the picture.  Of course, Valjiir deals with ALL this in its own way.

But of course.  -Though I'll bet this isn't all so finally and completely contradicted as to preclude the possibility that Sarek Had A Plan, if not in regard to the specific bits I'm speculating about.  [shrugs]  All I'm really at here is trying to look at everything we know about Spock the Vulcans and everything and make more sense of the whole kibosh.

More later...

Well, one of Valjiir's characters, Dr. Jade Han, has this idea that Sarek (and other Vulcans) either consciously or unconsciously realized that Vulcan is stagnating and wanted to introduce new genetic material into the population....

[Valjiir1]

Mind you, at least the Blish adaption said Sargon had been there in the globe half a million years, and if the galaxy was seeded with humanoids of identical stock no MORE than 500,000 years ago on improbably similar planets, I don't buy for a second that their descendants would more like us than Tellerites after so long.  It's a suspend-belief-and-don't-think-too-hard-about-that-part thing, IMO...

Ah, but if Seeders were there all along GUIDING evolution on EACH planet so that the inhabitants WOULD remain genetically compatible, while still allowing for variations required by individual planetary environments.....

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, last thing first, have you seen Dorothy Fontana's Season Four comics from IDW?  She has the Preservers, who transplanted Miramanee's people, connected to the Organians, and even has Aylebourne mention that the Organians used to enjoy a similar relationship with the Metrons that the Federation enjoy with the Klingons.

The Preservers clearly were active fairly recently, or Miramanee would not have been so clearly recognizable as generic Hollywood Native American --- and if you start thinking about all the parallel Earths, you have to assume VERY recently, or never ever think about the Yang planet or the Roman world.  Miri was already born two or three hundred years ago as of 2014, so no way that world was just a forgotten terraformed Earth colony, either.  You know, the conclusion that someone was running experiments very recently is inescapable, and strongly supports what you assert.

I have some thoughts about Sargon, the Preservers, Organia and the galactic barrier, but that's a different conversation than the one about Spock...

[Buster's Uncle]

Incidentally, I wanted to share this unrelated thing I posted back in August -

On that note, I have a theory about artificial gravity and warp drive in that universe...

Well, it starts with the plainly observable fact that everyone's artificial gravity is insanely reliable.

Clearly, none of this is original intent, but not only is it crazy reliable, but so cheap they put it everywhere, and every. single. species. that makes it into space has it.

My theory is, all pulp fiction takes place in a virtual reality.   Especially superhero fiction.  In these virtual realities, the laws of physics are just code.  You want a character/person to do extraordinary things, change the code.

Yeah, but it's more fun to pretend it's real and try to make sense of it.  A game at least as old as the existence of nerds.


So I conclude this:  in the ST universe, there's stuff about how gravity works that was discovered by the mid 90's.  Khan's ship had artificial gravity, and it wasn't spinning or accelerating.  So there's a way to make, dunno, a gravity deck plating cheaply that works for a very long time with little or no power input.  Every race discovers this application of the law of gravity pretty soon after they go into space.  The same, or similar, techniques make for a nifty non-reaction gravity drive, which Starfleet calls "impulse".  A slightly more sophisticated application involving the interaction of fields from two gravity generators distorts warps space-time and makes for a nifty FTL drive.  Thus, everyone and his mother has a FTL starship with two drive pylons of some sort.  Both types of drive take a lot more juice then the deck plates because the gravity fields, by the nature of the thing, are not static, but have to expand and contract and vary in intensity.  That Warp is probably by an order of magnitude more power-hungry than Impulse naturally follows.

-I understand that Dave is pretty scientific; I expect that he can back me up that this makes sense, given the assumption about the law of gravity and that FTL is possible.  We're certainly stuck with the FTL and ubiquitous, insanely reliable artificial gravity, so why not?

[Buster's Uncle]

I assume you've read Inside Star Trek and know Solo and Justman's version of why the network objected to Majel - I find it more credible.  And the Star Trek Fact Check Blog recently posted the text of the memo NBC sent all their shows while Star Trek was in production calling for more "[black and proud]" casting...  I'm being a nerd over an aside, aren't I? 

What I mean is, in science fiction, some pretty far-fetched things for the time the work was written have come to pass, so deciding at any given time what is or isn't feasible or even possible in the future depends entirely on one's interpretation of what is possible or feasible NOW.

Well, I certainly would rank mocking the show for getting right 60's science that's since been outdated with calling the (state-of-the-art) special effects "cheesy" (which all the kids and too many people our age do like there was a meeting where everyone agreed to all say "cheesy") gets up my nose, it does.

Anyway, the show actually did an awful job of getting the science of the time it was in production right, but then that's not the kind of science fiction it was, and it's fun to try to make sense anyway.  -Just don't ask me to straighten out The Galleo Seven now that we know what quasars are.

I'm avoiding some remarks about the definition of science fiction and Jonathan Swift here - trying to stay focused on Spock...

Yet most cosmetic scents are derived from nature.  Ambergris is from whales, civet from cats, musk from deer.  Not to mention all the fruit and floral scents.  And just because YOU'RE not 'attracted' to your dog doesn't mean there aren't Humans who would be 

And for that matter the dog is unmistakably more turned on by me than I am by her.     Pheromones work more on the subconscious level than otherwise, and the mechanisms are poorly understood, as far as I know.  -It's not the same thing as smelling good like a perfume at all, though; pheromones smell like armpits and crotches and such on the conscious level, to the extent they get strong enough to notice consciously.  Bathing is still a good idea before a date.

And what is SkylarTrek?

Zackary Quinto played Skylar on Heroes.

As I said, it's an idea for some sexy fun  - if you haven't already, which I tend to doubt.   

Well, it hasn't been written down yet.....

Well, one of Valjiir's characters, Dr. Jade Han, has this idea that Sarek (and other Vulcans) either consciously or unconsciously realized that Vulcan is stagnating and wanted to introduce new genetic material into the population....

This is utterly compatible with observation 1.) and what I've extrapolated from that.

[Buster's Uncle]

1).  Vulcans are probably extremely weak at creativity and imagination and things of that sort, which would actually be a severe limitation even in the sort of fields like pure science where their logical minds excel.

Part of this one was Mylochka's idea, though so long ago that we can't remember who thought of which parts.  I started thinking about this so long ago that it was from a gut feeling for which I couldn't have articulated a good defense.  Now, I'm 49 and can point out that Vulcans regulate their own thoughts so strictly that you just know they don't allow themselves the waste/luxury/stupidity of daydreaming.  You and I get a lot of good ideas out of the mostly stupid stuff our brain farts out when we're dreaming or looking at the sky not really thinking - mostly it's crap, but an occasional gold nugget of an idea survives closer scrutiny or is at least amenable to modification into something workable.

As it applies to science - a Vulcan would be less likely to have something like Archimedes "Eureka!" moment in the bathtub, wouldn't he?  Science history is surprisingly full of those moments of inspiration, like the fellow who finally figured out how to diagram the hexagonal structure of benzene molecules in a dream.  Vulcans would be grinds in their science - great with complex and dreary details, not as strong at developing new theories and new fields.  They'd make superior field and experimental researchers, provided they've thought of the right track, and you've definitely want one or two on your science team, even for purely theoretical work, but Dr. Sp'bob over there is never the guy with the "Eureka!", though he's of enormous help in fleshing out the new idea and making it work.

It's like the way evolution depends on some randomness creeping into the genome, and it implies that Vulcan science doesn't advance as quickly as one would have assumed for a race of Spocks.

Naturally, this would be an even greater problem in less inherently logical fields than science.  A Vulcan engineer or architect would tend to be superb at making truly functional designs for vehicles or building, but crap at true innovation.  When they see all the emotional races of inferior intellect muddling through with trial and error, it must rankle a bit.  It may even seem worth investigation.

It's likely that stupid Humans ever inventing anything that ever worked reliably at all bugs the average Vulcan to no end.  -Which brings me to--

2.)  Vulcans have trouble getting along with other races, who all seem to be emotional, comparatively irrational, and a little dim by comparison.  It appears that they think poorly of humans, for example, and it stands to reason that they would.

My uncle married into a family of very stupid white trash a long time ago; they're loud, they're crude, they're flighty and they're ignorant.  -Rather like a microcosm of Texas, only dumber and less mature.  Nobody but my uncle liked having them around at holidays, and far from wanting to be in a club that would have my step-cousins, if one of them was the president, I'd call the Southern Poverty Law Center and leave town at least until they were all in jail.

-And when you're as smart and in control of yourself as a Vulcan, what use are Humans and the rest?  Can you imagine how they must love being stuck in the United Federation of Earth's-in-Charge?


I'm suggesting that Spock might have been part of an investigation into the possibility of doing various things about observations 1.)-3.), just as the very best chess moves tend to do more than one thing at once (and we can count on Sarek being a grandmaster, can't we?).  More on that as I examine Spock's Starfleet career and his falling out with Sarek.  (Keep in mind that I'm not really married to what Spock was for - just that I'm sure there was a Big Plan to which he was crucial.  Also keep in mind that a Big Plan existing makes for a story, where no Big Plan, and nothing to his parent's relationship but boy meets girl and they had a baby, fullstop, doesn't.  More interesting my way.)


I've been sorta depressed for months, and I cannot guarantee, day-to-day, that staying in the mood to keep writing up installments will happen until I've been feeling like it for longer.  Feedback helps me stay motivated, so keep it comin'...

[Valka]

I have to disagree about Vulcans not being creative. Spock is musical, and I'm sure there are Vulcan composers. You can write music that may be mathematically correct, but it takes creativity to make music that people want to listen to.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm advancing Spock as a possible attempt to address Vulcan creativity issues, so Spock playing the lyrette in the rec room doesn't work as a counterexample. 

I do wonder why he plays an instrument - I suspect the fact that we only see him do it in company is significant.

[Valka]

I'm advancing Spock as a possible attempt to address Vulcan creativity issues, so Spock playing the lyrette in the rec room doesn't work as a counterexample. 

I do wonder why he plays an instrument - I suspect the fact that we only see him do it in company is significant.

I thought he played it in his quarters, by himself, in "Amok Time."

But regardless if he plays it by himself or with others listening, it took creativity for somebody to compose what he plays.

[Buster's Uncle]

And we don't know if it was Vulcan compositions, do we?

[Valjiir1]

Well, last thing first, have you seen Dorothy Fontana's Season Four comics from IDW?  She has the Preservers, who transplanted Miramanee's people, connected to the Organians, and even has Aylebourne mention that the Organians used to enjoy a similar relationship with the Metrons that the Federation enjoy with the Klingons.

The Preservers clearly were active fairly recently, or Miramanee would have been so clearly recognizable as generic Hollywood Native American --- and if you start thinking about all the parallel Earths, you have to assume VERY recently, or never ever think about the Yang planet or the Roman world.  Miri was already born two or three hundred years ago, so I doubt that world was just a terraformed Earth colony, either.  You know, the conclusion that someone was running experiments very recently is inescapable, and strongly supports what you assert.

I have some thoughts about Sargon, the Preservers, Organia and the galactic barrier, but that's a different conversation than the one about Spock...

Nope, haven't seen it, but it all makes perfect sense to me, assuming that her Preservers and 'my' Seeders are the same thing.

[Valjiir1]

Incidentally, I wanted to share this unrelated thing I posted back in August -

On that note, I have a theory about artificial gravity and warp drive in that universe...

Well, it starts with the plainly observable fact that everyone's artificial gravity is insanely reliable.

Clearly, none of this is original intent, but not only is it crazy reliable, but so cheap they put it everywhere, and every. single. species. that makes it into space has it.

My theory is, all pulp fiction takes place in a virtual reality.   Especially superhero fiction.  In these virtual realities, the laws of physics are just code.  You want a character/person to do extraordinary things, change the code.

Yeah, but it's more fun to pretend it's real and try to make sense of it.  A game at least as old as the existence of nerds.


So I conclude this:  in the ST universe, there's stuff about how gravity works that was discovered by the mid 90's.  Khan's ship had artificial gravity, and it wasn't spinning or accelerating.  So there's a way to make, dunno, a gravity deck plating cheaply that works for a very long time with little or no power input.  Every race discovers this application of the law of gravity pretty soon after they go into space.  The same, or similar, techniques make for a nifty non-reaction gravity drive, which Starfleet calls "impulse".  A slightly more sophisticated application involving the interaction of fields from two gravity generators distorts warps space-time and makes for a nifty FTL drive.  Thus, everyone and his mother has a FTL starship with two drive pylons of some sort.  Both types of drive take a lot more juice then the deck plates because the gravity fields, by the nature of the thing, are not static, but have to expand and contract and vary in intensity.  That Warp is probably by an order of magnitude more power-hungry than Impulse naturally follows.

-I understand that Dave is pretty scientific; I expect that he can back me up that this makes sense, given the assumption about the law of gravity and that FTL is possible.  We're certainly stuck with the FTL and ubiquitous, insanely reliable artificial gravity, so why not?

My completely head-in-the-sand view ( ) is that since ToS has portable anti-grav units, they must have a way to generate gravity too.  I'm not much into the nuts and bolts hardware type stuff - except to say that one thing that has always bugged me about the claim that FTL travel isn't possible because moving infinite mass (taking short-cuts with Einstein here) would take infinite energy is, if your fuel source is ON your ship, wouldn't the fuel have infinite mass too? And able to generate infinite energy from that infinite mass?  And therefore be able to move the ship?

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, basically, it's a matter of some infinities being larger than others.  The infinite mass of the whole ship is always going to be a larger infinity than just the fuel by exactly the proportion of their relative masses at rest.

Nope, haven't seen it, but it all makes perfect sense to me, assuming that her Preservers and 'my' Seeders are the same thing.

The comics had the disadvantage of not being very good, alas, but of course DC's opinion about the continuity is as close to cannon as we're going to get now.

I do think it's obvious that there's definitely something going on there, for all that Earth's fossil record says otherwise, and somebody was still playing parallel history games as recently as 200 years ago as of 2014.  It could be 15 different races doing different things, for all we know, but it's an interesting puzzle.

[Valjiir1]

I assume you've read Inside Star Trek and know Solo and Justman's version of why the network objected to Majel - I find it more credible.  And the Star Trek Fact Check Blog recently posted the text of the memo NBC sent all their shows while Star Trek was in production calling for more "[black and proud]" casting...  I'm being a nerd over an aside, aren't I? 

Perhaps you are, but that's ok.  I LIKE nerds!  And no, I haven't read Inside Star Trek.  Sorry.

Yet most cosmetic scents are derived from nature.  Ambergris is from whales, civet from cats, musk from deer.  Not to mention all the fruit and floral scents.  And just because YOU'RE not 'attracted' to your dog doesn't mean there aren't Humans who would be 

And for that matter the dog is unmistakably more turned on by me than I am by her.     Pheromones work more on the subconscious level than otherwise, and the mechanisms are poorly understood, as far as I know.  -It's not the same thing as smelling good like a perfume at all, though; pheromones smell like armpits and crotches and such on the conscious level, to the extent they get strong enough to notice consciously.  Bathing is still a good idea before a date.[/Iquote]

True, but still, I think you're just being a nerd 

And what is SkylarTrek?

Zackary Quinto played Skylar on Heroes.

Ah, that's what confused me.  SKylar was Walter White's (expletive deleted) of a wife on Breaking Bad  Quinto's character on Heroes was SYlar.

Well, one of Valjiir's characters, Dr. Jade Han, has this idea that Sarek (and other Vulcans) either consciously or unconsciously realized that Vulcan is stagnating and wanted to introduce new genetic material into the population....

This is utterly compatible with observation 1.) and what I've extrapolated from that.

Go me!