Running Amok
I just watched the remastered Star Trek episode "Amok Time." It's a classic, and deserves to be, but I have some questions.
Shouldn't Spock have informed Kirk, or Star Fleet, or someone, about his powerful sexual urges before he left on a five-year mission? For such a supposedly logical people, aren't the Vulcan laws and rituals fairly primitive--arranged marriages with no easy divorce, fights to the death, etc.? Why does T'Pau have an Eastern European accent? Wouldn't it be fair to tell Kirk, before he assents to the fight with Spock, that it's to the death? I realize McCoy's options are limited, but is it really the best strategy in a fight to the death to paralyze the Captain?
posted by LAGuy @ 1:43 AM
3 Comments:
I think the premise behind the "primitive" nature of the Vulcan mating rituals and culture is that pure logic will never lead anyone to love, sex, marriage or kids. Therefore, as a species relies more and more on pure logic, they will die out unless, as in the Vulcans' case, they evolve this one area where powerful and primitive forces take over. (Not saying I agree with that, but it does have a certain "logic" as well as being pretty funny.)
Maybe the unintended message of this one was against mixed marriage
& that "half-breeds" can never find peace in any culture.(Though I can't think that was really what Gene was going for) The whole series of conflict in this episode arises from Spock's divided nature. Spock although seemingly adopting the Vulcan way of life is caught short by his human half. If he was a pure Vulcan, he never would have joined Starfleet- at least not a mostly human ship and never would have brought humans to the intensively Vulcan courtship ritual and exposed them to danger in what was for them a wholly unfamiliar venue. Spock is completely thrown by the inner turmoil- when he ceases to be logical, he really ceases to be logical.
McCoy's whole existence in the series in the series is to show that Doctors are glorified mechanics so don't expect any bright ideas from him ("Dammit Jim! I had to kill you in order to save you!")
T'Pau's Eastern European accent is clearly a glitch in the Universal Translator (See earlier posts on this subject) Although she actually sounds like the wise old queen of leopard-men from ther old Tarzan movies.
This also really touches on the question of whether pureblood Vulcans don't have emotions, or suppress their emotions.
From ST:TOS and the earliest movies, the preponderence of evidence suggests that Vulcans biologically have emotions, and that their fundamental philosophy is that these emotions should be suppressed to something small, but not to zero. For example:
1. Sarek allows himself minor wry amusements, and is willing to admit to affection for his wife: this doesn't compromise his philosophy. But if he let that affection affect his judgment in political matters he would have failed.
2. Spock's fiancee and Stonn clearly dig each other, and this is clearly tinged with emotion. She succeeds in limiting her emotions, while Stonn doesn't always.
3. Spock, being half-human, has stronger emotions (or perhaps just has less powerful internal mind control to suppress them), and this causes him so much stress that he overcompensates by hating all of his own emotions.
4. Vulcan children (as shown in ST:TAS) are a lot more emotional than their parents. Deliberately learning emotional control is part of the passage to adulthood.
5. In the first movie, we see a group of Vulcans who want to 100% eliminate their emotions. They appear to be a small group. It's hard to tell if they are a fringe cult, or if they are more like Catholic or Buddhist monks, who remain a small minority in their cultures even though they may be respected by the majority.
If this theory is right, then perhaps the whole problem with Vulcan mating is that the urge is so strong that, when the philosophy of logic and emotion-suppression was invented by Surak, he said that they had to make an exception for mating rituals because most Vulcans simply could not control these urges.
Your original point (that Spock should have told Kirk) remains true. Or more generally, the Vulcans as a whole should have informed Starfleet, and this should be taught in the academy. Even if Spock himself thought he would be exempt, Kirk might someday have a full-blood Vulcan under his command, and so the academy needs to prepare him for this eventuality.
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