Amok Time

[Mr. Atoz]

This has never been one of my favorite episodes, but I was watching it last night and I couldn't help noticing something. Spock is a Full Commander, meaning he's been in Starfleet for probably fifteen to twenty years. And this is the FIRST time he's experienced pon farr? What's up with that?

I was also thinking -- for every one million male Vulcans there are, every seven years 142,000 of them will be going into pon farr, or an average of 390 every single day! One can only assume that Spock's situation (the challenge) was an extremely rare occurance. Most of the time, I expect it would go like an ordinary wedding, just a brief ceremony and then get on with the boinking.

[Niemz]

Must be difficult to run a Vulcan brothel...

[Mr. Atoz]

In "This Side of Paradise", we learned that he had once had a love affair with Leila Kamani (if I remember the name correctly), long ago. This must have been when he was a lieutenant. Why didn't he have to go back to Vulcan then? I suppose it has something to do with Vulcans' incredibly long life spans. Maybe they don't reach puberty until they're 35 or something.

[Thallassa]

This was an intriguing episode to me because we were allowed a glimpse into Vulcan society. We know that Spock was always a very private individual, and it this hadn't happened to him, we would never have had an excuse to visit Vulcan.

T'Pring was a very calculating woman, almost what we would expect of a female Vulcan. No wonder Sarek prefered Amanda!

[Mr. Atoz]

Well, you have to put yourself in her place. Imagine being married to someone whose career in Starfleet is so important to him, he practically forgets that you even exist. And you know Spock would never have returned to Vulcan and settled down with her.

[Thallassa]

This brings up a point. You don't suppose that all Vulcans are married in this way as children, do you? My guess would be no, not any more than Humans arranged marriages in this day and age. I would suppose that Sarek arranged this, hoping to keep Spock on Vulcan (or to draw him back if he ever left). This mind meld with T'Pring could partly explain why the pon-farr struck Spock so hard.

[Mr. Atoz]

That's an interesting way of looking at it. It certainly seems reasonable, from what we know of Sarek, that he would pull a trick like that. (Although if I remember correctly, T'Pol on ENT was also the victim of an arranged marriage.)

So if most male Vulcans aren't paired off like this, pon-farr isn't really as dangerous or violent as we've been led to believe? This still doesn't explain why it took so long to hit Spock.