Two possible effects

[zvi]

I posted the below to my journal couple of days ago, and then realized the question was appropriate for this comm:

So, that whole thing where conventional Federation warp drives were tearing apart the fabric of space-time, but, it appears, some solution must have been found for the problem, since someone thought it was a idea to build Voyager, with a cruising speed above Warp 9. (The environmental impact of gasoline distortion of the fabric of space-time by conventional warp technologies was a big part of the plot of the finale of TNG.)

Does Spock Prime remember enough of the associated engineering to tell people (a) what the problem is and (b) how to fix it? Is the problem even fixable with 23rd century technology? Does the problem even exist with 23rd century technology? Will Spock Prime give advanced technology to Montgomery Scott again, or will he give Vulcan a technological advance which allows them to turn into a civilization of pirates couriers.

Then today I was reading anne_higgins' No-Win Scenario which is not particularly germane to this comm, but which mentions that the low-level species wide telepathy was putting the Vulcans into a tail-spin, and I wondered if a large number of people from a different telepathic species would be helpful or harmful.

What do y'all think of either or both ponderances?

Comments

[melannen]

The species-wide telepathic link with destroyed planet was pretty extensively explored in New Who fandom (where the species-wide telepathy was already more or less established canon, and the tailspins of the survivors were pretty bleeding obvious.)

I don't know whether the idea that's been showing up in Reboot fic is bleedover from Who fandom, or if it's independently generated out of similar circumstance, but I can't see it in ST fic without thinking back to DW.

Vulcans' telepathy is hard to figure out anyway, though, because we've got the Romulans - the last set of a few tens of thousands Vulcan exiles - who've somehow managed to lose the ability (which was fundamental to their biology and culture) in just a couple thousand years. There've been a bunch of different explanations of why and how that happened, and I can't help but wonder if some of them will apply to the last Vulcans, too.

[zvi]

My understanding is that the species' wide telepathy link is being explored in ST: AOS because of a secondary source novel wherein a Vulcan science vessel was destroyed and Spock could feel it, or something like that.

I confess, I never got deeply into New Who, so all of these issues are New To Me, although I think that there's a difference between being the sole survivor and part of an endangered species.

What I was actually wondering was, like, should Betazed send a whole bunch of counselors to help the Vulcans? It isn't clear if the loss of the dead Vulcans would be disorienting in a way that could be substituted for by other telepaths, or if the other telepaths would make things worse. I'm thinking disorienting on the order of moving from Denver to a lowlands area, or from a humid area to a desert, where it be unsettling in addition to all of the grief issues.

[illariy]

My understanding is that the species' wide telepathy link is being explored in ST: AOS because of a secondary source novel wherein a Vulcan science vessel was destroyed and Spock could feel it, or something like that.

It was actually in a TOS ep called "The Immunity Syndrome". A giant amoeba-like organism destroys the Intrepid, a Starfleet vessel staffed exclusively with Vulcans, and Spock kind of jerks back on the bridge, touches his head and then says in a dazed tone that the ship is gone and all Vulcans are dead. Or something like that. Kirk and McCoy think he's lost it and McCoy gets him to sickbay but can't find anything wrong with him. Spock is all, told you so, the pain was only momentary. They have a snarky exchange during with Spock tells McCoy that perhaps if humans, too, could feel the death of millions, they would've had a different history. He also seems to know somehow that the Vulcans never knew what killed them. Aww, what the heck, have a transcript. :-)

So that's part of the canonical evidence that all Vulcans are telepathically aware of each other.

Then there's the TOS ep "All Our Yesterdays", in which the big three accidentally travel in time. Spock and McCoy end up in an ice-age, about 5000 years in the past. Spock begins behaving strangely, eats meat, gets aggressive, flirts with a woman. McCoy figures out Spock's "reverting to his ancestors". It's never clearly explained why that should happen but fanon has it that it's because of that low-level link all Vulcans share, which at that time would have a lot of unrestrained emotion circulating around. But it's sort of speculative and it's *cough* a third season ep so make of that what you will.

I'm not familiar with TNG, DS9 and ENT to say if there's other canonical evidence or if they ever gave a more detailed explanation. From what there is, I think at the very least, all remaining Vulcans should have had a few moments of intense pain and disorientation. After that, I'm not sure. Spock bounced back quickly but that was "just" a couple hundred Vulcans. I do think it likely that many Vulcans would have problems. Many intriguing possibilities! *is an angst junkie*

[melannen]

I had completely forgotten the bit in "immunity syndrome" where Spocks hears voices crying out and being silenced! Okay, so it's canon in TOS too, just apparently was ignored for a long time. Though since Who and TOS origanally aired at the same time, I wouldn't be suprised if there was canon bleedover, too; the way the two shows drew their advanced, scientific, touch-telepathic, deeply conservative cultures with their half-human renegade-only-not has a lot in common, which I was noticing even before they both decided to destroy their home planets. :P

I had blocked out "All Our Yesterdays"; there's nothing more guaranteed to hit my embarrassment squick than "Vulcans losing control". (Though, oddly, Quinto!Spock doesn't trigger it nearly as much, maybe because it's obvious he was never quite as indoctrinated by passion's-mastery in that universe. Or maybe because he chews the scenery slightly less than Nimoy or Lenard...)

[illariy]

Just found this excerpt of Immunity Syndrome on youtube: Spock's reaction to the death of 400 Vulcans and his talk with McCoy

[zvi]

Oooh, thanks. (Although, Spock's assertion of Vulcan superiority on that front seems suspicious to me. Didn't it take the application of Sarekian philosophy to stop with the common killinatin' on Vulcan?) Also, I don't understand how I felt the death of a bunch of Vulcans translates to I know that not even the computer was expecting that.

But, then, you know, 60's tv, I'm not expecting so much. They startled the heck out of me with that sting when Spock felt it.

But, yes, definitely v. intriguing. And thanks for tracking down that clip!

[illariy]

Haha yes, definitely suspicious. There must have been other factors at play because if it brought them such pain to feel another die, they'd never have gone to the verge of extinguishing their own species.

Also, I don't understand how I felt the death of a bunch of Vulcans translates to I know that not even the computer was expecting that.

Well, I suppose you could handwave it as 'the Vulcan science officer had done all sensor sweeps and reading and stuff and even from the sum total of the computer output, it was completely unexpected'.

Or, which I prefer: there's something about a Vulcan's relationship with his computer that Spock hasn't been telling us. :P

The thing about TOS is that it was largely episodic so the whole thing has less cohesion than one might wish but on the other hand, it gives us lots of leeyway in interpretation and hours of fun trying to come up with explanations for some of the sillier things.

[thedrummertobeat]

I doubt Betazed would do anything, really, because the planet isn't part of the Federation until 2273 and would likely have no compulsion to do so. And there's no correlation between Deanna Troi being a counselor on TNG and counseling being a common or much-taken professional role on Betazed.

I do think it's doubtless that the Betazoids, like the Vulcans, would feel the, er, disturbance in the Force that the destruction of Vulcan caused. But I don't think they would offer to help, being a fairly insular people themselves. More likely Starfleet or Federation personnel would be sent, if they would be accepted in the first place, which I doubt.

I agree with melannen, though, that some of this is probably bleedover from the Whoverse; though I would argue that the Vulcan eugenics that gave rise to widespread Vulcan telepathy didn't preclude the specialization of particular telepathic/mind-generated skills. So I don't think it's out of the question that, in the pool of persons who departed from Vulcan to form the beginnings of the Rihannsu, telepathic abilities became largely dormant, particularly if the breeding program sanctioned by Vulcan marriage fell to the wayside and that level of genetic control was lost.

/nerding out

[zvi]

I didn't realize that Betazed was a relatively recent entry to the Federation! And I didn't particularly mean Betazed because I thought they were unusually like to be counselors, but because they were the first telepatic Trek species to come to my mind.

Er, Vulcan eugenics?

[thedrummertobeat]

Mainly lifted from Spock's World, but generally uncontradicted with the rest of Vulcan-related canon: in Vulcan's medieval period there began a concerted effort to elicit nascent psionic abilities in Vulcans, both through legitimate marriage contracts and the stealing of psi-enabled people for enforced breeding. It was that propagation that led to the greater telepathic &etc powers amongst the general population. Primitive, but effective.

[melannen]

I had forgotten it was canon! Although my sister and I did decide that some sort of "millions of voices crying out in terror, and suddenly silenced" thing was the only possible explanation for how Spock was supposed to witness the destruction of Vulcan from inside an ice cave.

I tend to think that the Vulcans will really pull inwards, and *away* from other cultures, whether it's logical or not; they're already pretty isolationist, sometimes irrationally so. Though being led by Spock, Sarek and T'Pau will help them reach out if anyone can, assuming they actually let Spock, Sarek and T'Pau lead them.

But yeah, losing the telepathic contact will be disorienting (on top of all the broken mating bonds...) I would bet they'd be better off avoiding other telepaths, though. Getting used to the silence surely is less disorienting than having to learn a whole new kind of noise. Although I can imagine a bunch of Betazoids pushing in and *trying* to help and making it worse.

I was actually thinking about this in terms of trying to bring Dr. Dehner and Gary Mitchell into the Epic Reboot Fixit - the human telepaths from the TOS pilot. Dr. Dehner & Spock had a couple of interesting non-conversations around Vulcans and humans and psi, I think. Though to be fair, Spock was very good at non-conversations at that point. There was at least one other human telepath Spock interacted with - in the episode with the Medusan - and there was some friction there, too, mostly around the issue of Spock being better at it. Though imagine the glory of Gary Mitchell deciding he needs to become psychic grief counselor the Vulcans...

I'm trying to remember if there are any humanoid telepaths other than Vulcans and Humans in TOS-era, and coming up blank, but I bet I'm missing something.

(What might be *really* interesting is if some of the psi-powered energy beings - Melkotians or Organians or Thasians, et al ad nauseum - decided to "help"...)

[templemarker]

I agree with all of this! I was going to say that SF would send counsellors, if anyone did, but I thought they would be largely rejected due to Vulcan's isolationist natures (which I believe will only increase tenfold as they look inward, to rebuilding their race, rather than outward, once more).

[templemarker]

Oh, and also--apparently Spock Prime was left with some kind of telescopic device so he could watch the implosion. It was in the original draft of that exposition scene, but was cut out because it was too long. But, you know, telepathic rendering of emotional turmoil works too.