Reconstructing Vulcan families

[beatrice_otter]

We all know Vulcans have elaborate family clan structures, right?  And a lot of the survivors won't have any family left.  I've been thinking about that, how they'll probably band together to form clans/families from whatever fragments are left, so a lot of clans won't survive even if there are survivors from the clan, because they'll just get absorbed.

I realized I'm thinking about this too much like a human.  Vulcans live twice as long as we do; they probably have a fertile period twice as long, as well.  Raise one batch of kids as children of one clan, and once they're out of the house, raise another batch of kids as children of the other.  Bingo, both clans preserved, and you have a population explosion as well, which they need.

Comments

[melannen]

I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it works anyway, or at least, if there are mechanisms in place for it. Based on the fact that the Clan structures appear to be matriarchal, and yet Sarek and Spock both stayed with T'Pau's house.

(...although I suppose the other possibility is that Vulcan clans are *strictly* matrilocal, and T'Pau simply adopted Amanda in order to get around the problem of offworld women having no clan.

...now I want that story. And that story as applied to post-Reboot reconstruction.)

[beatrice_otter]

Or it's possible that there's some complicated formula, where the lower status person joins the higher status clan, or maybe if its an eldest child marrying a younger child, they join the eldest child's house, or things like that.

...Okay, now I'm thinking about Spock. Who, when he was betrothed to T'Pring, was a younger son, because Sybok hadn't been cast out yet iirc. So, what if everyone was expecting him to join T'Pring's clan, and then Sybok is cast out and all of a sudden Spock is an only son, so she would have to leave her own clan to join his. Which, if she's not that thrilled with the idea of marrying him to begin with, is just salt in the wound. Put her not wanting to be "the consort of a legend" in that context ... there's a story there. Which I Am Not Writing, because I have too much else to do.

(but I want the story about T'Pau adopting Amanda, and how that stuff works out post-Reboot, as well, please write it!)

[medie]

Yeah, Clans and then houses within those clans. I think they'd definitely want to maximize birth numbers (possibly utilizing the DNA database that Enterprise said they keep. Every Vulcan's dna sampled at birth. Security wise, I can see them keeping that backed up offworld and would be a logical way to ensure viability of clans and individual houses. They'd have access to the dna of every member born into them) so designating one child then the other to represent whatever house/clan would be a practical choice.

It's a possibility that you might see the Clans choosing to arrange inter-clan marriages between the houses so as to preserve the Clan as well. The houses seem to be more the lineage of prominent members so they might not be as tied to the preservation of those as they are the clan itself as it might not be uncommon to see those die out and be replaced by others over the generations.

Surak's house would be one of the few that would be the exception to that, but that's speculation as the only women we've ever seen marry into it, Amanda and Saavik, were without any kind of lineage on Vulcan. Amanda having no Vulcan relations and Saavik choosing not to search out hers, so there's not much to go on in terms of evidence.

[beatrice_otter]

That's an interesting take on houses vs. clans, and I like it.

[medie]

I have spent an embarrassing amount of time contemplating this stuff. *g* Or rather, it would be embarrassing if I didn't glee shamelessly over it all.

[beatrice_otter]

I know exactly what you mean!