From that voyager episode with horny belana we learn that Vulcans are basically assigned a mate, so the chances are slim that a vulcan would need release without an outlet. And aside from that, the ponfarr can also be dealt with through meditation and discipline, probably particularly created for the situations you mention where there actually is no partner available.
Vorik and Tuvok both claim the problem can be dealt with through meditation, but both of them also fail to resolve the issue in this way, so we don’t know if that’s actually an effective treatment.
There’s also lots of ways a Vulcan could end up single, not to mention we’ve seen at least two instances of Vulcans rejecting their arranged marriages (T’Pol and T’Pring), so there’s no guarantee any given Vulcan has a mate, despite their customs.
In the T’Pring case, we also see that sex isn’t the only outlet. A fight to the death is just as effective, with Spock ending up not needing to bed T’Pring, having resolved his Ponn Farr by fighting Kirk.
While the cultural custom is a fight to the death, it is possible that some form of extended, high-stakes physical combat might be enough to relieve things, but Vulcan sensibilities might simply prevent them from choosing that as an option.
In “Sarek” from TNG melding with Picard resolves Sarek’s emotional control.
In this case, at least, it was less a cure, and more temporarily offloading it to someone else to deal with. Basically the equivalent of Lwaxana affecting the entire Enterprise when she was going through The Phase, or someone with an injured leg leaning on another person to use as a crutch. Except that Sarek was relying on Picard’s emotional processing capabilities.
Presumably his symptoms would return when he ended the psychic connection.
I always got the impression that Vulcan society operated similar to traditional Japanese or other societies where couples were “arranged” by families. Not sure about the one off cases though so maybe there is some kind of sex industry given the physiological toll if it’s not addressed in time
It does seem to be primarily on an arranged marriage system, but there are plenty of exceptions. Pairings that don’t come together for some reason, partners that die either due to age or accident, etc.
As I recall on Voyager with a little coaxing Tuvok was able to use the holodeck to get “relief” so I’d imagine the same goes for most vulcans who might be on long away missions
I’m not sure that it is. Voyager likely only went with the holodeck solution because they were stranded in the delta quadrant, and no other alternatives were available.
Within the Federation, a Vulcan who felt the Ponn Farr would take leave, like Spock tried to do, or couples would try to serve on the same ship/station together to minimise issues.
T’Lyn thinks it may be the result of a temporal wake, while Boimler thinks this should be brought to the attention of the Department of Temporal Investigations.
But if it never existed at all…well, there’s literally nothing lost.
But from an objective, non-linear perspective, the USS Leif Ericson did exist, before it was erased. A temporal agent with a timeline map would be able to follow the ship across its own personal timeline, until the point where it abruptly ends because the timeline it is currently in caused it to be erased.
It’s similar to the Federation and billions of Borg lives existing and not existing in First Contact, or any of the myriad times the Federation was erased by time travel, and then restored.
Spock just rolls with time travel ever since he went back, pretended he was his distant cousin, and saved his childhood self from venomous space wolves or whatever that was.
I mean once you have flight/hovering vehicles than practically the only transportation that doesn’t make obsolete is a bicycle for transporting someone a mile or two daily from their spaceship to a residence or wherever.
How is using a bicycle clumsy? I mean I get if people don’t like bicycles but honestly a bicycle is just fun to cruise around on, they are the opposite of clumsy.
Bicycles don’t necessarily need flat terrain, especially with electric bikes that have futuristic insanely efficient batteries.
Yes bicycles do best on trails but anywhere that has humanoids is going to have trails. Anywhere that has any kind of large animal is going to probably have some degree of path system as well. I don’t think it’s that big of an issue compared to any other kind of ground vehicle.
You sound like someone who has never ridden a bike through broken terrain.
I'll argue that the "flat" used by the comment above might be better taken on a more granular level. You can go up and down mountains just fine so long as there are no logs, large rocks, pits, or gullies that are in the way.
I was doing some D&D world building a while back and wanted to really dive into transportation of people/goods and found the same problem. Tenser’s Floating Disk is a very low level wizard spell that basically does away with all but the heaviest ships and carts.
It's the same for the trek universe. They have personal transportation methods that mean there's literally zero need for a bicycle for anything other than recreation.
Hell, Lower Decks opens with Mariner pushing around a hover cart full of stuff. It's literally the cold open of the entire series.
If you can have a hover cart like that, then why bother with a bike? Need to move stuff to a remote area? Get the hover cart, you don't need to cut a trail, just go over the obstacles. And that's if the transporter doesn't work if the first place to beam the people and equipment to a nearby area.
I was doing some D&D world building a while back and wanted to really dive into transportation of people/goods and found the same problem. Tenser’s Floating Disk is a very low level wizard spell that basically does away with all but the heaviest ships and carts. It’s the same for the trek universe. They have personal transportation methods that mean there’s literally zero need for a bicycle for anything other than recreation.
I mean, its all just “magic” at a certain point, they could do everything with a transporter… but they dont so presumably there are reasons not to (even though the real reason is it is a tv show). I have never seen hovercarts used prominently in the live action shows, especially not as a vehicle.
I agree, in my utopian future it’s possible to leisurely bike everywhere. Why hurry anywhere in a post-scarcity society when you can cruise around and take in the scenery?
It would be a matter of public health policy that people had some kind of access to a short, physical commute to whatever place they worked/spent their day at, right? That is at least how I rationalize why they just don’t teleport people everywhere. They COULD technically teleport everywhere all the time… but the mental and physical health consequences to not getting some kind of mild daily exercise like bicycling are too intense (also having some kind of short, stress free commute helps one get into the mindset of work anyways).
Its honestly because its not interesting to watch people beam down and bike all the time. Usually shit happens almost immediately after the beam anyway. But yeah where are my turbo maglift bikes.
They could just take bmx bikes and beam down right into the action though, maybe even in the middle of a sweet handlebar spin. Are you going to tell me you don’t want to see bmx star trek action?
They have meditations they can do with a group of fellow Vulcan's to help suppress the urge in the case of not being able to procreate with their mate. It comes up in Voyager.
Hold up: I lied. (I realized I was commenting on Daystrom and went to go get a source.)
I was thinking of…
DEANNA TROI’S CHOCOLATE OBSESSION
If there’s one thing that Counselor Troi knows, it’s chocolate. And this is one of her favorite drinks in the galaxy. An empathic concoction of raspberry liqueur, Kahlua, Bailey’s, and chocolate syrup.
Here’s the recipe for Raktajino:
RAKTAJINO
Klingon coffee. A frozen blend of mocha and cappuccino. An honorable drink to prepare any warrior for combat. Qapla!
That’s very strange, I’ve looked at a few recipes and never seen alcohol as an ingredient. It usually is just coffee with some spices, usually including cinnamon.
I’ve seen people suggest adding alcohol, but I think the idea is to simulate that Klingon coffee would have a sharpness or bite to it, rather than assuming that raktajino on the show would actually have alcohol. I played around with some recipes for fun and I actually mixed a few together and found something pretty delicious. I mix Turkish coffee, a small amount of whipped milk, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and a little honey.
I’m always reminded of Star Trek when I’m watching… Bond movies. The smorgasbord of over-the-top tech he’s using and the casual manner in which he keeps pulling them out at the right moment feels like should be right at home in the Federation.
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