posted
And I don't even remember the name of the episode, Enterprise has made so minor a blip on my radar screen. But it's the one where she undergoes premature pon farr (and forgive me if this has been talked to death already, I couldn't find any threads on the subject)...
When (before now, obviously) was it established that Vulcan females also go through pon farr?
--Jonah
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It wasn't. Though there was that VOY ep where Torres gets a dose of it from that Vulcan engineer. But that doesn't really mean anything.
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Not really spoilers anymore...but this (and the Tellerites) were both see in "Bounty". T'Pol got her ponfaar prematurely 'triggered' by some microbe on the planet that they were surveying.
So evidently the gurlz need to get it too....
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Did they actually call it "pon farr" in the ep? All the mentions I can think of say "pon farr" "Vulcan males" "every seventh year of their adult lives". If females have to go through "pron fer" every nine years instead, it might be worth the distinction. Oh, and Peter David's little universe has Vulcan females undergoing pon farr same as the males, presumably because it makes little sense for just the males to have such a condition when its stated cause also applying to females.
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T'POL: They're normal for a Vulcan in my condition.
PHLOX: You know what's wrong with you?
T'POL: It's not something we discuss with others.
PHLOX: I believe it's time for you to amend that policy. You have my assurance it will remain between us.
T'POL: We call it the pon farr, the cycle of mating.
PHLOX: Have you gone through this before?
T'POL: It's not time.
PHLOX: It's possible the infection acted as a catalyst.
T'POL: What caused it doesn't matter. If I don't mate with a male, Vulcan or otherwise, I'll die.
So, yeah, pon farr it is. While there has never been a mention of females entering pon farr before, there has also never been a mention of them not.
quote:From "Fusion" KOV: Vulcan males are driven to mate once every seven years.
Now, Kov was male and talking to two human males, so he wasn't neccessarily saying females don't have the drive. Alternately, perhaps the male's drive triggers the female telepathically, through their childhood bond. In any case, as we see below, this was actually the only time anyone specified a gender...
quote:From "Amok Time" SPOCK: We shield it with a ritual... and customs shrouded in antiquity. You humans have no conception. It strips our minds from us. It brings a madness which rips away... our veneer of civilization. It is the pon farr: the time of mating. There are precedents in nature, Captain; the giant eel-birds of Regulus Five, once each 11 years... they must return to the caverns where they hatched. On your earth, the salmon... they must return to that one stream... where they were born... to spawn... or die in trying.
KIRK: But you're not a fish, Mr. Spock. You're--
SPOCK: No. Nor am I man. I'm a Vulcan. I'd hoped I would be spared this, but the ancient drives are too strong. Eventually, they catch up with us, and we are driven by forces we cannot control... to return home and take a wife... or die.
Spock, in the original pon farr episode, never says it is a male-only drive. T'Pring had probably already had sex with Stonn, explaining her calm at the koon-ut kal-if-fee.
quote:From "The Cloud Minders" DROXINE: You only take a mate once every seven years?
SPOCK: The seven-year cycle... is biologically inherent in all Vulcans. At that time, the mating drive outweighs all other motivations.
DROXINE: And is there nothing that can disturb that cycle, Mr. Spock?
SPOCK: Extreme feminine beauty... is always... disturbing, madam.
Not exactly a high point of the series, but Spock does explicitly say that pon farr affects all Vulcans.
quote:From "Blood Fever" DOCTOR: You're going through the Pon farr, aren't you?
VORIK: That's an extremely personal question, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Yes, I'm aware that Vulcans prefer to keep their mating practices very much to themselves. There's almost nothing in the medical database beyond a few observations made by Starfleet doctors over the years. Your symptoms, the chemical imbalance and loss of emotional control are consistent with those observations. Have you been eating and sleeping normally?
VORIK: I knew there was something wrong. I was hoping it wasn't this.
DOCTOR: I assume this is your first Pon farr? There's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's a normal biological function. I'll do what I can to help you through it, but I'll need a little more information.
VORIK: We do not discuss it.
DOCTOR: I'm afraid you'll have to. You have a severe imbalance in your brain chemistry. If it gets much worse, it could become life threatening. Now I need to know how Vulcans deal with this condition.
VORIK: We go home. Every seven years of our adult life, Vulcans experience an instinctual irresistible urge to return to the homeworld and take a mate.
Again, Vorik says that Vulcans in general feel the drive, not only males.
quote:From Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Saavik: Pon farr. Vulcan males must endure it every seventh year of their adult life.
This is similar to the Kov statement above. Saavik was explaining to David what was happening to Spock, a male. It was probably a mistake, though, by someone who didn't see "The Cloud Minders."
I don't know if there was ever a Tuvok pon farr episode, but if there was, I don't have the script, closed captions, or a transcript, so I'm afraid I can't dig up any quotes.
[ May 29, 2003, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: Ryan McReynolds ]
posted
The only reference to Tuvok's pon farr in VGR to my recollection is in "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" when The Doctor is singing during the teaser.
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Tuvok's pon farr was dealt with in the seventh season in an utterly forgettable B-plot. Basically, he gets his rocks off with a holo-wife and Paris' help. Problem solved.
You forgot to add the help of the (unseen) Voyager janitor who had to clean the emitters after the program ended...
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Shik
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DOCTOR: I assume this is your first Pon farr? There's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's a normal biological function. I'll do what I can to help you through it, but I'll need a little more information.
Hahahaha....treating pon farr like masturbation. I love it.
The Puritans would've loved the Vulcan piety of logic.
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The real question is, as old as T'Pol is supposed to be, why hasn't she ever gone through pon farr before? In "Amok Time", Spock was only in his 30s, and it was obviously the first time for him, since he wasn't already married to T'Pring yet. I believe T'Pol is supposed to be quite a bit older than her mid-30s.
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T'Pol's statement doesn't seem to be saying that this is her first time. She seems to be dodging the question, actually.
Incidently, uh, I'm not sure why a, um, manual override wouldn't work. I mean, she wanted to have sex with Phlox, and if it's a biochemical thing he's probably got as much in common with Vulcans as something that has very little in common with anything. But, then you wouldn't have much of an episode.
I wonder if a species could actually survive if it only reproduced every seven years. Of course, D. C. Fontana, I think, suggested that, at the time of "Amok Time," it wasn't the intention to suggest that was the only time Vulcans had sex. So who knows?
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The only other Vulcan 'emotions' episode in Voyager was "Gravity" (which I always thought was ponfarr related until the 7th season came around) with Tuvok and his 'close encounter' with Noss...
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when DC was writing her novel, Vulcans Glory, she included some Vulcan hanky-panky specifically to refute her claim that mating was possible between cycles. .basically, every seven years they MUST mate, but in between the can mate if they so desire.. logic precludes that a lot of the time time, but obviously its up to the couple.. (some Vulcs are better at controlling themselves than others, i can easily see some finding a logical reason to do it just cuz it feels good.. theyarent a cookie cutter species, some of the mcan be horndogs if they want to..)
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