Enterprise: Borderland

[CMWaters]

clearspira: You're judging the strength thing as if Big Show's character was human. Orions weren't seen that much in the show, so we don't know their strength level compared to a Vulcan...on average, an Orion male could be as strong to a Vulcan female as a normal human male is to a normal human female. The anger thing I'll agree with, but comparing the strength thing needs more data.

Also, I'll let the "You thing a guy who pushes people around all day would wear a cup" line slide from Chuck because he's not a pro-wrestling fan and doesn't realize that, story wise, NO wrestler seems to wear a cup. Just look at the current feud between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura for that

I may be wrong, but I don't think that was a wrestling reference, but more a "hey, buddy; you spend all day within kicking distance of people you are trying to enslave. There is a certain inevitability about what is going to happen here."
That is a good point about Orion V Vulcan strength that I concede though.

Oh I know it wasn't most likely a wrestling reference. But as a wrestling fan I do have to point out something like that anyway.

[Hero_Of_Shadows]

Regarding T'Pol while I do find the story of her father being an undercover Romulan really interesting (did it end up happening in one of the novels ?) I don't see how it helps the T'Pol logic "problem".

Bear with me here, to say that T'pol is less logical more emotional because she is not fully Vulcan is to say that there is something in the Vulcan genes that makes them inherently logical and less emotional.

Which there isn't.

Time and time again we've been shown that Vulcans have great emotional intensity, greater than humans actually.

Yet they keep those emotions under control, now is that emotional control biological is their reliance on logic inherent in their genes ?

No, the Vulcans nearly destroyed themselves just like the humans did, no logic or emotional control there to speak off because if modern Vulcans have it then those Vulcans that nearly destroyed themselves would have had it.

You can of course see where I'm going, their use of logic their emotional control it's cultural it's taught sorry for taking so long to get to this point.

Thus why T'pol being Vulcan/Romulan wouldn't have mattered to "the problem" she would have been raised as a normal Vulcan and would have been taught the same as all the others.

I used "problem" in quotation marks because I don't really see this as a problem, T'pol isn't Spock that's not a problem for me:

T'pol was born in a different time than Spock.

She learned a different philosophy than him (it's a plot point that Vulcans have been following an altered version of the philosophy)

She had a different career (was briefly a spy)

It would have been a problem if she did act like Spock.

And as an aside I really like Arik for the most petty reason, I'm playing a ST game on mobile where you collect different characters from the shows and have them go on missions and etc and I was missing a really strong science character then I got Arik from an Augments themed event and that solved all my problems.

Funny enough my strongest crew in the game are from ENT mostly Arik, North Star Archer (he looks like this), T'pol with Pon-Farr Spock being the only exception.

[clearspira]

Regarding T'Pol while I do find the story of her father being an undercover Romulan really interesting (did it end up happening in one of the novels ?) I don't see how it helps the T'Pol logic "problem".

Bear with me here, to say that T'pol is less logical more emotional because she is not fully Vulcan is to say that there is something in the Vulcan genes that makes them inherently logical and less emotional.

Which there isn't.

Time and time again we've been shown that Vulcans have great emotional intensity, greater than humans actually.

Yet they keep those emotions under control, now is that emotional control biological is their reliance on logic inherent in their genes ?

No, the Vulcans nearly destroyed themselves just like the humans did, no logic or emotional control there to speak off because if modern Vulcans have it then those Vulcans that nearly destroyed themselves would have had it.

You can of course see where I'm going, their use of logic their emotional control it's cultural it's taught sorry for taking so long to get to this point.

Thus why T'pol being Vulcan/Romulan wouldn't have mattered to "the problem" she would have been raised as a normal Vulcan and would have been taught the same as all the others.

I used "problem" in quotation marks because I don't really see this as a problem, T'pol isn't Spock that's not a problem for me:

T'pol was born in a different time than Spock.

She learned a different philosophy than him (it's a plot point that Vulcans have been following an altered version of the philosophy)

She had a different career (was briefly a spy)

It would have been a problem if she did act like Spock.

And as an aside I really like Arik for the most petty reason, I'm playing a ST game on mobile where you collect different characters from the shows and have them go on missions and etc and I was missing a really strong science character then I got Arik from an Augments themed event and that solved all my problems.

Funny enough my strongest crew in the game are from ENT mostly Arik, North Star Archer (he looks like this), T'pol with Pon-Farr Spock being the only exception.

I agree with your points about Romulan genes gaining properties to affect Vulcan emotions that they shouldn't logically have... but I still think that this would have been much less of a plot hole than the bumpy foreheads that the Romulans acquired in TNG. They come out of NOWHERE, are never explained unlike the Klingon make-up change, and if we take the "they always had bumpy foreheads" approach that Gene originally did with the Klingons (which is supported by the Enterprise episode "The Aenar"), then that shoots a huge hole into the racism and not letting go moral of "Balance of Terror" because Spock barely looks half as much like them now bearing in mind just how many aliens in the Star Trek universe have bumpy foreheads and dodgy haircuts. Hell, this last part is even supported by "Who Watches the Watchers" where a race that is explicitly stated to be an offshoot of the Vulcans and not the Romulans ALSO have bumpy foreheads.

And the worse thing about this is that I am one of the worst offenders when it comes to getting triggered about the retcons on STD, and yet TNG pulled some massive ones themselves and it forces me to admit that I am a hypocrite for not getting triggered about those ones in the same way.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I think the connection between Romulans and Vulcans was somewhat ruined by the changes that both those species underwent in the TNG era. It's up for debate what a totally logical society would look like and how emotion and passion would tend to play out in such a culture, but I think TOS sets it up in a pretty interesting way, and the connection between the Romulans and Vulcans make sense when you consider the original traits of both.

In Journey to Babel, Sarek isn't upset with Amanda with Spock for feeling emotion (embarrassment) when McCoy and Amanda tease him about the "teddy bear" he had as a kid. Sarek is upset with Amanda for embarrassing him. In my opinion, the reason for this is because dignity and nobility are inextricably linked to the Vulcan view of logic... heck, I would argue that dignity is even more fundamental to TOS vulcans. Their ritualistic behavior sure isn't logical, but it is carried out with personal dignity and integrity on all parts.

TOS Romulans are obsessed with duty and honor and place high value on nobility. It's easy to see how these two races are cousins. In the TNG era that connection isn't as clear, since the Romulans put on the "sneaky/traitorous" hat.


To get to the point though- I think the fact that they were considering retconning T'Pol to half-Romulan shows that there really were issues with her character in many episodes. And I think those issues arose out of a misunderstanding of just what makes Vulcans tick. After all, it's not like other Vulcans fare any better in Enterprise- their defining traits are haughtiness and arrogance.

[Killerbee256]

Cultures change, by TNG it's been 100 years, they went from mostly ignoring the federation to having more and more relations. Weird make up changes aside I like the the slow changes from the TOS era through the movies into TNG. It made the Universe fell more alive, at least until it ossified following the end of enterprise.

[Darth Wedgius]

I'd rather the big guy had mocked her for not being able to reach high enough for a proper pinch, then have her kick him below the Orion's belt, then he doubles over, then pinch him, with a calmer "Logic provides an answer" or such in there.

If T'Pol had been half-Romulan it might have helped. If it was mostly the Vulcans who just couldn't do the emotional control thing became Romulans, that trait might be reinforced.

I too found Tim Russ's Tuvok one of the best portrayals of a Vulcan. As an aside, he was in Spaceballs, where he reported that "We ain't found shit." I didn't recognize him.

And I did like the sympathetic villain in Arik Soong. He feels his progeny (kinda sorta) are being treated unfairly; it's a good motivation to do what you feel you have to do.

[bluejeans]

(On Archers' non-speech) "Not one stupid metaphor, not one puffed-up bit of tripe? This really is under new management!"

[Hero_Of_Shadows]

I have to admit that the TOS version of the Romulans (the honorable yet passionate Roman-like warriors) are my favorite and the "best version" the one that in my head canon are the ideal despite only appearing in 2 episodes versus the much more numerous appearances of the TNG+ Romulans.

That is not to say that I can't accept the Romulans having both honorable warriors and sneaky spies within their ranks, the dichotomy and inner conflict would do much to help flesh out the species.

If there was one thing in TNG onward that I absolutely did not like and would retcon in an instant if it were up to me, it would be Garak's little speech about how the Romulan heart is gray.

Granted you can say that is just Garak's own biases but it also seems like the DS9 writers talking to the audience.

A great point regarding Vulcans and Romulans and their approaches to nobility, now that you've pointed it out it works very well with their TOS portrayal.

About their make-up I feel like the one without the bump is better, because having such an easy visual cue that one is Romulan or Vulcan goes against the theme of Balance of Terror.

And the 2009 movie took us back to Vulcan-like Romulans again

PS: TOS Romulan uniforms are the best, purple > gray.

[Madner Kami]

The tale of a geneticist Soong at the centre of a supersoldier crisis based on the TNG character name "Noonien" is technically a "small universe" story, but it is also pretty much exactly what Enterprise needed at the time - a much stronger connection to the rest of Star Trek, and actually paying attention to the details

Gene-Soong being so brilliant and visually identical to Positron-Soong never really bothered me for a simple reason: He's a geneticist and not just a random geneticist, he's probably quite literally the father of the genetics going on in Earth's later history. He knows how to fiddle with genes and he has little scruples to fiddle with genes, so it's easy to believe, that he either fiddles with his own genes or his biological children's genes, creating offspring with a tendency to look similar or even alike, thanks to elimination of certain "unncessary" genes in favour of genes that improve him or his children or just plain narcism, which would also neatly explain how Positron-Soong could be so outstandingly brilliant.

[Worffan101]

I honestly loved Chuck's commentary on genetic augmentation. I've literally written fanfic about augment characters from the same perspective, and it's gratifying to see my favorite reviewer agree with me. XD

Also, the line about Archer's speech as part of the suddenly not-shit writing made me laugh out loud.