pkrosche

 I’m becoming, to be quite honest, increasingly worried about the state of the collective Trek fandom and how invested a lot of people already are (for or against) in SNW. I hope you see that this is coming from a place of compassion (and truth be told, some bafflement) and a desire to provide some levity to a very high-emotion situation.

I do not mean to upset or offend anyone, but just want to provide y'all that are angry about the casting decision with a few points that may be worth thinking on and remembering:
 

1. Physical appearance can’t be changed/helped most of the time and in comparison to, say, the MCU’s typical expectations of their male actor’s bodies, this is a huge step in the right direction. To my best understanding, casting directors don’t focus too much on the overall physical appearance that can’t be changed (like a jawline) so long as the performance is what they’re looking for. Hair color, eye color, etc can be modified a bit here and there, along with overall body shape, but they’re more concerned with how well the acting is.
2. Judging an actor’s ability to perform in a specific role based on their previous body of work only gets you so far and doesn’t preclude their ability to pull it off. The cliché and mostly useless “don’t judge a book by its cover” comes to mind. But also remember that most acting decisions these days are made by the director (or the editor choosing one take over another after filming has finished) and not by the actors in front of the camera. This was not the case in the past when actors had more control over their characters in general. (Granted, directing styles exist on a spectrum, but I’m speaking about the general trends here.)
3. Being a fan especially beholden by TOS “canon” events and timelines is a dangerous road to travel. The literal hundreds of people making decisions about SNW largely do not care about what is canon and what is not and also likely don’t care if the show they’re making is considered apart of that canon or not. Paramount will be making some official statement (if they haven’t already) stating if SNW fits into the general Trek canon, which it is likely to, in my opinion (because it doesn’t make much logical sense if it doesn’t just from a franchise point of view). If only to drum up more controversy and interest (see point 5). The people who are making the decisions in a production are going to shoot for the middle of the road most of the time, to bring in as many viewers as they can. Because this is a business venture, not a passion project. They’re looking to make money and bring in new fans to the franchise (even if it’s not for this new show) while minimizing the number of people who refuse to watch anything about it.
4. They’re not making a rebranded TOS show. They have the freedom of technology to take things farther than TOS even believed could be possible in their wildest dreams back in the 1960s. So the stories are going to be different and the characters are going to be made to match, but with familiar names. But they will not be the same characters.
5. The promo picture for season 2 announcing this casting decision was chosen with extreme fucking care with every detail revealed within it purposefully present and (far fetched conspiracy theory incoming!) was meant to insight controversy amongst fans to drum up viewers. Because even hate watching contributes to the numbers and thus their bottom line. So if you really want to piss Paramount off and make them sweat a little, stop talking about it. (This will also keep those who are excited about this casting decision and the show more generally from wading through this negativity.)

Just remember at the end of the day, whatever you want to consider canon and however you want to interact with the world at large (and fandom more specifically) is within your control. Block tags and people and log off of sites if you’re getting upset. Visit new internet spaces that are apart from Trek if you need a break, or reread your favorite fanfiction or stare at your favorite fanart for a while to regain some balance.

Take care of yourselves and remember: no one can take away TOS and everything it means to you. It’s in the past, and it’s not going anywhere. And also remember that no matter how much you yell and scream that you’re not happy about something with SNW? You’re yelling into the void. They don’t care. And that should be freeing! Let them make whatever they’re going to make and refocus your energy into something more productive and positive.
 

Take care of yourselves out there.

 Not to trample all over everyone’s fun times with science and medicine in scifi, but….

The “interview” between Gene and Sarek has been living rent free in my mind for weeks now (thanks @spockfan 😆 on Tumblr) which you can experience for yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlEsIacuOts
 

Content warning for this post: abortion, miscarriage, fertility issues, and a whole lot of bs science talk.

Okay, so just leaving aside the whole premise of this interview and the fact that it opens with Gene just yeeting an Ambassador from the Vulcan Embassy to wherever he is and disregarding the very real possibility that Gene was crafting a situation in which misinformation could be disseminated (TMP footnote, I’m looking at you)…this is just a friendly conversation between a movie man and an alien about how he has sex with his wife. Lmao.

There are three main points I’d like to touch on that were brought up in this interview:

1. The fetus Spock was conceived normally but removed at one month of gestation before being returned to Amanda’s uterus after two months to be removed again at nine months.
2. Vulcan males in the throes of pon farr rely pretty heavily on their mates.
3. Sarek and Amanda remained on Vulcan despite knowing how hard it was for Spock.

Tackling that first point, it’s odd to me that it was specified by Sarek the fetus Spock had to be removed from Amanda at one month gestation, as “the fetus is unable to continue life once it begins to develop its primary organs.” Supposedly this could be due to the differences in blood composition between Vulcans and Humans, except the placenta ensures that blood of the person with the uterus doesn’t mix with the blood of the fetus (that’s how the gestating parent can (and often does) have a different blood type from their progeny). Granted, that’s whole blood, or at least red blood cells. But we know antibodies cross the placenta and so do hormones and other small molecules (ie nutrients), so what is it about Vulcan blood that makes it incompatible with Human blood, or vice versa? Unknown.

Could potentially be down to the antibodies and nutrients and hormones, though, if not something completely different. Conceptually, making a whole person out of two individual cells that become one cell to become millions of billions of cells is a delicate and complicated process. Could also be nothing (ie fancy scifi hand waving to make it sound high-tech and futuristic). Because there’s no reason that development of the organs at one month would be a line that must be crossed to ensure proper development of the fetus. Especially considering most spontaneous abortions in Humans occur before twenty weeks of gestation, not just within the first four. We also have a decently good handle on the types of things that can cause abortions in Humans (illness, infection, some environmental conditions, etc) but most of them are due to chromosomal abnormalities that aren’t congruent with life. Just from the combination of egg and sperm or from some other mutation that occurs, without any way to really predict how or when a fetus will abort. And is a separate set of situations from infertility, previous aborted pregnancies not being a good marker for if an individual is infertile, after all.

While residing in the test tube, fetal Spock was subjected to “delicate chemical engineering” wherein over a hundred subtle changes were introduced that they hoped “would sustain life.” Once again, what were those changes? Unknown. Did they have the intended effect? Also unknown. Side note: “over a hundred” isn’t a lot, assuming it’s between one hundred and two hundred, just sayin’.

But, I’d like to think that Sarek’s strange blood type (which Spock inherited) was instrumental in Spock surviving, even more so than the changes that were introduced while he was a test tube baby. Perhaps that strange blood type confers a mutation that made his Vulcan blood composition more alike that of Humans. Perhaps it contains a Human Rh-like factor that was beneficial in those early days of gestation. Or perhaps it’s got something more to do with the battery of hormones that come from the placenta that a fetus requires for proper development. Unknown.

And why just two months outside the womb? Fetal Spock would have been returned to Amanda before his skeleton ossified (assuming it happened for him around the same time as Human fetuses), but tissue, brain stem, and further organ development taking place in the test tube seems…unnecessary, again, as does removing him at one month gestation in the first place. However, removing fetal Spock at one month gestation does suggest that the spontaneous abortions that had been observed previously must have happened around that time, which points to the need to remove the fetus to a controlled environment at that specific time. (And less because the majority of Human spontaneous abortions typically occur before twenty weeks of gestation.) Which is all well and good, I just don’t see what organ development has to do with it.

This also has nothing to say about what they did to Amanda to keep her uterus a viable place to re-implant the now three month gestated fetal Spock back into her. Like, did they remove the whole placenta? Or just the little ball of cells named Spock? How tf would you even go about putting a fetus back??? (And just, as someone with a uterus who never wants to experience pregnancy, this sounds even more absolutely horrific, no thanks.) And ALSO doesn’t speak to the removal of the fetus Spock at nine months gestation for him to finish his development in an artificial womb situation…which makes the AOS deleted scene of Amanda giving birth a bit curious…

Now, it’s entirely possible to consider the chemical engineering that was performed on explanted fetal Spock had less to do with gestation in a Human and more to do with life outside the womb after birth. Hard to say given the limited amount of information forthcoming from Sarek though. And being unversed in Vulcan immunology and stress response systems, I can’t really conjecture on that. BUT, given the general lack of instances in TOS where Spock reacts differently to a given stimulus in comparison to his Human crewmates, I have to believe that Vulcan immune systems function similarly to that of Humans. And they result in similar levels of specificity and sensitivity to outside invaders, thereby providing a similar level of protection for Spock in comparison to the Humans on board the Enterprise and elsewhere.

But again, we don’t have much exposure to other Vulcans in TOS, so is it possible that there are differences between Spock (a Vulcan/Human hybrid) and full Vulcans and full Humans? Sure. Could be. I’d hesitate to put too much stock in McCoy’s grumblings about Spock being a freak of nature, though, as there’s plenty of evidence in the show that McCoy knows what he’s doing and that while Spock is generally hush hush about his own health, it’s not to the point where McCoy can’t figure things out on his own if need be.

There’s also the possibility of epigenetics playing a role, specifically with Spock. As Sarek was ambassador to “other Federation planets” for almost 30 years before Spock’s birth, many of them taking place on Earth would mean his exposure rate to Terran contaminants and particles would be exponentially higher than that of other Vulcans who had never set foot on Earth before. Epigenetic changes to Sarek’s genome as a result of his time on Earth and living with an Earth Woman could then be heritable traits he passed on to Spock, thereby resulting in his immune system reacting to threats more like a Human born on Earth would, as opposed to a Vulcan who had lived their entire life on their home planet, surrounded by other Vulcans who also have lived their entire lives on their home planet.

I’d also argue there’s enough evidence to suggest Vulcan and Human immune systems are more compatible than not, however, given they can all be on the same ship and occupying the same space (along with several other humanoids of the galaxy) and not suffer immediate death as a result of infection or something. Also since there’s never any mention of action needing to be taken before interacting with those other beings of the galaxy. For me, this also feeds into that theory of “the galaxy was seeded with humanoid life by a common ancestor” which I personally do really like.

This theory also has the added benefit of providing me with additional support that Spock is not the first nor the only descendent of Vulcan and Human parents. And indeed, in the interview, Sarek states plainly that Spock was not the first Vulcan/Human hybrid, but the first to survive. Suggesting others before him had possibly aborted at the end of the first month of gestation, or that they could not survive those last few additional months required for Vulcan development (but are beyond what a Human could withstand for gestation and parturition), or even that life outside the womb was not conducive to survival.

Alternatively (and my favorite interpretation), Sarek is just being obtuse here and purposefully misleading Gene. Given the treatment of Spock on Vulcan as a child, it wouldn’t surprise me if Sarek is looking to protect any other hybrid kids out there whose full parentage is not known. Because, as I’ll talk more about in point three, despite Vulcans believing in IDIC, they really did not like Spock existing.

The second point from the interview feeds in pretty perfectly to a long-held headcanon I’ve had about pon farr. Which is that the male loses all control, thereby rendering them incapable of conscious decisions and completely reliant on the bond with their mate. Sarek giving a lot of credit to Amanda for withstanding the throws of pon farr feels both like someone trying to shift focus away from themselves and their taboo culture norms and also as a hint that the bonds between mates is more than what Gene currently thinks they are.

You might be thinking at this point, “PK, you seem to be reading a lot into this.” To which I’d like to answer, “You bet your booty I am.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love all interpretations of pon farr and will not snub my nose at any of them or any of your personal headcanons, gentle reader. But it just fits so nicely with how I’ve always interpreted Vulcan mating bonds to work that I couldn’t help but point it out. However, that’s all I’ll say on this topic because this is already way too long.

For the third point, I just wanted to bring attention to the idea that Sarek and Amanda knew how difficult Spock’s upbringing was on Vulcan which makes me wonder again if Sarek’s stated reasons in the interview can really be taken at face value. For instance, if the whole plan was to further Vulcan and Human relations through marriage and progeny (like it’s been on Earth since the dawn of humanity), then wouldn’t it be better to have that progeny seen and live out in the galaxy? Like, as a member of Starfleet, for example?

Something to think about.

(I will not fully derail this post into a deep dive on Sarek, I will not! But…maybe one day.)

 

Anyway, I’ll end my ramblings here but one day might just be convinced to continue writing them out as it really is fun to pick apart the science and medicine of scifi, especially with Trek, since I feel they get by with a lot of hand waving. And I guess I’m tired of letting it slide, lol.

Do you have any different headcanons you’ve created from the hints of science in Trek? Are you an expert in Human fetal development and have knowledge that totally derails everything I’ve written out above? Are you interested in having sciency discussions on the regular?

Don’t be shy – come say hi! Either here or on Tumblr or on discord! (And tell me how stupid I’ve been in my ramblings above, if you can refute something, please, I welcome your scientific critique.)