Daystrom Institute

675 readers

11 users here now

Welcome to Daystrom Institute!

Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.

Read more about how to comment at Daystrom.

Rules

1. Explain your reasoning

All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.

2. No whinging, jokes, memes, and other shallow content.

This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.

3. Be diplomatic.

Participate in a courteous, objective, and open-minded fashion. Be nice to other posters and the people who make Star Trek. Disagree respectfully and don’t gatekeep.

4. Assume good faith.

Assume good faith. Give other posters the benefit of the doubt, but report them if you genuinely believe they are trolling. Don’t whine about “politics.”

5. Tag spoilers.

Historically Daystrom has not had a spoiler policy, so you may encounter untagged spoilers here. Ultimately, avoiding online discussion until you are caught up is the only certain way to avoid spoilers.

6. Stay on-topic.

Threads must discuss Star Trek. Comments must discuss the topic raised in the original post.

Episode Guides

The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Vulcan Sex Workers (self.daystrominstitute)

submitted 1 year ago by qantravon to c/[email protected]

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It has occurred to me that Vulcan must have some form of sex industry to handle those going through Pon Farr who aren't currently married or otherwise involved. Otherwise, they'd have constant issues with violence from those suffering the "blood fever" whose spouse was far away, or had died, or for some other reason had no one to mate with.

Given Vulcan attitudes towards sex, it's probably kept out of sight, and is only "officially" available to those experiencing their "Seven Year Itch," but it has to exist, right?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] T156 2 points 11 months ago

So you’d be able to say that the Vulcan amygdala becomes hypertrophic during pon farr due to signaling by some other physical brain structure and activates the limbic system which itself becomes hypersensitive to stimulation and so on. So you can govern your pointy-eared patient some space Xanax, which increases the effectiveness of Vulcan GABA, which calms them down. Or using your advanced knowledge of physiology that no doubt extends down to the level of quantum effects, find another avenue of intervention.

Applying human neurobiology to Vulcans might not be too useful, since there are too many variables that come into play, from their telepathic abilities, to vastly different blood chemistry.

We know that at the very least, the Ponn Farr is more than just a simple neurochemical rush, at least in a way that makes it so that it isn't possible to safely suppress, or deal with via other methods. Otherwise, Voyager could have dealt with Tuvok's by giving him an epinephrine shot, rather than the somewhat complicated affair with a holodeck.