crystalswolf wrote:I think it's unfortunate that we haven't seen a male trapped in a betrothal and having to face a loveless marriage because he loves someone else.
I wondered that about Sarek. At least, I did until *cough*the monstrosity that was*cough* Star Trek V, when it was explained that Sarek had been previously married, then became a widower long before meeting Amanda.
If you ignore that bit now that the reboot movie has happened, surely Sarek would still have been bonded to someone when he was seven years old? How then would he have dealt with getting out of that in order to marry Amanda, which he admitted he did out of love?
crystalswolf wrote:As for the TnT bond during the marriage, I just always thought that T'Pol and Koss had their bond since childhood that slowly weakened as time passed and she formed another bond with Trip that grew as time passed, perhaps even overpowering her bond with Koss (except, of course, in The Understanding where it was absorbed into the TnT bond).
Something I'm using in my fiction now is to assume that T'Pol and Koss never had a childhood psychic bond because of cultural change over time on Vulcan:
I.e. the creation of a low-level bond between the bethrothed children, by a priest, was common practice in pre-Awakening times. It slowly went out of favor and eventually became seen as archaic, under the same cultural circumstances and reasons that mind melds apparently became thought of as 'deviant'.
In that case, the childhood betrothal ceremony in T'Pol's day might no longer include the actual creation of a psychic bond and, in fact, might be seen as something that only the Syrannites would still practice. Once T'Pau comes to power, there's another cultural shift and a 'Re-Awakening' of sorts that eventually results in Syrannite practices like mind melds, the knowledge of the passing of katras and other ancient practices becoming mainstream. By Sarek's generation actually bonding the children psychically is an accepted and common practice once again, in the same way that many of our own views and acceptance of social practices have waxed and waned over centuries.
In this case, T'Pol simply would have lived in an era of Vulcan social norms that still required betrothals but not a psychic bonding. In fact, her era seemed unfamiliar with its creation. At least, that's how I interpreted T'Pol's cautious statement to Trip: "
There's a long-held belief that when a Vulcan mates, there's a shared psychic bond." She seemed to imply that it was more of anecdotal type of information she had come across and not something that had been, say, well established (or at least officially accepted as true despite massive evidence) in the medical literature of her time. I don't think that's too far a stretch to say, especially if their physicians were reluctant to even bother doing research into Pan'aar Syndrome.
If that was the case, then T'Les probably would never have spoken to her daughter about psychic bonds - even if she experienced one with her husband. It might have been one of those things you just didn't talk about. T'Pol wouldn't have known it could be possible and it would have taken her some time and study of the Kir'Shara to realize what was happening to her and Trip.
Honeybee. Sorry I haven't been around for lengthy discussions but I have been browsing here and there before bed so I'm not completely out of the loop.
Probably will not be able to transfer it from thought to computer until Fall though.
