Daystrom Institute
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:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
view the rest of the comments
A point of contention in this one is why Spock would struggle with his human emotions, when Vulcan emotions are supposed to be "stronger." I don't think there's been any suggestion in the past that emotional control is a Vulcan genetic trait.
This is given some cover within the episode, when Spock vaguely says that the human emotions are "different," but he doesn't elaborate.
I wonder if, in keeping with Spock's character in the franchise as a whole and in this series in particular, Spock's predicament allowed him to subconsciously give himself "permission" to embrace and explore his emotional side, with the genetic alteration as an excuse.
I kind of like the idea that Vulcans' control of their emotions is a genetic trait. It doesn't seem too far-fetched, since Vulcans already have mental abilities humans don't, and it gives a bit of an in-universe reason for why Star Trek writers seem really inconsistent on whether Vulcans have emotions or not.
I've always thought the Romulans weren't just the Vulcans who rejected Surak's teachings, but also any who didn't have the physical ability to follow them.
Originally it was just based on Romulans not expressing any psychic abilities, but Picard also established that sharing personal details publicly as a major taboo. That would track with them being a mix of former enemies who are concerned with suppressing the rivalries that lead to nuclear war.