star trek voyager pon farr

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Ensign Vorik during pon farr

The pon farr was a Vulcan time of mating , and the rituals following it were shrouded under a veil of mystery and secrecy. It was considered to be a very private matter within Vulcan society, so much that only a handful of Starfleet doctors had ever handled it. Among themselves, Vulcans found it inappropriate to involve themselves with another's pon farr . ( TOS : " Amok Time "; VOY : " Blood Fever ")

• 1 Biology of pon farr
• 2 Rituals surrounding pon farr
• 4.1 Background information
• 4.2 Apocrypha
• 4.3 External link

Biology of pon farr [ ]

T'Pol during her pon farr

During pon farr , adult Vulcans undergo a neurochemical imbalance that can take on a form of madness (culminating in the plak tow ). A Vulcan could die within eight days if their pon farr is not satiated. ( TOS : " Amok Time "; VOY : " Blood Fever ") Vulcan males experienced pon farr every seven years of their adult life. ( TOS : " The Cloud Minders "; Star Trek III: The Search for Spock )

The imbalance during pon farr can be transferred to others via a telepathic mating bond . It can also be transferred to other species during the same telepathic bond. ( VOY : " Blood Fever ") Certain microbes are also known to trigger pon farr prematurely. ( ENT : " Bounty ")

Also during this period, the affected Vulcan's cortical levels rise and fall, as the brain 's regulatory system appears to shut down when serotonin levels became unbalanced. ( VOY : " Blood Fever ")

Vulcan females also endure pon farr . ( ENT : " Fallen Hero ") Normally, their hormones and endorphins rise to dangerous levels. Like males, females had to mate or otherwise receive treatment to survive. ( ENT : " Bounty ")

" Vulcans mate normally any time they want to. However, every seven years you do the ritual, the ceremony, the whole thing. The biological urge. You must, but any other time is any other emotion – humanoid emotion – when you're in love . When you want to, you know when the urge is there, you do it. This every-seven-years business was taken too literally by too many people who don't stop and understand. We didn't mean it only every seven years. I mean, every seven years would be a little bad, and it would not explain the Vulcans of many different ages which are not seven years apart. " – D.C. Fontana ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages )

Rituals surrounding pon farr [ ]

During ancient, pre- Surak , times, Vulcans typically killed to win their mates. After the Time of Awakening , the koon-ut-kal-if-fee was adopted, and many Vulcans became telepathically bonded at youth. ( TOS : " Amok Time ") In the early stages of mating, Vulcans generally touched fingers before touching their faces together. ( Star Trek III: The Search for Spock ) There were three options open to Vulcans that usually ended a pon farr : ( VOY : " Blood Fever ")

• Taking a mate
• Participating in a kal-if-fee
• Intensive meditation

Notable instances of pon farr [ ]

In 2153 , Sub-Commander T'Pol of Enterprise underwent pon farr after exposure to an unusual microbe. She was confined to Decon and treated by Doctor Phlox . Her premature pon farr ended when the microbes were eliminated. ( ENT : " Bounty ")

In the mirror universe , Lieutenant Commander T'Pol of the ISS Enterprise underwent pon farr at some point before 2155 . She was assisted through this period by Commander Charles Tucker several times. ( ENT : " In a Mirror, Darkly ")

On stardate 3372.7 , Spock had his first pon farr during a historic five-year mission which the USS Enterprise was undertaking. At the time, Captain James T. Kirk was under direct orders from Starfleet to proceed directly to Altair VI for an inauguration ceremony, with no time to stop off at Vulcan , but after coaxing Spock into telling him what was happening to him, Kirk took Spock to Vulcan anyway, knowingly risking his career. Spock invited Kirk and Doctor Leonard McCoy to attend his koon-ut-kal-if-fee ceremony.

At the ceremony, hosted by Vulcan Ambassador T'Pau , Spock's betrothed, T'Pring , claimed kal-if-fee and chose Kirk as her champion , in a move calculated to ensure that she would have her desired mate, Stonn , regardless of the outcome of the fight. During the fight, McCoy dosed Kirk with a neural paralyzer , and Spock seemingly killed Kirk, breaking his plak tow . When he returned to the Enterprise , intending to immediately surrender himself to the authorities, Spock was delighted to find that Kirk was alive and well, after all. ( TOS : " Amok Time ")

On stardate 8210.3 , the regenerated but mindless body of Captain Spock experienced the pon farr on planet Genesis . Lieutenant Saavik was present and assisted Spock through this time. ( Star Trek III: The Search for Spock )

Tuvok went through pon farr in 2304 . He took his mate, T'Pel , at this time. ( VOY : " Ex Post Facto ", " Flashback ")

Tuvok and T'Pel conceived Asil following his eleventh pon farr . ( VOY : " Alice ")

In 2370 , Tuvok underwent pon farr . He informed Kathryn Janeway that he was suffering from Tarkalean flu .

On stardate 54238.3 , Tuvok began the early stages of another pon farr . Since he was stranded aboard the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant , returning to Vulcan was impossible. He intended to control his pon farr with a combination of disciplined meditation and specially prepared medication. His neurotransmitters did not absorb the medication, and The Doctor was not present to prescribe an alternative. Tom Paris designed a hologram of T'Pel to handle the situation. Tuvok once again claimed to be suffering from the Tarkalean flu, although this time around, Janeway privately revealed that she was fully aware of the true circumstance in both instances. ( VOY : " Body and Soul ")

On stardate 50537.2 , Ensign Vorik of the USS Voyager underwent his first pon farr . Due to Voyager 's presence in the Delta Quadrant, he was unable to return to Vulcan and mate with his intended . He declared koon-ut-so'lik , a marriage proposal, to B'Elanna Torres , in order to gain a mate.

Vorik was injured unconsciously attempting to form a telepathic mating bond with Torres. While in sickbay , The Doctor determined that Vorik was undergoing pon farr . Vorik noted his intention to satiate his needs through meditation. He was confined to his quarters and wore a cortical monitor .

After discovering from Tuvok that Torres had also undergone pon farr , Vorik had trouble maintaining his composure. The Doctor began administering medication to control Vorik's serotonin levels. The Doctor also designed a holographic Vulcan named T'Pera to serve as Vorik's " self-healing " technique.

The Doctor declared Vorik cured of his pon farr when his cortical levels nearly stabilized following mating with T'Pera. This was a ruse, however, in order to transport to a nearby planet and attempt, once more, to mate with Torres.

After disabling communications, Vorik arrived at the planet. Once he learned that Torres intended to declare Tom Paris as her mate, Vorik declared koon-ut-kal-if-fee . Torres chose herself as champion, and the kal-if-fee was officiated by Tuvok. Vorik was knocked unconscious by Torres, and his pon farr ended. ( VOY : " Blood Fever ")

Sek , child of Tuvok, underwent pon farr between 2371 and 2374 . His mate conceived a child, T'Meni , from this union. This news was delivered to Tuvok in 2374, on board the USS Voyager , via the Hirogen communications network . ( VOY : " Hunters ")

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

Originally, the Vulcan time of mating was to have been called "Amok-Time" and was said to affect Vulcan males "about once every 26 years." Gene Roddenberry described it that way in a memo he wrote to Gene Coon (on 5 December 1966 ).

Both the Star Trek: The Original Series episode " Amok Time " and the film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock state that pon farr is particular to Vulcan males. This is, therefore, at odds with ENT : " Bounty ", in which pon farr is attributed to both sexes.

Pon farr is also mentioned in the Star Trek: Voyager episodes " Gravity " and " Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy ". It was additionally referenced in the first draft script of the ultimately undeveloped TAS episode "Point of Extinction".

In one draft of the script for the film Star Trek , screenwriters and producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman made a reference to pon farr . " We [...] thought we should save it instead, " the writers said of the reference. ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 149 , p. 13)

Apocrypha [ ]

In the Pocket TOS novel Savage Trade , it was revealed that the mating bond did not affect Vulcans who were twins , as they already shared a similar platonic mental connection.

The alternate reality Star Trek: Ongoing comic book " After Darkness " featured a story arc in which some Vulcans rejected the teachings of Surak due to their emotions about the destruction of their homeworld . Subsequently, they formed a group called the Sasaud ( β ) and turned feral. Spock briefly joined the group during his pon farr . This storyline also established that part of pon farr involved returning to Vulcan itself, with part of the current problem being the Vulcans' inability to return to their original homeworld following its destruction. Carol Marcus was able to devise a "treatment" where a transporter could be modulated to essentially recreate the conditions of beaming to Vulcan so that they could "trick" those suffering from pon farr into "believing" that they were home.

In House of Cards , the first part of the initial Star Trek: New Frontier novel series, Dr. Selar undergoes pon farr two years prior to her assignment to the Excalibur ( β ) and returns to Vulcan to mate with her husband, Voltak. During the course of their mating, Voltak suffers a massive heart attack and dies. This leaves Selar ( β ) having not completed pon farr , which she begins to suffer again two years later.

External link [ ]

• Pon farr at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Episode list

Star trek: voyager.

S3.E13 ∙ Fair Trade

S3.E14 ∙ Alter Ego

S3.E15 ∙ Coda

S3.E16 ∙ Blood Fever

S3.E17 ∙ Unity

S3.E18 ∙ Darkling

S3.E19 ∙ Rise

S3.E20 ∙ Favorite Son

S3.E21 ∙ Before and After

S3.E22 ∙ Real Life

S3.E23 ∙ Distant Origin

S3.E24 ∙ Displaced

S3.E25 ∙ Worst Case Scenario

S3.E26 ∙ Scorpion

S4.E1 ∙ Scorpion, Part II

S4.E2 ∙ The Gift

S4.E3 ∙ Day of Honor

S4.E4 ∙ Nemesis

S4.E5 ∙ Revulsion

S4.E6 ∙ The Raven

S4.E7 ∙ Scientific Method

S4.E8 ∙ Year of Hell

S4.E9 ∙ Year of Hell, Part II

S4.E10 ∙ Random Thoughts

S4.E11 ∙ Concerning Flight

S4.E12 ∙ Mortal Coil

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS3E15BloodFever

Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 3 E 15 "Blood Fever"

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This episode has the following tropes:

• Above the Influence : Exaggerated. Paris rejects Torres's advances because she's under the influence of the pon farr , taking almost herculean steps to resist her. He only relents when Tuvok insists that he simply must have sex with her to save her life.
• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder : As per Vulcan custom Vorik is already in an Arranged Marriage , but it's only logical that his wife assumes he is dead and has thus chosen another mate.
• Anti-Villain : The Sakari turn out to be this. They're not evil, just really paranoid about alien intruders. Perfectly understandable, since their last "visitors" were the Borg.
• Ask a Stupid Question... : When Vorik is in Sickbay following B'Elanna's firm refusal of his proposal. B'Elanna: What's wrong with him? Doctor: You mean besides a dislocated jaw?
• As You Know : Justified; given the limited information he has regarding the pon farr , it's natural that the Doctor would attempt to get more details from Vorik and Tuvok, who provide reluctant exposition for those who haven't seen " Amok Time ".
• Be Careful What You Wish For : After things are back to normal, Paris tells B'Elanna he didn't really mind her "scary" Klingon side, and he might like to see it again someday. She warns him of this.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension : The beginning of this between Tom and B'Elanna.
• Beneath the Earth : Where the Sakari have lived since the Borg attack.
• When the Doctor is about to start with a microcellular scan, Vorik shouts, "NO! I don't want medical treatment! I will resolve this myself!"
• Tom when the piton breaks, sending B'Elanna and Neelix plunging to the ground.
• Birds of a Feather : Strangely enough B'Elanna and Vorik, who fear the volatility of their own emotions and lack the confidence to approach the person they're secretly attracted to except under extreme circumstances .
• Bite of Affection : Tom first realises something is wrong with B'Elanna when she chomps on his cheek.
• Chameleon Camouflage : The Sakari wear clothing that matches the cave walls. Their presence is only revealed when B'Elanna inadvertently backs into one of them .
• And later when Tuvok is explaining the crisis to Tom. Paris: And you go through this every seven years of your adult life? Tuvok: You only need concern yourself with Lt. Torres' situation.
• And for Rule of Three with B'Elanna. Paris: If I remember my Klingon customs, biting someone on the face means— Torres: ( Talk to the Hand ) I...know...what it means!
• Chewing the Scenery : Vorik in full pon farr -mode. (Hats off to Alexander Enberg on this one; he sounds like he's in a Black Metal band.) Vorik: YOU ARE MMMMY MATE, NOT HIS!!!
• Cliffhanger : All's well that ends well, right? Nope - Janeway and Chakotay discover that the Borg have been on this planet, and they're likely going to run into them soon.
• When Tom tries to be a gentleman, B'Elanna throws back how he's been staring at her on the holodeck when he thinks she won't notice.
• Buoyed up by his apparent success with Vorik, the Doctor decides to do a comparative study of the crew's mating rituals. A Death Glare from Captain Janeway kills that idea.
• The Doctor says his only records of the pon farr are based on the few Starfleet medical officers who have observed the phenomenon. Dr. McCoy would be one of them, having both examined Spock medically and been present during the events on Vulcan.
• When B'Elanna and Tom start to make out, she sniffs his wrists and Tom makes a nervous joke about throwing furniture, references to the TNG episodes "The Dauphin" (the famous scene where Worf eagerly discusses Klingon Destructo-Nookie ) and "The Emissary" (where he mates with K'Ehleyr, who does the wrist-sniffing thing as foreplay).
• When Vorik initiates kal-if-fee on the planet, his hands are in the same steepled pose that Spock assumed once he was fully consumed by pon farr in "Amok Time."
• Crazy Jealous Guy : Vorik goes absolutely ballistic when he stumbles across Tom and B'Elanna attempting to mate Klingon-style.
• Curb-Stomp Battle : The Borg destroyed the Sakari colony in less than an hour.
• A Day in the Limelight : A mostly background character on Voyager, Vorik gets some focus here for once, though it's shared with B'Elanna.
• Deadpan Snarker : The Doctor's in rare form in this episode. Vorik: I have always had great respect for B'Elanna. I hope she isn't too upset with me. EMH: With Lieutenant Torres, upset is a relative term.
• '''Paris says, "I'm your friend, and I have to watch out for you when your judgement's been impaired . If you let these instincts take over now, you'll hate yourself , and me too for taking advantage of you .
• Torres' aggressive flirtations, at times, also take on a lot of Date Rape undertones, particularly if one considers how the things she says would sound if he were the one saying them to her : that she's seen the way he looks at her, that he must just be Playing Hard to Get , that surely he knows he wants it ...
• A young man experiences his first sexual attraction, a more experienced man awkwardly has The Talk with him, the Doctor reassures him that it's all perfectly natural, and he even tries satisfying his urges with some high-tech porn. If this were a family sitcom, it would have all the trappings of a Very Special Episode .
• Vorik insists on handling the problem himself and asks to be confined to quarters .
• " This isn't about the gun! This is about sex! "
• Easily Forgiven : Zig-zagged. Though she initially knocks him on his ass, B'Elanna takes Vorik's initial attack in Engineering surprisingly well, since it's obvious that something is seriously wrong with Vorik. And then she winds up in a quasi- pon farr herself, and then it's payback time!
• Once Vorik discovers that B'Elanna is also undergoing the pon farr . Of course he's not being very logical by that stage.
• B'Elanna, also not in a very logical state of mind, isn't taking "no" for an answer from Tom very well either.
• Fanservice : And it won't be the last time B'Elanna strips down to a sweaty tank top either.
• Finger Muzzle : Unable to beam up to Voyager , Tuvok virtually orders Tom to have sex with B'Elanna to save her life. Tom is going on about how this isn't the way he wanted when B'Elanna hushes him, taking him by the hand into the woods.
• Flat "What" : What'd you think she was gonna say, Vorik?? Vorik: Have we completed our preparations to your satisfaction? Torres: We're done here, yes. Vorik: Let me take this opportunity to declare koon-ut so'lik, my desire to become your mate. Torres (taken aback): ...what?
• In "Alter Ego" Vorik asked B'Elanna out for dinner on the holodeck, an early sign of his interest in her.
• The Sakari leader is immediately suspicious on detecting an artificial implant in Tuvok's arm, foreshadowing The Reveal on who their mysterious enemy is .
• The discovery of the Borg corpse sets up the following episode "Unity", and more importantly the Season Finale "Scorpion" in which Voyager finally reaches their territory.
• Vorik suggests that as a Vulcan he can help B'Elanna with her emotional control. Tuvok acts in this role in later seasons.
• And of course, the conversation in the turbolift at the end of the episode foretells B'Elanna and Tom's relationship, as she practically challenges him on his insistence that he wouldn't mind seeing her "scary side" again someday.
• Future Spandex : The form-fitting grey jumpsuits worn by the Away Team, a rare example of Star Fleet officers changing out their uniforms for any reason .
• Get Out! : When Tuvok goes to speak with Vorik during his meditations. (doorchime sounds) Vorik: Go away! (Tuvok opens the door) Vorik: I said, GO AWAY ! (sees Tuvok) I'm sorry, sir.
• Infinite Supplies : Averted; the MacGuffin that sends the Away Team down to the planet is a search for galicite, a rare mineral they can use to refit their warp coils . They end up trading with the Sakari for it.
• It Works Better with Bullets : Tuvok goes to stun an alien fighting with B'Elanna, but a dampening field prevents his phaser from firing.
• Kiss-Kiss-Slap : B'Elanna has to Mate or Die with Tom, who starts out by gently kissing her. B'Elanna is a Human-Klingon hybrid however, so she suddenly throws Tom to the ground and demands to know what he's doing. Paris: Enjoying myself? Torres: Then show it! (Tom gets the idea and starts wrestling with her)
• Kiss Me, I'm Virtual : The Doctor creates T'Pera, a holographic female Vulcan companion for Vorik to mate with. Vorik makes it look like he successfully purged himself of the blood fever through the holographic mate when the Doctor checks in on him, only to show up on the planet in full rage mode, ready to take B'Elanna as his mate no matter what.
• After proudly showing off T'Pera to Vorik, the Doctor suddenly realizes from their Held Gaze that he needs to make a discreet exit.
• Tuvok and Chakotay quietly walk off to leave Tom and B'Elanna to get on with things.
• Leave Me Alone! : Vorik rounds angrily on the man entering his quarters before realizing it's his superior Tuvok, who apologizes for intruding at such a humiliating time.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again : Defied. B'Elanna tries this trope. But Tom isn't Data , so he insists they do talk about it, as they're going to be stuck on the same starship for years.
• Let's Split Up, Gang! : Averted when Tom lampshades the stupidity of chasing after B'Elanna and leaving a wounded Neelix. An Involuntary Group Split happens anyway when a cave-in cuts Tom and B'Elanna off from the Away Team. Struggling with her urges, B'Elanna suggests they go their separate ways. Conscious that she's also not in a condition to look after herself, Tom refuses.
• Lotus Position : Vorik sits on a biobed while meditating.
• Male Gaze : After B'Elanna tears off her top we get a nice shot down her cleavage.
• Mandatory Line : Kes delivers a single line in Sickbay before vanishing from the episode.
• Mate or Die : Sums up the whole pon farr in general. We get a twist here when a half-Klingon gets it.
• Mood Whiplash : Vorik, within the span of three seconds, goes from confirming that an away mission is ready, to asking B'Elanna to marry him.
• Mythology Gag : Vorik does the Picard Maneuver after getting off the biobed.
• Not Herself : The morning after the incident with Vorik, B'Elanna displays aggressively-flirtatious body language with Tom Paris, Mood Whiplashes between enthusiasm for their mission and fury over the accident, and eventually bites Tom on the face when he tries to restrain her — it's at that moment that both parties realise something is very wrong.
• Oh, Crap! : At the very end of the episode, Chakotay takes Captain Janeway to see a corpse they've found, one of the mysterious raiders who destroyed the Sakari. It's a Borg drone .
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business : How B'Elanna realizes that something is wrong with Vorik, and then Tom noticing the same with her.
• Pardon My Klingon Torres: I am not helping that Vulcan petaQ!
• Parrot Expo What Tuvok: You're experiencing a condition known as pon farr . Torres: Pon what?
• Playing Hard to Get : B'Elanna can't help finding it amusing that Tom Paris is the one doing this.
• Properly Paranoid : Turns out the Sakari have every right to be afraid, given the implacable nature of their enemy.
• Reasonable Authority Figure : The Sakari leader who captures Chakotay and Tuvok. For all his suspicion of outsiders he listens to their point of view, agrees to a trade of galicite in exchange for Voyager helping eliminate the remaining traces of their colony, and would have let them proceed without harm even after the Away Team discovered their presence if B'Elanna hadn't attacked one of his men.
• Reckless Gun Usage : B'Elanna wants to blast her way out of the cave-in, and Tom has to wrestle the weapon off her.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni : Vorik suggests this is a logical reason why he should pair up with B'Elanna, as he could help her work on her emotional control issues. There's also his Super-Strength to handle her Destructo-Nookie urges.
• Rejected Marriage Proposal : When Vorik surprises B'Elanna by proposing koon-ut so'lik , she unsurprisingly turns him down. Unfortunately, he's already in the grip of pon farr and is psychologically incapable of taking "no" for an answer.
• Safety Gear Is Cowardly : While activating the self-driving piton, Neelix gripes that all this advanced Federation technology takes the fun out of it. Becomes Tempting Fate when his piton suffers a Plot-Driven Breakdown .
• Say My Name : Vorik shows up on the planet to challenge Tom to koon-ut-kal-if-fee. Hmm, who's around to officiate this? "LIEUTENANT TUVOK!!!"
• Self-Deprecation : Tom quips, "Are you saying I'm impossible to resist?" giving B'Elanna an acceptable excuse to back off for a bit.
• Established canon regarding the pon farr goes out the airlock in order to stop Vorik, B'Elanna or Tom from dying . Spock not only had to mate with a particular person, he was specifically driven to return to Vulcan to do it, and couldn't easily shake it off just by taking someone else for his mate. For obvious reasons, returning home is impossible for Vorik on Star Trek: Voyager , but he still should have had more trouble with this. More to the point, the "ritual combat" is not a mere contest for the mate's hand, but a brutal Duel to the Death with anyone who would stand in the Vulcan's way; which leads to a kind of Logic Bomb , considering that Torres championed herself, making her both his chosen mate and deadly rival. Finally, it was never established in "Amok Time" that this combat by itself would be sufficient to purge the blood fever. Though it worked in Spock's case, it was implied that the shock of thinking that he'd killed Captain Kirk was actually responsible.
• A minor one regarding the combat itself. Vorik calls for kun-oot-kal-if-fee to challenge Tom for B'Elanna. However, the kun-oot-kal-if-fee comprises the entire Vulcan mating ceremony. The combat challenge is the kal-if-fee . And at least in "Amok Time" was established as the female's prerogative if she wishes to reject her mate, and not the male's decision.
• At least one female Vulcan shows up in a later episode, causing fans to ask why Vorik didn't choose her. However it's implied that Vorik is somewhat taken with B'Elanna given his elaborate praise of her while proposing, and hints of romantic interest in "Alter Ego" as well.
• Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny : The loss of emotional control caused by the pon farr is deeply humiliating to Vulcans, hampering the Doctor's efforts to treat Vorik.
• Ship Tease : The episode firmly establishes an attraction between Paris and Torres, while the Pon Farr issue complicates things regarding consent Paris openly admits he's hoping there is more to this. From here it's pretty much a straight run to them becoming an Official Couple in Season 4's " Day of Honor ".
• Smells Sexy / Hemoerotic Torres: I have picked up your scent, Tom. I've tasted your blood.
• Species of Hats : A tragic example; after the destruction of their colony by unknown yet immensely powerful aliens , the Sakari base their entire lifestyle on hiding from outsiders.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial : B'Elanna informs Tom that as she was Kissing Under the Influence , then whatever she did — then she adds "whatever I said" — really wasn't her. That would include the bit about desiring Tom but being too afraid to admit it .
• Swiss-Cheese Security : In one of the more ridiculous examples of the series, a pon farr -addled Vorik knocks out all the communications, shuttles and transporters before going to confront his rival. Now granted, Vulcans are known for their intelligence, but damn, how slick is Vorik? Especially under these circumstances??
• Take a Third Option : To spare Tom from a fight he certainly could not win, B'Elanna takes Vorik's koon-ut-kal-if-fee herself. Tuvok even confirms it is within her right to do so. B'Elanna: If anyone is going to smash your arrogant little face in, I will! I take your challenge myself!
• The Talk : Tuvok looks a bit unnerved upon hearing how B'Elanna is acting on the planet, and realizing why she's acting this way. Thus, Tuvok, much to his own discomfort, has to have a variant of this conversation with Vorik, who's a much younger Vulcan and honestly didn't know he could transmit a pon farr to another person, much less another species. It's an equally difficult discussion for both, and you can cut the awkwardness with a knife.
• Testosterone Poisoning : Paris is so angry over his Interrupted Intimacy he offers to take up Vorik's challenge. Fortunately Chakotay stops him and B'Elanna challenges Vorik herself.
• That Didn't Happen : Attempted by B'Elanna, but rejected by Tom.
• Think Unsexy Thoughts : Given that he can't fight or mate his way out of things, Vorik attempts meditation. It doesn't work.
• Too Much Information : Janeway's response to the Doctor informing her of certain Klingon marriage practices .
• Uncomfortable Elevator Moment : Tom and B'Elanna swap work-related chit-chat until Tom halts the turbolift to have the frank discussion they need to have.
• Verbal Backspace : When Vorik appears to recover, the Doctor starts bragging about how his treatment could be used by other space-faring Vulcans. EMH: When we get back, I'm sure Starfleet Medical will — (Vorik gives him a Death Glare ) ...never hear about your personal experiences from me.
• Wham Shot : The Borg corpse on Sakari.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human? : Vorik isn't impressed with the holographic Vulcan female the Doctor creates (as Vulcan mating is mental as well as physical this is justified). The Doctor tries to convince him Your Mind Makes It Real . (It does later work for Tuvok, but he of course is much older and has more experience with the pon farr ).
• What You Are in the Dark : Paris could have given in to temptation with Torres. But as we see in Above the Influence and Does This Remind You of Anything? , Paris vehemently refuses until it becomes a Mate or Die situation on Torres's part. We don’t know if he was capable of this before being thrown into the Delta Quadrant, but the fact that he didn’t demonstrates his Character Development since.
• The World's Expert (on Getting Killed) : Averted; the climbing accident is not Neelix's fault, as Tom points out.
• Would Hit a Girl : A pon farr -riddled Vorik has to, since B'Elanna took his koon-ut-kal-if-fee challenge herself. He even shoots Tuvok a look that screams "wait, seriously?"
• Star Trek Voyager S3E14 "Coda"
• Recap/Star Trek: Voyager
• Star Trek Voyager S 3 E 16 "Unity"

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Interview: Henry Alonso Myers On ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Premiere, Pon Farr, And Going Big

| May 5, 2022 | By: Anthony Pascale 45 comments so far

TrekMovie had a chance to speak exclusively with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds co-showrunner Henry Alons Myers about Thursday’s series premiere and what comes next, covering issues ranging from Vulcan mating to new transporter tricks and more.

Being this is for TrekMovie.com, the questions are going to get a bit nerdy.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. I had thought I’m probably like a medium-level Star Trek nerd, and there are people who know a lot more than me. So I have a humble view of my own nerd-dom. And then I find myself correcting people like, “Oh, no, that’s not that’s not a Romulan ship. No, that’s not a this, that’s not a that.” I’ve sort of had this realization, “Oh, maybe I am a deep nerd and didn’t realize.” [laughs]

We like our writers and showrunners to be deep nerds, like Mike McMahan [ Lower Decks ], Terry Matalas [ Picard ], and Aaron Waltke [ Prodigy ].

I know Terry and Mike. I talk to Mike all the time and I talk to Terry all the time too. I am a big Lower Decks fan and we, Mike and I, bandy jokes around. All of us Star Trek showrunners know each other. I talked to Terry a lot, but I haven’t recently because he’s been buried in season three of Picard . There’s a lot of work.

Let’s start with the aptly named series premiere of Strange New Worlds . With so much talk about how this is a return to classic Star Trek , it still felt like a very modern show, especially with how you treat the characters. Is this your core difference from classic Trek ?

One hundred percent. I would straight up say the thing that we borrow from Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and shows of that era is how they would iris in on different characters for each episode. Everyone’s in every episode, just about, but some focus on other people more. Like “Data’s Day” is one of our favorite episodes to talk about in the writers’ room. I loved how you have this great ensemble; like us, you want to use them. So it allows you to see different sides of the Enterprise and tell different stories and tell different experiences of it.

It was very important to me to do a Uhura episode really quickly on the heels of the pilot. The pilot is very much about Pike, and Uhura’s experience is exactly the opposite. She’s a cadet right now. Her experience on the Enterprise is the experience of being new to the Enterprise. She’s in a way like the audience. So that’s a big goal of ours, I would say.

Celia Rose Gooding as Uhura and Ethan Peck as Spock in episode two

It feels like you reveal more about these characters in the first five episodes than we learned about most characters in a season of Trek of that era. So are you trying to go beyond even Next Gen and DS9 with this kind of exploration and backstory?

Maybe. What we’re trying to do is like when you saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture in the movie theaters, as I did. If you saw The Original Series and then The Motion Picture , you were like, “Oh, they’re doing it bigger!” That’s a little bit what our mission is here. We’re doing a contemporary show with contemporary effects. Our designs are all built on the framework of the ‘60s stuff. But what if Gene Roddenberry did it now? He’d have a lot more money. He would probably want the costumes to look… you know they were using interesting, cool materials back then. It’s like a lot of mid-century modern stuff. Some of it looks timeless. Some of it looks cheap. But there are really cool elements in the design. We wanted to borrow that and suggest this is kind of what came before that.

We wanted to make it bigger. We want the effects to be bigger. We wanted our sense of the world to be bigger. We’re using this AR wall technology to create some of the worlds that we go to. It looks very different from going to a soundstage. No slight on the soundstage or the ‘60s or the time. If you look at Star Trek for its time, it was so expensive for a television show. But for our show, it’s just a different animal doing a show for a streaming service. We’re trying to make it look bigger and different. And that also includes approaching it with a contemporary sense of character. There’s a sophistication that today’s television audiences have that I think is different from the television audiences of the ‘60s. And we want it to look and feel like a show made today, but inspired by those shows of the past that we love.

Regarding contemporary things, the pilot had a very contemporary issue focus. Does the show have a point of view, and is it sending a message that you’re going to be tackling very contemporary issues head-on?

It is my opinion that Star Trek has always been a show that dealt with social issues and didn’t shy away from them. It goes right into the middle of them. I don’t think anyone does science fiction because they don’t want to talk about what’s happening in the present. Inevitably when you tell a story about the future, you’re making choices that suggest something about the present. That’s one of the things we love about Trek. We want that to be part of the show.

Christina Chong as La’an, Ethan Peck as Spock, and Anson Mount as Pike in episode one

So, when does the second US Civil War start?

You have moved the Eugenics Wars into the 21st century, acknowledging they didn’t happen in the real ‘90s.

This is the hard thing about trying to be true to canon. Like the DS9 episode “Past Tense.” It’s weirdly prescient. It’s amazing how much they kind of get right. But yes, the Eugenics Wars were supposed to happen in the 1990s and most people’s experience was that is not what happened. You don’t want to get mad at reality for not comporting with Star Trek, but we sort of push things forward. A little bit of what we do in that is to suggest that… The message of the series pilot is we’re looking at a society where Pike essentially gives them a big choice at the end. You can choose to come together as a society and unify or you can choose conflict. And the conflict will inevitably lead to death.

All we’re doing in that is trying to tie in a little bit how that idea speaks as much to our society today as any other society. And maybe, for those who care deeply about the chronology of what Star Trek said in the past, the things that we are living now will lead to the stuff that we say happens. Which is as much as we can do, because we can’t control what happens in real life. [laughs] And as we go on, we are going to keep running into these dates.

Well, the Vulcans are going to show up in 40 years , so that one is fixed. So it might not be long until this Civil War starts.

[laughs] You know, I’m hoping Star Trek has it wrong about that. I really am. I will say that in a weird way, that’s kind of the purpose of this show. We’re trying to do a hopeful show. I’m not saying that bad things don’t happen. But I think one of the central notions of The Original Series was that in addition to having challenges, space holds hope for us. Exploration holds hope. That is something we wanted to carry into our series.

Another surprise is T’Pring and how much of her and Spock we actually see. What does this mean about exploring Spock and exploring what we know about Vulcan lore, including pon farr ?

I’ve watched “Amok Time” many, many times. I’ve parsed the individual shots from certain sequences. And I have asked myself, “You know, if I squint…” I understand how I’m supposed to read that expression. But that expression is actually not necessarily telling me anything. And I could read it another way. So we tried as much as possible to make our T’Pring stuff comport with stuff that is to come. But we also want to tell a story about Spock now. Putting T’Pring in the pilot, frankly, gave us a chance to understand her as a character. I love writing for T’Pring. She’s super fun, and thoughtful, and interesting. We explore T’Pring a little more in the series, and part of that is about exploring Spock. And part of that is about deepening what we understand her to be. And part of that is about trying to delve into the Chapel relationship.

And if I’m not mistaken, D.C. Fontana scoffed at the notion that Vulcans only mated during pon farr. I also think one of the things that’s really fun about working with Spock now is like Spock in the ‘60s was an alien. He was the character who was different, and was “the other” on the show. Spock now is someone we know and understand in a deep way. Weirdly, for someone who is not outwardly emotional, he is a character who we can emotionally identify with. And I think it would be a mistake not to.

Gia Sandhu as T’Pring  in episode one

Do you want this show to be family-friendly and a show that can be watched with kids in the room?

Yeah. We’re trying to make a show for everybody. I will say that there are a few episodes that have some dark themes and some adult stuff. I have two sons, and I wanted to do a Trek show they could watch, although they watch all kinds of crazy stuff now because that’s what is on television. But I didn’t want that to be a barrier to entry.

Picard does a good job of being a show for adults. One of the things that I love is when I was working on the first season, I did a big rewatch of all of Deep Space Nine with my kids, which was a delight. And it held up very well. And one of the things I really enjoyed was how it dealt with the big adult themes, but you can watch it with anybody. It’s an eight or nine o’clock show, in the parlance of old-school television. We have a couple of episodes where I would say it’s like a nine o’clock show. Maybe there’s one that’s like a 10 o’clock show, But we’re trying to make a show that everyone can watch.

You had some fun with Trek technology, especially the transporter. After over 800 episodes of Trek, is it a challenge to come up with new ways to use these familiar elements, and especially deal with how no one has done this or that before?

We talk about that. But there’s no reason to believe that an infinitely configurable piece of machinery like a transporter can’t be used in a creative way that we haven’t thought of previously. We don’t want to deny where how it’s been used in the past. We just want to try to be a little inventive about it. There are times when we’re going to do that. That’s part of making a new show but it’s not a comment on the shows of the past. It’s more like us saying, “What if we tried this? Does it make any sense?”

There’s a moment in one of the early episodes where Spock reveals a defibrillator mode on the tricorder. It makes sense that it has it, perhaps we just have never seen one used like that on screen before. It’s hard when you’re doing a legacy property. Writers try to come up with a story and create tension and problems that help box them in. But you don’t want to box in future generations. So we sort of take it seriously, but not always literally.

You must always be running into developing stories you like but then run into something like “Oh, this is just like an episode of TNG,” or Voyager or whatever. Do you stop there or look how to…

No. We actually start by thinking about what are the genres that we want to try. Because we really are trying in every episode to really stretch the breadth of what we can do in Trek. So a lot of what we do is say, “What about this genre, what about that genre… What kind of movie are we trying to make?” And then we go see Trek did it with this and Trek did it with that. And we think about those ones and we look at those episodes and use them as sort of models and springboards and inspiration. And then we talk about how can push the boundaries of that. How can we try something bigger?

Trek has done funny episodes before. Trek has done scary episodes. Trek has done thrilling episodes. We’re trying to do what they did. But we’re trying to make it Star Trek: The Motion Picture , you know what I mean? We’re trying to make the bigger, contemporary version of it that pushes the boundaries of those things. We’re inspired by the Trek of the past, we’re not worried about copying it. We try hard not to. We like the Trek of the past. There are a million Prime Directive episodes. That doesn’t mean you can’t do another one. And this is the place where making it about the characters is what makes it specific. Because it’s about our people, now. That makes it specific. That’s the wonderful thing about doing a genre show. There are only so many different genre show ideas. Recycling them is okay, but making them about your characters and making it about now is what makes it specific and different. And that’s how we come at it.  

Anson Mount as Pike in episode one

More SNW interviews to come

We still have more gold carpet interviews from the New York premiere of Strange New Worlds with the cast and creatives. Check out our earlier interview with Henry Alonso Myers . Plus see our interviews with executive producer Alex Kurtzman , cast members Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijin , and Christina Chong .

New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debut on Thursdays exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., Latin America, Australia and the Nordics. The series airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave in Canada. In New Zealand, it is available on TVNZ , and in India on  Voot Select .  Strange New Worlds  will arrive via Paramount+ in select countries in Europe when the service launches later this year, starting with the UK and Ireland in June.

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Excellent interview, as usual.

I’m a bit disturbed with this retconning of the Eugenics Wars. Especially because it feels like they want to use it more. Frankly, I don’t see the point of pushing an established date in the past to a near-future date that will also be outdated before long. (By the way, that’s exactly the reason why Roddenberry pushed Star Trek to a far future… to not bump into real history. Of course he never knew his creation would endure many decades, perhaps centuries, rendering almost all attempts at keeping “all in the future” futile…)

Instead of trying that again, I prefer to think that the fictional Earth history in Star Trek is different from our reality. As, of course, it is. There will be no crewed Europa Mission in 2024. You can be sure of it.

What I think they should do, if they want to play with those events, is to keep these events where they are, canonwise, but try and expanding the interpretation of what was said previously about them. Alas, that’s what I’m doing with the whole Pike speech, “what was called the Second Civil War, then the Eugenics War, and then Third World War.” Past Trek references on this are so obscure and confusing (Spock says the Eugenics Wars were our last major world conflict) that you can generate new interpretations that use the original references as springboards, giving a new meaning to them.

So, with Pike’s speech, for me, he’s talking about how future historians would address these events. And he’s saying something like, at first, they called it the Second Civil War, then Eugenics, then III WW. So, you can imagine there’s a period in Earth history that goes from the early 1990s to mid-21st century where many apparently different conflicts had common roots, what made historians group them, and use different successive names, reinterpreting what they felt was the best way to depict them for study purposes. This, to me, makes some sense. Not every country calls the same conflicts by the same name, and names that are now common were not in use at the time of said conflicts. Nobody called World War I as such back in the day…

I think this interpretation is still valid as of today, with Picard 201’s new clue about Khan. But the fact that they are mentioning it so much, across so many properties, and that they flerted with a Khan limited series before, tells me there will be more, and a definite retcon is coming. I think it is unnecessary, and unwarranted, but I’ll keep an open mind, if they go that way.

The infamous german dub from the 70s, which got many things wrong (they made his Pon-Farr being a “space-fever” and a dream), got it right with the eugenic wars and declared them happening in the 2090s.

You and I are, I think, in close agreement here. The retcon is not needed.

Great interview as usual Trekmovie!

I do think the show will win over people just by being classic Star Trek again. It’s pretty funny to me when people kept saying after Enterprise went off the air Star Trek has to move away from doing bumpy forehead alien of the week episodes as that format was tired out. And yet this episode is being praised for doing exactly that lol. This could’ve been a typical TNG, Enterprise or Voyager episode from 20+ years ago. It went back to basics in every way possible. Everything old is new again I guess. But it also proves end the day this is what the fandom mostly sees as Star Trek. They want to be on starships with 7 main characters solving a crisis for mostly humanoid aliens, doing a trippy time travel episode or running into crazy anomalies. They been conditioned to it after 50 years and 600+ episodes after all.

So I do think there needs to be ONE live action show that is doing this again. I don’t think people criticize Discovery or Picard for being ‘different’. It’s also for being not very good WHILE being different. And others think because it’s trying to do something different that is not really working for them as they should and I include myself in that.

I think SNW could be the best show in ‘NuTrek’. But I remember saying that about Picard as well. I will say here they do have all the basic elements many fans have missed at least and they are going to play on the nostalgia BIG TIME which will help a lot obviously.

Love that he mentioned it being more like TNG and DS9, that’s exactly how it felt to me, despite all the talk of trying to recapture TOS.

Me too! Another big example being TNG and DS9 were also ensemble shows, TOS wasn’t. They are (kind of) going back to the 3 main character format with Pike, Spock and Una; but every character here still gets their own individual episodes and back stories too. I mean we will probably learn more about this Uhura in the next five episodes than we learned about her in 3 seasons and six TOS movies which is a huge plus.

They are definitely not going back to the main three.

I have to say that it does bug me they opted to move Khan from the ’90’s to some point further in the future. Trek is not a history book. It has endured longer than they thought it would so these dates have come and gone. But those dates are still THEIR history. They should own it. Not move them because they didn’t happen in reality. That’s crazy. This is fiction. What are they going to do in 40 years when Vulcans don’t arrive?

You’re right. This is fiction. So it doesn’t matter.

I think there might be a connection to project Khan in PIC. I don’t believe it was a coincidence we saw references to Khan and the eugenic wars on two shows on the same day.

I totally adored the first episode of SNW. I’m not wild about their including T’Pring, though. In “Amok Time,” while they’re on the way to Vulcan, we see Spock looking at a picture of seven-year-old T’Pring, which strongly suggests that he hasn’t seen T’Pring since they were betrothed at the age of seven. And I like that about “Amok Time” because it feels so alien.

Having Spock and T’Pring “dating” makes both of them seem much more human. But I don’t want Vulcans to be human; Vulcans are interesting because they’re adjacent to humans but they AREN’T us, so they have a different perspective.

I watched Amok Time recently. Nothing says definitively that they haven’t seen each other since they were kids. If you want to lock your mind in a canonical jail cell, that’s your issue, not the showrunners.

End of the day, the stories are what matter not the little details anyway.

No, we’re supposed to make inferences from the things we’re shown. It’s the sort of thing people do with fiction.

I also explained that it isn’t a slavish attention to canon but rather a desire that Spock NOT be made too human that drove my opinion. Getting the details nailed down doesn’t matter, but keeping Spock Vulcan DOES.

It is true that we are supposed to make inferences. But when shown multiple things, our inferences in a supposedly consistent shared universe must account for all of them, not just the first, or even the favorite…

I suppose this is gonna be the backstory for Amok Time and explain why T’Pring changed her mind after waiting so long for Spock. Spock is torn between duty and family, but we know that his duty outweighs. Therefore it fits. What didn’t fit IMHO is how human they behave in the vulcan public. Kissing in the vulcan public? Shouldn’t that be a veeeeeery big taboo there?

Well they were asked to leave and he hasn’t completely repressed his human half yet.

And in TOS, the way Vulcan’s expressed affection in public was touching fingers, not kissing. I agree with you.

This. They both knew they were in public. The finger thing seems to be a socially acceptable sign of affection. That is what they should have done. Although we wouldn’t have gotten the joke for them to do that elsewhere. Perhaps that was the point? Just to get the joke in?

The defibrilating tricorder sounds like something they remembered seeing in CASINO ROYALE, where Bond’s car seems to be able to provide a cure for every poison short of what you might experience with Horta culture.

Given that Picard apparently had a HomeAlone/Skyfall type sequence recently, I’m guessing the writers are showing their influences … and those are definitely not thrilling me at all. Steal from good stuff, not from some grossly overrated mess that seems to be about a secret agent who just goes around collecting leads by killing agents for secret cellphone data that in real life they’d keep in their heads.

Casino Royale or even much further back – when the 1960’s Batman and Robin would be able to access a new Bat-gadget of one kind or another to get themselves out of any fix. But…that was meant to be funny (and was) because Batman in those days was a campy comedy. SNW should not indulge itself in cheap gimmicks; it begins to wear on the ‘suspension of disbelief’ which any fictional work depends on.

Well, if the tricorder is going to be their version of a swiss army knife (or a smart phone, which I guess is a better analogy), maybe we’re going to have to get used to them using it to macgyver their way out of jams. TOS did some weird stuff with the equipment sometimes, but it usually felt vaguely credible, like when the two communicator superheterodyned (or whatever) and brought down a mountain in FRIDAY’S CHILD.

The tricorder having a defibrillator mode seems perfectly credible to me

Watching a beautiful Vulcan woman making herself available to Spock, and having him turn it down in favor of duty…..knowing how that story ends — was pretty heartbreaking.

I’m a fairly decent canon guy and I had no issues with showing T’Pring here. My only thing was it makes Spock staring at her childhood photo a little more creepy but that’s all.

Rotten Tomatoes gave Strange New Worlds the perfect score of 100.

Yeah, and a 92% audience score. Discovery is currently at 36% in that category…but it can take heart that it’s beating Star Trek V: The Final Frontier by 11 points!!!

My personal mini-retcon to get by the 1990s issue was that the Eugenics Wars were a secret, clandestine affair. Teams of covert special forces (made up of augments), locked in a hidden war between nations and factions. Influencing world affairs/politics.

I didn’t see it as a full on hot war type of scenario. We know R&D military tech is years more advanced than anything we have at the time, hence the Botany Bay. Maybe all the temporal incursions allowed these groups to gather data/reverse engineer tech so it was far more advanced. Maybe WWIII was a result of nations finding out augments were used to influence world events etc.

I could get behind this!

This was what the Trek powers that be were saying in the 1990s.

And First Contact put WW3 decades in the future.

Nothing new here actually.

It seems as though some here would like to decanonize anything about that from TNG.

Agreed – that’s always been my assumption as well. The Eugenics Wars (in our time) may not even be referred to as such. It could be a name applied by later generations to current conflicts, who have a more complete picture of events “behind the scenes” than we do.

I like the interpretation of whoever updated the Memory Alpha Eugenics war page. Their interpretation is that the Eugenics wars happened in the 1990s as always stated. Then the 2nd civil war (still not enthused about that) led into essentially a 2nd eugenics war which was eventually called world War III. That is my head cannon.

This can also work for me.

This was the interpretation of Greg Cox’ novel series “The Eugenics Wars.” All the brushfire wars of the 1990s that happened in real life were actually part of the secret wars between Khan and the other augments. Haven’t read it myself, but it seems like a nice way to have the Eugenics Wars happen in their canonical time while still jiving with our real-world history. And it doesn’t negate the possibility for a second round of such wars to happen again in the 21st century as Pike states.

I wish they’d hold off/slow down on the everyone has a dark trauma in their past stuff. It gets old and it’s a distraction. I don’t want it as an A story every week.

Translation: “I want outdated cookie cutter characters like those from my childhood”

“Star Trek: The Motion Picture in the movie theaters, as I did. If you saw The Original Series and then The Motion Picture , you were like, “Oh, they’re doing it bigger!” ” <—- Like x 100000 RIGHT. It’s space exploration, colonization, the final frontier… Horatio Hornblower in space. One ship, one crew can decide the fate of humanity, species, who lives, who die, etc.

“Like “Data’s Day” is one of our favorite episodes to talk about in the writers’ room.” WRONG. I don’t know why they keep trying to force a TNG connection when that just leads to nonsensical time loops, boring holodeck episodes and canon complaints. If we wanted bland comedy we’d watch Orville.

It’s mutually exclusive!!! Can already see Prodigy is going from kids finding their way in the galaxy to falling apart with a time loop that makes no sense and canon characters kids don’t get nor care about (two Janeway’s, etc). Ugh. Stop. It. I know you want to relive being ten, but Time Trek The Technobabble Generation sucked holodeck then, and it sucks now.

The success of SNW is TMP, TOS, etc. Not TNG. Hell, incorporate DS9 if you want some 90s Trek so bad.

Everyone’s a critic

As far as I’m concerned, the Eugenics Wars dates as established are still locked in. Trek is alternative history, as every space adventure show that lasts long enough in cultural memory will become. I have no problems accepting this, and I see that I am not alone in that acceptance. The DY-100 was neither built by nor for the US, so it didn’t show up in the Europa Mission PR display. And Adam Soong…probably was very poorly inspired by the Eugenics Wars as a twenty-something research student.

As for this Second American Civil War…well, it’s probably been going on since the 1960’s and just didn’t get recognized as such until after the fact.

Yes, the historians living in that universe are going to argue over what happened when and what it all meant and means as the centuries pass.

I think I understand what Henry Alonso Myers is saying about the dates in Star Trek. I think the idea they’re going with is that the Eugenics Wars happened and are happening now. I believe he’s trying to say that in the Star Trek universe, Khan is responsible, behind the scenes of course, for all the division and strife that is tearing the world apart right now, which is basically what happened during the original years for the Eugenics Wars. Instead now it’s been bumped up into the 2000s and not the ’90s.

So the same event does take place in the Star Trek universe, just in a more modern frame of time. That makes sense to me. I mean he’s not saying that the Eugenics Wars never happened and that’s really the important thing, right? But part of me says, why mess with it at all, right?

Let’s play devil’s advocate now. Henry Alonso Myers stated that people are telling him that they lived through the ’90s and nothing like the Eugenics Wars ever happened. Now there’s the problem right there because you’re blending fact with fiction. The Earth in Star Trek is not our Earth, it’s a vision of what our Earth could become if we set aside all the strife, division, and hate.

It is a fictional Earth. So being as the Earth in Star Trek is a piece of fiction then so too can it’s history be. Which means the Eugenics Wars could take place in the ’90s, the Bell Riots in 2026, WW3, etc etc. They could all happen when they’re supposed to happen because the Earth in Star Trek is its own Earth with its own history.

They’re trying to blend fact with fiction and that’s where they’re going to have problems. Of course we never experienced anything like the Eugenics Wars because it’s not our Earth. On the Star Trek Earth, they did. It represents a very big mistake made by the scientists of the Star Trek Earth.

A mistake involving genetic engineering. That’s why it’s banned throughout the Federation. It allowed people with superhuman strength and intellect to rise to power too fast. But that’s a mistake that was made on the Earth in Star Trek, not our Earth.

And it shouldn’t be confused as such and that’s where and why they’ll run into problems with Star Trek’s history. Because they’re treating the history of the Earth in Star Trek as if it was our own and it’s not. They should just be concerned with telling a good story set in the Star Trek universe. Also, I must say that what Henry Alonso Myers said about the tricorder being used as a defibrillator sounds pretty cool and I can’t wait to see that!

I loved how they used the transporter to beam Spock’s booster inside of him that was pretty cool! Live long and prosper, Trekmovie 🖖

Here is a thought…. don’t set it on Earth in the 90, 2020s and don’t do time loops that make no sense. Last I check the show was called STAR Trek. Leave the I suppose hateful people that don’t go back in time to save everyone in WW2 with anti science technology when they could to a not so well thoughtout episode of TOS and Time Trek: The Technobabble Generation.

I too am tired of time travel stories but it’s Star Trek and that’s it’s bread and butter. The minute a descendant of Khan’s was put on the Enterprise, especially on the bridge, that should’ve been a BIG indication that we’re gonna be seeing Khan on SNW. They wouldn’t be messing with the Eugenics Wars if we weren’t going to be seeing it on screen soon and the only show that could come close to having a reasonable reason for showing the Eugenics Wars finally is SNW because of La’an. I really don’t want more time travel myself because everytime they do it the timeline gets more and more messed up.

But as long as Alex Kurtzman is still the show runner than we’re gonna have time travel in Star Trek and lots of it. Live long and prosper, Cmd.Bremmon 🖖.

Regarding when the Eugenics Wars happened, I think the dates of these wars depend on which calendar was used. On one calendar, these conflicts happened in the 21st Century (2026-2053?), but on a different calendar, the wars happened in the 1990s (1993-1996?).

“Space Seed” itself hinted at two different calendars used during the wars: As we know, Spock said, “The mid-1990s was the era of the last so-called World War,” which McCoy subtitled as the Eugenics Wars. In addition, he, Kirk, Scott, and McGivers dated the Botany Bay, Khan, and his people to the 1990s and the Twentieth Century.

However, Kirk gave an estimate of two centuries for how long Khan, and by extension his people, had been sleeping; and Scott said they were apparently in suspended animation when the ship took off. According to the Memory Alpha website, the in-universe date of the episode was 2267. This would mean that the Eugenics supermen took off from Earth circa 2067. So circa 2067 on one calendar was 1996 on the other.

So, the Vulcan science officer who endeavors to be accurate may not have been wrong after all.

In any case, the Federation principally measured time in Stardates, not dates on old calendars.

Incidentally, Stardates look like Julian Day Numbers. If the date of June 7, 1996 shown on the Project Khan folder was a Gregorian date, then the corresponding Julian Day Number would be 2450242 ( https://core2.gsfc.nasa.gov/time/julian.html ).

Since the Eugenics Wars/World War III did not happen in the mid-1990s of reality, then the dates of the 1990s and the 20th Century for these wars as well as for the Botany Bay and the Eugenics supermen were not dates on the Gregorian calendar, but dates on the other calendar, perhaps, a calendar established by the one of the post-Hitler tyrants mentioned in Star Trek – Ferris, Maltuvis, Lee Kuan, Krotus, Green, or even Khan himself.

The “doing it bigger” of TMP had in-universe explanations that were explicitly stated or can be logically inferred: The Enterprise was refit, the rest of Starfleet and the Klingon fleet were also modernized, and the Klingons themselves either found a cure that reversed the Augment-modified Levodian Flu virus or all underwent cranial reconstruction.

And of course, the alternate reality of Star Trek (2009) was explained by Nero’s attack on the Kelvin.

Could there be in-universe explanations for “doing it bigger” in DSC and SNW?

Star Trek: Voyagers Paris & Torres Relationship Almost Didnt Happen Says Robert Duncan McNeill

• Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres might not have become a couple if a Star Trek: Voyager season 3 episode had turned out differently.
• "Blood Fever" was originally meant to feature Tuvok more heavily but was changed to Tom at the last minute.
• The episode accelerated Tom and B'Elanna's romance and solidified their relationship, leading to their love confession in season 4.

Tom Paris actor Robert Duncan McNeill revealed that Star Trek: Voyager almost didn't make his character and B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) a couple in season 3. After their official get-together at the beginning of season 4, Tom and B'Elanna became the only stable couple among Voyager 's cast of characters for the rest of the show's seven seasons. Their relationship ended up going further than most Star Trek couples , culminating in their marriage and the birth of their daughter in season 7.

While the seeds of Tom and B'Elanna's future romance were planted as far back as season 1, any explicit hint of their relationship wasn't cemented until Voyager season 3, episode 16, "Blood Fever." During the episode, Ensign Vorik (Alexander Enberg) infected B'Elanna with his Vulcan Pon Farr, causing her to choose Tom as he mate while the two were trapped in a system of caves on an alien planet. However, "Blood Fever" almost forwent setting up Tom and B'Elanna as a couple in favor of a different storyline.

Every Voyager Character Who Has Returned In Star Trek (& How)

Star Trek: Voyager's beloved characters have returned in Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and especially Star Trek: Prodigy.

Robert Duncan McNeill Explains Why Blood Fever Wasnt Supposed To Start Tom And BElannas Relationship

Another character was supposed to feature more heavily in "blood fever".

In an interview with Star Trek Monthly , issue 28 around the time of the episode's airing, Robert Duncan McNeill revealed that "Blood Fever" was originally supposed to star Tuvok (Tim Russ) and B'Elanna as the episode's duo , but that it was changed to Tom at the last minute. According to McNeill, Voyager 's creative team decided to replace Tuvok with Tom almost on a whim, but the decision ultimately had huge implications for Voyager 's storyline due to it fully cementing Tom and B'Elanna's future relationship. Read McNeill's full quote below:

"Originally that episode was written for B'Elanna to go into Pon Farr and to be trapped in the caves with Tuvok, who would help her go through this and deal with it because he's Vulcan and he's been through it. At the very last minute, literally like the day before we started shooting that episode, they thought, 'Why don't we make it Tom Paris and B'Elanna trapped, and let's see what happens with that.' So they made this change."

Logically, having Tuvok be the one to help B'Elanna in "Blood Fever" would have made sense. As McNeill pointed out, Tuvok had experienced the Pon Farr and was equipped to help B'Elanna manage her symptoms if not alleviate them. Tuvok was still a big presence in "Blood Fever," and was the first person to realize what was wrong with B'Elanna as well as Voyager 's source for Vulcan knowledge about Pon Farr. However, the decision to jump-start Tom and B'Elanna's relationship was a good one, as the romance might have never come to fruition otherwise.

Would Paris And Torres Still Have Become A Couple Without Blood Fever?

Tom and b'elanna's future as a couple might have been more rocky.

Although it's possible Tom and B'Elanna would still have gotten together had "Blood Fever" played out differently, the chances would have been much slimmer. The Paris/Torres relationship had been teased subtly in earlier seasons, but "Blood Fever" brought their feelings out in the open and was arguably the catalyst for the two finally admitting their love for each other at the beginning of Star Trek: Voyager season 4 . Tom and B'Elanna's love confession coming so quickly on "Blood Fever's" heels seems like no coincidence when looked at in hindsight.

Ultimately, Star Trek: Voyager made the right decision to feature Tom more heavily in "Blood Fever" and the episode was the perfect beginning to Tom and B'Elanna's love story.

It's impossible to say exactly how Tom and B'Elanna's relationship would have evolved without "Blood Fever." However, the development of their romance would likely have taken much longer , which may have cheated audiences out of seeing nearly as much of their relationship progression or resulted in the creative team getting bored and dropping the storyline entirely, leaving a lot of unresolved potential. Ultimately, Star Trek: Voyager made the right decision to feature Tom more heavily in "Blood Fever" and the episode was the perfect beginning to Tom and B'Elanna's love story.

Source: Star Trek Monthly , issue 28

Star Trek: Voyager is available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Voyager

The fifth entry in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: Voyager, is a sci-fi series that sees the crew of the USS Voyager on a long journey back to their home after finding themselves stranded at the far ends of the Milky Way Galaxy. Led by Captain Kathryn Janeway, the series follows the crew as they embark through truly uncharted areas of space, with new species, friends, foes, and mysteries to solve as they wrestle with the politics of a crew in a situation they've never faced before.

Cast Jennifer Lien, Garrett Wang, Tim Russ, Robert Duncan McNeill, Roxann Dawson, Robert Beltran, Kate Mulgrew, Jeri Ryan, Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo

Release Date May 23, 1995

Genres Sci-Fi, Adventure

Network UPN

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Kenneth Biller, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Brannon Braga

Showrunner Kenneth Biller, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Brannon Braga

Rating TV-PG

Where To Watch Paramount+

Screen Rant

Star trek: voyager perfectly showed tom paris changed for the better.

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Every Voyager Character Who Has Returned In Star Trek (& How)

Star trek: voyager’s paris & torres relationship almost didn’t happen says robert duncan mcneill, song kang’s latest k-drama role perfectly flipped one of his most famous characters.

• Tom Paris underwent significant character growth from a playboy to a loving partner over Star Trek: Voyager's seven seasons.
• The episode "Blood Fever" highlighted Tom's development and laid the foundation for his romance with B'Elanna Torres.
• Tom and B'Elanna's relationship brought out the best in each other and provided engaging ongoing storylines for both characters.

Star Trek: Voyager season 3 perfectly demonstrated how much Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) had changed since season 1. Tom was the ship's pilot and occasional medic, part of Voyager 's main cast of characters , and one of the characters with the biggest shift in personality throughout the show's seven seasons . Although he ended the series as a valued member of the crew and a loving husband and father, Tom's journey on Voyager started in a much different place.

When audiences first met Tom in Voyager 's pilot episode, he was an angry, jaded convicted felon who had pushed everyone in his life away , including his family. Not only that, but Tom was a notorious ladies' man and pursued women with a determination that often came off as unsettling or unpleasant. It's hard to believe that a character like Tom could change so much over Voyager 's seven seasons given where he started, but the progression of his transformation was demonstrated as early as season 3.

Star Trek: Voyager's beloved characters have returned in Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and especially Star Trek: Prodigy.

Star Trek: Voyager’s “Blood Fever” Showed How Much Tom Paris Had Changed Since Season 1

"blood fever" demonstrated that paris was a wholly different character.

Although his character change may have seemed gradual, Voyager season 3, episode 16, "Blood Fever" demonstrated what a different man Tom was from when he was first introduced . "Blood Fever" was the first episode to depict the start of the future relationship between Tom and B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson), Voyager 's most stable romance and one of the show's more interesting romantic subplots. During the episode, Tom and B'Elanna were forced to acknowledge their romantic feelings for each other while B'Elanna underwent a version of Pon Farr passed to her by Vulcan Ensign Vorik (Alexander Enberg) .

Tom's insistence on treating the situation carefully laid the groundwork for how strong and healthy his and B'Elanna's romance would become in later seasons.

Tom's refusal to " take advantage " of B'Elanna's altered mental state and give in to her advances made it clear how much he had changed. In season 1, Tom would likely not have hesitated to agree to B'Elanna's request, but "Blood Fever" showed that he had grown to respect B'Elanna and women in general on a different level . Rather than simply acquiescing to the situation, which could have caused problems in his relationship with B'Elanna going forward, Tom's insistence on treating the situation carefully laid the groundwork for how strong and healthy his and B'Elanna's romance would become in later seasons.

Why The Paris/Torres Relationship Was A Great Decision For Both Characters

Tom and b'elanna brought out the best in each other.

Thanks to its well-handled set-up in "Blood Fever," Voyager 's Paris/Torres relationship was a great decision for both characters. Putting Tom in a long-term romance with another member of the main cast helped cement his continued move away from the playboy archetype that wasn’t working for him in seasons 1 and 2 . Thanks to B'Elanna, Tom became a more well-rounded character and gained an ongoing storyline with endless possibilities that Voyager made work to the show's advantage.

Likewise, the romance allowed B’Elanna to show her softer side more often, especially when her struggles with her half-Klingon heritage became difficult. B'Elanna's relationship with Tom was also a good vehicle for exploring her past trauma, especially in later seasons when she dealt with things like finding out she was pregnant and grappling with the heritage of her and Tom's daughter in light of her childhood. Tom and B'Elanna truly brought out the best qualities in each other , and Star Trek: Voyager was smart to pair them together.

Star Trek: Voyager is available to stream on Paramount+

Star Trek: Voyager

*Availability in US

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The fifth entry in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: Voyager, is a sci-fi series that sees the crew of the USS Voyager on a long journey back to their home after finding themselves stranded at the far ends of the Milky Way Galaxy. Led by Captain Kathryn Janeway, the series follows the crew as they embark through truly uncharted areas of space, with new species, friends, foes, and mysteries to solve as they wrestle with the politics of a crew in a situation they've never faced before.