SOCS-Mind Meld

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I love Star Trek and all the alien species who populate the series. Some of the aliens are the Klingons, the Vulcans and the Ferengi. I suspect some of our corporations and Wall Street may be run by Ferengi.  The Ferengi think profit is supreme and they have several rules they live by called The Rules of Acquisition.  One of these rules is never put family before business. Even though the Ferengi are pretty funny they are not my favorite characters.

One of my favorite characters is the Vulcan Mr. Spock. I was sad when the original actor,Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock recently passed. He was so great in the role I was skeptical, when the new Star Trek movies were coming out, that a new actor could fill the part as well. I think Zachary Quinto has done it. Something Spock was known for was “the Vulcan Mind Meld.” He employed it when other forms of communication failed or when he wanted to have a meeting of the minds with humans or other species.

Here are a few Mild Meld scenes via Russ Hany on You Tube entitled Don’t Forget Mind Meld:

Spock and another character Dr. McCoy were often at odds with each other. Dr. McCoy did not like that Spock was so unemotional and stubbornly logical. In the new Star Trek films the relationship continues the same.

Via Lostzilla 847 on You Tube:

And I can’t leave out the Klingons via Beau S :

This is my contribution to Stream of Consciousness Saturday

SoCS badge 2015

 

25 thoughts on “SOCS-Mind Meld”

  2. JoAnne

    I wish I’d thought to write about this! I love Star Trek, and Spock was my first crush. He helped me get through a chaotic early adolescence. Loved the video with Leonard Nimoy and “Don’t You Forget About Me.” Good job, Deborah!

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  3. Glazed

    That mind meld thing could come in handy sometimes. Like when my wife gives me a frown and won’t talk to me or tell me what’s wrong. I’d like to do the mind meld just to see how much trouble I’m really in.

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  6. Hope Floats

    I love Star Trek and I had forgotten about the Mind Meld. Gosh I cried when Spock died in that chamber and couldn’t do it with Kirk…had to settle for poor Bones…made him a little loopy too…Which one was that…the one with Khan and the Genesis thing…GAH! Off to Google memonics and Star Trek episodes

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  7. herheadache

    Second Star Trek themed post this week. Guess mind and Star Trek go together for aa lot of people. I never got into it, but that profit is supreme stuff is sad, even for fictional reality. Like how you associated it with real life

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  8. shanjeniah

    I used mind, but left off the meld!

    The day Leonard Nimoy died, I was in the Portland, OR Airport, about to get on the first of two planes that would take my family and I across the country back to upstate New York. There was something profound aobut being in the air that day (I’m not a fan of flying, but it felt right to me.).

    I still haven’t fully absorbed it. Without Leonard, Spock would have been a sideshow attraction, and not a fully realized character with his own integrity. Without Leonard, Zachary Quinto couldn’t have done what he did for Spock (I was skeptical, too, but he is admirable in the role!).

    Over the last couple of years, there’s been another Vulcan in my mind. She comes from a time of great turmoil among her people, and she’s not a Pedestal Vulcan. She’s flawed and fallible – but she’s also strong and daring.

    Because mind melding is seen as subversive in her time, she doesn’t know how to meld, and a meld is used against her, to twist her memories into something else, and damaging her in life-threatening ways. Eventually, she helps to bring change to her world, and learns how to meld, and to coexist with humans (particularly one extremely human engineer!) in a way no other Vulcan ever has. It comes at great cost, but I think she would say it was worth it.

    Here’s T’Pol, and Trip, and Bon Jovi….

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      1. shanjeniah

        It’sactually my favorite series. TNG got a little preachy and sanctimonious at times, and Picard wasn’t very nice to children, and often so cerebral that he lacked empathy for those around him. He was a good man, but a hard one at times, and often closed off too much for his own good.

        Kirk often annoyed the bleep out of me, because he’d just walk onto someone else’s planer and start telling them how they were going to do things…and the constantly trying to get Spock to be more human thing – my theory is that Spock has struggled with his identity his whole life, and, at times when he can find a workable balance, it might be best to let him be…

        Deep Space Nine – well, I fell asleep during the premier. I tried to like it, and Voyager, too, but I couldn’t, really.

        But Enterprise…I didn’t watch it when it was new. My oldest child was born September 2, 2001, and then there was the 11th, and then we moved cross-country and didn’t have cable…

        But, mostly, it was that I wasn’t sure the Quantum Leap guy could be a starship captain, and I was even warier of T’Pol being just another token Vulcan who couldn’t measure up to Spock, and, worse, was now a hot, sexy woman….

        I was wrong about Scott Bakula. He was a good starship captain, with ideals and an edge of desperation, especially in season 3, during the season-long Xindi arc (I don’t know if you watched to that point, but things get extremely interesting, and everyone falls apart, at some point, to some degree).

        And T’Pol…she started surprising me when she told Trip she failed to see his point, then played with his ears and rubbed decon gel over his shoulders *five times!* (Yup. I counted). And the lady had a temper right from the start, and some pretty mad fighting skills, too…

        But she was also willing to open up to these humans, to let them be who they were, once she got an idea of how they ticked, and she held her own as a Vulcan no one was trying to turn into a human.

        She definitely was changed and damaged along the way, but she also grew wiser and stronger…

        And the relationship between her and Trip – that is the most real relationship I’ve seen in all of Trek…and, honestly, most TV romances aren’t nearly that well thought out or developed. It’s like watching them learn to dance together, and, not only is it amazing to watch, for me – they keep whispering new parts of the story to me, so that I have to write them.

        And the last two episodes before the truly horrific finale – they were brilliant, real, and so very close to home that, the first time I saw them, I cried on and off for four days. My Accomplice and I have stood where Trip and T’Pol did, and it’s gut-wrenching to be there with them….

        All that said, I’m not trying to convert you or change your mind (I’m assuming there’s nothing wrong with the one you have)…or at least not much.

        IDIC, rigt?

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      2. Deborah Drucker Post author

        Yes we have the whole TNG on DVD. I do like it but they are a bit preachy sometimes, I agree. I noticed they are preachy with Data. Love Q! He added some mischief. Yikes, I forgot about Voyager. I did like it too. I liked the idea of a woman captain of course. I got turned off to Enterprise because I though they got more violent and torturing aliens. Kind of mirroring what was going on in the real world. About the original Star Trek, well it was the first. So we have to realize some of it was not up to special effects and all. I though Dr. McCoy and Kirk sometimes made almost racist remarks to Spock, ( prejudiced against Vulcans), about his green blood and not showing feelings. I liked how his relationship with his mother was developed more in later films. Like in the new Star Trek movie when Vulcan is destroyed there are flashbacks to Spock’s childhood. IDIC.

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      3. shanjeniah

        There was a lot more low-grade racism in the late sixties. I think after all the fighting for basic civil rights, this took longer to get rid of.

        Of course, because Spock was half-human, it seemed like Kirk and McCoy had that manifest destiny and human superiority attitude that led them to think the human part of Spock was more worthy or valuable.

        Not very sensitive….

        There is a strong anti-Vulcan bias at the beginning of Enterprise, but there’s also a reason for it..the Vulcans have been holding them back for nearly a century.

        They don’t pick on T’Pol’s blood color, although they do twit her when she gets a little too superior for anyone’s good ..(of course,they don’t realize, at first, that she’s not necessarily being superior in the sense they think she is – she just has no idea whatsoever how to talk to humans. Vulcans are way too blunt for human comfort.

        T’Pol’s relationship with her mother is – complicated. Vulcan, but translatable.

        Enterprise did get more violent and dark, in Season 3, but, at the same time, there were some very socially relevant episodes, too, that dealt with various asects of the threat.

        Captain Archer is compelled to do things he didn’t want to do, and he suffered many crises of conscience for them…

        I like that no one emerged unscathed.

        Because the time period was just before the Romulan War, I think some degree of violence was inevitable.

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  9. Deborah Drucker Post author

    Well this is the argument that the end justifies the means and I don’t agree with it. Yes it is funny about the prejudice, even if it is with fictional beings. The whole premise of Star Trek is to explore and interact with new cultures. Then there is this bias coming through of human superiority. Well it wasn’t a perfect world for sure. I think there was some sexism as well and all the women having to walk around in mini-skirts. I guess if you didn’t have good thighs you would get a part on that show. At least in later series the woman were allowed to wear pants. It is like the Ferengi who think all women should be kept naked.

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