Chapter By Chapter> Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders chapter 6

Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as a read-along book club.

Back to the normal time. Last time we saw the effect of a Vulcan’s passing on their spouse, while I’m expecting this chapter to focus on the result.

I did a whole series about the strengths and weaknesses of each format of media currently in existence. (Unless I missed one. Check out The Art Of Storytelling.) When it comes to prose, especially novels, the ability to really see inside someone’s head without slowing the story is what’s important here. I skimmed through to confirm, but we’re about to see inside the heads of people involved in a Vulcan Mind Meld. Usually with Trek all we get is someone with their fingers on supposedly key parts of someone’s face going “my mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts” and then the Vulcan instituting the meld will randomly say words tied to whatever’s going on. “Pain. Suffering. Hunger. Jelly…donut. I think he really wants donuts, Captain.”

This should be interesting, but I was burned on Prime Directive not really doing anything with the Prime Directive outside of a brief plot device. On the mystery front we grabbed a suspect, but only “suspect” because we know this is a murder mystery, with Kirk and company playing detective. I’m not expecting anything on that front this chapter, since the deal is to help Sorel deal with the death of his wife and the disruption of the telepathic bond. So let’s dive in to a grieving Vulcan’s head. I’m sure everything will be fine.

It wasn’t what I was expecting, but that’s not a bad thing. Most of the chapter, and all the time in the meld, are just memories, with Daniel seeing things from Sorel’s perspective. It doesn’t say if he was some kind of outside observer or if he literally saw the memories through Sorel’s eyes. I’ve seen either done in flashbacks, sometimes using first person perspective through the camera lens and other having the actor for one character acting as if the character actually having the memories. This is less about the meld and more about showing us Sorel’s life, showing the reader why T’Zan’s passing mattered and how important she was in his life.

We get additional looks at Vulcan mating rituals. Sorel was originally part of an arranged marriage but the girl died. T’Zan he met at the Academy when they were students, so Vulcans do allow for both methods of finding a mate. His parents seemed rather accepting of her, or just happy they didn’t have to attempt playing matchmaker again, and they were bonded, but it wasn’t until after Pon Farr that they started being physically intimate. Yes, they married at a young age because Vulcans have a long lifespan and bond mentally before they even become sexually mature. It calls back to something mentioned in a previous chapter, when a Vulcan girl didn’t realize human males around her might be interested in something beyond platonic. Due to that lifespan difference Vulcans approach relationships differently, at least until they actually reach puberty. In other words, they don’t get puberty in their teens, or that’s what I took out of what was shown here. Whether or not that’s canon…who knows? It’s only explored here because these memories are keeping him from falling back into his mind and dying.

We also see some of Sorel’s early reactions to Daniel, how he saw him as a friend, and how close he felt towards Daniel. We also see two of Daniel’s failed attempts at romance, one of them being Miranda Jones. That’s an odd choice. I had to confirm that this blind human telepath (a rarity in the Star Trek universe, but we’ve seen humans with high esper ratings as far back as the first produced episode and second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”) is the same one from “Is There In Truth No Beauty?” You know, the one who was played by the same actress who would give us TNG’s substitute doctor pain-in-the-@#$ Pulaski. Apparently T’Zan helped designed Miranda’s “sensor web” that allowed her to “see” long before they developed Geordi’s visor. (The web was part of her dress if memory serves.) It’s not necessarily an important addition and I don’t think the chapter needed it, nor would its loss matter, but it doesn’t necessarily hurt the story, either. I do balk at Daniel calling her “sweet” given what I remember from the episode.

It’s when Sorel remembers T’Zan died that things start going bad, but the plan worked. Soron and T’Mir arrive and take over, and the healer overseeing the meld takes Daniel out and helps him rest. Daniel also grieves in his own way for the loss of his friend, the human crying thing. One question I do have is who was doing the meld? T’Par, the healer conducting was there, but was she making the connection or was Daniel able to make the meld himself and she just watched from outside until Sorel’s kids arrived? It’s not really clear, and Daniel is not shown to be telepathic on his own.

Was this chapter necessary? Maybe not, but not unlike the Miranda Jones reference it doesn’t hurt the story either. Unlike the reference, this does give an interesting look at two characters who are going to be important to the story as well as parts of Vulcan society when it comes to mating and marriage, and we do see why T’Zan’s passing is so hurtful to Sorel. She was a positive influence on a healer in training so focused on the lessons that he didn’t have much in the way of “beside manners”, which even for Vulcan doctors is important. Compassion and empathy are important qualities in a doctor, and I’m lucky that all my doctors and nursed during my recent medical issues had both. Remember, Vulcans do not lack emotions, they control them. They do at least on some level understand things like love, and I believe this may play a role.

Unlike some current stories that seem to be focused on romance in franchises where romance is not usually a top priority, I think we’ll see the romantic angles here, and when we hopefully return to these characters some day for a Chapter By Chapter review of The IDIC Epidemic, is subplot, not the main focus. That’s fine, because it is the relationships our characters have–be they romantic, platonic, the result of an alliance, or an antagonist–that make us connect to them and want to see them succeed through the main plot and the inciting incident. The main focus should be the murder mystery…but first we have to be convinced it was a murder. We’ll see what we learn towards that angle in the next chapter.