The Taleweaver's Ramblings

Star Wars is Greek; Star Trek is Roman. 

The comments have very valid points, and if you see this reblog, you should read them as well, but the initial idea was that Star Wars has a lot of focus on individual heroism - there are teams saving the day, but in the end the OT is centered on Luke’s personal struggle with himself and the Dark Side, and there’s much more of the sense that a single person can affect the galaxy with wits and/or a lightsaber - it’s more Iliadic or Odyssean. 

Star Trek, on the other hand, is about crew cohesion and bringing the ideals and material benefits of the Federation to other worlds, and serving the Federation or your crew above yourself, which feels like the ideals of Republican Rome - you’re not going to get Scaevola, sacrificing his hand, not for personal ideals but to show the virtues of his people, in Star Wars, but you might in Trek. 

Every ship captain we see in Star Trek (but especially Picard) is a philosopher-king, while Star Wars has the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire.

I guess you can go either way with this question, depending on whether you’re comparing the series to Greek vs. Roman art or Greek vs. Roman politics.

I love finding things like this on this site. It’s like coming across graduate-level discussions free-range

I've just finished the first Murderbot book and it's very funny coming from Star Trek to this. In Star Trek you have androids and such actively campaigning for themselves to be considered full people with rights that deserve the same considerations as anyone else. Meanwhile in Murderbot all the humans are telling this guy that it's a person with rights and it's their friend and they like it and its response is basically

Something about having an universal translator, and learning to understand without it

I like to think that Vulcans who come to understand that Humans just can’t try to process emotions the same way as them, it’s just healthiest to let it out in harmless ways, decide that venting and stuff should be taken just as seriously as Vulcan’s meditation time, and will encourage the Humans around them to complain about what’s upsetting them

People who are used to aloof Vulcans who avoid Humans at all cost running into one comforting a Human

“-and then they said my cheesecake was subpar, and they didn’t even bring a dish!!!”

“The purpose of this event was that every participant brings a food item of sorts, correct?”

“Yeah!!”

“And they did not follow this rule while insulting dishes that were brought?”

“Mostly just my dish but yeah >:(“

“How illogical”

“That’s what I’m saying!!!”

It somehow just dawned on me that video calls didn’t exist in the 1960’s and the that the transmissions they were showing in TOS would have been revolutionary, ‘cause whenever they have to videochat with admirals or whatever I’ve always just been like “Kirk ‘n the boyz on Zoom again”

Sometimes those things hit me while I'm watching yeah! The "sliding door" only really started in the 60s and automatic doors with sensors like in star trek only really hit off in the 70s!

The first pilot uses a fax machine basically in the first scene which to us looks crazy old, but the first "telephone Fax machine" was invented in 1964 and was crazy new idea at the time

Uhrua's Bluetooth earpiece she uses in the communications desk beat ours too, which came out in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

Even the communicator basically being a wireless phone! Those weren't around in the real world until 1973 apperently

It absolutely blows my mind how much of tos' revolutionary tech exists today

A Vulcan named Stork works at the Terran adoption agency. Parents always request that he be the one to deliver their child to them.

It’s years before anyone explains it to him.

People keep gifting him robes with long white birds on them.

The fun thing is he would understand why people were getting him outfits with storks on them. That’s a word, it’s his name, straightforward. All the humans get him the same gag gift, but like, they’re putting effort in at least. This is a genuinely nice outfit. Stork will be a walking zero-effort pun sometimes, rather than waste a perfectly fine robe.

It’s fine. This is a readily comprehensible human illogic. Exactly the kind of thing he expected from moving to Earth.

Six years in he finds out about the stork bringing babies.

Stork has a good long meditation session about this myth, his name, his job, the outfits, the whole shebang (or whatever Vulcan concept is the equivalent).

And he decides he’s honored by it, in a humanly illogical way.

The humans are asking him to do what is after all his job, and specifically requesting him for the joy his name brings them on top of an already agreeable and satisfying task. He has no objection to engendering positive emotions in others. Harm hastens the heat-death of the universe, Surak teaches, so happiness must logically slow it down. 

Plus, Vulcans of his generation love puns. There were two decades of punning competitions in colleges across the planet. So when he realizes that he is a walking zero-effort pun, and that the humans also love the pun, he is all for it. He is the Joe Cool of the entire Vulcan population in his city. 

And via this pun, the humans are including him in a cherished and traditional myth, by casting him as the literal bringer of life and the expander of families. 

There’s no downside. Stork wears his robes, pins, keychains, and other bird-related tchotchkes with genuine pride. 

YES IT’S BACK ON MY DASH AT LAST

For real though working together with some human social workers, a Vulcan would be an excellent caretaker for children in an adoption center.

Child has a meltdown? Imagine Stork, perfectly calm and unbothered, approaching the kid and saying “You appear quite upset, Eliza. If you would please allow me to relocate you to the ‘bean-bag-chair,’ we can discuss the source of your distress.”

A Vulcan educated in medicine and child psychology would be endlessly patient with a kid with behavioral issues. Stork wouldn’t get or upset or frustrated. After all, these are children with medical and psychological conditions. It would be illogical to blame the child or to not treat them with the appropriate care.

Even if the a little one was having a bad day or was just overtired, Stork wouldn’t get angry. He might even be a calming presence. Any new kids acting out would learn real quick that they’d have better luck trying to arm-wrestle a Klingon than get a rise out of Stork.

Not only that, Vulcans live much longer than humans. Imagine Stork looking virtually unchanged as decades pass. Kids he’d helped years ago would turn up fully grown, maybe there to adopt their own kids, and run into Stork, looking almost exactly as they remember him.

And he’d probably remember them too. “Welcome back, Eliza.”

“…Harm hastens the heat-death of the universe, Surak teaches, so logically happiness must slow it down…”

Will reblog every time it crosses my dash 🖖🏾

star trek heritage post (November 14th, 2020)

Periodic reminder that the compiled tag I use on AO3 is “Stork The Vulcan (fanon)” and so far there are 5 fics featuring him:

Various iterations of this thread ^ have also been bookmarked under the tag for future reference 🖖

Okay so, got here from a book on animal behavior but: Vulcan stand-up comedy as a competitive activity.

Because most Vulcans don't actually pretend they don't have emotions, it's all about self-regulation, right? And good comedy usually hinges on manipulating the relationship between our faculties of recognition and surprise in various ways, you can get pretty scientific with it.

So Vulcans go to the comedy act, and the idea is the comedian is trying to make you crack up, and the audience is trying to not even crack a smile, and if you do laugh, you lose. Like all in good fun, but Vulcans are both really competitive and really aware of how dangerous that urge can be to a society, so this could actually be classified as highly orthodox Surakian practice.

So of course the comedian has to actually be funny, or there's no challenge and the game is boring.

Which means the really good Vulcan comedians (most of whom tend to extremely dry delivery of their bits) are going to go around playing to packed houses, which mostly sit staring stonily back at them, with occasional breaks when someone loses it and reacts.

And after a show you'll have Vulcans walking out discussing with great approval how very humorous that was, with varying degrees of muted smugness or chagrin depending on if they won or lost.

I bet there are human comedians whose grandest fantasy is being good enough to do a set in Vulcana Regatta and have people going around bragging about not laughing at them.

"My agent was very concerned, wanted to make sure that I knew that no one was going to be laughing at my jokes."

"'Yes, I know' I said. 'I'm used to that.'"

Fic idea I was struck with the other day and keep thinking about: a Vulcan adopts a cat.

Still thinking about this, even though I’m not writing the fic!

This Vulcan, I’m calling her T’Pen, goes to a shelter and gets a cat, and the shelter employees are like, a bit weirded out? But obviously they’re going to give her a cat, I mean, she’s a Vulcan, she’s Super Responsible, she takes all the pamphlets and listens attentively to all the advice the shelter employees give her, even though it is obvious she researched a lot on her own.

Then T’Pen asks the shelter folks what she should name the cat and runs into That Thing Humans Do Where They Confound a Vulcan With Their Weird Ways

Shelter Employee 1: oh, you can name a cat anything! That’s what’s great! People names, common nouns, whole phrases.

Shelter Employee 2: yeah, nothing sounds weird on a cat. Everything from Chad to Cupboard is fair game.

SE 1: yeah, I mean, you can’t call a dog Chad, that would be weird

SE 2: I wouldn’t fuckin’ trust anyone who named their dog Chad

SE 1: oh word

T’Pen:….

T’Pen: ….fascinating.

Later, in the interest of furthering her anthropological study of Earth, T’Pen has a houseparty and she invites her coworkers, many of whom are human, but others which are aliens, and are fascinated by T’Pen’s cat

Vulcan Co-worker: T’Pen, what have you named this small Earth feline?

T’Pen: I have named him Marmalade.

Vucan co-worker: Is that not the name of a type of Terran fruit preserve? I do not understand the logic behind this choice.

T’Pen: the logic is self-evident to a human.

Human Co-worker: T’Pen, omg, you have a cat! What’s his name?

T’Pen: thank you for your inquiry. His name is Marmalade

Human Co-worker: oooh! yeah, that makes sense, because he’s orange and sweet! lmao, great name

Vulcan Co-worker: …

Vulcan Co-worker: ….fascinating

Human: So, how’s Marmalade?

T’Pen: He has the peculiar habit of walking on my workstation.

Human: Aggravating, isn’t it?

T’Pen: We Vulcans do not feel human emotions. However, I would prefer it if Marmalade stayed off my workstation, particularly when I am working.

Human: Get a box.

T’Pen: Murdering Marmalade seems an overreaction.

Human: No, you need a box with interior dimensions approximately the same as Marmalade’s body, and set it on the floor next to your workstation. Marmalade will sit in the box.

T’Pen: Why do you believe that this will work for Marmalade?

Human: We don’t know. It’s just something cats do. If he fits, he sits.

T’Pen: … Fascinating.

Vulcan Commander: T’Pen, you are posting videos of your cat. Explain.

T’pen: My colleagues are amused and entertained by Marmalade’s interactions with his environment. I am amused and entertained by their reactions as reflected in the comments.

Vulcan Commander (reading): “U haz done me a startle”?

T’Pen: Some of them like to verbalize what they believe are Marmalade’s thought processes. He is a cat, so they imagine that he does not grasp human spelling and grammar.

Vulcan Commander: … Fascinating. As you were. (signs off)

T’Pen (returning to her meal): Now I can haz lunch.

I need more people to write more bits of this.

@petermorwood

Attn @dduane - remember that Star Trek comic “Spot’s Day” you wrote…

…where the printed edition left out almost all Spot’s internal thoughts but some people* thought it made perfect sense in a weird Zen sort of way?

*And other people were totally baffled, including you?

(It’s on D’s Tumblr here.)

How would a Rihannsu khre’riov respond to a cat? How would a cat respond to a Rihannsu khre’riov? The concept is… Fascinating. (raises eyebrow).

Film, as they used to say, at eleven.

Captain’s Office, USS Discovery - D.

Vulcan Commander: Lt., (in my headcanon, T’pen is a first lieutenant. Just enough experience, but still somewhat innocent), I have noticed that you appear to have regular occurrences of minor epithelial damage to your hands.

T’Pen: <looks at her hands and wrists> Ah, yes Captain, that would be Marmalade.

Vulcan Commander: Your cat is attacking you?

T’pen: in a manner of speaking. The common term for the behavior, according to humans, is “trap cat”. She lays on her back in a pose that invites physical contact. After a random amount of petting, she will grab my hand in her claws and bite me. Research indicates this is instinctual, and related to the burst hunting nature of felis catus.

Vulcan Commander: it would not seem logical to repeat this behavior with her.

T’Pen: For a Vulcan, you are correct. However, Marmalade has her own logic, and Cthia dictates I allow her to define her logic according to her worldview. She is a cat. Sometimes that involves minor damage to my hands. There is little pain on my side, and her enjoyment of the game is sufficient that I do not mind.

Vulcan Commander: You seem fond of her.

T’Pen: <thinks> I…am sir. She is a suitable companion for a Starfleet Officer. My hours are of little concern to her, she is well able to amuse herself on her own. She does not ask for anything beyond what I am able to give in terms of affection, and I find her presence soothing and helpful during my meditations.

Vulcan Commander: She also seems to have helped you understand your human crewmates better.

T’Pen: That has been a beneficial secondary result.

Vulcan Commander: Very well, I just wished to make sure there was nothing to be concerned about regarding the marks on your hands. You are dismissed.

T’Pen: Thank You sir. <leaves>

Vulcan Commander: Waits until he is sure T’Pen is back at her station. Brings up his personal files, and searches for a specific picture. It is himself as a child, with a sehlat. He is laying with his head on the sehlat, asleep, using it as a pillow. He allows himself to relive the memories of his long-ago companion, and makes a mental note to look up information on adopting a cat of his own. The life of a Starfleet Captain can be lonely, he thinks, but it does not have to be.

(In my headcanon, the Vulcan Commander ends up with a floofy boi. Like a BIG Maine Coon or forest cat. Also, I feel Marmalade should make friends with a Horta, that she might ride him about the ship. The first time should be a bit of a surprise to said Horta.)

Sigh…I have no resistance to silly.

T’Pen has, among the many varied lifeforms aboard Discovery, a crewmate who is a Horta. She is, as is common for her species, in the geophysics lab in the science department. As with her siblings, her ability to analyze various rocks by tasting them without need of a tricorder is quite handy.

As with her siblings, she has a very tough upper carapace. (Technically, it’s not a carapace i suppose, but it helps with the visual.) This upper shell is extremely resistant to many forms of damage, heat, blunt force, pressure, the kinds of things you would expect on a creature at home thousands of feet underground.

Hortas, for those who have not seen the appropriate TOS episode, “Devil In The Dark”, are horizontal creatures. Barring deciding to eat most of a granite vein on the way to a planetary capital, they are around ¾ths of a meter to a meter high. They way they move, from all appearances, is to do what looks like a kind of rumbly glide over the ground. They are not actually gliding, but that is what it looks like. They are also warm to the touch. Comfortably warm, like a ledge next to a river on a sunny summer’s day.

So now we have what is, in many ways, a living, warm, Roomba. And a cat named “Marmalade”. And a ship with humans. 

Science Officer, a human: “Um…Cmdr Laraht?” 

Laraht: “Yes Ma’am?” 

Science Officer: “Are you perchance…cat-sitting for Lt. T’Pen while she attends that xenoanthro conference on Tellar?”

Laraht: “Yes Ma’am, I am. Marmalade seems to like me, and really, I only have to stop by once a day to make sure she has some companionship while T’Pen is gone. The feeders and litter box cleaning is all automated.”

Science Officer: “I agree that Marmalade likes you. In fact, I am absolutely positive that Marmalade likes you.” 

Laraht: “Ma’am?”

Science Officer: <Turns on one of the screens in the geophysics lab, makes sure it is set to be visible to a Horta, and grabs a tricorder out of its charger.> Within seconds there is a picture of Laraht’s upper shell/back. Nestled in one of the channels on Laraht’s back is Marmalade. Mostly sleeping, but cracking an eye open here and there.

Laraht: “Oh…oh dear. Ma’am, allow me to apologize…”

Science Officer: “No need. I’m sure neither you nor T’Pen anticipated this. Cats like warm surfaces to sleep on. The texture of your back creates areas that are almost perfect for a cat to feel safe and secure in, and your natural warmth and smooth gait make you a perfect place for her to sleep. I also imagine that your normal movement sound reminds her of her mother’s purr, so that may be a factor as well. I would recommend that you perhaps make sure to check for “Rider Kittehs” when leaving T’Pen’s quarters though. And perhaps we should put a tracker in Marmalade’s collar. In case she decides to go wandering. I recall Enterprise having some issues along those lines with one of her crew’s cats.”

Laraht: “Yes Ma’am…she is very light. I cannot tell she is there by feel.”

Science Officer: “Unsurprising, given your skin in that location.”

At that point, I keep seeing Marmalade sneaking rides on Laraht whenever possible, to the point that the humans in the crew start making riding outfits for Marmalade. Laraht, as is common for Hortas is good-natured about it, and realizes the benefit of the morale boost that her new mascot provides. So she does not check too carefully for riders if her daily duties are not of a dangerous nature. 

Her older brother Naraht is very amused by the videos of his baby sister and Marmalade. So is their mother, although out of respect, no one actually asks her. They just make sure to “accidentally” ensure she is cc’d on the emails with new videos. 

When T’Pen returns, she is initially unsure about the entire thing, but after Laraht and some of her coworkers assure her that it is all in good fun, she makes sure to allow Laraht access to her quarters as is convenient for them. T’Pen does not directly encourage the “Hortakitteh” videos, but she is able to rationalize the outfits her crewmates make for Marmalade as protective gear, and there is no logical reason why protective gear cannot be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. 

The other thing T’pen is finding she enjoys the ways Marmalade has changed her relationships with the humans on board Discovery. While humans are still as emotional as ever, Marmalade has become a bridge between T’Pen and the Vulcans on Discovery and the humans on board. All of them are learning things about each other that “normal” work interaction would never provide. Both groups are quite pleased by this.

And Marmalade does look very cute in her little outfits.

A hero in more ways than one

I NEVER KNEW THAT

Always always reblogging this if I see it on my dashboard

Worth knowing.

Okay so, got here from a book on animal behavior but: Vulcan stand-up comedy as a competitive activity.

Because most Vulcans don't actually pretend they don't have emotions, it's all about self-regulation, right? And good comedy usually hinges on manipulating the relationship between our faculties of recognition and surprise in various ways, you can get pretty scientific with it.

So Vulcans go to the comedy act, and the idea is the comedian is trying to make you crack up, and the audience is trying to not even crack a smile, and if you do laugh, you lose. Like all in good fun, but Vulcans are both really competitive and really aware of how dangerous that urge can be to a society, so this could actually be classified as highly orthodox Surakian practice.

So of course the comedian has to actually be funny, or there's no challenge and the game is boring.

Which means the really good Vulcan comedians (most of whom tend to extremely dry delivery of their bits) are going to go around playing to packed houses, which mostly sit staring stonily back at them, with occasional breaks when someone loses it and reacts.

And after a show you'll have Vulcans walking out discussing with great approval how very humorous that was, with varying degrees of muted smugness or chagrin depending on if they won or lost.

I bet there are human comedians whose grandest fantasy is being good enough to do a set in Vulcana Regatta and have people going around bragging about not laughing at them.

"My agent was very concerned, wanted to make sure that I knew that no one was going to be laughing at my jokes."

"'Yes, I know' I said. 'I'm used to that.'"

It makes sense, though. In our universe, the Korean War lasted two years, but the show M*A*S*H lasts eleven seasons and shows multiple season changes, indicating that in that universe, it lasted much longer.

Wartime is often a time of huge technological advancement, as shown with the medical techniques created at the 4077 (e.g. the vascular clamp that led to better arterial operations). This means that by the time their Korean War ends, there would have been significantly more progress made in scientific fields. Additionally, if the M*A*S*H universe is unfortunate enough to have a Korean War and a Vietnam War, the anti-war sentiments would have been great. This could have pushed forward the social reforms which lead to Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets.

Keep in mind, I only found out about this in November

We know the major wars of the late 20th Century are different in the Trek universe; for example, they had the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s, which we didn’t have. Nor could we have, because we weren’t even CLOSE to doing genetic engineering on humans in the 1990s, but they obviously were. Or you couldn’t get Augments like Khan and the rest.

…the M*A*S*H cast are largely medical personnel so you could probably come up with a justification for at least one of them to be tangentially connected to the experimentation that created Khan and his fellows, leading to World War Three in the ‘90s and a few decades of low-level post-apocalypse before the Vulcans showed up and we managed to just barely qualify for their help by launching a warp-capable manned breadbox at them genuinely unsure if this would make M*A*S*H feel more or less dark than situating it within the presumption of real history!

O______O

@prfury

attention this is your captain speaking chag sameach pesach to all celebrating and a reminder do not open the airlock to greet elijah the vulcan rabbinic council ruled that opening the door to the room where the seder is occurring is sufficient elijah can get on a starship just fine himself he just likes to be personally invited in to your seder we dont need another incident like last year thank you

First flower ever grown in space bloomed today!

Yay!

Happy birthday, space flower!

(source: gilderoys)

KIRK IS HOLDING A ZINNIA. THE SAME FUCKING FLOWER.

FUCKING NASA MAN

No. Nononono. You don’t understand. 

I am so mad about this. Like, not like I wanna kill someone, but mad, as in, hysterical?

They wanted to answer questions about plants in space, right? How biology and botany would work in space. Because then who knows? We could grow crops in space, or fix the atmosphere. Or create the perfect biome for plants that are now extinct. Who fucking knows, right?

They could have taken a food crop. Wheat, maybe. Or rice. Something they could observe to see if it would be possible to solve a food shortage or whatever. Maybe a small apple tree to see if it would bloom, and then see if there could be a way to make it fruit. 

Or, you know, go the genetics route and take a sweet pea. See if zero gravity does anything to how genes are passed on. Mendel did it in a shed, why not a tin shed in outer space, right? Oh the possibilities.

Was it so wrong to take the zinnia? No, of course not. In my little horticultural brain, I thought, oh how lovely! A splash of colour in the emptiness of space. Something bright and cheerful, something that gives hope. That must have been it, right? 

But no. 

SOMEONE went, “Nah, mate, here’s an episode of Star Trek where Kirk is holding a ZINNIA in a SPACE DESERT.”

I could scream. I don’t know if I love or hate these fucking nerds. Oh my gods. 

NASA, YOU NEEEEERDS

love these NASA nerds 

Fic idea I was struck with the other day and keep thinking about: a Vulcan adopts a cat.

Still thinking about this, even though I’m not writing the fic!

This Vulcan, I’m calling her T’Pen, goes to a shelter and gets a cat, and the shelter employees are like, a bit weirded out? But obviously they’re going to give her a cat, I mean, she’s a Vulcan, she’s Super Responsible, she takes all the pamphlets and listens attentively to all the advice the shelter employees give her, even though it is obvious she researched a lot on her own.

Then T’Pen asks the shelter folks what she should name the cat and runs into That Thing Humans Do Where They Confound a Vulcan With Their Weird Ways

Shelter Employee 1: oh, you can name a cat anything! That’s what’s great! People names, common nouns, whole phrases.

Shelter Employee 2: yeah, nothing sounds weird on a cat. Everything from Chad to Cupboard is fair game.

SE 1: yeah, I mean, you can’t call a dog Chad, that would be weird

SE 2: I wouldn’t fuckin’ trust anyone who named their dog Chad

SE 1: oh word

T’Pen:….

T’Pen: ….fascinating.

Later, in the interest of furthering her anthropological study of Earth, T’Pen has a houseparty and she invites her coworkers, many of whom are human, but others which are aliens, and are fascinated by T’Pen’s cat

Vulcan Co-worker: T’Pen, what have you named this small Earth feline?

T’Pen: I have named him Marmalade.

Vucan co-worker: Is that not the name of a type of Terran fruit preserve? I do not understand the logic behind this choice.

T’Pen: the logic is self-evident to a human.

Human Co-worker: T’Pen, omg, you have a cat! What’s his name?

T’Pen: thank you for your inquiry. His name is Marmalade

Human Co-worker: oooh! yeah, that makes sense, because he’s orange and sweet! lmao, great name

Vulcan Co-worker: …

Vulcan Co-worker: ….fascinating

Human: So, how’s Marmalade?

T’Pen: He has the peculiar habit of walking on my workstation.

Human: Aggravating, isn’t it?

T’Pen: We Vulcans do not feel human emotions. However, I would prefer it if Marmalade stayed off my workstation, particularly when I am working.

Human: Get a box.

T’Pen: Murdering Marmalade seems an overreaction.

Human: No, you need a box with interior dimensions approximately the same as Marmalade’s body, and set it on the floor next to your workstation. Marmalade will sit in the box.

T’Pen: Why do you believe that this will work for Marmalade?

Human: We don’t know. It’s just something cats do. If he fits, he sits.

T’Pen: … Fascinating.

Vulcan Commander: T’Pen, you are posting videos of your cat. Explain.

T’pen: My colleagues are amused and entertained by Marmalade’s interactions with his environment. I am amused and entertained by their reactions as reflected in the comments.

Vulcan Commander (reading): “U haz done me a startle”?

T’Pen: Some of them like to verbalize what they believe are Marmalade’s thought processes. He is a cat, so they imagine that he does not grasp human spelling and grammar.

Vulcan Commander: … Fascinating. As you were. (signs off)

T’Pen (returning to her meal): Now I can haz lunch.

I need more people to write more bits of this.

@petermorwood

Attn @dduane - remember that Star Trek comic “Spot’s Day” you wrote…

…where the printed edition left out almost all Spot’s internal thoughts but some people* thought it made perfect sense in a weird Zen sort of way?

*And other people were totally baffled, including you?

(It’s on D’s Tumblr here.)

How would a Rihannsu khre’riov respond to a cat? How would a cat respond to a Rihannsu khre’riov? The concept is… Fascinating. (raises eyebrow).

Film, as they used to say, at eleven.

Captain’s Office, USS Discovery - D.

Vulcan Commander: Lt., (in my headcanon, T’pen is a first lieutenant. Just enough experience, but still somewhat innocent), I have noticed that you appear to have regular occurrences of minor epithelial damage to your hands.

T’Pen: <looks at her hands and wrists> Ah, yes Captain, that would be Marmalade.

Vulcan Commander: Your cat is attacking you?

T’pen: in a manner of speaking. The common term for the behavior, according to humans, is “trap cat”. She lays on her back in a pose that invites physical contact. After a random amount of petting, she will grab my hand in her claws and bite me. Research indicates this is instinctual, and related to the burst hunting nature of felis catus.

Vulcan Commander: it would not seem logical to repeat this behavior with her.

T’Pen: For a Vulcan, you are correct. However, Marmalade has her own logic, and Cthia dictates I allow her to define her logic according to her worldview. She is a cat. Sometimes that involves minor damage to my hands. There is little pain on my side, and her enjoyment of the game is sufficient that I do not mind.

Vulcan Commander: You seem fond of her.

T’Pen: <thinks> I…am sir. She is a suitable companion for a Starfleet Officer. My hours are of little concern to her, she is well able to amuse herself on her own. She does not ask for anything beyond what I am able to give in terms of affection, and I find her presence soothing and helpful during my meditations.

Vulcan Commander: She also seems to have helped you understand your human crewmates better.

T’Pen: That has been a beneficial secondary result.

Vulcan Commander: Very well, I just wished to make sure there was nothing to be concerned about regarding the marks on your hands. You are dismissed.

T’Pen: Thank You sir. <leaves>

Vulcan Commander: Waits until he is sure T’Pen is back at her station. Brings up his personal files, and searches for a specific picture. It is himself as a child, with a sehlat. He is laying with his head on the sehlat, asleep, using it as a pillow. He allows himself to relive the memories of his long-ago companion, and makes a mental note to look up information on adopting a cat of his own. The life of a Starfleet Captain can be lonely, he thinks, but it does not have to be.

(In my headcanon, the Vulcan Commander ends up with a floofy boi. Like a BIG Maine Coon or forest cat. Also, I feel Marmalade should make friends with a Horta, that she might ride him about the ship. The first time should be a bit of a surprise to said Horta.)

Sigh…I have no resistance to silly.

T’Pen has, among the many varied lifeforms aboard Discovery, a crewmate who is a Horta. She is, as is common for her species, in the geophysics lab in the science department. As with her siblings, her ability to analyze various rocks by tasting them without need of a tricorder is quite handy.

As with her siblings, she has a very tough upper carapace. (Technically, it’s not a carapace i suppose, but it helps with the visual.) This upper shell is extremely resistant to many forms of damage, heat, blunt force, pressure, the kinds of things you would expect on a creature at home thousands of feet underground.

Hortas, for those who have not seen the appropriate TOS episode, “Devil In The Dark”, are horizontal creatures. Barring deciding to eat most of a granite vein on the way to a planetary capital, they are around ¾ths of a meter to a meter high. They way they move, from all appearances, is to do what looks like a kind of rumbly glide over the ground. They are not actually gliding, but that is what it looks like. They are also warm to the touch. Comfortably warm, like a ledge next to a river on a sunny summer’s day.

So now we have what is, in many ways, a living, warm, Roomba. And a cat named “Marmalade”. And a ship with humans. 

Science Officer, a human: “Um…Cmdr Laraht?” 

Laraht: “Yes Ma’am?” 

Science Officer: “Are you perchance…cat-sitting for Lt. T’Pen while she attends that xenoanthro conference on Tellar?”

Laraht: “Yes Ma’am, I am. Marmalade seems to like me, and really, I only have to stop by once a day to make sure she has some companionship while T’Pen is gone. The feeders and litter box cleaning is all automated.”

Science Officer: “I agree that Marmalade likes you. In fact, I am absolutely positive that Marmalade likes you.” 

Laraht: “Ma’am?”

Science Officer: <Turns on one of the screens in the geophysics lab, makes sure it is set to be visible to a Horta, and grabs a tricorder out of its charger.> Within seconds there is a picture of Laraht’s upper shell/back. Nestled in one of the channels on Laraht’s back is Marmalade. Mostly sleeping, but cracking an eye open here and there.

Laraht: “Oh…oh dear. Ma’am, allow me to apologize…”

Science Officer: “No need. I’m sure neither you nor T’Pen anticipated this. Cats like warm surfaces to sleep on. The texture of your back creates areas that are almost perfect for a cat to feel safe and secure in, and your natural warmth and smooth gait make you a perfect place for her to sleep. I also imagine that your normal movement sound reminds her of her mother’s purr, so that may be a factor as well. I would recommend that you perhaps make sure to check for “Rider Kittehs” when leaving T’Pen’s quarters though. And perhaps we should put a tracker in Marmalade’s collar. In case she decides to go wandering. I recall Enterprise having some issues along those lines with one of her crew’s cats.”

Laraht: “Yes Ma’am…she is very light. I cannot tell she is there by feel.”

Science Officer: “Unsurprising, given your skin in that location.”

At that point, I keep seeing Marmalade sneaking rides on Laraht whenever possible, to the point that the humans in the crew start making riding outfits for Marmalade. Laraht, as is common for Hortas is good-natured about it, and realizes the benefit of the morale boost that her new mascot provides. So she does not check too carefully for riders if her daily duties are not of a dangerous nature. 

Her older brother Naraht is very amused by the videos of his baby sister and Marmalade. So is their mother, although out of respect, no one actually asks her. They just make sure to “accidentally” ensure she is cc’d on the emails with new videos. 

When T’Pen returns, she is initially unsure about the entire thing, but after Laraht and some of her coworkers assure her that it is all in good fun, she makes sure to allow Laraht access to her quarters as is convenient for them. T’Pen does not directly encourage the “Hortakitteh” videos, but she is able to rationalize the outfits her crewmates make for Marmalade as protective gear, and there is no logical reason why protective gear cannot be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. 

The other thing T’pen is finding she enjoys the ways Marmalade has changed her relationships with the humans on board Discovery. While humans are still as emotional as ever, Marmalade has become a bridge between T’Pen and the Vulcans on Discovery and the humans on board. All of them are learning things about each other that “normal” work interaction would never provide. Both groups are quite pleased by this.

And Marmalade does look very cute in her little outfits.

the Federation itself as a concept is so funny because the founding members are

like imagine you're the Romulan Empire and these weird monkeys who've barely figured out interstellar travel show up on your doorstep in the equivalent of a shipping container with missiles strapped to it, kick your ass in front of everybody, and then start a friendship club with 3 of your neighbours who all hated each others' guts until like a year ago. now I understand why every Romulan on the show is so angry