GUEST POST: StarPodTrek's Co-Host Reflects On the "Long Road for Vulcans and 'Enterprise'"

Images: Paramount / StarPodTrek.

JUNE 16, 2023 - Kavura K’Cep is a science fiction fan of the highest order. She’s one half of the team that hosts StarPodTrek, a podcast exploring Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future, and StarPodLog, covering every issue of the classic Sci-Fi magazine Starlog. You can catch up with them on all the socials:

• Blogspot: https://starpodlogpodcast.blogspot.com/

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• Reddit: u/StarPodTrek

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Star Trek: Enterprise is the most underrated of the Star Trek “legacy” shows. The series’ depiction of the developing relationship between humans and Vulcans was one of the most compelling long-term arcs seen on Trek.

The character of the Vulcan T’Pol changed and grew much during the show. Of course, it was obvious that this beautiful woman in the tight catsuit was there to be eye candy, but, like Seven of Nine on Voyager, she was so much more. She made snide and belittling remarks to humans at first, but she later became much more accepting of humans, especially as she got to know Archer and Tucker. In the first season, she had many disagreements with Captain Archer, arguing that humans should follow Vulcan protocols on when to explore a planet, when to initiate first contact, etc. She later came to trust him and even resigned her commission with Vulcan so she could stay on Enterprise in the third season. 

Trip Tucker also overcame his racism towards Vulcans. In the pilot episode, it was pretty clear how much he hated Vulcans. But after working with T’Pol for several months, he started to feel an attraction to her. Then T’Pol started helping Tucker learn Vulcan neuro-pressure to help cure his insomnia. While part of the idea in the writers’ room may have been to add some romantic moments with Tucker and T’Pol’s one-on-one touching scenes, it was clear from the dialogue that the two characters had an attraction for each other. At that point, they had been through a lot, both separately and together. Their personal growth was palpable and meaningful to the show. These two individuals gave us a taste of a workable friendship between two cultures.

Consider the Prime Directive, which has always been an issue on Star Trek shows. Enterprise allowed us see what life was like before the Prime Directive. It is interesting now to watch Kirk, Picard, or Janeway struggle with the Prime Directive after having seen Enterprise and how Archer was unsure when dealing with other worlds. He even said that maybe someday Starfleet would have a rule when dealing with less developed civilizations. Vulcans had their own version of the Prime Directive, which kept them from sharing all of their knowledge with Starfleet. Archer certainly resented Vulcans for this at first for not wanting to share their warp drive technology, thus forcing humans to discover as much as they could on their own. By the final season, Archer had become much more respectful of Vulcans and their protocols for dealing with others. Starfleet’s version of the Prime Directive was adopted from the Vulcans’ noninterference directive.

Enterprise was the first Trek show to take place during an early period of human space travel. Vulcans happened to be one of the biggest obstacles to humans at that time. Vulcans didn’t believe humans had the inner capacity or wisdom to explore planets and encounter new life without endangering themselves or other species. I had always liked the Vulcans, so seeing their snottiness at first was a turn-off. But in retrospect, it gave the show a good starting point and even made sense.

All through the series, we found that the Vulcans weren’t as “logical” as they would have liked us to believe. They engaged in deception against their long-time enemies, the Andorians; they didn’t believe time travel was possible; Vulcans who engaged in mind melds were considered deviants by other Vulcans. It was surprising, even shocking, to see my beloved Vulcans so different from what I was accustomed to. Thankfully, Enterprise’s Vulcan story arc came to a satisfying conclusion in the fourth and last season. The development of Vulcans in the series was certainly different, and it added a richness to their culture that wasn’t there before. Sure, we knew they used to be warlike, and that they had pon farr and many rituals, but now, thanks to Enterprise, we know even more about their journey and growth as a race.