Hot, hard logic - full episode
The Warpcore 5 sit at their table in the repair bay, behind them the half rebuild shuttle, but tonight they are playing Bat'leths & BiHnuchs just that Mariner threw out the bootleg game and declared herself dungeon master.
With T'Lyn now also at the table things get violent, when she, in her typical deadpan voice, describes how she rips a foe´s arm off and then wants to roll to force feed it to him, stump first.
A bit shocked Mariner calls for a strength roll, what T'Lyn comments as "Locial" then her roll is quite good and Mariner describes how her enemy is squirming and gasping while she suffocates him with his own arm, managing to force it down his throat to the wrist. Only for T'Lyn to describe how she takes her mek'leth and uses the handle to slam the rest of the arm down his throat with the goal to "Make him eat it all before he dies"
After a long moment of silence Tendi finally leans over to T'Lyn. "T'Lyn...is something bothering you?" T'Lyn rises an eyebrow...begin intro After the intro we get a shot of a shuttle while Boimler gives a log entry, where he explains, that they all took some days off to accompany T'Lyn to Vulcan for her grandfather´s funeral. Inside the shuttle T`Lyn seems calm enough, but Tendi manages to squeeze out, that she is not happy to return to her home. Her world always felt wrong to her and the societal expectations illogical, any questions about her family get answered with silence.
On Vulcan they visit an old city, stone buildings are as they used to be for centuries before Vulcans developed space travel...a small entry area and some rooms on the surface, a lot more below for temperature regulation and easier access to underground water sources, something T`Lyn comments as her mother´s job as a leading specialist in traditional Vulcan building regulations.
In her home the crew is greeted by a very stern, very cold Vulcan woman, TLyn´s mother, who greets her daughter with the warmth and emotional impact of a Parsec of space outside the galaxy. A very brief conversation is then commented by TLyn as argument, shocking everyone given how lacking of emotion and volume the exchange was. TLyn´s siblings are revealed to all be bureaucrats, like their mother. Only her father used to be a member of the Vulcan space fleet, but he retired decades ago, T`Lyn probably bacem the black sheep of the family by trying to follow in his footsteps.
The reunion is cold, TLyn is clearly an outcast in Vulcan mainstream society and her own family, a fact hammered home by her mother, who reveals that her room has been repurposed, so she and her 'friends' have to stay in a Vulcan hotel. Things get even worse, when T`Lyn learns, that her grandfather wanted her to take in his experiences in a mindmeld with a priest.
When Rutherford is exited and asks if they will see Mount Seleya T`Lyn answers that there are a lot more mountains on Vulcan like...and lists a dozen other mountains with temples on it.
In the hotel T`Lyn tries to send the others back or at least to stay, as she has to walk on foot to the nearby temple, a long and dangerous journey, to receive her grandfather´s memories in a ceremony, despite her pretty much barely knowing her grandfather, something she finds confusing and probably annoying...but the others insist to accompany her on her journey up the mountain.
So they gear up and make the walk towards the mountain, a journey through the desert, where everyone but T`Lyn gets quite hot, thirsty and did I mention hot?
And in the night they find out, that the store they got their equipment from made the logical conclusuion, that if several non Vulcans ordered equipment for a trip to a Vulcan site in a traditional Vulcan way...they logically did not plan to do the trip themself, but brought the gear for some Vuclans to do...and Vulcans handle the freezing temperatures a lot better than Humans or Orions, so everyone but T`Lyn is freezing and they have to spend the night all cuddled together in their tent to keep warm...and they dream.
T`Lyn dreams of her mother commenting on her emotional 'outbursts' and concludes, that as no Vulcan would do so, she must logically not be a Vulcan.
Tendi dreams of her mother arguing with her about her weird love for something as unprofitable as science and how she should be more like her sister, who is shown to like science, but like piracy more.
A dream of Mariner getting into a shouting match with her parents after Sito died, ending with Mariner getting drunk for the first time in her life. A little flash of light hints as something but the dream ends.
A young Rutherford plays with a toy while his parents are talking to a man behind a desk. Then his parents just...leave? And when Rutherford wants to follow them he is held back by the man, the view zooms out and reveals Rutherford is in an orphanage.
Boimler sits with his parents at a table....nobody says a word as they eat a three course meal...all three courses with RAISINS! A bired young Boimler lets his head drop on the plate. Boredom pure!
They all wake up, TLyn´s telepathic abilities had them all experience the dreams everyone had from their life. They talk and finally T`Lyn commetns about the saying that you can choose your friends but not your family...followed by "I disagree" and then she call the shuttle to beam herself and the family she chose back to the shuttle and abandons the unwanted family heritage and Vulcan tradition.
epiloge: The temple is shown to be waiting for T`Lyn who does not show up. Finally the priest leaves for a room, where a pair of boots lay on the floor, suggesting someone dead lying there. He uses a computer at a table to call a shadowy figure to inform the mysterious shape, that the plan failed.