rene@nlm-mcs.UUCP (06/22/84)
We get our mail in clumps here, so someone may already have expounded on this point, but here I go anyway. Saavik is a very interesting character as Vonda McIntyre paints her. She is the offspring of a Romulan and a Vulcan. Romulans are very different than they were portrayed in the series (and possibly other books); I've always thought of Romulans as tough, warlike, but basically decent and honorable. McIntyre portrays them as mean, nasty, vicious, cruel, and despicable. They're worse than your meanest Klingon! The way Saavik came about is this: In the Romulan Empire, it is real status to torture, maim, and humiliate your enemy. It is especially delightful to do this to Vulcans, especially by raping them (male Vulcans are given drugs to overcome their only-every-seven-years habit), and forcing them to bear a child or to watch their child being born, and then horribly killing them. It is real status to have such a child, but then the child is ignored and lives like an animal. In the book, Saavik was the result of such a union; she doesn't know whether her mother or father was the Vulcan. When she was ten, the Romulans were losing to the Federation in that sector, and they abandoned the planet, leaving behind the sick, the elderly, and the bastard children. A scientific expedition found the children. Spock was among them, and he convinced them that the children could be reeducated (I don't know why the rest didn't want to do anything with the children). He personally captured Saavik, civilized her, taught her the Vulcan way as much as he could, and was her mentor as she rose through the ranks of the Federation. Saavik cannot totally control herself, though. She has a violent temper - when Peter (Scotty's nephew) died (she was his tutor, and they were very fond of one another), she went to an empty briefing room and destroyed it, ripping chairs off the floor, bashing in tables, etc. A similar thing happened when David died (but she was oddly peaceful when Spock died, and she loved him most of all). Another interesting item in STIII was the torrid love scene with David. Saavik could develop into an INTERESTING character, if only they let her ... So, there's all you never wanted to know about Saavik, and more. - rene p.s. for those interested, I reread the opening of STII - the Kobayashi Maru (not necessarily the same spelling) was the name of a ship that gave out a distress call in the opening training sequence, intended to lure the ship into the neutral zone. Of course, ya'll knew that already. -- rene@nlm-mcs