Now, I can't speak for the first edition's quality, but I can safely assert that this was a wonderful mini story. Interesting about the anti-pon farr drug - I had thought it rational for a society based around the restriction of emotion (I have been forced to watch old Trek episodes practically at knifepoint by the geeks in my physics tutorials... make that the -other- geeks in my tutorials) would develop a drug to counteract the worst excesses of the condition. What you say about it being a 'moral duty' for Vulcans to mate at seven-year intervals makes sense, but, I dunno... surely some sort of specialized sedative (which is what this drug seems to be) would make sense in lower concentrations as just, well, a seizure med or something. My four-penn'orth, anyway.

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"Together we will build an empire of a million shining suns." -- Dave, Dictator of Utopia.