Let us not speak of it.

>(a) Where'd Gryphon get his knowledge of pon farr? Is it simply
>not as closely-held a secret in the UF-verse as in the Star Trek
>universe?

It's pretty secret there too; he's just been around the block so many times, he knows the only parking spot that's free, is all. He didn't know about the ceremony - he suspected there was one, but had never seen it - but back in the old days, he was aware that his Vulcan colleagues would occasionally get deeply edgy*, excuse themselves, go back to Vulcan, and return looking like they'd spent the weekend moonlighting as a rodeo clown. Doesn't take a lot of perspicacity to figure something's going on there. And the UF universe's Vulcan has Palon'shar, where they consider the whole thing pretty funny, in a mildly pitying way.

>(b) Is the anti-pon farr drug readily available to Vulcans in
>the UF-verse? Or if not, why not? It seems like the sort of thing
>they'd embrace with great (yet decorous and logically-justified)
>relief.

It's around, but as you may gather from its lack of a name (well, I'm sure it has one, a long and complicated chemical name which Gryphon cannot remember), it's not something that gets talked about a lot. Reproduction is a biological duty, after all, and ducking the responsibility in this fashion is a bit... wimpy. Not that a Surakite would ever put it in those terms, but that's what it amounts to. :)

--G.
* "Wait, are you talking about T'Pol? Zoner, she had a psychotic episode."
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.