Did the Vulcans always know the truth about the Romulans?

[Citiprime]

Did the Vulcans always know the Romulans were an offshoot of their species? Or were they like Spock in "Balance of Terror," and surprised to find out the Romulans had a common ancestry?

I started thinking about the societal implications of how that information would play out for the Federation. Lt. Stiles is a xenophobic jerk in TOS, but I have to believe that there would be millions of humans demanding an explanation from the Vulcans.

In Trek lore, the Earth-Romulan War is described as horrific, so much so it's the impetus for binding together the species that create the Federation. But if it were revealed the Vulcans purposely withheld information about the nature of the Romulans from humanity in that conflict, arguably it cuts at the very nature of the Federation and the trust which holds it together.

The Vulcans are shown to be so secretive they haven't even shared key aspects of their biology and mating habits. So it's in keeping with their ways to hold back information. But in this case this would not be information that only concerned them. This would be the Vulcans withholding key information about the enemy from their partner and ally.

 

[Sci]

I don't think it's probable that they did. By the time of the late 2150s, cultural contact between Humans and Vulcans would be so commonplace, so numerous and uncontrolled across so many millions of private citizens of both worlds, that it seems highly unlikely that such a secret could be contained. Plus, Spock was literally the son of one of Vulcan's most prominent politicians, and he didn't know the Romulans were Vulcan offshoots. So I think the Vulcans probably didn't know.

 

[Forbin]

Maybe at the highest levels of government, but it was kept a secret from the general populace for the good of society and the alliance with the rest of the Fed.

 

[Oddish]

I would think that the genetic similarities of the two species would be self explanatory though. Even with today's technology, we can break down a person's origins by analyzing their DNA.

 

[Kor]

Presumably during the Earth-Romulan War, destruction of enemy ships was so complete that Earth and its allies never even got their hands on a disfigured body that could be analyzed.

Kor

 

[Farscape One]

That's assuming any Romulans set foot on Earth installations or Vulcan ones or ships they attacked and any Romulans were captured by either Vulcans or humans. You need a sample of a person to do a genetic test.

Given dialogue of "BALANCE OF TERROR" and the Romulans' use of drones in the ENTERPRISE trilogy, I think it very likely they never landed actual troops and used entirely starship combat.

 

[Sci]

I would think that the genetic similarities of the two species would be self explanatory though. Even with today's technology, we can break down a person's origins by analyzing their DNA.

"Balance of Terror" made it clear that United Earth and allied forces never came into contact with Romulans or Romulan remains. Their biology was completely unknown.

 

[Citiprime]

We know from Enterprise that the Romulans knew.

They had turned the leader of the Vulcan High Command (V'Las) and made him a sleeper agent.

It's anyone's guess as to whether the new government that took over after the fall of the High Command investigated V'Las's treachery (for example whether they subjected him to a mind meld to see what he knows).

And there's the question of what the faction that fled ancient Vulcan called themselves, and whether the name "Romulan" means something to the Vulcans and may have already existed in their history. During first contact between the Romulans and Starfleet, Hoshi tries to make sense of the Romulan message, and mispronounces it as the "Romilan Star Empire," only for T'Pol to correct her and say "Romulan, it's pronounced Romulan." She later states the Vulcan High Command only knows they're "rumored to be an aggressive, territorial species, but the High Command has never made direct contact."

 

[Sci]

We know from Enterprise that the Romulans knew.

They had turned the leader of the Vulcan High Command (V'Las) and made him a sleeper agent.

It's anyone's guess as to whether the new government that took over after the fall of the High Command investigated V'Las's treachery (for example whether they subjected him to a mind meld to see what he knows).

For that matter, it's unclear if V'Las even stayed on Vulcan after the Reformation. The ENT Rise of the Federation novels establish

Spoiler: ENT: Rise of the Federation novels

that he tried to destabilize the Vulcan government under the Federation by planting a false version of the Kir'Shara in an attempt to prove the one Archer and T'Pol had uncovered was a fake designed to facilitate a Syrannite puppet regime loyal to Earth to take over Vulcan; his fakery was subsequently exposed and he fled Federation space in a Vulcan ship with a crew loyal to him and his old regime. He subsequently allied with a dictator on one of the nations of Sauria, who was in the process of trying to conquer the rest of his planet.

And there's the question of what the faction that fled ancient Vulcan called themselves, and whether the name "Romulan" means something to the Vulcans and may have already existed in their history.

I see no reason to think that a distinct Romulan identity had emerged before they left Vulcan. "Gambit" already established that there were other worlds that the Vulcan diaspora settled and whose cultures survived for a time before dying out. To me that strongly implies that Romulus was one of a number of different worlds that those who left Vulcan settled, and that it merely happens to be the one that subsequently became powerful and established its own interstellar empire; I see no evidence to assume that those who left Vulcan even necessarily had a unified identity among themselves of any sort.

During first contact between the Romulans and Starfleet, Hoshi tries to make sense of the Romulan message, and mispronounces it as the "Romilan Star Empire," only for T'Pol to correct her and say "Romulan, it's pronounced Romulan." She later states the Vulcan High Command only knows they're "rumored to be an aggressive, territorial species, but the High Command has never made direct contact."

Which contradicts VOY "Death Wish," wherein we learned that Vulcan and Romulus fought a hundred-year war some time in the past.

 

[Finn]

"Balance of Terror" made it clear that United Earth and allied forces never came into contact with Romulans or Romulan remains. Their biology was completely unknown.

That's as far as the crew and the Enterprise computer knows. There are probably people in the UFP who already knew, long before Kirk and Spock did....

 

[Sci]

That's as far as the crew and the Enterprise computer knows. There are probably people in the UFP who already knew, long before Kirk and Spock did....

It's possible, but there is no evidence to support this supposition. And it would be plausible for no one in the Federation to know of the connection between Vulcan and Romulus before 2366 -- interstellar space is vast, Romulus seems particularly distant from the core worlds of Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, and Denobula, and, well, there's just no commerce or private travel between United Earth/allied/later-UFP territory and Romulan territory. This isn't like international travel on a single planet, there it's not really possible for any one nation to completely isolate itself from the rest of the world.

 

[Finn]

It's possible, but there is no evidence to support this supposition. And it would be plausible for no one in the Federation to know of the connection between Vulcan and Romulus before 2366 -- interstellar space is vast, Romulus seems particularly distant from the core worlds of Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, and Denobula, and, well, there's just no commerce or private travel between United Earth/allied/later-UFP territory and Romulan territory. This isn't like international travel on a single planet, there it's not really possible for any one nation to completely isolate itself from the rest of the world.

Really? One common criticism I've seen about that neutral zone map is that it depicted Romulus relatively close to TNZ and the core worlds.

 

[Sci]

Really? One common criticism I've seen about that neutral zone map is that it depicted Romulus relatively close to TNZ and the core worlds.

I mean, the core worlds don't even appear on the map seen in "Balance of Terror." Romulus is relatively far from Earth by the standards of the 2150s in Star Trek: Star Charts.

 

[Finn]

Yet they made it to the Klingon homeworld in four days in 2151

 

[Oddish]

Hmmm...
Warp 5 = 189c
That means that the Enterprise travels at 0.517 LY per day. Or, 2.068 LY in four days. In other words, the Klingon home world is a rogue planet less than half the distance between us and Alpha Centauri.

 

[MAGolding]

After the Romulans are seen,in the briefing room scene:

SPOCK: I agree. Attack.
KIRK: Are you suggesting we fight to prevent a fight?
MCCOY: Based on what? Memories of a war over a century ago? On theories about a people we've never even met face to face?
STILES: We know what they look like.
SPOCK: Yes, indeed we do, Mister Stiles. And if Romulans are an offshoot of my Vulcan blood, and I think this likely, then attack becomes even more imperative.
MCCOY: War is never imperative, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: It is for them, Doctor. Vulcan, like Earth, had its aggressive colonising period. Savage, even by Earth standards. And if Romulans retain this martial philosophy, then weakness is something we dare not show.

If the Romulans are descended from aggressive pre reformation Vulcans, thoseggressive pre reformation Vulcans must have had FTL interstellar travel for some of their history, decades, cenuries,ormillennia. And they must have conquered and settled many planets of other stars..

And then their empire fell, hard, probably in a foreign or civil war or series of wars. And probably most planets with Vulcan populaitns suffered total extermination of their Vulcan populations. But Vulcans survived on some of their planets since in "The Paradise Syndrome" :

SPOCK: In a way, yes. Other cultures, among them certain Vulcan offshoots, use musical notes as words. The tones correspond roughly to an alphabet.

So Spock knows of at least two Vulcan offshoot cultures which use musical notes as words. And he also knows of other Vulcan offshoots which don't use musical notes as words.

And after many thousands of years Vulcan rebuilt its civiliation and developed interstellar travel again, and built the monastery at Pjem before the year AD 1. But by then all the cordinates to all of thier former colony worlds were lost and they didn't kow where those colonl worlds were.

That era was ruined by a series of Vulcan wars with atomic weapons as Surak said in "The Savage Curtain":

SURAK: In my time on Vulcan, we also faced these same alternatives. We'd suffered devastating wars which nearly destroyed our planet. Another was about to begin. We were torn. But out of our suffering some of us found the discipline to act. We sent emissaries to our opponents to propose peace. The first were killed, but others followed. Ultimately we achieved peace, which has lasted since then.

So the Vulcan Reformation managed to pevent the war which would have destroyed Vulcan civilization. And after centuries of rebuilding, the Vulcans finally achieved faster than light interstellar travel again, centuries before humans.

Meanwhile,some of the other lost Vulcan colonies also rebuilt their civilization. Romuls apparently regained star travel about 2,000 years ago, since there were a number of Romulan offshoot civilizations.

In the TNG episode "Gambit Part1":

RIKER: What else do we know about Barradas Three?
DATA: The planet was used as an outpost for the Debrune approximately two thousand years ago. The Federation's Archaeological survey has catalogued numerous ruins on the surface.

DATA: Perhaps these artefacts have a special value to the Romulans.
WORF: The Romulans?
DATA: These structures were built by the Debrune. That race is an ancient offshoot of the Romulans. The ruins on the planet where Captain Picard was killed were also Romulan in origin.

So about 2,000 years before TNG should be about 370, and the Debrune and maybe other Romulan offshoots were already traveling thorugh the stars. Adn it shoud lhave taken the Romulans many thousands of years to rebuild their civilzation after the hypothetical fall of the hypothetical Vulcan Empire.

 

[Nyotarules]

Yet they made it to the Klingon homeworld in four days in 2151

They used a secret wormhole called Plotspeed . The same one used in the Kelvinverse to travel to Vulcan and from Kronos.

 

[publiusr]

Space lanes

 

[valkyrie013]

They probably didn't know at the beginning of the war, but by the end, i would almost guarantee that they knew what the romulans looked like, and finding out there basically Vulcans, that would tear the fledgling coalition/federation apart. So it was kept secret at the highest levels, captains were sworn to absolute secrecy, maybe even mind melded to remove the information.
Surprised the revelation in Balance of Terror was so blazae about it, oh, there vulcans, okay moving on. Something like that would be a major revel and in a serialized show would create alot of fear/backlash/xenophobia stuff.

as for them leaving Vulcan 2000+ years ago, my head cannon stuff says it was Non FTL travel, and that they stopped for a certain amount of time at different planets on there route to Romulus. Basically they littered vulcanoids as they went, Some people jumped ship at some planets, but due to not having any infrastructure, they devolved to stone age, or they fought amongst themselves, and ended up the same. They just steadily journeyed farther away from Vulcan to protect themselves from them.

 

[Ronald Held]

Nothing canonical demonstrated proto-Romulans had FTL drives.