Romulans and Their Ridges
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I don't think that there is need to puzzle with that ridges.I'd say that ridges are difference between races in romulan species.Just like in human case where we got peoples with brighter or darker skin.
As far i know every Kingon has its own unique ridge they also vary from brighter to darker skin.
Vulcans are without those ridges very likely because romulans evolved differently on Romulus because of its climate.For example Vulcan is a planet covered with volcanoes and it is has warm climate while Romulus is obviously cooler.The Remans evolved totally different because of harsh conditions on Remus planet.
The evolution thing is obviously faster with romulans than it is with humans.
As far i know every Kingon has its own unique ridge they also vary from brighter to darker skin.
Vulcans are without those ridges very likely because romulans evolved differently on Romulus because of its climate.For example Vulcan is a planet covered with volcanoes and it is has warm climate while Romulus is obviously cooler.The Remans evolved totally different because of harsh conditions on Remus planet.
The evolution thing is obviously faster with romulans than it is with humans.
There's no need to have any evolution, be it realistically slow or fantastically fast, if one already believes in different races of Vulcanoids. One only need assume that the ridgeheads went to Romulus, mostly, and the flatheads stayed on Vulcan, mostly.
FWIW, in TNG "Who Watches the Watchers" we saw Vulcanoids who were considered primitive and who all had ridges. If the two things are in any way related, we might surmise that Vulcans are the ones to have undergone a change at some point. Perhaps some perverse interpretation of Surak's writings requires all Surakists to surgically remove their ridges from their children soon after birth?
Timo Saloniemi
FWIW, in TNG "Who Watches the Watchers" we saw Vulcanoids who were considered primitive and who all had ridges. If the two things are in any way related, we might surmise that Vulcans are the ones to have undergone a change at some point. Perhaps some perverse interpretation of Surak's writings requires all Surakists to surgically remove their ridges from their children soon after birth?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo said:
Stranger things have been done. The Huns and the Alans practiced cranial deformation on their children, as did a number of East Germanic tribes they conquered. The Chinese practiced foot-binding as the result of a Song Dynasty fad, basically (based on some Tang Dynasty poet writing an erotic poem about a woman with small feet). I could very easily see Vulcan society, logical though it is, having similar customs.
It would certainly make more sense than evolution, a process which takes hundreds of thousands of years at the very least (unless Vulcans go through generational cycles every two years or less, which given their life-spans does not seem particularly likely).
My personal theory has always been that the forehead ridges/bulges on certain Romulans were a sign of Reman blood somewhere in there family tree.
After all there are plenty of other trek races that have interbred. The Romulans and Remans have been living in very close proximity to one another if not sharing planets for quite a few centuries whilst also being isolated from pretty much everyone else in the universe so it makes perfect sense to me that somewhere along the line there would be interbreeding motivated by an emotional attachment, physical attraction or even just plain curiosity.
After all there are plenty of other trek races that have interbred. The Romulans and Remans have been living in very close proximity to one another if not sharing planets for quite a few centuries whilst also being isolated from pretty much everyone else in the universe so it makes perfect sense to me that somewhere along the line there would be interbreeding motivated by an emotional attachment, physical attraction or even just plain curiosity.
Bochra, in The Enemy basically said that any Romulan child that was defective was killed and only the strongest Romulans made it through to adulthood
Certainly it appears trivially easy for two distinct species to interbreed - perhaps not naturally, but at least with minimal medical intervention. (Which incidentally suggests that not one but several of Dukat's Bajoran mistresses apparently were secretly taking the necessary medication for creating "accidental" offspring...)
However, I doubt breeding with Remans has much to do with the ridges, as those appear also on the Mintakans who have had no contact with Remans or anybody else. But perhaps the lack of ridges on Vulcans is due to alien influence, as Vulcans appear a tad less xenophobic than Romulans?
It might also simply be that the ridges don't fully develop when one lives on a desert world devoid of key nutrients, but pop back up immediately (or at least in a generation or two) after one adopts a diet based on the offerings of a lusher world. It's just that Vulcans don't easily go for native diets when offworld, as shown in ENT.
Timo Saloniemi
However, I doubt breeding with Remans has much to do with the ridges, as those appear also on the Mintakans who have had no contact with Remans or anybody else. But perhaps the lack of ridges on Vulcans is due to alien influence, as Vulcans appear a tad less xenophobic than Romulans?
It might also simply be that the ridges don't fully develop when one lives on a desert world devoid of key nutrients, but pop back up immediately (or at least in a generation or two) after one adopts a diet based on the offerings of a lusher world. It's just that Vulcans don't easily go for native diets when offworld, as shown in ENT.
Which is most probably pure propaganda, as we have seen plenty of physically "misfit" Romulans, from plump to feeble.
Timo Saloniemi
As Timo said, it's kind of difficult to believe that, since we have seen evidence of Romulans who were, shall we say, not precisely exemplars of humanoid peak physical condition. But more to the point, we have examples of societies in actual history who did the same thing (the ancient Greeks, in particular the Spartans), who haven't evolved any faster than the rest of us.
Believe me, one of my best friends is a descendant of the Spartans (his brother and his father are both named after Agesilaus), and he will be the first to tell you that he doesn't feel any more evolved than the rest of humanity. (I have yet to ask him his opinion about 300, though...)
Timo said:
Not entirely sure about the last example. Mintaka III looked pretty arid, at least the piece of it Picard, Riker and Troi were exposed to. Probably more hospitable than Vulcan, but it still didn't much look like lush farmland to me.
I was thinking perhaps the Vulcans may have seen the forehead ridges as a sign of 'barbarism', given that we only see forehead ridges on the more 'primitive' Vulcanoid species - Mintakans and Romulans. If the lack of ridges is deliberate and artificial rather than natural, might this be some sort of cultural snobbery at work?
What's the thing people do nowadays when they have bits of something inserted under the skin to make patterns?
Of course, we saw Romulans in TOS without ridges, so they'd have had to evolve in only about 80 years.
Genetic mutation ala the Klingons or something intentional would be likeliest.
Of course, we saw Romulans in TOS without ridges, so they'd have had to evolve in only about 80 years.
Genetic mutation ala the Klingons or something intentional would be likeliest.
Or maybe it's just a minor appearance variation that doesn't mean anything. Just another difference in the facial structure that is purely cosmetic and not indicative of anything important.
Actually, it seems to me that the reason (from a production standpoint) that some Romulans have ridges is to distinguish them from Vulcans. There's no in-universe reason for it - indeed, Spock is able to pass as a Romulan and no one thinks to question this. So I doubt it's a significant difference.
Actually, it seems to me that the reason (from a production standpoint) that some Romulans have ridges is to distinguish them from Vulcans. There's no in-universe reason for it - indeed, Spock is able to pass as a Romulan and no one thinks to question this. So I doubt it's a significant difference.
...Although it may indeed be culturally important, to some degree and at certain times. If people today could cheaply and easily augment or hide their racial characteristics, they would engage in it quite eagerly, as race is an important factor socially and economically. Since they cannot, they do it with clothes and the like; people of the 24th century would simply be in a better position in that respect. Although people of Earth apparently are no longer quite as obsessed with it...
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
It was just something the producers did to stand Romulans and Vulcans apart and to me wasnt needed and infact made less sense when we could have had much more believable story telling with Romulans infiltrating the Federation pretending to be Vulcans by simply dressing and acting accordingly.
I hope if we see Romulans again in future movies or TV shows they forget the forehead makeup and they play a Romulan and a Vulcan as being different by the way they act, talk and dress.
I hope if we see Romulans again in future movies or TV shows they forget the forehead makeup and they play a Romulan and a Vulcan as being different by the way they act, talk and dress.
^Really? I demand proof! I must see a photograph of your skull!
I'm kidding. Just in case you couldn't tell.
Here's a wacky theory.
The Romulans are the original, unaltered species. The Vulcans are the product of genetic enhancement and modification, basically the equivalent of Augments. This would explain their incredible strength (which Prime-Trek Romulans don't seem to have), their mental acuity and telepathic abilities (which Romulans don't seem to share), and the differences between Vulcan and Romulan physiology.
Could this be the origin of the Sundering? The pro-logic side would likely see genetic augmentation as a logical advancement of the species. The other side could have been opposed to genetic modification on the grounds that it was "dishonorable" or "immoral."
I'm kidding. Just in case you couldn't tell.
Here's a wacky theory.
The Romulans are the original, unaltered species. The Vulcans are the product of genetic enhancement and modification, basically the equivalent of Augments. This would explain their incredible strength (which Prime-Trek Romulans don't seem to have), their mental acuity and telepathic abilities (which Romulans don't seem to share), and the differences between Vulcan and Romulan physiology.
Could this be the origin of the Sundering? The pro-logic side would likely see genetic augmentation as a logical advancement of the species. The other side could have been opposed to genetic modification on the grounds that it was "dishonorable" or "immoral."
If I recall correctly, the Romulan Ambassador in The Undiscovered Country didn't have brow ridges, either.
The Romulans spy, who posed as a Vulcan, didn't have either. Could be modification to let her look like a Vulcan, but also could be that she'd been chosen because of the lack of the ridges.
Possibly so. FWIW, we see in ENT flashbacks the fight that supposedly preceded the Romulan departure, mushroom clouds in the horizon and all - and Surak in his death throes, "already" without ridges. TOS shows a younger Surak, also without ridges; various Vulcan statues also feature a ridgeless male.
Perhaps Surak was a freak, akin to pharaoh Akhenaten/Amenhotep, and his followers chose to imitate his disfigured form because the technology for this was easily available? Perhaps S'Task was famous for his pronounced ridges and a bowl cut, which in turn are deliberately perpetuated by the Romulans?
We may also consider that Vulcans are a transplanted species, stuck on a planet not native to them and possibly not even suited to them. Perhaps mutations frequently take place in the irradiated hellhole of a desert world, and a survivalist desert culture rightly fights them with some judicious postnatal aborting - but by Surak's time, the Vulcan civilization has evolved enough to allow the mutants to live, and the big spiritual jump there is one from no longer rational intolerance to modern, newly rational tolerance?
Timo Saloniemi
Boom
Plausible and logical
^Really? I demand proof! I must see a photograph of your skull!
I'm kidding. Just in case you couldn't tell.
Here's a wacky theory.
The Romulans are the original, unaltered species. The Vulcans are the product of genetic enhancement and modification, basically the equivalent of Augments. This would explain their incredible strength (which Prime-Trek Romulans don't seem to have), their mental acuity and telepathic abilities (which Romulans don't seem to share), and the differences between Vulcan and Romulan physiology.
Could this be the origin of the Sundering? The pro-logic side would likely see genetic augmentation as a logical advancement of the species. The other side could have been opposed to genetic modification on the grounds that it was "dishonorable" or "immoral."
Plausible and logical
Who is to say these ridges didn't evolve after they reached Romulus?
As an analogy, human morphological changes can be just as rapid. The first homo sapiens were most likely dark-skinned, but as we moved into different climates/latitudes we lost some of our initial pigmentation.
It could also, for all we know, be sexual selection. Maybe when Romulans initally colonised Romulus, persons with ridges were deemed more suitable mates. Either way, the fact that Vulcans and Romulans are different morphologically is easy to figure out, given different environments. If some humans left Earth and settled on another planet, and came back to Earth in 500 years time, they may even comprise a different species.
As an analogy, human morphological changes can be just as rapid. The first homo sapiens were most likely dark-skinned, but as we moved into different climates/latitudes we lost some of our initial pigmentation.
It could also, for all we know, be sexual selection. Maybe when Romulans initally colonised Romulus, persons with ridges were deemed more suitable mates. Either way, the fact that Vulcans and Romulans are different morphologically is easy to figure out, given different environments. If some humans left Earth and settled on another planet, and came back to Earth in 500 years time, they may even comprise a different species.
I'd be very surprised if evolution happened over 500 years without something VERY catastrophic leading to it, like massive doses of radiation. But even then, I would expect most of the mutations produced to be maladaptive. Most likely you'd be looking at extinction. Odds would be low of a positive evolution on that scale that quickly.
It's more reasonable, I suspect, to think that it happened because of the founder effect causing a recessive trait to spread among the descendents of a small initial group, or deliberate mate selection or genetic alterations by the Romulans. For speciation to just happen in nature after only 500 years without intervention seems implausible to me.
It's more reasonable, I suspect, to think that it happened because of the founder effect causing a recessive trait to spread among the descendents of a small initial group, or deliberate mate selection or genetic alterations by the Romulans. For speciation to just happen in nature after only 500 years without intervention seems implausible to me.
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