Romulus - The original Homeworld of the Vulcan Species?

[Kor]

I'm not sure how this is specifically related to Trek Literature...

But anyway, no, they did not originate on Romulus. That was never the intention of the writers who built the Vulcan and Romulan cultures. From the time of "Balance of Terror," it was made clear that the Romulans were an offshoot of the Vulcans, not vice versa.

Kor

 

[JD]

I don't see why the change would be necessary, things are working fine the way they are.

 

[RogueVasad]

Could some ancient species have transported groups of Vulcan-like people from some unknown world to various planets including Vulcan? Yes but it would have to have been done at some point so long ago for it to be forgotten history or done without the knowledge of the Vulcans.

Could Vulcan be a Romulan colony rather then vice versa? Almost certainly not. The only way I could see that being true is if Romulus was the world that the various groups scattered about in the example above came from and either dumb luck, or someone discovering the truth but keeping it secret led to the Romulans returning there after leaving Vulcan and finding no proof of the existence of their ancestors when they reached Romulus.

 

[Christopher]

Could some ancient species have transported groups of Vulcan-like people from some unknown world to various planets including Vulcan? Yes but it would have to have been done at some point so long ago for it to be forgotten history or done without the knowledge of the Vulcans.

As discussed above, "Return to Tomorrow" suggested that the Vulcans themselves may have been the descendants of Sargon's people, the Arretians. What I asserted in DTI: Watching the Clock was that the Arretians were actually two species, one humanoid and one Vulcanoid, sharing a common cultural identity. I'm inclined to believe that the former species is the ancestor of the more humanlike aliens like Deltans, Betazoids, Argelians, Capellans, Fabrini, and the like (and maybe Bajorans too), while the latter is the ancestor of species like the Vulcans, Mintakans, and Ocampa. (Although "Return" acknowledged that the evidence humans originated on Earth is overwhelming, so the resemblance there would be coincidental.)

However, there is no denying that the Romulans themselves are an offshoot of the Vulcans. That's part of the historical record. It was only a couple of millennia ago, hundreds of times more recent than the Arretian diaspora.

 

[Timo]

Hmm. I don't see why writer intent or lack of necessity should present obstacles here. All we need is the intent of a new set of writers, and the sheer fun of stirring the soup!

Vulcans being everywhere calls for an explanation of sorts - but humans, too, are everywhere. Did an advanced species or culture spread us everywhere, and if so, was there an original homeworld from which this seed was gathered? Or were we all created in vitro and then planted on the respective planets? Either of these models would call for the falsifying of the fossil record, but that could be rather trivially done (all they'd need to falsify would be tiny fragments of the hominin tree, with our imaginations filling the rest).

If OTOH we accept that sapient humanoids everywhere emerge because the ancients from "The Chase" sabotaged genetic material everywhere so that it perverts evolution into a humanoid-creating machine, then we don't need separate explanations for humans and Vulcans. It might simply be that Vulcans paid more attention to their past and found the evolutionary model lacking, while Earth humans had the same data for their respective birthworld but accepted the evolution illusion hook, line and sinker and voluntarily swallowed the rod and the boat in their desire for soothing rationales, too.

If we want to use the model where all Vulcanoids came from Romulus, then in onscreen terms, we have no reason to think the Romulans that currently live on that birthworld ever left Romulus. They never say they arrived; they never say they fled from Vulcan. There is talk about the severing of ties, but that could refer to there being Romulans in the group that settled the desert world, Romulans whom the other factions would later eliminate in their fighting fervor, right around the time of Surak.

In terms of the book continuity, Romulus being the world of origin is already ruled out anyway - by several of the continuities, in ways that place them in conflict with each other! So much for that, then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

Addendum: Not only are humans everywhere, but there are Earths everywhere, too! Or worlds perfectly compatible with humans, at any rate. They can't all be natural, so somebody went to the effort of terraforming them. A single master race in the distant past, or a chain of cultures each benefiting (possibly unawares) from the work done by predecessors? If somebody did good work early on, others would certainly be likely to continue it, gradually eliminating all other types of habitat and life.

If Vulcanoids indeed are perfectly adapted to the conditions on Vulcan, then they are a disadvantaged species overall. Yet life on Vulcan is (sometimes) described as a struggle, while life on Romulus never is (except in terms of the totalitarianism, the constant infighting, or sometimes both).

So, keeping with onscreen data only, perhaps Vulcans came from Romulus long before there was any historical record (meaning either that they had external help, or that so much happened later on that historical records and indeed the very concept of history were lost many times over), and the climate went south afterwards. But in that scenario, why would Vulcans believe there were people marching under the raptor flag on their planet in Surak's time, when people marching under such a flag are later witnessed on Romulus? Are bird-themed flags simply common among that people, for pseudo-genetic reasons? With Vulcans indeed everywhere, coincidences would be likely to crop up, and mistaken for something deeper by the poor conspiracy-theorizing Vulcanoids who are still unaware of the true scope of Vulcanism in the galaxy...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Idran]

Timo, if we're moving from discussing whether it could be true in existing stories to discussing new stories in which this could be true, I think that's where it starts to edge into the story idea category.

 

[Kor]

A thought that came to me: What if Vulcan History had been revised and it was the Disciples of Surak that fled Romulus and colonized Vulcan?

I almost forgot... The Vulcan story arc in the last season of Enterprise clearly showed that Surak and his disciples started a movement in a society that already existed on Vulcan. They did not leave another planet to come to Vulcan and start a brand new society there.

The mention in that story arc of the warmongers "who march beneath the raptor's wings" (or whatever the exact wording) was a reference to those who would leave Vulcan and colonize Romulus. And that story was developed by TrekLit writers.

Kor

 

[Dukhat]

Finally, aren't the Remans meant to be native to Remus until the Romulans arrived and enslaved them? If so, that makes three distinct recorded histories all telling the same thing.

That was actually never made clear in the film. Although I find it hard to believe that the Remans would have evolved that differently from Romulans in only 2,000 years, despite the conditions on Remus.

Honestly, I don't think the writers of the film really knew who they were either. They just wanted "TEH SPACE VAMPIREZ!!!"

 

[Kor]

^ The books explained that the Remans were originally the same species as the Romulans, but they were mutated by some micro-organism, or something like that, which helped them survive the harsh conditions on Remus and altered their appearance.

I remember before the movie was released, the writers/producers/whoever were making a big deal of how the Remans would have a "Nosferatu-like appearance."

Kor

 

[BobtheGunslinge]

What is the preferred explanation for the prevalence of Romulan forehead ridges in the TNG era?

 

[Kor]

What is the preferred explanation for the prevalence of Romulan forehead ridges in the TNG era?

As far as I know, this has never been addressed.

Kor

 

[uniderth]

It's an interesting idea. But I think it would take far too much rationalization to pull off.

While I don't think the idea of Romulus as the point of origin has much merit, it would be interesting to learn about the true origin of the species. What did the Sargonians do, exactly? What about the prehistory of Vulcans made Spock think that Sargonians did it? Was there a single world of origin for the species, or was it created on multiple worlds simultaneously or programmed to emerge on multiple worlds at various times (see "The Chase")?

That is something that would be interesting to learn more about. I speculate that Vulcanian geneticists have found gaps between Vulcanian DNA and the DNA native to their planet. Or perhaps they have some "missing link" and that is the one of the elements of pre-history Spock is referring to. There would need to be some element of evidence suggesting the Vulcanians were just plopped there in pre-history, but nothing substantial enough for it to be a common theory.

On a side note it is my theory that Vulcanian and Vulcan as well as Romulan/Reman and Romulus/Remus/Romii are not native names. Rather they are names humans used that later become universally adopted even by the inhabitants of those planets. In my view this actually make sense when we look at modern western touristy American culture. If you look at tourist places in foreign countries you find that they are often sterotypes of what westerners expect those places to be, rather then being indicative of REAL local traditions and customs.

This would also explain how come the Vulcanians were conquered according to McCoy, yet can not conceive of a conqueror according to Spock. It adds a lot of smugness to McCoy's comment too. Plus, it also explains why the names sound so much like earth names.

I'm my head it goes down like this. Early earth explorers go to the Vulcanian's home world. They step out of their ship, "man this place is as hot as Vulcan." Or some other volcanic reference. From then on it becomes referenced by humans as Vulcan. The human's just keep using the term until it is also accepted by alien species, and finally the Vulcanians themselves.

In the early days of exploration there was probably some long distance stellar mapping. Some astronomer discovered a star with twin planets and decided to name them Romulus and Remus. That term came into common use probably during the Earth-Romulan Wars. It was used to name the native (though never seen) inhabitants of that world as Romulans.

That's my theory to explain the horribly earth-centric names of these two Star Trek alien species.

What is the preferred explanation for the prevalence of Romulan forehead ridges in the TNG era?

We do not discuss it.

 

[Christopher]

I prefer to believe that the Remans are a separate species from the Romulans, because one of the things I liked about Nemesis (and yes, I like a lot about it, thank you) is that it finally showed the Romulan Star Empire as an actual empire, i.e. a central state ruling over other cultures, rather than the usual monoracial society that doesn't look or function like a real empire at all. A state that has no subject peoples has no business calling itself an empire. So giving the Romulans someone else to rule over actually made sense of the name for the first time in 36 years. Making the Remans just mutant Romulans takes that away and reverts them to the same old trope of an interstellar empire made up of only one species.

What is the preferred explanation for the prevalence of Romulan forehead ridges in the TNG era?

If you think about it, the vast majority of the Romulans we saw in TOS were wearing helmets that covered their ears and foreheads (so the productions wouldn't have to make up a bunch of background extras with pointed ears and eyebrows). The only 23rd-century Romulans we saw without helmets were the Commander and Centurion in "Balance of Terror," the Commander, Tal, and two technicians in "The Enterprise Incident," two commanders and a crewman in the animated series, Ambassador Caithlin Dar in TFF, and Ambassador Nanclus and several Romulan delegates in TUC. So I've long suspected that most Romulans had ridges all along, but in the 23rd century they were relegated to the lower classes, serving as lower-ranking soldiers and grunts while the more Vulcan-appearing minority held more elite roles like officers and diplomats. By the 24th century, that seems to have been inverted, since the only smooth-headed Romulans we've seen from that century were Nero and his crew, who were working-class miners.

I'm my head it goes down like this. Early earth explorers go to the Vulcanian's home world. They step out of their ship, "man this place is as hot as Vulcan." Or some other volcanic reference. From then on it becomes referenced by humans as Vulcan. The human's just keep using the term until it is also accepted by alien species, and finally the Vulcanians themselves.

In the early days of exploration there was probably some long distance stellar mapping. Some astronomer discovered a star with twin planets and decided to name them Romulus and Remus. That term came into common use probably during the Earth-Romulan Wars. It was used to name the native (though never seen) inhabitants of that world as Romulans.

That's the way it should be, but unfortunately ENT: "Minefield" overtly established that the Romulans' name for themselves was pronounced like "Romulan." (In Uncertain Logic I revised it into "Rom'ielln," which was as far as I could change it while staying consistent with Jolene Blalock's pronunciation of the word.) I'm pretty sure it's also been confirmed that the Vulcans' name for themselves sounds basically like "Vulcan" -- although The Tears of Eridanus established that it was only one of several indigenous names for their planet, including T'Khasi, Minshara, Vulcanis, and Ti-Valka'ain.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Vulcans are called Vulcans because Reg Barclay mentioned the Vulcans in an offscreen conversation with Zefram Cochrane during the events of Star Trek: First Contact. Perfectly logical explanation.

 

[uniderth]

That's the way it should be, but unfortunately ENT: "Minefield" overtly established that the Romulans' name for themselves was pronounced like "Romulan."

Thank goodness for me. As I can completely dismiss that reference thus leaving my theory intact.

Vulcans are called Vulcans because Reg Barclay mentioned the Vulcans in an offscreen conversation with Zefram Cochrane during the events of Star Trek: First Contact. Perfectly logical explanation.

"That makes perfect sense."

 

[The Wormhole]

What is the preferred explanation for the prevalence of Romulan forehead ridges in the TNG era?

Presumably even in the 24th century, it's common for Romulans not to have ridges. Spock walked the streets of Romulus publicly in Unification and no one was like "dude, where's your forehead ridges?"

 

[Christopher]

Thank goodness for me. As I can completely dismiss that reference thus leaving my theory intact.

Theories are based on the facts as they are, and are changed to fit new facts. Ignoring facts you don't like isn't theory, it's ideology.

 

[Kor]

Also, as I recall, the Romulan makeup in ST09 did include forehead prosthetics. They just weren't nearly as big and sharp looking as in TNG and the later spinoffs.

Kor

 

[Idran]

Thank goodness for me. As I can completely dismiss that reference thus leaving my theory intact.

Theories are based on the facts as they are, and are changed to fit new facts. Ignoring facts you don't like isn't theory, it's ideology.

Yeah, but someone can choose what shows to put together and what to not. There's no imperative that says you have to take all pieces of a franchise at equal level if you're a fan of the franchise. Someone could determine their own preferred Trek universe consists of TOS, VOY S3, the left half of DS9, and the TNG interactive video board game if they wanted.

It's facts about a fictional universe, doesn't hurt anyone to have preferences about what you want to incorporate into your personal slice of it.

Edit: Wait they explicitly said theory. Okay that's different. There's got to be a better word for that then. Reading fits, I suppose.