Bumpy-headed Romulans

[Transwarp]

There was an interesting sub-topic about Romulans over at the thread about the relaunch books, and I didn't want to hijack that thread (and have nothing positive or constructive to say about the books), so I'm starting a new thread.

It seems most people dislike the look of the bumpy-headed Romulans that sprang up after TOS. (I dislike the look, also.) There were some interesting theories in the other thread attempting to explain it, but the question I have remains unasked.

I ask it now, hoping that the answer lies somewhere in the accumulated Star Trek lore of the people on this site:

From a TV show production and writing standpoint, what was the point of making Romulans look different from Vulcans? (Given that they are the same species?) Was there ever a reason stated?

If so, I'd really like to know what it was. (And not a Star Trek universe reason, such as was discussed in the other thread, but a TV show producer/writer reason as to why they felt they needed to look different.)

Just wondering.

[Thot]

From a TV show production and writing standpoint, what was the point of making Romulans look different from Vulcans? (Given that they are the same species?) Was there ever a reason stated?

Memory Alpha:
1)

No in-universe explanation has ever been given for the difference in appearance. StarTrek.com suggested that the ridged majority of Romulans were a different race that evolved on Vulcan simultaneously with them.

2) concerning the 'they-are-the-same-species'-theorie:

Despite their common ancestry there were also many subtle internal physiological differences between Vulcans and Romulans. This was evidenced in Dr. Beverly Crusher's failed attempt to treat a Romulan, Patahk, who had suffered advanced synaptic breakdown, with the methods used to treat Vulcans. In fact, it was later determined that the genetic similarities between Romulans and Klingons allowed for the two species to have a compatible ribosome match to effect treatment. (TNG: "The Enemy")

If so, I'd really like to know what it was. (And not a Star Trek universe reason, such as was discussed in the other thread, but a TV show producer/writer reason as to why they felt they needed to look different.)

Perhaps Gene Roddenberry always wanted to put the ridges on the Romulans to make them appear differently from the Vulcans, but didn't get the budget - something similar to the different looks of the Klingons during the early series and then later from the first movie on.

And I concur: the ridges from Romulans suck!

[Asso]

I don't want to seem uselessly derisory, but honestly I don't think there can be any more or less clever and/or exhaustive response to your question.
I simply think that just as the ways of the Lord are infinite, so the brains of the Humans are endlessly complicated.
And both the ways of the Lord and the brains of the Humans are unfathomable.
And I agree: those Romulan ridges are really disagreeable. Annoying, I would say.

[justTripn]

So what about the lack of ridges on the foreheads of the Romulans in the new movie. Is everyone happy about that? (Probably not, because it I seems to remember their ears were different from the Vulcans' in the same movie.)

[WarpGirl]

OK since you don't want a ST reason Transwarp I am going to agree with Thot and say that it all came down to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ That said, I agree with ST.com when it says that Vulcans and Romulans are not in fact the same species. Relatives yes, but not the same.

[honeybee]

One of the few things I was unhappy with in the film was the way the Romulans were portrayed - I think I'll always think of them as how they were in TOS. Nero seemed more like a bully rather than a true adversary for Kirk or Spock. And I wanted to see our heroes outsmart him rather than beat him by force.

I didn't notice that their ears were different - I was probably too busy staring at the facial tattoo.

But since I think the idea of them being a lost tribe of Vulcans is an excellent one as well as serving the story - I think anything that frustrates that idea is frustrating.

Certainly, in TOS, the whole Spock goes under cover on Romulus to try and promote reunification serves the idea that they are essentially Vulcan - and while minor genetic differences would be natural - major ones seem implausible given that they have a long life span and its only been a few thousand years since the split.

For example, it seems that Romulans don't go through Pon Farr since that seems to have evolved after the Awakening. I don't know whether it is physically plausible that such a cycle could evolve in Vulcans over the relatively short time since The Awakening. There might have been an earlier genetic basis for it - it just wasn't noticed during the pre-Awakening hedonism. So, Romulans could have a mating cycle, they just don't see it as a big deal because they would just go get laid and not worry about it - as would their pre-Surak cousins.

[Asso]

For example, it seems that Romulans don't go through Pon Farr since that seems to have evolved after the Awakening. I don't know whether it is physically plausible that such a cycle could evolve in Vulcans over the relatively short time since The Awakening. There might have been an earlier genetic basis for it - it just wasn't noticed during the pre-Awakening hedonism. So, Romulans could have a mating cycle, they just don't see it as a big deal because they would just go get laid and not worry about it - as would their pre-Surak cousins.

I restate what I said.

[WarpGirl]

I love Eric Bana so Nero tats and all was just... And since it was an alternate timeline, AU I didn't have any problems with the fact Nero was a thug. After all, he was just a normal regluar guy before Romulus blew up. He wasn't a soldier, a member of a high ranking family, or anything like the Romulan villians in TOS or TNG. None of them were "average Joe's" at least that I can remember... Link?????? Nero didn't have the training or eduation that the villians we were used too had.

As for the Romulan/Vulcan debate, I look at it this way. A daddy long-legs is a spieces of spider, a black widow is also a spieces of spider. Are they the same? Nope. Are they spiders? Yep. And they're both creepy and awful, but only one will kill you.

Where is it said that Pon Farr is a post-Awakening penominon? I have never heard that. In fact, from everything I've ever heard about the subject from the shows, it's been a reality for Vulcans since time began.

[Aquarius]

I have to confess to being a little confused as to how invoking religion contributes to the discussion in question. I also question its appropriateness, as this is not a discussion pertaining to religion in Star Trek.

As for Transwarp's actual question, from a production standpoint, while I never heard anything said specifically addressing the Romulan ridges, I do recall the question of the "updated" Klingsons being dealt with at one of the earlier cons I attended in the early 90s. I don't recall the speaker's name, though I did take pictures so after I'm finished with my move I suppose I could scan and post his picture and see if anyone can identify him. Any way, what he said was the changes were made for pretty obvious reasons: the show had like no budget in the 60s, so they had to resort to dark makeup and Fu Manchu mustaches to set the Klingons apart from humans, despite the fact that Gene had something much more menacing and alien in mind when he first imagined them. When ST:TMP came out, they had a lot more money to play with, so Gene took the opportunity to make them more in the image he originally wanted.

One can infer from this that budget had a lot to do with the Romulans' appearance as well. It almost seems to suggest that when the Romulans left Vulcan, it was supposed to be long enough ago that they had a chance to evolve/mutate independently (as evidenced by the ridges), but whoever was supposed to be watching continuity for such things kind of dropped the ball there.

When I go to Vegas next month, if there's anyone appearing who could adequately answer the question, I'll see about asking during the Q and A.

[honeybee]

Cool - let us know, Aquarius! I think it's just a case of different writers and designers handling the whole issue in different ways. And us fans are left trying to make sense out of the whole thing.

I do think it is plausible that sometime during TNG - they decided to make the Romulans look more menacing - and added the ridges - possibly without thinking how this would affect the whole "they are Vulcan cousins" plotline they went with when Spock prime appeared on the show.

I do know that contrary to previous conventional wisdom, evolution can happen quicker than over tens of thousands of years. Populations isolated on islands, for example, evolve quicker. They also theorize that dogs evolved over the course of maybe one or two human lifetimes as the smaller, friendlier wolves started scavenging at human settlements and this created genetic selection that managed to create significantly smaller, friendly wolf-like creatures that became domesticated dogs. However, this research is recent enough that it's very unlikely that TNG writers knew about it. It can be used to retroactively explain some of the contradictions!

I mean - it seems to be canon that it's hard to produce a Vulcan/Human child naturally (see many discussion threads) but Tasha Yar managed to have a daughter with a Romulan that seemed to have been conceived naturally.

[WarpGirl]

I'm sorry what has religious beliefs have to do with the subject? Is it not a fact that scientists classify life in catagories? For example an ant and a spider are insects but in a different catagory. Is it not a fact that scientists divide certain catagories of spieces in sub-groups, such as venomous spiders, and non-venomous spiders. Maybe my biology textbooks are out-of-date, however all I was saying that Romulans and Vulcans might be different branches of one catagory of spieces classification. I have no idea how religious beliefs come into that.

[Aquarius]

Cool - let us know, Aquarius! I think it's just a case of different writers and designers handling the whole issue in different ways. And us fans are left trying to make sense out of the whole thing.

I do think it is plausible that sometime during TNG - they decided to make the Romulans look more menacing - and added the ridges - possibly without thinking how this would affect the whole "they are Vulcan cousins" plotline they went with when Spock prime appeared on the show.

I do know that contrary to previous conventional wisdom, evolution can happen quicker than over tens of thousands of years. Populations isolated on islands, for example, evolve quicker. They also theorize that dogs evolved over the course of maybe one or two human lifetimes as the smaller, friendlier wolves started scavenging at human settlements and this created genetic selection that managed to create significantly smaller, friendly wolf-like creatures that became domesticated dogs. However, this research is recent enough that it's very unlikely that TNG writers knew about it. It can be used to retroactively explain some of the contradictions!

I mean - it seems to be canon that it's hard to produce a Vulcan/Human child naturally (see many discussion threads) but Tasha Yar managed to have a daughter with a Romulan that seemed to have been conceived naturally.

As for Tasha's baby, do we know all the circumstances? It's been so long ago since I've seen the episodes dealing with her that a lot of the details were fuzzy. Is it possible Tasha was on the receiving end of a lot of medical care, despite her s lave status? Regardless, while something would be difficult or unlikely, under the right circumstances it would not be impossible. I just wouldn't want to see a whole plethora of fics emerge where Vulcanoid/Human hybrids are blithely springing up without something substantial to support it, with only the notion of "it's not impossible" holding it up. (Sidebar: I like how Lady Rainbow is handling it; she acknowledges that such a naturally-occurring pregnancy would need a lot of help to come to term, and there's an actual medical thread to the storyline.)

I like the idea of a quicker evolution. It would seem that the Romulans started as a comparatively small population; I imagine they were a handful of dissenters, a small percentage of the Vulcan population as a whole. Otherwise, their solution would not be to just leave, they'd fight to run the planet their way if there was a sufficient number of them. Any way, in such a small population, you have a smaller gene pool, which I think would mean the same recessive genes would be getting passed around more quickly because of less diversity in the population. The ridges could be no more significant than, say, the fact that some humans toes get progressively shorter from big toe to little, while some people's second toe is longer than their big toe. It's a mutation, but not a huge one, and I'm sure we'd see a lot more of it pop up if we isolated a bunch of people who carried the gene for it in one small community.

One thing's for sure: whether Star Trek or Star Wars, it seems we fans watch continuity a lot harder than those who actually make the shows/movies.

[justTripn]

I also don't see any reference to religion in this thread.

[Rigil Kent]

The Yar thing is really comparable, IMO, because the tech level had advanced to the point that they seemed capable of just rewriting an individual's DNA with nothing more than a hypospray come 1701-C time period.

I'm still fond of the "they interbred with other species to maintain their population" idea, which not only explains the bumpy foreheads, but might also explain the whole Yar thing (like, their genetic structure is less rigid than Vulcans due to this interbreeding.)

And, from my admittedly shoddy memory, I seem to recall the bumpy foreheads in TNG were present simply to differentiate the bad Vulcanoids with the good ones (because the people in charge didn't think that the audience was smart enough to tell the difference? I dunno.)

[Distracted]

Another explanation I've seen is the assumption that the small number of Surak dissenters couldn't maintain a stable population after leaving Vulcan without interbreeding with the native population of the world(s) they encountered on the way to finding a new home on Romulus. And then there's the Remans, who are supposed to be somehow related to Romulans. Perhaps the original proto-Romulans were genetically identical to Vulcans, but over the centuries interbreeding with other (unidentified) races produced variations like brow ridges and the Reman's creepy Gollum skin coloration.