Romulan history

[Linda]

I am trying to sort out the canon/non-canon history about why the Romulans left Vulcan and their history since. At the moment I am reading the trilogy "Vulcan's Soul" by Sherman and Shwartz. These books seem to take much from Diane Duane's books on the Romulans and mention one of her characters, Terise Haleakala-LoBrutto in the intro to the third book called the 'Archivist's Note'. I am disappointed in the lack of explanation about the forehead ridges difference between Romulans and Vulcans. Maybe I have not read far enough yet to find it as I I have only gotten completely through the first book so far. Sherman/Shwartz seem to have Leonard Nimoy's support. Also there are Diane Carey's books which go into Romulan history. And the snatches of it in the canon series and movies. There is so much that my head is swimming! I wonder if there is something online which sorts this all out and summerizes it?

I like Duane's interpretation best, Sherman/Shwartz the least. But I have my own ideas too and may use them in a story sometime. Actually, I did use them a bit in "The Taming of the Raptor". But I really would like to sort out all that currently exists, so if anyone can lead me to sources that compare and contrast these other views, time lines, and summaries, that would help a lot. I do have the Star Trek Encyclopedia and the Star Trek Chronology. I know the Diane Duane interview thread went into this a little, but I guess I am asking for any other sources people might know of.

[Distracted]

I don't know of any alternate sources, but it's an interesting question and applicable to the next installment of Lerteiran. Can you detail for me the differences between the two "canon" explanations and why you prefer one over the other?

[Asso]

Me, too, I'm very intested.

[Linda]

As far as I know, no one has explained the ridges on Romulans.

I thought I could find that in the Sherman/Shwartz books, but they only explain the Remans physical differences, at least in book 1 (entirely) and book 3 (up to p. 255) of Vulcan's Soul, both of which I have been reading this week. I have not found a copy of book 2 yet. I will reread Vulcan's Heart and Vulcan's Forge to see if the authors say anything about the ridges.

I don't remember Diane Carey or Diane Duane saying anything about the ridges but I will have to reread their books to, to be sure. My memory! How pitiful it is.

Then there is the canon series and movies, which I would also have to rewatch to see if any odd comment on why Romulans have ridges emerges.

My own idea, and it seems to be a minority view, is that the Romulans were a separate race on Vulcan. It seems to me that it would take more than 2,000 years for such a prominent physical trait to develop, and isn't 2,000 years the time since the sundering? So I speculate that in addition to the political differences over Surak, there was racial prejudice and the future Romulans were a repressed race on Vulcan. Distracted, if you like this idea, go ahead and play with it too!

[Asso]

My own idea, and it seems to be a minority view, is that the Romulans were a separate race on Vulcan. It seems to me that it would take more than 2,000 years for such a prominent physical trait to develop, and isn't 2,000 years the time since the sundering? So I speculate that in addition to the political differences over Surak, there was racial prejudice and the future Romulans were a repressed race on Vulcan. Distracted, if you like this idea, go ahead and play with it too!

Personally, I agree with your idea, Linda. Also I think Surak's change is too swift. Many, many years, centuries, millennia are necessary in order that a race can go from the harsh, highly emotional race they were before Surak, to the cold, rational and logical race they seem (seem) to be now, and it seems that the change was almost instantaneous. This sounds illogical and strange, especially if, as it sounds that we can understand from the dialogue between Soval and Foster in Enterprise, Vulcan race seems to proceed less rapidly than Human race in its progress.

[Linda]

Asso, I agree with you about the philosophical and moral changes, Asso. Surak's philosophy would have taken centuries to take the deep root in the culture that we see in the later Vulcans. If you take Christianity as an example, it took centuries after the death of Christ for the religion to spread and become a major religion on earth. And since as you said, Vulcans seem to adapt to new things slower than humans, it may have taken quite some time. And of course, the Romulans would have been aware of Surak's philosophy because it is the canon reason why they left Vulcan. The sundered who left Vulcan in their ships may even have known more about Surak (because they knew enough about him to be rejecting his teachings) than most Vulcans who stayed on the planet.

Point of interest: In the Sherman/Shwartz book Vulcan's Soul (book 1), it was strange because Surak was helping the sundered leave and it was because he thought they might survive where those left on Vulcan could easily destroy all life on their home world through their wars. The sundered were followers of Surak's teachings!

You can see why I am getting confused by all these different versions of Vulcan and Romulan history. Distracted, maybe you can help me sort it out. Have you read these authors and what do you think of their viewpoints?

[Distracted]

Linda, I read what few books I have read about Romulans so long ago that I really can't recall if any mention of the ridges were made. Of course, the books I read very well may have been written before the movie people decided that Rrrromulans have rrrridges, (and so, apparently, do Klingons). The seperate race thing is a cool idea, but totally unsupported by canon. The original Romulans had no ridges. Kirk's Romulans didn't have any. Neither did his Klingons.

You could use the same lame reason that they came up with for the Klingons, I suppose, and say that the same plague that made some of the Klingons smooth-headed affected the Romulans that were exposed, only in reverse, giving them ridges. (Although that wouldn't make much sense, since I think the reason the Klingons' foreheads got smooth was because the cure gave them a tiny bit of human DNA, or some such nonsense.) Or you could say that Vulcans were the original creators of the "smooth out the bumpy forehead" plague and before the war everyone on Vulcan had ridges. Or that Kirk's Romulans had the plague just like Kirk's Klingons so they all had smooth foreheads, though that wouldn't explain where the Romulans' ridges came from to begin with.

I think in one of my stories I made smooth foreheads a recessive gene in Romulans, more common among the ruling class due to inbreeding, like hemophilia was in European royalty in the 1800's, whereas most common Romulans have ridges. That would go along with them being a separate race, as well, I suppose. Epithelial changes (just like eye color) could conceivably be carried as recessive genes and only come out in offspring when both parents carry the gene. Maybe Vulcans don't have ridges ANY MORE because everyone who carried the gene either died in the war or left.

Either way, we're left with desperate attempts to justify some a**hole screenwriter's totally arbitrary decision to MESS with canon just because it looked cool, and to hell with continuity. It chaps my hindquarters just thinking about it.

[Linda]

I like your recessive gene theory, Distracted. It makes more sense than anything else. And that most of the ridged Vulcans left as "The Sundered" or "Those Who Marched Under the Raptor's Wings", leaving just a few ridged people on Vulcan who faded into the background or hinterlands because they were a smaller but still dispised minority - I touched on that in one story. And that telepathy was more rare among "the ridged".

I am almost finished with book 3 of Vulcan's Soul and will probably locate and read book 2 this weekend. Book 3 was more interesting than book 1. Not sure where I want to go with this Romulan racial stuff, and like you say, it chaps the hindquarters that it was all started because someone made canon ambiguous because they thought it could look cool.

Hey, how about a story of a ridged Vulcan whose family stayed on Vulcan because they were followers of Surak and has trouble rising in his profession because people think he is a Romulan spy. He and Trip could met during their lives on Vulcan and be sympathetic for each other's similar difficulties. Then both rise in their professions because of their great talent because it is only logical that talented people succeed.

[Distracted]

Cool. I like it.

[Linda]

Great! I started writing it right after I posted here. Trip gets to hire some assistant engineers while he is working in R&D on Vulcan...

Got two pages already.

Gonna get fired from my day job if I take too long breaks in which I write instead of getting coffee...

Maybe I should just retire now instead of waiting another four years.

[Asso]

Great! I started writing it right after I posted here. Trip gets to hire some assistant engineers while he is working in R&D on Vulcan...

Got two pages already.

[KKGlinka]

Sorry to join the conversation late but the ridge issue is actually addressed in the trilogy, just not explicitly. Various individuals are described as having the forehead ridge or not and this being an inherited regional/clan trait. The implication is that the civil wars on Vulcan were in many ways ethnic/regional wars equivalent to a massive world war between north america, europe, asia, africa and south america, nationalistic in origin, but incidentally racial. Most of the proverbial losers came from a particular ethnic group and chose to leave rather than submit to the new world order. Some of Surak's followers went with them in a good-will gesture and wound up becoming Remans. (Various other books have revealed that Romulans retained the capacity for psychic abilities, but that practice, being associated with Surak's followers, became stigmatized and therefore suppressed. They merely got out of practice.)

The ridges may in fact be a dominant trait, seeing as how they proliferated so thoroughly in Romulan culture. Likewise, some of them have smooth foreheads, enabling them to function as spies on Vulcan (that's from Enterprise, of course). After the Sundering, it's entirely possible that the presence of a ridge on a Vulcan became stigmatized, associated with those who followed S'Task out into space.

[Linda]

KKGlinka, you have mean the Sherman/Schwartz Vulcan's Soul trilogy, right? Do you have page references? I'd like to see the exact references to the origin of forehead ridges because I did not see them. I don't have the middle book of the trilogy yet, so if it was in that one, of course I missed it. I recently read book one and book three and did not find any references to the forehead ridges.