Diane Duane Interview

[Reanok]

I was visiting Trek web and they posted excerpts from a New Diane Duane interview and her commnets about the Romulans from her books and the Nemesis movie link http://io9.com/5053820/what-did-diane-d ... ak-nemesis

[Linda]

Since I was avoiding the Triax site for awhile, I didn't resond to this thread in a timely manner. I recently reread a couple of Diane Duane's Rihannsu books. I have enjoyed her fleshing out of the Romulan culture so they are not completely cardboard bad guys. My take on there origins on Vulcan might be a bit different than hers though. With those forehead ridges, I think they were a separate and somewhat dispised race on Vulcan, which had as much to do with their leaving the planet as a political difference with Surak did. I like it that in the fourth year of Enterprise, the difference in the two types of Klingons was explained. So I wish that canon would also explain the physical difference between Romulans and Vulcans. But there is so much that canon leaves open for published novels and fan fic writers to explore, that it is probably a good thing we have these wide open areas to work in, right?

[Asso]

...My take on there origins on Vulcan might be a bit different than hers though. With those forehead ridges, I think they were a separate and somewhat dispised race on Vulcan, which had as much to do with their leaving the planet as a political difference with Surak did.

I think this is much more "logical" than what I were able to learn from the show.
Well! Honestly I have to say that I wasn't ever convinced about Surak and his influence on Vulcans. I feel all this strange. How can logic be also so mystical? When I think about the development of Vulcan people on the screen, I can't help but thinking the various authors got carried away little by little. It's like things got out from their hands, series by series. Obviously that's only my impression.

[KKGlinka]

So I wish that canon would also explain the physical difference between Romulans and Vulcans.

Have you read the Vulcan's Soul trilogy? Because it does just that, explains the Remans, too. It covers the journey of the Vulcan refugees following S'Task to what becomes the Romulan system in the past, while following Spock and Charvanek in the present. AFAIK, it's even backed by the current canon police. *shrugs* But it's a book and they're only canon until a movie steps all over 'em. Good read, though.

[Alelou]

What is AFAIK?

I enjoyed Diane Duane's Trek books when I was younger, but I thought they got increasingly political and that turned me off. <<EDIT: On second thought, after readingt the comments on that interview page I suddenly realized I've probably gotten her confused with Diane Carey. Yes, I think I have. Carey's the Ayn Rand wannabe. Maybe. >>

I tried researching Romulan stuff before writing The Locum and a lot of it seemed
contradictory or just so involved it would have taken me months to wade through it all (like I could have read the Duane stuff but I feared it would be a long, thinly-disguised treatise on whatever her thing was, I don't even remember anymore). So I ended up mostly just doing whatever I felt like based on the knowledge I already had from TOS (vague), TNG (vaguer), and Enterprise (not much to go on). I could never force myself through The Good That Men Do and its sequel in any detail (I just wanted the noogie), so I didn't even pick that stuff up there. I've been waiting for canon people to jump on me for Romulan gaffes, but apparently all my gaffes are in other areas.

And some of it just doesn't make sense. Like: supposedly Romulans aren't telepathic. How can that be, if Vulcans are? So I decided they just think they aren't.

[Linda]

I was thinking that Romulans being a different race with the forehead ridges, would have fewer telepaths among them, and weaker telepathes than were found among Vulcans. And that on top of that, because they had been harassed by Vulcans using telepathy, what ability they did have was discouraged among them because they feared it and saw it as an abusive weapon that they usually got bested at. I'm not sure how I would write Romulans if I used them again in my fanfic. I explored the idea of them as a repressed race in "The Taming of the Raptor", but I didn't get much response about the race difference with that story. So maybe other fans don't like that idea too much.

[Alelou]

Well, lack of response could just mean they didn't NOT like it that much.

The joy of fanfic ... write what you want to write. No agent or editor is going to tell you, "Are you crazy? I can't sell this!"