this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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Are Romulans just Vulcans with emotions? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by Confidant6198@lemmy.ml to c/startrek@startrek.website
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[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 73 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They were the same species on the same planet just a few thousand years ago, which is the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.

It might be more accurate to say that Vulcans are just Romulans with impulse control. Before the split, Vulcans were more like modern Romulans than modern Vulcans. Vulcans at that time were highly emotional and violent. Then they had a sort of cultural revolution, which involved controlling emotions and focusing on logic. This led to some traditionalists leaving Vulcan and founding Romulus, carrying that emotional and violent culture with them.

[–] Izzy@startrek.website 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's curious that despite this cultural revolution that led to founding of planet Vulcan they are still basically equals technologically. It doesn't appear that a few thousand years of excess emotion and violent tendencies has been at all detrimental to Romulan technological advances.

[–] aebletrae@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Their physiology is barely diverged so their intellects are likely to remain similar. Espionage is frequently the theme of Romulan encounters, which would help keep them up to date. And if they procreate more frequently than every seven years, they might have a much larger population even with greater murderousness, with more people being advantageous for tech development.

[–] Flyberius@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago

They also have an empire with a large number of client species. Vulcan does not. If anything the romulans are more advanced than the Vulcans

[–] essellburns@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

It's well known that Vulcans are the intellectual puppets of the federation.

Maybe that limited them?

[–] TiKa444@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

May it's a question of the focus. You almost only see the military technology of the romulans.

[–] Wooster@startrek.website 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It’s kinda odd in retrospect. There are many words to describe Romulans… but violent isn’t really amongst the top ten.

[–] ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Gene Roddenberry envisaged the Romulans as Star Trek’s version of Communist China and the Klingons as its Soviet Union. In Making of Star Trek, he and Stephen Whitfield describe the Romulans as “highly militaristic, aggressive by nature, ruthless in warfare.”

That's from the man himself. Not sure where you got the impression that romulans aren't violent.

[–] Wooster@startrek.website 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m familiar with that part of the lore.

It’s more like how the Borg are described as an unstoppable unrelenting all powerful force… and are stopped, relent, and are devoid of power. On paper they are one thing, on screen they are another.

With the Romulans, they tend to outsource the violence. Pit party A against B, then clean up after. Practically scavengers. Klingons, Jem’Hadar, and Hirogen I’d more readily describe as violent.

[–] ryan@the.coolest.zone 23 points 1 year ago

You bring up a good point. It feels like Romulans have also learned to control their violent emotions, but rather than suppress them entirely that energy is just focused all into tactics and smarter ways to be ruthless.

[–] JWBananas@startrek.website 6 points 1 year ago

Does that make Vulcan Taiwan?

[–] STUPIDVIPGUY@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

When I think of the Romulans, I first think of that time they plotted to bomb DS9 to gain control over the wormhole only to be thwarted by time-traveling O'Brien

[–] VindictiveJudge@startrek.website 16 points 1 year ago

I think the police state was their solution to infighting in much the same way that Surak's faction took up a quasi-religious adherence to logic.

[–] LostAndSmelly@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

That's pretty much it.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 5 points 1 year ago

Yes. They're the ones that said 'fuck this' to Surak