does spock pursuing vulcan/romulan unification seem ludicrous to anyone else?

[Timo]

In practical terms, unifying Vulcan and Romulus into a Holy Realm of People with Pointy Ears should be a breeze. The Vulcan system is apparently at the very edge of the Federation, and bordering on the Romulan Star Empire and its Neutral Zone - we see this in "Unification" and argubly in STXI, too, and we can easily see the logic of this if the Romulan planets were originally settled by people from Vulcan (or perhaps vice versa!).

Moving the border a little should not be overtly complicated, then. Vulcan may be part of a larger whole, but it becoming part of another larger whole overnight is merely Realpolitik - much akin to Strassburg/Strasbourg trying to decide (or having it decided on her from the outside) whether it's part of France or Germany.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kor]

^ If you're asking whether Romulus will be destroyed in the 2387 of the Kelvin timeline? Who knows. Maybe, maybe not. But we all SAW its destruction in the prime timeline.

I would express the sentiment thusly:

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Kor

 

[In Thy Image]

In addition to professional reasons (being an ambassador) Spock may have had personal reasons for pursuing unification with the Romulans:

1. In TWoK Saavik was supposed to be half Romulan. This was never stated on screen, but there is nothing that precludes it, in fact Saavik is very emotional for a Vulcan.
2. In TSFS it is heavily implied Spock had sex with Saavik multiple times during his pon farr(s).
3. The original reason Saavik remained on Vulcan in TVH was that she was pregnant and carrying Spock's child. This scene did not make it in the movie, but again there is nothing that precludes it.
4. In TNG "Sarek" Picard mentioned he attended the wedding of Sarek's son i.e. Spock.

So we can conjecture that Spock married Saavik (which is mentioned in some novels I believe) whose connection to the Romulans incited him to try and establish better relations with them.

 

[Tenacity]

But we all SAW its destruction in the prime timeline.

I have no problem with all aspects of the Abrams movies being separate and distinct from any other Star Trek productions.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

Spock has always been committed to galactic peace. Vulcans and Romulans making up would end the possibility of a Federation/Romulan war even if they weren't politically united. It's much like his attitude towards the Klingons in Star Trek VI.

Plus in Star Trek most every species at the warp level is united. It's not like Earth today where there are numerous countries for different ethnic groups, so that's not really a good analogy.

 

[Timo]

Does it seem likely that Romulans would stop being aggressors if they and Vulcans became part of the same political entity? Aggression supposedly is a genetic trait in Vulcanoids - regardless of astropolitical circumstances (desert worlds or lush ones, single planets or empires), Vulcanoids fight each other, split and leave in a huff, then split again and again and again. Would Spock try and teach Surakian calm to all Romulans?

Or does Spock simply want his species to triumph? This could be achieved without quelling the urge to fight - unified Vulcanoids might win wars rather handily. It's not as if Spock ever had much of a pacifist streak: in TOS, it was he who advocated aggression and ruthless action first and foremost.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Qonundrum]

Bingo. When these episodes were written and aired, that was a big event.

Ditto. I too was thinking more like "East and West Germany" with the Berlin wall, TNG style... though it's not really TNG style and is more a bizarre and warped TOS style despite not feeling very TOS-like.

TNG dropped the ball on the chess playing species in season 5 and "Unification" is a prime example of a great idea that isn't more than the sum of its parts. Even Sela is treated as another mundane character.

Thankfully DS9 concentrated on the Dominion (though used the Romulans fairly well in the episodes I'd seen so far), and Voyager had few ways to shoehorn in Romulans.

 

[thewanderingjack]

I never thought much about it... I guess I just supposed he was proposing peace and a cultural unification, the latter seeming far fetched as it would basically be sublimating Romulan culture with Vulcan culture (Romulans embrace logic and become "Vulcans"... except they can't mate with native Vulcans... prelude to bigotry)... which would not only be shitty for Romulans ("hey, forget your entire cultural history and adopt ours!"), but wouldn't make a lot of sense... they don't suffer from the Vulcan's uncontrollable emotions, why would they choose to repress theirs?
I think this "Unification" idea is just more Vulcan unchecked-ego. After all, it only seems to work in the sense of Romulans becoming more like Vulcans.
I don't even believe the story that Romulans are originally from Vulcan... it makes no sense.

 

[gillmanjr]

I think Spock knew that this was a goal that was likely going to take the rest of his life to achieve, at a minimum. But, like he says in the episode, the benefit to both worlds and the Federation was too great to ignore and clearly it is something he believes strongly in. He also knows that someone of his position and influence needs to be involved for it to ever succeed.

 

[RAMA]

Spock pursuing reunification? No. Seems logical for a near-pacifist to seek a mutual coexistence with a related race.

Sela's version? That was kind of nonsensical.

 

[Kor]

I don't even believe the story that Romulans are originally from Vulcan... it makes no sense.

How so?

Kor

 

[Sci]

In a movie that is debatably gated in its own separate canon,

Nope. The owners of Star Trek, CBS and Paramount, have been very clear: Romulus is destroyed in 2387 of the Prime Timeline (the setting of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT), the Spock Prime we meet in ST09 and Star Trek Into Darkness was the same character we saw throughout TOS and in "Unification," and that's all there is to it.

* * *

I'm not entirely sure there is a comparable real-life scenario to what Spock is trying to do. He is, after all, trying to reunite a independent settler polity with its parent polity -- which has itself already united to form a larger democratic polity of which it is now only a sub-polity.

I suppose the nearest equivalent would be a Briton trying to persuade one of the Anglosphere settler polities (the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, maybe South Africa) to reunite with the United Kingdom, with the new combined polity remaining a member state of the European Union.

If that is Spock's goal? Perhaps he has a looser conception of what "reunited" means. I have a hard time imagining the UFP being willing to accept a polity nearly as large as itself as one member state. To make another comparison, I think that would be a bit like the United States accepting all of Canada as a single state in the union (the State of Canada?). Realistically, if Canada were to join the U.S., the U.S. would probably accept each individual province and territory as its own separate state, with the Canadian polity itself ceasing to exist. I imagine the Federation would probably want the Romulan Star Empire (or the combined polity consisting of the former Romulan Star Empire and the Confederacy of Vulcan) to be broken up into smaller sub-polities who can then each themselves be accepted as separate Federation Member States, with separate representation on the Federation Council. But that's just my guess.

 

[Paradise City]

Spock wants Vulcan and Romulus twinned in a Commonwealth of their own whilst Vulcan remains with the Federation of which Romulus isn't a member. There's your answer.

It couldn't really be any other way because our heroes would be antagonised by the idea of losing Vulcan to the Romulans whether by peaceful methods or through violence.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Nope. The owners of Star Trek, CBS and Paramount, have been very clear: Romulus is destroyed in 2387 of the Prime Timeline (the setting of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT), the Spock Prime we meet in ST09 and Star Trek Into Darkness was the same character we saw throughout TOS and in "Unification," and that's all there is to it.

Again, you have to accept that rights to determine canon flow with legal status exclusively, rather than by the most contributive creative minds or consensus among those most attached, which is very debatable.

If a billionaire bought the franchise and decided the entire series was a fever dream of a depressed nun, would you accept it as canon because the person who said so had legal status of ownership?

Not to mention that if Discovery had an episode where they went to the year 2400 and saw Romulus still existed, you certainly wouldn't bat an eye.

Classic Trek is to NuTrek as Tim Burton Batman is to Christopher Nolan Batman.

 

[Sci]

Again, you have to accept that rights to determine canon flow with legal status exclusively, rather than by the most contributive creative minds or consensus among those most attached, which is very debatable.

No, it's really not. Star Trek is the intellectual property of CBS and Paramount. What they say is canon, is canon. It's a matter of objective fact, not a matter of subjective opinion.

If a billionaire bought the franchise and decided the entire series was a fever dream of a depressed nun, would you accept it as canon because the person who said so had legal status of ownership?

Yup. Because it's his property.

Not to mention that if Discovery had an episode where they went to the year 2400 and saw Romulus still existed, you certainly wouldn't bat an eye.

Yep! Because it is a work of fiction and is their property!

Classic Trek is to NuTrek as Tim Burton Batman is to Christopher Nolan Batman.

Nope! Because the owners of Batman, DC Comics and Warner Bros., are the ones who decided that the Burton and Nolan films were all set in separate continuities. Because, y'know, Batman is their property!

 

[Sci]

Spock wants Vulcan and Romulus twinned in a Commonwealth of their own whilst Vulcan remains with the Federation of which Romulus isn't a member. There's your answer.

That is certainly one possibility! But there again, would not that be the equivalent of, say, Germany accepting as one of its Länder a state (Land) that is also part of Austria? Or Canada accepting into Confederation a province that is also part of Russia?

It couldn't really be any other way because our heroes would be antagonised by the idea of losing Vulcan to the Romulans whether by peaceful methods or through violence.

I mean, it depends on whether or not the Romulans have renounced aggression and embraced Federation values, doesn't it?

 

[thewanderingjack]

No, it's really not. Star Trek is the intellectual property of CBS and Paramount. What they say is canon, is canon. It's a matter of objective fact, not a matter of subjective opinion.

That statement is a matter of subjective opinion. ;-).

 

[Sci]

That statement is a matter of subjective opinion. ;-).

Nope. The owners of an intellectual property have the legal right to determine which parts of that body of work those licensed derivative works, or new installments of the primary body of work, must adhere to in order to retain the license and/or be published. That means the owners of an intellectual property define that intellectual property's canon. It's literally a matter of objective legal fact rather than subjective interpretation.

Thus, until such time as the copyrights on Star Trek expire and Star Trek enters the public domain, or until such time as the owners of Star Trek decide otherwise, it is canon that Romulus was destroyed by a supernova in 2387.

 

[thewanderingjack]

Nope. The owners of an intellectual property have the legal right to determine which parts of that body of work those licensed derivative works, or new installments of the primary body of work, must adhere to in order to retain the license and/or be published. That means the owners of an intellectual property define that intellectual property's canon. It's literally a matter of objective legal fact rather than subjective interpretation.

That's a convention (in the U.S. et al) based on a subjective opinion. ;-) But yes, you are technically correct as it applies to the current legal context in the U.S. and as it applies to STU.

And yet, if the copyright holders chose to do something wild and call it canon, but all the fans revolted, the company would most likely change things to comply (or face possibly losing it's consumer base), so we can see that in an ephemeral way, the canon belongs to the fans as much as to the copyright owners.

 

[Sci]

That's a convention (in the U.S. et al) based on a subjective opinion. ;-) But yes, you are technically correct as it applies to the current legal context in the U.S. and as it applies to STU.

And yet, if the copyright holders chose to do something wild and call it canon, but all the fans revolted, the company would most likely change things to comply (or face possibly losing it's consumer base), so we can see that in an ephemeral way, the canon belongs to the fans as much as to the copyright owners.

That does not mean the canon belongs to the fans as much as the copyright owners. It means the copyright owners know it is important to not alienate the audience if their work of intellectual property is to continue earning a profit.

If the copyright owner wants to, they can continue to make that piece of intellectual property in whatever manner it was that alienated the audience; the owner has complete legal authority over the work of intellectual property. This does not change until either the owner sells the intellectual property or the intellectual property enters public domain. Ergo, the owner of the intellectual property continues to have the legal authority to dictate what is canon.