Did Starfleet have a facility on Vulcan?
- Thread starter JonnyQuest037
- Start date
^ No, we don't. T'Lar may or may not have been a Kolinahr adept. There's just no way to know.
Although I think it's unlikely. IIRC, those who have achieved Kolinahr generally keep to themselves. If T'Lar was one, she probably wouldn't have officiated at a ceremony like this.
Especially since the process of fal tor pan hadn't been done in so long - T'Lar herself pointed out that Sarek's request for it was illogical. So a true Kolinahr would most likely have refused to carry it out.
Although I think it's unlikely. IIRC, those who have achieved Kolinahr generally keep to themselves. If T'Lar was one, she probably wouldn't have officiated at a ceremony like this.
Especially since the process of fal tor pan hadn't been done in so long - T'Lar herself pointed out that Sarek's request for it was illogical. So a true Kolinahr would most likely have refused to carry it out.
Obviously the idea of just what the Federation is has evolved over time. But I think the idea that the Federation is more like the U.N. than a federal republic in its own right has long since been disregarded by the canon. You can't do "Seven Days in May IN SPACE" the way DS9 did in "Homefront/Paradise Lost" but have it be about overthrowing the U.N. Secretary-General, because the UNSG doesn't have that kind of power. The UNSG doesn't get to decide whether or not to go to war like the Federation President in ST6; the U.N. doesn't get to make binding law over its member states the way the Federation does when, say, the Federation Council imposes a Federation-wide speed limit. The U.N. doesn't convene regular grand juries the way the Federation does in "The Ascent;" the U.N. doesn't have a Supreme Court with the power of judicial review the way the Federation Supreme Court dos in "Dr. Bashir, I Presume?;" the U.N. doesn't have its own sovereign territory with border defenses the way the Federation does in episodes like "Balance of Terror" or "The Best of Both Worlds." And of course, the U.N. doesn't have its own dedicated military force consisting of officers pledged to obey the orders of a democratically-elected "U.N. government" ("For the Cause"), led by a civilian President who serves as commander-in-chief ("Homefront"), with its own system of courts-martial ("Court Martial").
The analogy isn't perfect (because the writers are not political scientists and they have been inconsistent in their depiction of the UFP over time), but broadly speaking, I think the preponderance of evidence is that the Federation is its own sovereign state.
As such -- if Kirk and Co. are wanted by the Federation Starfleet for court-martial, it does seem weird that they could evade Starfleet JAG officials by staying on Vulcan if Vulcan is a Federation Member State. Again, chalk it up to the writers not being poli sci students.
My solution? They stayed within the confines of the Vulcan monastery on Mt. Seleya, and Vulcan has domestic laws allowing religious orders to provide sanctuary to criminal suspects without the Vulcan government being able to interfere. The Federation either cannot by law interfere with Vulcan religious sanctuary laws, or the litigation had not worked its way up to the Federation Supreme Court yet by the time Kirk and Co. decided to take the HMS Bounty back home.
There. Let's us reconcile everything. Hell, there literally could have been a base called "Starbase Vulcan" right next door to Mt. Seleya and maybe they couldn't touch them!
Meanwhile, it would seem very foolish for Starfleet not to have several prominent bases, starbases, shipyards, a dedicated system fleet, and a command HQ in the Vulcan system. And given the gigantic wreckage in orbit of Vulcan we saw in ST09 (much larger than the other ships that left Earth with the Enterprise), I think ST09 strongly implies that Starfleet did indeed maintain dedicated forces in the Vulcan system in 2258 of the Kelvin Timeline.
The analogy isn't perfect (because the writers are not political scientists and they have been inconsistent in their depiction of the UFP over time), but broadly speaking, I think the preponderance of evidence is that the Federation is its own sovereign state.
As such -- if Kirk and Co. are wanted by the Federation Starfleet for court-martial, it does seem weird that they could evade Starfleet JAG officials by staying on Vulcan if Vulcan is a Federation Member State. Again, chalk it up to the writers not being poli sci students.
My solution? They stayed within the confines of the Vulcan monastery on Mt. Seleya, and Vulcan has domestic laws allowing religious orders to provide sanctuary to criminal suspects without the Vulcan government being able to interfere. The Federation either cannot by law interfere with Vulcan religious sanctuary laws, or the litigation had not worked its way up to the Federation Supreme Court yet by the time Kirk and Co. decided to take the HMS Bounty back home.
There. Let's us reconcile everything. Hell, there literally could have been a base called "Starbase Vulcan" right next door to Mt. Seleya and maybe they couldn't touch them!
Meanwhile, it would seem very foolish for Starfleet not to have several prominent bases, starbases, shipyards, a dedicated system fleet, and a command HQ in the Vulcan system. And given the gigantic wreckage in orbit of Vulcan we saw in ST09 (much larger than the other ships that left Earth with the Enterprise), I think ST09 strongly implies that Starfleet did indeed maintain dedicated forces in the Vulcan system in 2258 of the Kelvin Timeline.
Yeah, if you've purged all emotions, I'd imagine it'd be tough for you to interact with Vulcans who were only controlling/suppressing them. Especially when you factor in Vulcan telepathy.
There was a Probe causing a lot of trouble for Starfleet ships in the area.
Thanks!
I mean, I got the impression Kirk didn't tell anyone they were coming to Earth. (Did they use the cloaking device? I can't remember.)
Alternate possibility: He informed Federation authorities of his intent to travel back to Earth, and he was given the dignity of being allowed to make the trip by himself out of recognition of his role in saving Earth from V'Ger in 2272.
Well, yes, but in fairness there needs to be an explanation for why he was allowed to take the Bounty back to Earth alone rather than, say, having the Bounty escorted by a Starfleet vessel, or them simply being arrested on Vulcan and transported back to Earth in the brig of a starship.
What we know of Kirk's return:
1) It hinged on a vote conducted one day before the actual flight to Earth. Sounded very impromptu.
2) Yet immediately afterwards, McCoy grumbles that Starfleet isn't sending a ship to carry them. They knew this when voting already. And it thus sounds as if it's Starfleet's fault, not the fault of the secretiveness or impulsiveness of our heroes.
3) They launch the next morning. Even before the vote we saw the first moves in the Probe crisis; it has been ongoing in interspliced scenes, including losses of entire starships. Our heroes are not aware of any of this.
4) Scotty says he has fixed the cloak and wants to use it so that they "won't get shot down on the way to their own funeral".
5) No initial ETA is given. On Earth, the Probe strikes, and then we jump back to our (uncloaked) heroes who now have 1.6 hours of travel remaining. This is when Kirk asks if there's "any signs of Federation escort".
From the severity of the crisis, and from the fact that our heroes hear so little of it, we could speculate on a travel time of mere hours, or at most a day. (This means Scotty was apologizing rather than boasting when saying it's four days to Vulcan at the end of ST:TMP.)
From Scotty's statement, we could also infer they flew in cloaked and perhaps subsequently under communications silence, including listening (Trek comms seem to involve the sender being able to tell whether the listener is listening), and only decloaked 1.6 hours out and then realistically started looking for escort. In that scenario, the trip could be longer than a day, but we don't want it to be too long - nobody down at SF HQ gets replaced by a less fatigued colleague as the crisis continues...
Timo Saloniemi
1) It hinged on a vote conducted one day before the actual flight to Earth. Sounded very impromptu.
2) Yet immediately afterwards, McCoy grumbles that Starfleet isn't sending a ship to carry them. They knew this when voting already. And it thus sounds as if it's Starfleet's fault, not the fault of the secretiveness or impulsiveness of our heroes.
3) They launch the next morning. Even before the vote we saw the first moves in the Probe crisis; it has been ongoing in interspliced scenes, including losses of entire starships. Our heroes are not aware of any of this.
4) Scotty says he has fixed the cloak and wants to use it so that they "won't get shot down on the way to their own funeral".
5) No initial ETA is given. On Earth, the Probe strikes, and then we jump back to our (uncloaked) heroes who now have 1.6 hours of travel remaining. This is when Kirk asks if there's "any signs of Federation escort".
From the severity of the crisis, and from the fact that our heroes hear so little of it, we could speculate on a travel time of mere hours, or at most a day. (This means Scotty was apologizing rather than boasting when saying it's four days to Vulcan at the end of ST:TMP.)
From Scotty's statement, we could also infer they flew in cloaked and perhaps subsequently under communications silence, including listening (Trek comms seem to involve the sender being able to tell whether the listener is listening), and only decloaked 1.6 hours out and then realistically started looking for escort. In that scenario, the trip could be longer than a day, but we don't want it to be too long - nobody down at SF HQ gets replaced by a less fatigued colleague as the crisis continues...
Timo Saloniemi
They'll just blame V'Las for that one. 'It was before the New Reformation' card
Nah, Kolinahru disciples play the 'piss off and leave us alone' card
And now the "one of us found Surak's teachings for you and set you on the righteous path" card.
And to rub it in Surak's katra did not even want to leave the smelly male human and reside in T'Pau's head, probably knew how bigoted she was.
Last edited:
For instance?
The Prime Directive was a Vulcan thing originally.
My first reaction is to be dismissive of this (if not to dismiss) because it's ENT. But even in TOS it was a very Roddenberrian notion. That humans had learned (apparently to their cost) the consequences of trying to "fix" things. OTOH, in TOS the Prime Directive was not nearly so draconian as it would become in TNG. Friday's Child comes to mind.
I just realized that I have another nail in the coffin of the TNG Prime Directive: We have seen peaceful, happy peoples who's very existence must be left to doubt because of the "wisdom" of the Prime Directive.
But the Vulcans came across Earth in the mid 21st century, a planet that within the last decade or so had attempted to annihilate itself through war and violence on a truly global scale. But ONE GUY had figured out faster than light travel.
Hey, T'bam, Let's talk to THOSE people. They seem advanced.
Pre-ENT I prefer the notion that the Vulcans were there in an STL ship and they made contact because the monkeys had something that they didn't. Or go with the various histories pre-First Contact. But that ship has well sailed.
No, I don't believe Vulcan had Starfleet facilities. Being the TOS exclusionist that I am, there had to have been a reason that the Vulcan ambassador and his wife had to be ferried from Vulcan to Babel. Also notable is the Vulcan Amassador's distaste for Starfleet. This isn't a private citizen this is a representative of the Vulcan government. (And yet he feels that Coridan needs the protection that the Federation would afford by being a member. Very logical, Mr. Ambassador.) In TOS the Federation was very loose knit. VERY.
Are there any real world organizations where a member state has an "ambassador" to itself? I guess the UN (or NATO) analogy is more apt than the USA or USSR or Great Britain. Only with a para military / exploratory force. On the other hand we are discussing member "states" with literally planetary populations who are at best days travel from each other. (Please sit down, Mr. Abrams.)
I was going to say TNG made the Federation more cohesive, but even The Voyage Home gave us a President.
(Star Trek is weird.)
The love of science, the exploratory nature, the conservative(somewhat) nature of society, the emphasis on intellectual pursuits, the remaining bits and traces of mysticism, etc...
You don't find any of that on Earth?
Yes but they were re-shaped in the Vulcan mode.
T'Pol stated the Vulcans had been on earth for ninety years-that is a long time. And Vulcan ideology would in that time I think have filtered into humanity's collective conscious and unconscious.
Didn't T'Pol say something to the effect that Vulcans weren't natural explorers, and they generally lacked curiosity?
