Where did the Vulcans come from?

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Picard' started by Arpy, Mar 31, 2020.

  1. Arpy

    Arpy Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2001
    I imagine the Protohumanoids seeded the Sargonians, and the Sargonians seeded the Vulcans per TOS episode. I’d forgotten about the line about Sargon’s people maybe seeding Vulcan and also thought Protohumanoids, but I think we can have both.

    Again, it doesn’t have to be Sargon’s people who originated or passed down the prophesy, but I’m trying to minimize the number of ancients we’re talking about, whether or not that’s necessary or right.

    How could the Mintakans fit into all of this? Were they a different kind of Sargonian seeding that’s taking longer? A Protohumanoid seeding? Did Sargonians look Vulcanoid? Or could they be the initial stock the Sargonians tweaked and deposited on Vulcan? I can’t remember from the episode how blasé they were about Vulcanoids evolving on their own on another planet. ...then again, plenty of humanoids do, so maybe mo tie is necesssry between the Mintakans and Vulcans.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2020
  2. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2003
    Narek's "arrival" meshes with what Sargon actually said about their role in the spreading of humanoids, but not in the most obvious way:

    "Seed" here would thus seem to be the usual biblical meaning of the word: Sargonian travelers had kids who settled on planets, then the generations down the line forgot they came from space and mistook themselves for natives.

    Alternately, randy Sargonian humanoids impregnated Earth and Vulcan women or bore children for Earth and Vulcan men; if Sargon really knows his Bible, he would be within his rights to think that there were people down on Earth (still Paradise at that point) before Adam and Eve, but that those two started a new and better thing, mingling with the lesser natives.

    No "placing of DNA in primordial soup/sand", then. And no forced relocation of ignorant natives from elsewhere. The first Vulcans (or the first modern Vulcans) would have been citizens of Sargon's empire, voluntarily descending from the heavens. Arguably from several different species, then, to account for the obvious differences between Vulcans and humans. Although we can argue whether Sargon's empire would feature different member species in the traditional sense, or whether Sargon's folks, originally (or after a power struggle) from a single species, would have decided to speciate themselves for variety and fun.

    In light of this, the legend would have to be something that circulated among Sargon's people already, or at least this is what Narek thinks. Or, in the alternate interpretation, it is what was circulating among the people of Vulcan before the "real Vulcans" from Sargon's empire came and took over.

    If Spock accepts Sargon's story as relevant to the past of Vulcan, I don't see Narek holding a radically different view. But this is possible, too - and we may even speculate the original Romulan schism was based on a deep disagreement on this very issue.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  3. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 5, 2008
    Location:
    A type 13 planet in it's final stage
    Hi, welcome to Earth where people think 5G phone towers are the cause of Coronavirus. People believe far dumber things for far stupider reasons.

    And Narek was brought up with these beliefs and then his sister and aunt shared a vision seemingly proving elements of the story at least.
     
    SolarisOne, ITDUDE and Turtletrekker like this.
  4. Arpy

    Arpy Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2001
    Oh yeah, I don’t imagine the Vulcan seeding was anything like the Protohumanoid. The latter could be something out of Prometheus for all we know, though I imagine something like a crop-dusting of the oceans.

    Vulcan’s I imagine either a Galactica-mingling of Sargonians and Vulcans, or a “Neo-Luddite” pure-Sargonian colony that abandoned its old tech then forgot about it over 600k years, or even a series of alien abductions intermingling Sargonian and primate Vulcan DNA.
     
    SolarisOne likes this.
  5. Ronald Held

    Ronald Held Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2005
    Location:
    On the USS Sovereign
    Or the Vulcans could have evolved from more primitive lifeforms, with little to no genetic contributions from Sargonians.
     
  6. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2003
    If there are mysteries in the Vulcan prehistory, then alien meddling is a likely explanation - after all, we know that it happens a lot in Trek, and contributed mightily to Earth's prehistory as well.

    That Kirk jumps to defend Earth's primordial soup is just another case of Kirk missing the point altogether. Sargon speaks of space travelers coming and meddling, the very same way Kirk's folks travel in space and visit planets. He's not speaking of having usurped the role of God; he's just saying one of his great-great-grandpas quite possibly was Adam's next-door neighbor or Eve's weird uncle, or at least drove the shuttlebus that took them to Earth.

    Spock gets the point all right. Perhaps Sadamk and T'Eve really were aliens, and Vulcans come from a different genetic line than all other lifeforms on planet Vulcan (except for those that Sadamk and T'Eve brought with them, which might be about 99% of Vulcan's surviving lifeforms). Or perhaps Sadamk left his copy of Shi'Kahr Gangs of the 1030s lying in a cave full of Vulcans, launching the planet into its historical era. Either way, he's admitting that it could have happened - whereas Kirk is forgetting it did happen on Earth, with Apollo and his lot, and with the Platonians and their lot, and (as he will soon learn) with Kukulkan, and no doubt with a thousand other influential visitors from outer space.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2020
  7. Yes Man the Great

    Yes Man the Great Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2019
    Location:
    Somewhere far away
    Maybe all Vulcans and Romulans were actually created by a magical bearded Vulcan in the sky.
     
  8. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    By the Time of Archer, Katra transference was a long forgotten dirty little secret, only a hand full of monks remembered about.

    The act had been scrubbed from history, for a good reason?

    Abuse of power?

    Assholes trying to be immortal, by overwriting hosts.

    No wonder it was forbidden and forgotten
     
  9. Ronald Held

    Ronald Held Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2005
    Location:
    On the USS Sovereign
    Still not buying that modern Vulcans cannot scan genomes of bacteria/virii/fungi as well as other life forms to determine if they evolved in situ.
     
  10. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    The proto-Vulcans Vulcaformed the entire planet down to the microbial level seeding every strata with life from their homeworld. he The few non Vulcanian lifeforms that remained are subject to debate as to their origins by Vulcan scientists.
    The disaster that all but wiped out Sargon/Henoch's people also laid waste to colony worlds like Vulcan. The Vulcans survived but were reduced to stone age level and they had to begin a long road back to civilization (only to almost blow it again in Surak's era) Non sentient Vulcan lifeforms also survived and continued to evolve reaching their modern forms.
    The Mintakans might be a from a colony that never quite recovered.
    /headcanon theory
     
    SolarisOne likes this.
  11. Arpy

    Arpy Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2001
    Don’t forget that the Admonition aliens wiped out all intelligent organic life 2-300k years ago. If the ancient Vulcans got anywhere between 600k and then, it was destroyed.
     
  12. Watersluis

    Watersluis Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Apr 7, 2020
    T'Pol mentioned that Vulcans evolved on Vulcan, explaining why he had no problem with the blight sun due to his "inner eyelids", whereas Archer did.
     
    Ronald Held likes this.
  13. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2011
    I still think it was a mistake in the script and he meant to say "Romulus"
     
  14. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    I say roll with it. Like they should have with the Eugenics war error in DS9.
     
  15. Arpy

    Arpy Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2001
    This just tells me that the Vulcans can’t be pure Sargonians. They could have interbred. Or 600,000 years is a long time — could an eyelid have popped up in that time?
    I’m not sufficiently convinced it was a mistake, and, either way, it’s there — like, for my money, ENT, which seemed to contradict a lot more than this.
     
  16. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    Or it's a feature that the Sargonians share.
     
    Arpy likes this.
  17. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    Henoch should make a comeback voiced by Ethan Peck. ;)
     
    Arpy likes this.
  18. Watersluis

    Watersluis Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Apr 7, 2020
    Yours herein is the mistake of assuming that Star Trek has an internally consistent universe where whatever a character says can be taken as fact — characters say many things, many of which directly contradict what other characters have said.

    Such as, exemplī grātiā, here.
     
  19. Arpy

    Arpy Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2001
    It’s about 1) intent and 2) fun.

    1) If the writer intends something to be so, I’m not going to disregard it because I’d prefer it’s otherwise. At least, not initially when I’m figuring things out before I judge them for my head-canon. And I don’t think the writer intended Narek to be lying, or I’d be arguing for that intent.

    2) I want to have as much fun possible figuring how it might maximally play out.
    Yours herein is the mistake of assuming that sounding smart is the same as being it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2020
    SolarisOne likes this.
  20. diankra

    diankra Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2005
    Location:
    UK
    When I was magazing editing I knew every single error in the gap between printing and getting the printed copy back. But by then I just had to wait for the physical proof of my mess up.