Are the Romulans closer to the "real" Vulcan civilisation than Vulcan?

[Magickthise]

I wonder this since if the "reformation" of Surak happened on a Vulcan that was already space-faring and technically advanced, and swept the planet almost cult-like, wouldn't those who didn't go along with it and left --the ancestors of the Romulans--be more like refugees rather than insurgents? And wouldn't they represent the real historical Vulcan civilisation?

It seems to me also that since Romulus is the centre of a galactic empire of it's own, whereas Vulcan is just a single planet, that the vast majority of Vulcan-type civilisation is the Romulan Star Empire.

Add to this that the supposedly violent and self destructive Vulcan ancestors apparently had mastered interstellar space flight in order for the proto-Romulans to leave. And didn't the Surak movement have a decidedly religious tone for being a logic philosophy?

I'm just trying to see it objectively. If I weren't predisposed to call either Romulans or Vulcans good or bad, what would I see? A single planet that can trace its zeitgeist to a single individual alongside an empire of insurgents, or a empire that is itself a galactic culture whose ancestral home planet happens to be aberration to an otherwise homogenous society?

 

[C.E. Evans]

Re: Are the Romulans closer to the "real" Vulcan civilisation than Vul

Personally, I think both Vulcans and Romulans found different ways to channel their naturally destructive tendencies--Vulcans through the pursuit of total logic and Romulans through military conquest/establishment of a totalitarian society.

The ancient Vulcans were probably more barbaric than Klingons, IMO...

 

[lstyer]

Re: Are the Romulans closer to the "real" Vulcan civilisation than Vul

And wouldn't they represent the real historical Vulcan civilisation?

I'm not sure we can measure a civilization's authenticity in the way you imply. It seems to me that whatever civilization is ascendant at a given time in a given place is the "real" civilization in that time and place. So, sure, the departing Romulans were likely closer to the historical pre-reformation Vulcan civilization, but I don't know that that gives it a greater claim to authenticity than the post-reformation civilization.

It seems to me also that since Romulus is the centre of a galactic empire of it's own, whereas Vulcan is just a single planet, that the vast majority of Vulcan-type civilisation is the Romulan Star Empire.

That's probably accurate, though I've never been totally clear what these interstellar empires "look like." Are they comparable to Earth and it's massive number of colonies, full of Romulans or Klingons? Or are they more like Romulus as the center and a bunch of worlds populated by non-Romulan subject species? I suspect they're some kind of mix of the two, but what does that mean in terms of number of Romulans in the Romulan Empire? One "planet's worth?" A dozen planets' worth?

a empire that is itself a galactic culture whose ancestral home planet happens to be aberration to an otherwise homogenous society?

I'm not sure that Vulcans + Romulans = a society.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Re: Are the Romulans closer to the "real" Vulcan civilisation than Vul

I'd say they're both true to "Vulcan society."

Just because the Romulans choose to embrace the emotional, pre-Surakian lifestyle, doesn't mean they are less "Vulcanian." In addition, just because the Vulcans choose to accept the logical, post-Surakian lifestyle, it also doesn't mean they are less "Vulcanian."

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

Re: Are the Romulans closer to the "real" Vulcan civilisation than Vul

Personally, I think both Vulcans and Romulans found different ways to channel their naturally destructive tendencies--Vulcans through the pursuit of total logic and Romulans through military conquest/establishment of a totalitarian society.

The ancient Vulcans were probably more barbaric than Klingons, IMO...

So Romulans are no longer the same as the original Vulcans, and neither are the 'modern' Vulcans...but I guess Romulans, being more violent might be 'closer' to ancient Vulcans then modern Vulcans are.

Yes, ancient Vulcans were insanely violent...a Klingon might stab you to death with a d'ktahg, but an ancient Vulcan would probably grab the d'ktahg by the blade and wrench it out of the Klingon's hand, then tear his arms out of their sockets and beat him to death with them.

Whereas a Romulan would just shoot the Klingon.

 

[mythme]

Re: Are the Romulans closer to the "real" Vulcan civilisation than Vul

I think the truest representation of what the Vulcans/Romulans acted like before Surak's reformation is what you see during the kal-if-fee as seen in "Amok Time" when passion overtook any sense of control or logic.

In a way, the Romulans seem to have tempored their own volatile emotion through "civilized barbarism"; much like ancient Rome itself.

 

[Timo]

Re: Are the Romulans closer to the "real" Vulcan civilisation than Vul

...Of course, it may be that the Romulans deliberately and desperately uphold some old Vulcan traditions, exactly because they want to be seen as the true heirs to the Vulcan throne. And of course, this deliberate and desperate attempt may end up perverting those traditions into something utterly unrecognizable, so that the Romulans are actually erasing from their culture the last vestiges of old Vulcanism, by substituting their stilted interpretations thereof.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Magickthise]

Re: Are the Romulans closer to the "real" Vulcan civilisation than Vul

...Of course, it may be that the Romulans deliberately and desperately uphold some old Vulcan traditions, exactly because they want to be seen as the true heirs to the Vulcan throne. And of course, this deliberate and desperate attempt may end up perverting those traditions into something utterly unrecognizable, so that the Romulans are actually erasing from their culture the last vestiges of old Vulcanism, by substituting their stilted interpretations thereof.

Timo Saloniemi

Good point, actually. In fact, both Romulans and Vulcans could be doing that. Vulcans certainly have ritualized parts of pre-Surak culture, like the kalifee.

 

[Timo]

Re: Are the Romulans closer to the "real" Vulcan civilisation than Vul

...And probably parts of Surak's teachings, too. Certainly in ENT there seem to be competing and conflicting views on them, more or less in the style we interpret the teachings of the man from Nazareth two millennia after the fact.

I wonder what that tells us about the extent of destruction on Vulcan during the Surakian wars? Had Christ lived in an era of mass media, or at least of photography and phonography, our interpretations on Him might be vastly different from the current ones - and very probably rather uniform. Surak did live in an atomic age, which no doubt supported at least photographic and phonographic technologies (in addition to Katric Arks). For his teachings to become ritualized, twisted and perverted, something massive would have to have happened to a lot of records from that era...

The Vulcan culture may be an ancient one, but it may well be massively discontinuous, too. Perhaps little beyond those family Stonehenges survives from the pre-Surakian or even the Surakian era?

Timo Saloniemi