Did Starfleet have a facility on Vulcan?

[Timo]

How? Spock's quirks (touch telepathy, mating cycle, being son to the Ambassador) were all extremely public things from the Vulcan point of view - every single Vulcan would have known all about all of them. That Spock's colleagues don't requires the entire planet Vulcan to be isolated from Spock's colleagues, then. And, by extension, from the rest of the universe, because Spock's colleagues enjoy especially easy access to the rest of the universe.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nyotarules]

How? Spock's quirks (touch telepathy, mating cycle, being son to the Ambassador) were all extremely public things from the Vulcan point of view - every single Vulcan would have known all about all of them. That Spock's colleagues don't requires the entire planet Vulcan to be isolated from Spock's colleagues, then. And, by extension, from the rest of the universe, because Spock's colleagues enjoy especially easy access to the rest of the universe.

Timo Saloniemi

Does it? How ignorant are humans about other cultures because they choose to be? Star Trek is terrancentric, Spock's colleagues live in a universe of Terran privilege they are like 20th cenutry 'Americans in space', totally clueless about other cultures, because their galactic worldview revolves around Earth.

 

[Timo]

That's just much more difficult to swallow than the Vulcans being under the radar. It's the paid day job of our heroes to know things about aliens, even if they make it difficult. Heck, it's McCoy's designated job to specifically know what makes Spock tick. To fail so completely really calls for "extra difficult with mustard", which rather naturally brings us to the concept of Vulcan seclusion. After all, individual Vulcans are secluded, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nyotarules]

That's just much more difficult to swallow than the Vulcans being under the radar. It's the paid day job of our heroes to know things about aliens, even if they make it difficult. Heck, it's McCoy's designated job to specifically know what makes Spock tick. To fail so completely really calls for "extra difficult with mustard", which rather naturally brings us to the concept of Vulcan seclusion. After all, individual Vulcans are secluded, too.

Timo Saloniemi

Vulcan joins an intergalactic Federation on the proviso that you can trade with us but you cannot visit..yeah that makes sense. McCoy was ignorant of how Spock worked, M'Benga was not, he did an internship at a Vulcan medical school. McCoy's attiude to Spock being different proves my point., sadly in TOS it seemed Spock was the only alien on the ship.

 

[Prax]

And Kirk, a mere human did know who T'Pau was.

Considering TOS Starfleet is run 99.9% by human males, I don't blame Vulcan for the racial segregation, the policy is already in use.

I had 24th century Vulcans in mind, but I suppose TOS Vulcans were somewhat regressive.

 

[Tallguy]

Before ENT and FC and even most of TNG Diane Duane made the same claim.

What! They claimed only 10,000 Vulcans survived Nero?

Duane made the claim that Vulcans are homebodies. Certainly compared to Earthers.

 

[Nyotarules]

Duane made the claim that Vulcans are homebodies. Certainly compared to Earthers.

Watching the franchise Earth colonies are not even that large in population. Novelists do not set the rules of the Star Trek universe, they just play in it.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What aside from Surak's teachings sets Vulcans apart from Humans is the unique physiology of their species. No Human living on Earth has copper-based blood, or melding abilities.

Would it be ableism, then, that is a parallel in that respect? The accommodations made for aliens go beyond those for Humans of different cultural backgrounds (religious, language, clothing, cultural beliefs) to things like planning medical treatment for conditions, providing different gas mixtures to breathe, creating uniform sizes that fit and styles that accommodate their body shapes, designing tools they can use, etc.

 

[Nyotarules]

What aside from Surak's teachings sets Vulcans apart from Humans is the unique physiology of their species. No Human living on Earth has copper-based blood, or melding abilities.

Would it be ableism, then, that is a parallel in that respect? The accommodations made for aliens go beyond those for Humans of different cultural backgrounds (religious, language, clothing, cultural beliefs) to things like planning medical treatment for conditions, providing different gas mixtures to breathe, creating uniform sizes that fit and styles that accommodate their body shapes, designing tools they can use, etc.

Andorians are also different, so are the Aenar who are telepathic and the Tellarites have porcine features. I doubt any of those aliens have iron based blood. In universe the Federation is not based on Humans plus Vulcans, or Humans plus everyone else.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Naturally. I meant that today, 2017, no Human has Vulcan physiology, so the best you could compare such accommodations to would be someone with a rare medical condition.

I guess the show does it because we're us (Human). It's easier to base things on Human biology if you, the writer, are human.

 

[Griffeytrek]

One thing everyone misses. The hand waving away Court Marshall was not simply because they brought back the Whales. It was always going to happen.

Look it is pretty clear that the Federation is an Aliance, not an overall government. Probably more akin to the European Union than the US Republic. The member worlds are fully sovereign. While they may or may not answer to the Federation on external matters they do not answer to Star Fleet. We see this numerous times throughout. Journey to Babel seems a pretty clear example. Starfleet answers to the Federation.

With that in mind, reverse your thinking. Kirk and crew were acting on the direct request of one of if not the single most powerful and influential political leaders of the Federation. It was a matter regarding both his son, and the beliefs and practices of his people. The thing that was preventing the recovery via normal means was the involvement of a highly illegal Star Fleet (not Federation!) research program with the potential to destroy planets. Any actual prosecution of Kirk and company exposes everyone who knew of or touched Genesis. You remember that Star Fleet science program that nearly triggered total war with the Klingons, with no Federation say or involvement.

This is also why Kirk and company were to travel home alone. There was no real question of their loyalty. The higher ups knew it. They didn't want anyone else from Starfleet, Captain or below, coming in contact with them until the matter could be quietly resolved and buried. Genesis was a criminal embarrassment for Starfleet Command, Spock was an outrage to the Federation, particularly the Vulcans. It was all the result of the Starfleet leadership attempting to cover shady things up. They were trying to hide the fact that the Klingons were right. That Starfleet had not only developed a planet killing WMD. (Regardless of whether or not they planned it. Look at a glance both Khan and the Klingons recognized the thing as a WMD. Do you seriously think that Starfleet was too stupid to do so? Remember the sucker was funded and controlled by Starfleet, not the Federation Science Council. Carol and David complained about it.) They had lost control of both it and one of their ships of the line to a badly equipped terrorist. Resulting in the loss of life, destruction of 2 Starfleet Starships, and an unstable planet being created.

Safe bet is Kirk was not the only Admirral defrocked over the whole thing. But when Kirk left Vulcan, he already knew his crew was safe from reprisal. That was part of the deal. Even if they didn't know it yet. He probably figured he would be retired, not demoted and given a ship. Arrangements had already been made to make the whole thing disappear with minimal theatrics.

 

[Tallguy]

Watching the franchise Earth colonies are not even that large in population. Novelists do not set the rules of the Star Trek universe, they just play in it.

My point wasn't to say that Duane had "authority" or that it was "canon". I'm just saying that she came to the same conclusion that many here did as well: Earthers are more aggressive explorers than Vulcans.

There might not be much on screen material to back it up (before ENT). But what there is points to a Vulcan that looks at the Starfleet (an aggressively exploratory organization) with suspicion and possibly distaste.

ENT may have gone to fill in some blanks, but it would either do so in harmony with or in discordance with previous material. Right or wrong, the ENT show runners enjoyed "confounding expectations" based on what went before.

The colonies that we have seen may be small, but they are larger than any Vulcan colonies that we saw. (In present day Earth the United States only landed six missions on the moon. Not many. But six more than anyone else.) And the colonies that we saw were the ones on the outer edge of explored space. Starbase 11 and the colony from Operation: Annihilate! seemed pretty sizable.

Starfleet answers to the Federation.

Well... That should be obvious. Military or no, Starfleet is a part of the Federation (even though it's the only part we ever make shows about.)

Although that asks some interesting questions. Why is the Federation President presiding over a Star Fleet court martial? (Is it court or courts?) Even though the Starfleet is obviously and necessarily subordinate to the civilian / not-Starfleet government there is still a stark division. There may have been a civilian inquiry, but that's not what we're told. We're told that this is a Starfleet matter.

Although that does suggest the Klingon Ambassador was dead on right about Kirk getting a walk because it was the Vulcan Ambassador's son at stake. Blatant political favoritism.

 

[Griffeytrek]

You could take the Federation President presiding over Kirk's show trial one of two ways. Both equally valid. 1. Sloppy writing by the screenwriters who did not fully think through the political divisions within the Federation and Starfleet. With a certain degree of necessity, they really couldn't go into to much depth with them in a movie the way they could the tv series. So the audience was introduced to the President in act one, thus the President it is for the epilogue.

Or if you prefer an in universe explanation,

2. The President choosing to preside over the very public trial of Kirk was him and the Federation taking a rolled up newspaper to the Starfleet Admiralty and saying "Bad Doggie!" It was a public rebuke and reprimand. The Federation leaders did not trust the high command to not simply make things disappear in quiet out of sight court martial, absolving themselves of accountability in the process. The President effectively publicly pardoned Kirk while placing his boot on the throat of Starfleet in order to hold them accountable for the off the books behavior.

 

[The Wormhole]

One thing everyone misses. The hand waving away Court Marshall was not simply because they brought back the Whales. It was always going to happen.

How do you figure?

Look it is pretty clear that the Federation is an Aliance, not an overall government. Probably more akin to the European Union than the US Republic. The member worlds are fully sovereign. While they may or may not answer to the Federation on external matters they do not answer to Star Fleet. We see this numerous times throughout. Journey to Babel seems a pretty clear example. Starfleet answers to the Federation.

That may have been what they were going for in TOS, but the other shows have made it clear the Federation is an overall government. The coup storyline in DS9 doesn't make sense otherwise.

With that in mind, reverse your thinking. Kirk and crew were acting on the direct request of one of if not the single most powerful and influential political leaders of the Federation. It was a matter regarding both his son, and the beliefs and practices of his people. The thing that was preventing the recovery via normal means was the involvement of a highly illegal Star Fleet (not Federation!) research program with the potential to destroy planets. Any actual prosecution of Kirk and company exposes everyone who knew of or touched Genesis. You remember that Star Fleet science program that nearly triggered total war with the Klingons, with no Federation say or involvement.

1) Genesis was a civilian project that Starfleet simply took an interest in.
2) It wasn't illegal.

 

[Nyotarules]

The colonies that we have seen may be small, but they are larger than any Vulcan colonies that we saw.

We never saw all the populations of the Vulcan colonies, does not mean they were not substantial or less in size than any human habitation. As Syran/Arev told T'Pol and Archer the belief that Vulcans don't explore was one of many lies.

 

[Tenacity]

As Syran/Arev told T'Pol and Archer the belief that Vulcans don't explore was one of many lies.

But was that a lie on Arev's part?

In First Contact, Troi say that the Vulcan wouldn't investigate Earth at the time of the movie because Humans were "too primative." That doesn't make the Vulcan's sound like very curious people.

There's a planet with a intelligent technological species relatively close their home star system, and they have no interest in it.

 

[Nyotarules]

But was that a lie on Arev's part?

In First Contact, Troi say that the Vulcan wouldn't investigate Earth at the time of the movie because Humans were "too primative." That doesn't make the Vulcan's sound like very curious people.

There's a planet with intelligent live relatively close their home star system, and they have no interest in it.

They were curious enough to check out the area in Carbon Creek. Probably decided from that experience to leave the barbarians alone. Or T'Mir's influence kept them away to protect Mestral.
Also Troi's statement would not be the first time Star Trek contradicted itself or maybe that response was based on Vulcan propaganda, better than saying 'we spied on you for decades and watched you almost destroy yourselves'.

Vulcans probably explored closer to home compared to Earth (only cos some human cultures are nosey,) but I doubt they never explored or set up colonies at all.

 

[Timo]

We have good reason to think that "They were just passing through before the Phoenix happened" is a filthy lie at the very least. There'd be zero reason for the Vulcans or anybody else to pass through a star system, unless that system itself was the target of interest in their survey mission. One just plain doesn't drive through a star system by chance, the odds are literally astronomically against it.

We just have to decide who's lying there. Riker and Troi, who feel it would not go down well if they honestly told Cochrane that the Vulcans are here to spy on Earth? The Vulcans themselves to whoever wrote the history books that Riker and Troi read?

Certainly the Vulcans spy in deep space. This is really, really far from either "exploring" or "colonizing", and will not add significantly to the number of off-Vulcan Vulcans.

We don't know when and why the spying of Earth began. We also don't know when and why it ended - continuing surveillance past "Carbon Creek" and all the way to First Contact is likely but not confirmed, and Vulcans could probably have kept on spying past the contact point, too.

As for colonies, Earth/UFP ones tend to be tiny on the average, but at least Deneva had "almost a million" and Mantilles "millions" (although the latter was never established to be a colony, it did have a human Governor and human kids and Scotch Collies in attendance).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Perhaps the head of Starfleet had to recuse themselves, in favor of a (more) neutral judge. Kirk has friends everywhere...

 

[The Wormhole]

In First Contact, Troi say that the Vulcan wouldn't investigate Earth at the time of the movie because Humans were "too primative." That doesn't make the Vulcan's sound like very curious people.

Or it could just mean Vulcans know Earth is pre-warp, and therefore won't go there because of their Prime Directive-like non-interference policy.

There's a planet with a intelligent technological species relatively close their home star system, and they have no interest in it.

Vulcans had been to Earth in the 1950s on an exploration mission, and so because of that the planet was catalogued and its indigenous people were classified pre-warp. Hell, at the time, they had only just launched their first unmanned object into space. So they clearly had an interest in the planet at some point.

For that matter, doesn't Carbon Creek pretty much prove that, yes, Vulcans were at one time in their past explorers, which would make Arev right and all the claims T'Pol and Soval made about Vulcans never being explorers complete horseshit.