I know that they didn't follow Surak, but they have had to have had a philosophy of keeping some of their emotions in check. Otherwise, they would have mood-instability or seem to have bipolar disorder.
Did the Romulans Need to Keep Their Emotions in Check?
- Thread starter VulcanMindBlown
- Start date
Maybe you should rethink that last sentence.
I'd assumed that the rage that they were trying to suppress was the species' ability to nuke their home planet again, not the individual acts of random assholes who can't tell the different between love and violence... Oh, and as a defence against that Telepathic weapon from TNG Gambit.
Seems like a very strong totalitarian government keeps the populace in check.
Romulans are emotional, we know this.
Do we?
One could argue that, possibly, Romulans use "duty" the way Vulcans rely on "logic."
Although the Romulans are clearly not as repressed as the Vulcans, which raises an interesting questions: are the Vulcan's natural passions really as powerful and dangerous as they're convinced they are? The Vulcans seem to have convinced themselves that their emotions are so intense that the only way to handle them is to repress them utterly or else .. . barbarism!
But maybe they're been overcompensating for generations because of their bloodthirsty past, to the extent that they've built up their emotions to be much scarier than actually are?
Although the Romulans are clearly not as repressed as the Vulcans, which raises an interesting questions: are the Vulcan's natural passions really as powerful and dangerous as they're convinced they are? The Vulcans seem to have convinced themselves that their emotions are so intense that the only way to handle them is to repress them utterly or else .. . barbarism!
But maybe they're been overcompensating for generations because of their bloodthirsty past, to the extent that they've built up their emotions to be much scarier than actually are?
Based the Vulcans we've seen who have abandoned logic it's not as bad as the Vulcans like to think it is.
Sisko's emotions caused him to nuke a planet in For the Uniform.
Sisko's emotions caused him to suck a trillion Romulans into a war to kill a trillion Jem hadar in this episode, whereafter all this guy did was say a prolonged "fuck you" and left, without killing anyone.
And?
Humans are more emotional than Romulans.
It's kind of our thing in Star Trek. Vulcans are logical. Romulans are sneaky. Klingons are violent. Humans are emotional.
TNG Romulans at least, just come off as smug, rather then being overly emotional.
I don't think Pre-Surak Vulcans were a bunch of murderous, bipolar psychos. They may have been more passionate, but I think still comparable to humans. It's just that when they had their own world war that almost destroyed Vulcan, the way they dealt with it was adopt Surak's teachings. Those who didn't, left Vulcan, and their descendants became Romulans.
The way the Romulans dealt with their emotions was that they embraced them, united together to form an empire, and turned their aggression outward towards the planets they conquered. If the ancient Vulcans were as advanced as the Romulans became, and didn't embrace Surak's teachings, Vulcan would have basically have become what Romulans were.
All murderous bipolar psychos? Maybe not. Comparable to humans? Probably yes. But to be fair, in "All Our Yestedays" (TOS), Spock's Vulcan ancestors of five millennia earlier were described as "warlike barbarians who nearly killed themselves off with their own passions" and T'Pol in "Shockwave, Part II" (ENT) said they "discovered how to suppress their volatile emotions only after centuries of savage conflict," and during pon farr they "still go mad" and "kill to win their mates" even in their enlightened modern era as per "Amok Time" (TOS), so it's easy to get that impression.
I just always assumed that the proto-Romulans were the calm sober types who were secretly plotting universal domination while sipping tea at the family reunion and the Vulcans were the wild, crazy drunk uncle types who eventually got Jesus - I mean Surak.
True, but those descriptions are from the perspective of highly logical modern Vulcans looking back with dismay at their less civilized ancestors--much as modern humans might do..
Much (most?) of human history can be described as "centuries of savage conflict" and many of our own ancestors were "war-like barbarians" by modern standards. It may just be that humans did not blame, say, the Eugenics Wars on emotions in general and are more comfortable with the darker chapters in our history.
^Yes, I do agree there, hence the first two lines of that post. 
T'Pol referred to early Vulcans as "an extremely violent race," with "paranoia and homicidal rage" being common. Earlier, Spock called that time "savage, even by Earth standards." While that doesn't mean that every Vulcan was a bloodthirsty murderer, it does suggest that early Vulcans probably made Klingons look tame in comparison. But the general sentiment is that Vulcan society was headed towards self-annihilation if it wasn't for Surak.
I think those Vulcans who resettled on Romulus simply found another path other than logic, or else they would have destroyed themselves too. Perhaps by developing a fascist society, the Romulans used fear to maintain order (fear of the authorities, fear of speaking out against the government and being imprisoned, fear of your friend betraying you, fear of some stranger accusing you of not being a loyal Romulan, etc.). That kind of creates a strict society where hardly anyone makes a move that might be remotely viewed as being out of line, perhaps.
I think those Vulcans who resettled on Romulus simply found another path other than logic, or else they would have destroyed themselves too. Perhaps by developing a fascist society, the Romulans used fear to maintain order (fear of the authorities, fear of speaking out against the government and being imprisoned, fear of your friend betraying you, fear of some stranger accusing you of not being a loyal Romulan, etc.). That kind of creates a strict society where hardly anyone makes a move that might be remotely viewed as being out of line, perhaps.
Similar threads
