Anomalous, perhaps, but it's an exaggeration to call them genetically impossible.
In Star Trek's science for Vulcans, yes it is. Vulcanoids do not have rounded eyebrows; while, like you said, they can certainly have more straight eyebrows -- T'Pol is a perfect example of that -- they do not get a rounded shape, anymore than the person you named had winged eyebrows and fully pointed ears. A person would have to have a mutation factor to change the basic structure of the gene that far.
Ahh, but then you're admitting it's
not impossible -- it just requires a mutation in one gene. And gene mutations happen all the time, in every individual ever born. Every human embryo has
over 100 mutations in its genome. Why should Vulcans be any different?
Just because almost all the Vulcans we've seen onscreen have slanted eyebrows doesn't mean it's
impossible that a minority have rounded ones. It's not like we've seen every Vulcan who's ever lived. By analogy, in Trek we've never seen a human character played by a Little Person (those who have appeared, such as Michael Dunn and Billy Curtis, all played aliens), but that doesn't mean it's "genetically impossible" for humans to have dwarfism. It just means it's uncommon and hasn't been present in the non-comprehensive sample we've seen onscreen.
For a Vulcan or Romulan to have a fully rounded eyebrow, they'd have to have genes from a species that does.
Look at how many different eyebrow shapes there are in humans alone. It's illogical to assume that the only way Vulcan eyebrows could take an unusual shape is by interbreeding with aliens. It would only take a trivial genetic or epigenetic variation to produce a changed eyebrow shape.
Uhh, no. The novels don't "have to" include anything that isn't actually onscreen. Whether Roddenberry approved it or not is irrelevant, because he died 17 years ago and his policies are no longer binding
Uhh, yes.
They have to include it if Paramount has established that's the way it is, whether based on it originally being part of something Roddenberry wanted or because they decided it themselves.
I say again: the books are only required to remain consistent with
what was stated onscreen. They are also expected to remain consistent with certain "deuterocanonical" sources such as the Okuda
Chronology and
Encyclopedia except in cases where they have been superseded by screen canon.
What Roddenberry wanted is not binding, as I've already explained. Roddenberry's dictates and restrictions have been increasingly ignored and cast aside over the 17 years since his death; the whole modern book continuity flies in the face of "what Roddenberry wanted." And "Paramount" doesn't decide anything. The people who run Paramount Studios and CBS Paramount Television have more important things to do than being traffic cops for
Star Trek continuity. It's the individual ST showrunners (or movie directors) who make the decisions about screen canon, and it's Paula Block and John Van Citters at CBS Consumer Products (formerly Paramount Licensing) who are responsible for ensuring the books remain consistent with screen canon (and the Okuda references, mostly).
That's why I added that part about Paramount agreeing with Roddenberry. Saavik's background is one example; I've spoken to authors and yeah, that's what they're told to use. They're told at least one other mandate for the Saavik character (the one given in articles for Vulcan's Heart).
I haven't heard that, but if it's true, it's not because of Roddenberry or "Paramount," it's because it's Paula and John's policy. They work for CBS now, and they stopped being bound by Roddenberry's rules over a decade ago.
Another example is Roddenberry saying that Picard's line about attending Sarek's son's wedding meant Spock's wedding; Paramount agreed to that, putting in a line in Unification to back it up.
Paramount isn't a person, it's a company employing a bunch of people who have different job responsibilities. At the time
Unification was being written, the responsibility for overseeing the novels' consistency with onscreen Trek would've lain with Richard Arnold, Roddenberry's personal assistant, who aggressively and religiously promoted Roddenberry's wishes (or his interpretation thereof). The fact that Richard Arnold agreed with Roddenberry is axiomatic and doesn't say anything about Paramount -- especially considering that "Paramount" fired Richard Arnold mere hours after Roddenberry died.
And "Paramount" -- or its licensing department -- wouldn't have "put a line in" a book. They would've asked the editor to ask the author to put it in.
Of course, they can change and have changed their minds, or thrown out things Roddenbery wanted. Or allowed conflicting canon, at which point, they tell an author what they're supposed to use.
You're talking about it as if we're slave labor. That's not how it works. At least in the post-Arnold era, our relationship with the licensing people is much more of a collaboration. We authors are the ones who generate the ideas, for the most part; Paula and John make sure we're consistent with canon. If there's a conflict, they work it out with us, but it's a partnership. They don't tell us what to write or put in the lines for us. They advise us of what's needed to stay consistent, and then we and they collaboratively figure out how best to do that.
