Surviving Vulcan Elders.

[T'Girl]

... my home planet and most of its six billion inhabitants. While the essence of our culture has been saved in the elders who now reside upon the ship, I estimate no more than ten thousand have survived.

I watch ST: Eleven again a few weeks back, and this short statement keeps coming back to me. If Vulcan has colonies, traders, people visiting other worlds, ten thousand total seem a little low for the number of survivors, This has been pointed out before.

But maybe Spock was referring to a different group with the ten thousand figure? Could Spock have been think specfically of the total number of Vulcan elders off of Vulcan at the time of the planet's destruction? Not just those aboard the Enterprise, but other elders spread throughout the Federation, and elsewhere.

The ten thousand figure wasn't meant to be Vulcan survivors in general?

 

[lurok]

I just assumed it was survivors of the planet itself. There's still the chicken-eating fun Vulcans out there exploring the cosmos. (ENT is still canon! I do so enjoy writing that).

 

[shapeshifter]

It was an estimate, probably including everyone he could remember being spread around at this time in the prime timeline. Remember it's Spock making this estimate so it's likely a very accurate number.

Personally, I think it sounds quite low, probably for the dramatic effect. If a future story requires a population explosion, or reduction, of that number I'd bet they adjust it accordingly without batting an eye.

 

[Franklin]

It struck me as ridiculously low, really. It had to be purely for dramatic effect. There are what, over 100 or so Federation planets? If each had one Vulcan embassy or consulate with about 1000 Vulcan staff each (which is probably a low number of staff for a planet-wide embassy), that's 100,000 or more Vulcans off-planet in the diplomatic corps, right there.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Spock could never know exactly how many Vulcans were off planet at the time. So there could be millions left that he didn't even know about.

 

[Dale Sams]

Different time-line. Vulcans could be even more notoriously xenophobic, or less inclined to exploration. And are the number of Fed worlds mentioned in this timeline?

 

[T'Girl]

The number of worlds in the peacekeeping armada was never mentioned.

 

[DEWLine]

The 10,000 figure referred to survivors of the homeworld itself. Off-world colonies, outposts, a whole pan-Federation diaspora...these would boost the count. Even Orci and Kurtzmann acknowledged the fact when called on it.

 

[Arpy]

It was purposely low a number to bring home the point of him being an endangered species. That there are less than 10,000 Vulcans living off-planet only shows the JJ-verse Vulcans are idiots.

But then so are we. We spend half a penny per tax dollar for everything NASA does yet we live in a time when nuclear, biological, and nano technology might have or may wipe us out not too long from now. Can we all agree on a $.02 tax-hike to quadruple our efforts off this rock?

 

[YARN]

It was purposely low a number to bring home the point of him being an endangered species. That there are less than 10,000 Vulcans living off-planet only shows the JJ-verse Vulcans are idiots.

But then so are we. We spend half a penny per tax dollar for everything NASA does yet we live in a time when nuclear, biological, and nano technology might have or may wipe us out not too long from now. Can we all agree on a $.02 tax-hike to quadruple our efforts off this rock?

You sound just like a guy I used to know from the old BSG boards.

NOTE: Shouldn't Spock be the tech guy now? I mean, he is in possession of every major technological, scientific, medical political, sociological, etc. discovery of many years to come.

With his knowledge Starfleet should be immediately redesigning it's ships, starbases, tricorders, etc. Shouldn't this be a great age of non-adventure since Spock already has all the spoilers? With the answers he has, the UFP could easily dominate the Romulans and Klingons for the foreseeable future.

 

[Dale Sams]

It was purposely low a number to bring home the point of him being an endangered species. That there are less than 10,000 Vulcans living off-planet only shows the JJ-verse Vulcans are idiots.

But then so are we. We spend half a penny per tax dollar for everything NASA does yet we live in a time when nuclear, biological, and nano technology might have or may wipe us out not too long from now. Can we all agree on a $.02 tax-hike to quadruple our efforts off this rock?

You sound just like a guy I used to know from the old BSG boards.

NOTE: Shouldn't Spock be the tech guy now? I mean, he is in possession of every major technological, scientific, medical political, sociological, etc. discovery of many years to come.

With his knowledge Starfleet should be immediately redesigning it's ships, starbases, tricorders, etc. Shouldn't this be a great age of non-adventure since Spock already has all the spoilers? With the answers he has, the UFP could easily dominate the Romulans and Klingons for the foreseeable future.

Spock is too busy trying to remember stuff that happened to him some 140 years ago.

"Ok, gotta send someone to take care of Lazarus...Space Ameoba...Doomsday Machine..."

 

[shapeshifter]

I read something, somewhere, around here about their intentions to (paraphrased) 'slap a gag order' on Spock against spilling the beans for future events. It may have been something intended for the comics or novels, not sure.

Personally I want the beans spilled, I want those prime timeline events naturalized so the writers cannot use them as cheats thus forcing originality in the new timeline.

*shot of Patrón*

 

[Arpy]

Never been to a BSG board, though I loved nBSG.

No bean-spilling. Temporal Prime Directive and all that. Spock would adhere to it even before it was enacted and if he didn't, maybe some timeship would appear and bust skulls.

Actually, that's just the first thing that came to my mind. There'd be no bean-spilling b/c it would change EVERYTHING about the Trek universe. I can just see the Federation president now announcing that with this new intel they'd be restructuring the known galaxy into a new galactic empire...er...peacepire.

 

[Dale Sams]

Well he can't just *hope* Kirk et al will be in the right place at the right time to do the right thing.

Also...slapping a gag order makes no sense. Why? So the timeline won't get messed up? You think the Klingons wouldn't take advantage of the situation?

 

[Set Harth]

There'd be no bean-spilling b/c it would change EVERYTHING about the Trek universe.

Uh... wasn't that kind of the idea?

 

[Mage]

It strikes me that, in order to survive something, you have to be there. So I'm guessing the 10.000 survivers are actually people that were on the planet at the time of destruction.

 

[F. King Daniel]

According to Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Star Trek, Old Spock was gonna make his future knowledge freely available. Bob Orci said on Trekmovie around that time that that was an addition of ADF's.

According to issue #15 of the Star Trek Ongoing comic (with it's Observer-like Bad Robot Bob Orci OversightTM), he's keeping his mouth shut, citing a non-interfence directive.

From what I gather of the unreleased novel The Hazard of Concealing, Old Spock was keeping his mouth shut in that too, although word about him gets out and all hell breaks loose, with several Alpha Quadrant powers coming after him for his juicy future knowledge.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Aboutthe surviving Vulcans, Spock says he estimates 10,000 have survived. At the end he's leaving SF to help rebuild the Vulcan race until Old Spock (who says "there are so few Vulcans left, we cannot afford to ignore each other") convinces him otherwise.

Old novels and FASA manuals put off-world Vulcans in the millions, with entire colony planets. But if Bad Robot have decided Vulcan's colonies are limited to a few hundred each... it's their Star Trek.

 

[Mach5]

Temporal Prime Directive and all that.

Bullshit concepts like "Temporal Prime Directive" died with Braga-Trek. Good fucking riddance.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I don't see how polluting the timeline could be a concern, anyway, given that Nero showed up, destroyed sizable Klingon and Federation fleets, blew up Vulcan, and killed billions of people. It would be hard for anything old Spock said to cause more profound changes to the timeline than all that.