The consequences of Vulcan's destruction and the diaspora

[theFirebottle]

I've been thinking this through for awhile now and I'd like to see some discussion of the political, diplomatic, and cultural consequences of the annihilation of Vulcan and the diaspora. We've heard from the writers that 10,000 survivors only represents the evacuees and doesn't count colonists elsewhere and the Vulcan component of Starfleet and presumably its own scientific or merchant fleet. We know from studies of the human genome that our own species bounced back from a demographic catastrophe that dropped our population down to 10k, so even discounting colonies and the fleets we know there's adequate genetic diversity for the species to survive.

Vulcan was one of the key players in the Federation and the galaxy. Having it get wiped off the map is the equivalent of having China, India, or Brazil completely obliterated in a current geopolitical scenario. A genocide of six billion people and the destruction of their world by a single rogue nutjob in the blink of an eye should cause every space-faring civilization in the galaxy to wake up screaming in bed, figuratively speaking. Are we going to see an arms race as everyone scrambles to raise a defence against a similar attack? Or will everyone come together for mutual protection? The destruction of Vulcan may pose a horrifying wake up call to civilizations that had until now sniped at each other over petty political disputes and threatened war with inadequate justification. The situation will probably be a mixed bag, but I would bet my underpants there would be a slew of new nonaggression treaties and other diplomatic outreach.

I think also a lot of planets are going to take a good hard look at the hazards of keeping all of their civilization eggs in one planetary basket. I would speculate that, if a planet had the resources to do so, it would start pushing hard to colonize other planets. The drive to reach for the stars would gain a whole new urgency. Fortunately, this would probably drive Starfleet recruitment way up. Unfortunately, it wouldn't take too long for a colonization renaissance to start putting colonial powers in conflict with each other. The Federation may or may not be able to broker deals whereby two or more species get to settle one planet -- IDIC in action.

In the blink of an eye, the galaxy is now a very different place. I hope if a TV series comes out of this movie, they spend some time spinning out the ramifications of what happened in the movie.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Well.. all the sehlats are dead.

But seriously, you are more optimistic and Roddenberry-esque than me. If China, India or Brazil were all wiped out overnight I think the arms race would go into overdrive. I think many worlds that were tentatively embracing diplomatic relations would seriously re-evaluate where their resources were going and would be looking at defense as a priority.

If you blow something up people get enraged, patriotic and paranoid and start looking for a military solution to protect themselves. See, Earth.

 

[M'Sharak]

I've been thinking this through for awhile now and I'd like to see some discussion of the political, diplomatic, and cultural consequences of the annihilation of Vulcan and the diaspora. <snip>

You may find at least some of those also addressed in the threads collected here.

 

[theFirebottle]

I've been thinking this through for awhile now and I'd like to see some discussion of the political, diplomatic, and cultural consequences of the annihilation of Vulcan and the diaspora. <snip>

You may find at least some of those also addressed in the threads collected here.

Mostly what I'm going for in this thread is the impact on the rest of the galaxy, but yes that's a good reference.

 

[startrekwatcher]

I really haven't bothered giving it much thought since I have a bad feeling that the writers aren't going to really deal with this in any significant way.

 

[Jeri]

Thinking about it makes my head hurt; and it won't matter at all to the movie makers.

We won't know what they're going to do until they do it. So I'm not going to think about it anymore.

I can imagine security on the next movie will be pretty darned tight, too.

 

[Doghead]

Possibly we all overrate Vulcan and its importance. The favorite character of Trek, Spock, is Vulcan so naturally obsession follows his and his race's every move. In point of fact they barely make a blip on the radar except seen through Spockocentric vision.

What it has done is drag the metatextual orthodox Jewish element of Vulcans, as sophisticated spiritually advanced teachers of the impetuous and heretical Christians (ie McCoy and Kirk characters), down to the same level. Prepare for increasingly heavy handed Jewish overtones in future Vulcan stories. The whole Bajor as Israel thing was grotesque so perhaps this time round it will done a little better.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The whole Bajor as Israel thing was grotesque so perhaps this time round it will done a little better.

Dude. Bajor is PALESTINE.

::sheesh::

 

[startrekwatcher]

The whole Bajor as Israel thing was grotesque so perhaps this time round it will done a little better.

Dude. Bajor is PALESTINE.

::sheesh::

Actually I always thought of the Bajorans to have parallels to the Jews and Cardassia as having parallels to Germany during World War II.

I thought the Maquis/Cardassian relationship was based more on the Palestinean/Israel conflict in certain ways. That is why I thought it was interesting how the writers resolved that thread.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Well, I was joking in my above post.

It's Bajor. It's Cardassia. It's not an allegory for specific political conflicts from earth's history.

"The Omega Glory" this isn't. Thank God.

 

[Aragorn]

Vulcan has been obliterated, Starfleet lost several ships and most of their graduating class, the Klingons had a large chunk of their armada wiped out... the quadrant is ripe for the Ferengi to take over and rule!

 

[Classic Fan]

I have been thinking about Vulcan for nearly three damn weeks now.

Its obvious that a civilisation of Vulcans callibre would have collonies, hundreds of ships ot there somewhere, countless delegats on other worlds and all that pish.

Seeing Vulcan destroyed was a big moment. And the dialog exchange between Spocks and between Spock and his father was a nice touch.

The 10,000 number of evacuees is a low number, but add say 25% of other Wulcans that are out there and you have a somewhat larger number, not quite 6 Billion, but its close enough i 'spose.


The outcome of its distruction will in no doubt be a massive blow to the new timeline. Vulcan was a major player in the Federation and Starfleet, afterall it helped establish both. It also is responsible for many other worlds joing both. The lack of Vulcan in this timeline will be felt, especially as we reach late TOS movie era and early TNG era, between those eras is where it will be felt the most as it was there that many worlds, most notably the Klingons and Romulans and later the Cardassians were the most politically active.

I duno, well see. Its a good idea to shake up this timeline, gives more creative free will, especially with the coping factor of the loss of Vulcan at this stage in Starfleet/Federation history.