Spoilers The Romulans and the Vulcans (spoilers for Ep2 onward).

Except of course it isn't - we're instead biological machines programmed to emerge from a preprogrammed ecosystem at a suitable point and turn into sapient and sentient bipeds. Just like the hadrosaurs were before us. Nothing natural about this, except in the sense that everybody in the Milky Way is such a machine, and therefore the most natural thing around.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Not if the ridges are a product of interbreeding with other species within their empire.

 

I rewatched gambit recently, and I feel it is worthwhile to point out that in the same sentence she also claims to be with Vulcan security, which is a lie. She may be a separatist Vulcan, or she may be a Romulan trying to sow discord. It’s a bit unclear, and she is not trustworthy.

 

...following a template planted by the "Chase" aliens billions of years ago.

Kor

 

And? Vulcans reproduce biologically, are born, grow up and die. They can produce hybrids with other species, they are indistinguishable from romulans when going through a transporter or medical checks, they register as biological life when scanned.
What difference does it make for the franchise if they evolved over millions of years or were created by implanting AIs into romulan clone bodies? It doesn't change who they are, just their backstory.

 

The weird thing is, they refer to them as proto-Vulcans, but then Picard talks about their evolution parallels Vulcan. Are they really supposed to be proto-Vulcans, or are they actually supposed to be Vulcan-like?

If they truly are connected, it's a hell of a family tree.
Mintakans.
Vulcans.
Romulans. (Vulcan off-shoot)
Debrune. (Romulan off-shoot)

 

And there are multiple cultures considered "Vulcan offshoots" in "Paradise Syndrome". Spock says that some of those are known for their use of musical notation for writing; the Romulan writing in PIC certainly seems to flow similarly to the Vulcan musical-notation/calligraphy style. But supposedly there are others besides Romulans, from the way Spock phrases it.

Not necessarily a tree, but more a scattershot pattern like that of human cultures across the galaxy... Various phenotypically near-identical species might be utterly unrelated, and merely forced into the same mold by that nasty Ancient programming.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I believe James Blish's adaptation of "Balance of Terror" talked about Vulcanoid species being common (or not uncommon, or something like that) in the region of space that the episode took place in. I wonder if Blish made that up, or if it came from the script he was working from.

Kor

 

Maybe Vulcanoids were a slave race of the Iconians?

 

It's hard to imagine anyone in-universe caring about such a distinction either. I can totally imagine a lackluster season finale where a Zhat Vash agent says "Oh no! Our horrible secret is out!" and the rest of the quadrant responds with a collective "meh".

 

It could break the Vulcans if they became self aware of being synths

 

Spock didn't seem to collapse into a sobbing heap when Sargon more or less told him that Vulcans were transplants or made up on the spot. Nor has humanity imploded with the knowledge that we are just hairless apes. In general, people just won't care. Which is why they happily step into the transporter, too: it's fundamentally irrelevant whether it kills you and launches a copy, when you see your neighbor skipping the traffic jam by boldly going into the device.

But Romulans are a special case, just like any tiny dictatorship. If a basic belief on which their entire culture was founded, or is claimed to have been founded on, is taken away from them, butthurt will ensue. Whether this has more serious effects now that the unified culture is already shattered, or whether the blow is cushioned by fatalism already, it's difficult to tell. Certainly a whole generation would have had time to engage in rebuilding of national mythos in the aftermath of loss of homeworld.

Timo Saloniemi

 

For the record, I think it it would be a terrible idea if a familiar Trek species gets retconned as technological synths.

Kor

 

Oh, I dunno. It would make the audience think of their values, and rethink Data or the EMH.

It wouldn't even detract from the "Trek is our future" school of thought, as humanoid English-speaking aliens never were a valid part of that take on Trek. Oh, if it turned out humans were built, too, there might be an impact on that thinking. But Trek has rewritten mankind's past and present a thousand times already, to no real detriment.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Spock was often quite complimentary towards machine intelligences. It might make them feel even more superior.

 

Yes he did like computers.
But an entire race suddenly realizing they are not real would cause some big problems.

 

To have turned out to be purposely designed isn't quite the same as not being real. Many wouldn't really be upset. Just look at current humanity as an example. I expect that the vast majority of Vulcan's wouldn't have trouble with the logic.

 

Perhaps Vulcans would be less equipped to cope with intellectual upheavals than humans? We may think we know stuff, but when it turns out we don't, we just sorta shrug: while wars may have been fought in the name of religions and their supposedly important absolutist concepts, say, the people doing the fighting haven't been all that interested in said concepts, and have readily accepted change. Vulcans might have a deeper belief in their ability to tell reality from desire. At least this belief would seem to be a big part of the mechanism by which they keep themselves from being homicidal maniacs... Shaking of the belief might have consequences.

Timo Saloniemi