Unification

[The Grim Ghost]

I figured that since this covers Spock and his motivations as well as the TNG time period the place for this thread was in general..if I'm mistaken then I apologize.

I wonder if anyone else was puzzled by Spock's actions in Unification. I always felt that it was a bit out of character for him to suddenly decide that the Vulcans needed to reconcile with the Romulans. Some of the novels (yes I know they aren't canon) have fleshed this out a bit though and helped me to understand why he might have felt this way.

There is still one major problem I have with this though. Why does Spock see the answer to these problems as making the Romulans more Vulcan? It almost seems like he is giving the middle finger to Romulan society and saying that the Vulcan way is the only proper way. Am I the only one that feels this way? Wouldn't it make more sense to take the best parts from both societies? His solution seems very non-IDIC to me. Also is there any way to take Spock's past experiences and make some sense of this?

 

[Finn]

^I believe Sarek stated that his interest began when he met some of the Romulans at the conference that took place in TUC. So we are to assume Spock went to Romulus with the belief that some Romulans actually has interest in this. And they probably don't percieve it as rejecting Romulan society and adopting Vulcan society rather than embracing their common roots.

By the way, this DOES belong in the TNG forum since it has nothing to do with TOS, since the Spock we saw is from the TNG era, not the younger spock we saw in TOS and the movies. Welcome to TrekBBS

 

[The Grim Ghost]

But isn't Spock asking them to reject their roots? He seems to preach non-emotionalism, but emotions are such a huge part of what the Romulans are about.

Thanks for the welcome. I am a longtime lurker though.

I placed it here because I thought people might use some TOS examples to possibly explain Spock's actions.

If the thread is misplaced though, perhaps one of the mods will be kind enough to move it.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I think TNG might be slighly more appropriate, so I'll move it there

 

[Red Ranger]

Destro:

An interesting question. There was recently another thread here dedicated to this topic, so here's the link: http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=66721. There are some interesting hypotheses.

My own view is that Spock hasn't fully contemplated what impact reunification would have on both societies. Romulans might become more logical once reunited with Vulcans, but Vulcans themselves might explore emotions as well.

I always thought it would be interesting to see into a potential reunified Vulcan/Romulus, and we'd find probably calmer Romulans, but also, more emotional Vulcans as well. In other words, their different traits might cancel each other and you'd have a very different Vulcan society.

When Spock says he's suprised with the passionate response his arrival on Romulus engenders, Pardek replies that Romulans, "are a passionate people. The Vulcans will learn to appreciate that quaility." I took that to mean that Pardek, and perhaps some of the other Unificationists, intend to alter Vulcan more to their liking and not just abandon emotion as their Vulcan cousins did.

Red Ranger

 

[Bonzo the Fifth]

I think a lot of Spock's motivations can be summarized by one quote...

"Logic is only the beginning of wisdom, not the end."

This was said to Valeris in ST:VI One of, if not THE general theme of the TOS feature films is the reconciliation of Spock's Vulcan and Human psyches. This is seen from the very beginning in TMP after the V'Ger mind meld, which gave him the first inkling that logic, taken to it's full, ultimate conclusion (as represented by the V'Ger entity) is sterile, without purpose or point... it needs something more...

From that point on, Spock ceases to deride his human half and impulses and leans to accept them as a part of himself, finally making him psychologically whole, particularly after his 'rebirth' as he was likely forced to reevaluate his entire life in terms of this new philosophy of the synthesis of logic and emotion...

The thing that gets forgotten in all this, however, is that Spock's emotions did not arise just from his human half. Vulcan's, too, experience emotion and also have great trouble controlling/suppressing them. As a matter of fact, TNG established that Vulcan emotions are quite potent when unfettered (though it's hard to see how one species emotions can be more 'powerful' than anothers...). In fact, Vulcan emotions are likely similar to the typical Romulan's, being from the same stock and all...

Given all of this, the solution (via Reunification) is not about the subsuming of Romulan culture by Vulcan or vice versa, it's about the synthesis of both into something new, in order to 'evolve' the species as a whole into something greater than both could acheive on their own... something entirely new...

In fact, this would probably be a great thing in the long run, as it eliminates the major respective pitfalls due to the extreme philosophies of each side... In all likelyhood, once a reunified race established itself, the Vulcan/Romulan civilization would very likely begin to supplant humans as the major innovating force of the Alpha Quadrant, since, together, they would be superior to us in just about every single measure, physically, emotionally, and intellectually...