At the time of the Sundering,. What was the level of technology on the planet? More advanced than we are.more advanced than 22d-24th century SF?
Vulcan tech level at Surak
- Thread starter Ronald Held
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Romulans might well have had warp: nobody actually says they would not have had that, and they did travel to distant stars. Much like Vulcans did a thousand years earlier, founding the monastery on P'Jem.
Intriguingly, that monastery was Surakian, a thousand years before Surak. Was it repurposed? Or did Surakism exists long before Surak, much like Judaism existed for a millennium or two before Jesus of Nazareth and the major rebranding?
Might be Vulcan was a stagnated interstellar empire for at least a thousand years, having warp and rayguns but making little progress because of the constant infighting. Lost colonies would be the norm - but most of them would be lost for real, rather than merely cutting communications like the Romulans did when the homeworld policies grew distasteful.
Might be something else. But a sublight empire doesn't seem attractive a priori. Instead of a tech level, we're probably observing a tech branch, in a tree where different branches can grow at very different speeds, and to very different shapes. Especially when it's weird telepaths doing the growing. Romans didn't need to invent internal combustion, interchangeable parts or even railroads because they had slaves. Vulcans might not need to invent ironworking because they could slay their enemies with their minds and would have no soil to till and no motivation to dig up anything...
Timo Saloniemi
Intriguingly, that monastery was Surakian, a thousand years before Surak. Was it repurposed? Or did Surakism exists long before Surak, much like Judaism existed for a millennium or two before Jesus of Nazareth and the major rebranding?
Might be Vulcan was a stagnated interstellar empire for at least a thousand years, having warp and rayguns but making little progress because of the constant infighting. Lost colonies would be the norm - but most of them would be lost for real, rather than merely cutting communications like the Romulans did when the homeworld policies grew distasteful.
Might be something else. But a sublight empire doesn't seem attractive a priori. Instead of a tech level, we're probably observing a tech branch, in a tree where different branches can grow at very different speeds, and to very different shapes. Especially when it's weird telepaths doing the growing. Romans didn't need to invent internal combustion, interchangeable parts or even railroads because they had slaves. Vulcans might not need to invent ironworking because they could slay their enemies with their minds and would have no soil to till and no motivation to dig up anything...
Timo Saloniemi
Didn't some novels/EU materials suggest the Vulcan system once played home to an unstable/periodic wormhole? They did much the same with Andoria in the Last Unicorn Games RPG setting, but not sure if either were alluded to by other writers.
STO goes with a very long exodus that involved some periods of settling unsuitable worlds (hence offshoots like the Mintakans) before finding Romulus. In fact, the planet that becomes New Romulus in the STO setting is one of these worlds, albeit now more habitable (radiation levels drove off the original Exodites) - confirmed by the discovery of a sword forged by the Vulcan master S'harien.
STO goes with a very long exodus that involved some periods of settling unsuitable worlds (hence offshoots like the Mintakans) before finding Romulus. In fact, the planet that becomes New Romulus in the STO setting is one of these worlds, albeit now more habitable (radiation levels drove off the original Exodites) - confirmed by the discovery of a sword forged by the Vulcan master S'harien.
We don't really know how far Romulas is from Vulcan, but lets say for argument, 100 light years. ( based on the distance the romulan minefield was away from Earth in Enterprise)
There are ALOT of planets in a 100 ly radius, with many being supportive of vulcanoid life. Had to be a concious choice to move so far away. So, my thought would be is that Vulcan did have FTL travel, but low speeds, warp 2 maybe.
After a bitter war on Vulcan, the Romulan offshoots could have taken some ships and headed out, while the Vulcans regressed to a more primitive stage for awhile to work on the teachings of Surak and tame there emotions, may have taken hundreds of years, then they went back out in to the stars. Maybe Pjem was an early colony, monestary that was converted to Surak after the great awakening, many such examples in our history of another peoples church or building being re purposed for the new rulers.
While the Romulans knew there kin had FTL, they may have been afraid of retribution, and decided on finding a planet that was far away, past any explored space. Warp 2 is... 8 times the speed of light? I think, so it would have taken them over 10 years, probably longer, to get to romulas, and thats if they made a direct flight.
Now the general littering of vulcanoids on other planets may be explained as some ships may have broken down and they settled on any world they could have found, and without much technology, may have regressed, maybe on purpose.
Could they have used sub light ships? possibly, there's nothing against it.
There are ALOT of planets in a 100 ly radius, with many being supportive of vulcanoid life. Had to be a concious choice to move so far away. So, my thought would be is that Vulcan did have FTL travel, but low speeds, warp 2 maybe.
After a bitter war on Vulcan, the Romulan offshoots could have taken some ships and headed out, while the Vulcans regressed to a more primitive stage for awhile to work on the teachings of Surak and tame there emotions, may have taken hundreds of years, then they went back out in to the stars. Maybe Pjem was an early colony, monestary that was converted to Surak after the great awakening, many such examples in our history of another peoples church or building being re purposed for the new rulers.
While the Romulans knew there kin had FTL, they may have been afraid of retribution, and decided on finding a planet that was far away, past any explored space. Warp 2 is... 8 times the speed of light? I think, so it would have taken them over 10 years, probably longer, to get to romulas, and thats if they made a direct flight.
Now the general littering of vulcanoids on other planets may be explained as some ships may have broken down and they settled on any world they could have found, and without much technology, may have regressed, maybe on purpose.
Could they have used sub light ships? possibly, there's nothing against it.
Who says that the Vulcan high council didn't know about the Romulans? As we saw in ENT, the high council clearly had its secrets like a spy observatory in a Vulcan monastery, etc., and I thought the council head dude was knowingly in contact with the Romulans. I assume the Romulan Star Empire was known to exist by many space-faring races, but it being a Vulcan offshoot was not known except by the Vulcan High Council. The Vulcans classified this knowledge and withheld it from most Vulcan society and definitely from all outsiders (like the Federation). The Vulcans are culturally very secret like providing info on their mating practices, etc., so, why not control other culturally embarrassing information?
I am not convinced the exile ships had FTL drives. Between the wars, and the long lifespan, warp drive might not have been discovered or a priority for intrasystem travel.
I don't think there was a clear destination in mind.
Even if a few tens of LYs between Vulcan and Romulus,why expect many class M planets in the way?
I don't think there was a clear destination in mind.
Even if a few tens of LYs between Vulcan and Romulus,why expect many class M planets in the way?
Lest not exclude sleeper ships.
OTOH, in terms of canon, we might easily exclude the very idea of an exodus.
There's no statement in aired Trek that the Romulans would have left. They simply cease to be a factor on Vulcan at one point. Perhaps they were all hunted down and killed for their ugly foreheads, or then just their political structure disbanded while the people survived. The planet subsequently known as Romulus, a successful Vulcan colony of long standing but paranoid isolation (which would be how all Vulcan settlements are like, both on and off the planet), then decided not to make scheduled flights to Vulcan any longer.
Without the scheduled flights, the off-Vulcan settlements all withered and most died, though. Romulus didn't die, but it devolved nevertheless, failing for 2,000 years to exploit the fact that Vulcan had bombed itself back to the stone age.
Timo Saloniemi
There's no statement in aired Trek that the Romulans would have left. They simply cease to be a factor on Vulcan at one point. Perhaps they were all hunted down and killed for their ugly foreheads, or then just their political structure disbanded while the people survived. The planet subsequently known as Romulus, a successful Vulcan colony of long standing but paranoid isolation (which would be how all Vulcan settlements are like, both on and off the planet), then decided not to make scheduled flights to Vulcan any longer.
Without the scheduled flights, the off-Vulcan settlements all withered and most died, though. Romulus didn't die, but it devolved nevertheless, failing for 2,000 years to exploit the fact that Vulcan had bombed itself back to the stone age.
Timo Saloniemi
How would the losers of an atomic war have the resources to take half a billion colonists half way across the galaxy?
I think the Romulans won the war for a planet that could no longer support them, so they left.
Also, either side is capable of ethnic cleansing.
I think the Romulans won the war for a planet that could no longer support them, so they left.
Also, either side is capable of ethnic cleansing.
...Although the Romulans engage in less of it, apparently, having two sorts of forehead in evidence while Vulcans only have the smooth sort.
Winning wouldn't help much in a situation where A-bombs reduced your capabilities. It's pretty unlikely they would only fall on enemy sands, after all: the winner would be just as screwed. But being screwed could be relative, for a spacefaring culture: perhaps the Romulans were Moon Nazis by profession to begin with, and had fewer critical assets down below on the main battlefield?
Timo Saloniemi
Winning wouldn't help much in a situation where A-bombs reduced your capabilities. It's pretty unlikely they would only fall on enemy sands, after all: the winner would be just as screwed. But being screwed could be relative, for a spacefaring culture: perhaps the Romulans were Moon Nazis by profession to begin with, and had fewer critical assets down below on the main battlefield?
Timo Saloniemi
@Timo
I thought of the "Lost Colony" when I was thinking of my post. And it is quite possible.
Many sci fi books have examples of Empires that expand, then collapse.
A thing that could have happened is that like an Earth today that expands into space, and there is even books out there that have examples of a Planet for the Scottish, or Planet for Arabians, Etc. where they want there own planet free from oppressions or other stuff from other countries, ethnethicies, etc.
So after a time, vulcan has colonized planets out to Romulus, but tensions on Vulcan come to head, and go into full out world war, with nearby colonies taking part, or remaining neutral. Then after the war and the reformation, all the records are lost of the colonies, some colonies regressed, or completely failed after lost of support of the home world, and maybe that was Romulus, they lost support of the home world, and it regressed, but not as much as other colonies, then they built it back up of the the resulting 1000 years.
I thought of the "Lost Colony" when I was thinking of my post. And it is quite possible.
Many sci fi books have examples of Empires that expand, then collapse.
A thing that could have happened is that like an Earth today that expands into space, and there is even books out there that have examples of a Planet for the Scottish, or Planet for Arabians, Etc. where they want there own planet free from oppressions or other stuff from other countries, ethnethicies, etc.
So after a time, vulcan has colonized planets out to Romulus, but tensions on Vulcan come to head, and go into full out world war, with nearby colonies taking part, or remaining neutral. Then after the war and the reformation, all the records are lost of the colonies, some colonies regressed, or completely failed after lost of support of the home world, and maybe that was Romulus, they lost support of the home world, and it regressed, but not as much as other colonies, then they built it back up of the the resulting 1000 years.
I do not believe Romulus was an old colony. With all the wars, especially the last one, I don't think there were the resources to support extrasolar colonies
I believe the philosophical losers left to eventually form the RSE.
I believe the philosophical losers left to eventually form the RSE.
If there were colonies, those would automatically be winners, though, untouched by the war at Vulcan. Whoever lost on the worthless ancestral sands might emerge triumphant in space, yet with little motivation to take control of Vulcan glass plains.
It's rather curious that we still lack any onscreen reference to Romulans leaving Vulcan. PIC instead gives us the intriguing tidbit of there being legends that predate Vulcans arriving on Vulcan... Which probably is the more interesting great migration, possibly but not necessarily related to Sargon's old empire.
Timo Saloniemi
It's rather curious that we still lack any onscreen reference to Romulans leaving Vulcan. PIC instead gives us the intriguing tidbit of there being legends that predate Vulcans arriving on Vulcan... Which probably is the more interesting great migration, possibly but not necessarily related to Sargon's old empire.
Timo Saloniemi
I changed my mind. Instead of a Ni'Var spinoff I want a Vulcan: The Wonder Years spinoff.
Okay, I used my wish.
Both planets Vulcan and Romulus could have been originally seeded from the same gene pool by Sargon's old empire. Both evolve into equally violent races (after all, it's in the genes though one race develops or genetically engineers head ridges within one hundred years after TOS to make their race visually distinctive from the other), but about one or two thousand years ago, Vulcan pursues the logic philosophy (and not much in the form of a government)
while Romulus pursues a Roman-ish, Republic government structure. 
No interstellar migration needed between the planets. 
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Definitely more advanced than what we have now. We barely have heavy lift capacity, no true spaceships, no cryogenics, no (Trek style) impulse engines let alone nuclear propulsion, and no warp. Even Trek Earth of 1996 had enough heavy lift to launch a DY-100, which itself is a true spaceship with nuclear propulsion, cryogenic stasis, and artificial gravity. The stasis satellites in "The Neutral Zone" also had artificial gravity. They need a little more though, they need the kind of SpaceX Starship fleet Elon Musk is imagining. As a guess, I'll say real life 2050 lift capacity to get the thousands of people and equipment needed for a serious one-shot colonization effort. The problem with that is nuclear propulsion isn't going to cut it for interstellar flight given some of the criteria for Romulus.
Nuclear propulsion is going to be too slow for anything more than a couple light years. I believe that would take 50-100 years at best. The problem with that is, with warp that's spitting distance. Romulus doesn't work without being somewhat distant for a warp 5 ship, otherwise everyone would have bumped into them. As it is, the NX-01 bumped into a Romulan mined world, meaning they were presumably in the neighborhood.
I believe the Romulan fleet had to have had at least low level warp, or proper impulse engines. If you can move at or near the speed of light, then 100 years travel time nets you nearly 100 light years of distance. That's maybe 5 months at warp 5. I think warp 5 is actually faster in ENT, but worst case is maybe 1 month of straight line travel. So Vulcan as of the Sundering would likely be right around 2060's Trek Earth tech level.
Nuclear propulsion is going to be too slow for anything more than a couple light years. I believe that would take 50-100 years at best. The problem with that is, with warp that's spitting distance. Romulus doesn't work without being somewhat distant for a warp 5 ship, otherwise everyone would have bumped into them. As it is, the NX-01 bumped into a Romulan mined world, meaning they were presumably in the neighborhood.
I believe the Romulan fleet had to have had at least low level warp, or proper impulse engines. If you can move at or near the speed of light, then 100 years travel time nets you nearly 100 light years of distance. That's maybe 5 months at warp 5. I think warp 5 is actually faster in ENT, but worst case is maybe 1 month of straight line travel. So Vulcan as of the Sundering would likely be right around 2060's Trek Earth tech level.
Why are people claiming 100 LYs,short of meandering from Vulcan to Romulus/Remus? I estimate about 50 LY.
We probably now have to start making assumptions about the nature of the Romulan Star Empire, rather than just its location.
Yes, the RSE in the 2150s is expanding to a location that is 130 ly from Earth in "Minefield", as per the catfish quip in "Dead Stop". Is that how far the RSE is from Earth, then? Not necessarily: Romulus could be 30 ly from Earth, only slightly to the side of the course our heroes are taking, and Archer's bold beeline to the stars could pass right through the RSE, making little in the way of ripples since Archer can't even scan much sideways.
Not even Klingons can stop ships from simply flying through their space, a century later. If the Romulans are merely at the level of the Xindi in the 2150s (and they could have stagnated at / devolved to a lower one for all we know), they, too, will be quite ignorant of the whereabouts of Archer even when he is flying right inside Romulan homespace. Only, they haven't been forewarned (AFAWK), so they don't even necessarily know they should be looking.
A Romulus proximal to Vulcan is good for explaining "Unification" and the 2009 movie, both of which involve rapid travel from the RNZ to Vulcan - the first by ancient rust buckets, the second by a lumbering mining rig. What is proximal enough? 30 ly would already be several systems out. And following the Romulan War, there would be no traffic in that direction, whereas prior to that war, Vulcans might easily steer human traffic (to wit, NX-01) away from that direction, and Andorians and Tellarites wouldn't care.
That Kirk in "Balance of Terror" is left to his own devices then goes with the idea of the RNZ/RSE extending to those 130 lightyears from Earth or more, in some other direction.
It just so happens that while the RSE (or at least its war-redefined extent aka the RNZ) is both close to Vulcan and distant from Earth, Romulus itself is explicitly at the location of "Balance of Terror", which by story logic should be distant from Earth and thus from Vulcan...
...Unless we assume that it's not distance that keeps Starfleet from rushing to Kirk's aid, but commitments elsewhere. After all, the RNZ is supposed to be the one region of UFP space where Starfleet is never needed.
Timo Saloniemi
Yes, the RSE in the 2150s is expanding to a location that is 130 ly from Earth in "Minefield", as per the catfish quip in "Dead Stop". Is that how far the RSE is from Earth, then? Not necessarily: Romulus could be 30 ly from Earth, only slightly to the side of the course our heroes are taking, and Archer's bold beeline to the stars could pass right through the RSE, making little in the way of ripples since Archer can't even scan much sideways.
Not even Klingons can stop ships from simply flying through their space, a century later. If the Romulans are merely at the level of the Xindi in the 2150s (and they could have stagnated at / devolved to a lower one for all we know), they, too, will be quite ignorant of the whereabouts of Archer even when he is flying right inside Romulan homespace. Only, they haven't been forewarned (AFAWK), so they don't even necessarily know they should be looking.
A Romulus proximal to Vulcan is good for explaining "Unification" and the 2009 movie, both of which involve rapid travel from the RNZ to Vulcan - the first by ancient rust buckets, the second by a lumbering mining rig. What is proximal enough? 30 ly would already be several systems out. And following the Romulan War, there would be no traffic in that direction, whereas prior to that war, Vulcans might easily steer human traffic (to wit, NX-01) away from that direction, and Andorians and Tellarites wouldn't care.
That Kirk in "Balance of Terror" is left to his own devices then goes with the idea of the RNZ/RSE extending to those 130 lightyears from Earth or more, in some other direction.
It just so happens that while the RSE (or at least its war-redefined extent aka the RNZ) is both close to Vulcan and distant from Earth, Romulus itself is explicitly at the location of "Balance of Terror", which by story logic should be distant from Earth and thus from Vulcan...
...Unless we assume that it's not distance that keeps Starfleet from rushing to Kirk's aid, but commitments elsewhere. After all, the RNZ is supposed to be the one region of UFP space where Starfleet is never needed.
Timo Saloniemi
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