Vulcan's red sky

[rfmcdpei]

Didn't "Yesteryear" establish ShiKahr as the capital city of Vulcan?

No, just as the city where Spock's family lived, nothing more. There's nothing in canon suggesting it's the capital, although the script for ENT: "The Forge" makes it the site of the Earth embassy. I believe it was Spock's World by Diane Duane that portrayed ShiKahr as the capital, although J. M. Dillard dissented and established a city called ShanaiKahr as the Vulcan capital. Jean Lorrah's The Vulcan Academy Murders made it the site of the Vulcan Science Academy, but I don't think it was said to be the capital there.

Fair enough. And in the age of interplanetary states, there is of course no particular reason to assume that the embassies of foreign states must necessarily be located in the capital city, though that is the common practice amongst modern states.

Who says there's only one capital city in the strict sense? Any number of Earth nations have multiple capitals.

South Africa has three capital cities: Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament, is the legislative capital; Pretoria, as the seat of the President and Cabinet, is the administrative capital; and Bloemfontein, as the seat of the judicial system. In the Netherlands, Amsterdam is the capital city but the parliament and courts are in The Hague. And so on.

 

[DrBashir]

Why does it have to be ANY capital? We know from the latest movie that Vulcan has (had) a population of 6 billion in the time of TOS. Why would the first Vulcan city have to be the capital? Spock walked to the city and then through it to his parent's house. It didn't seem to be that big of a place. A smallish, university town seems a better fit for Spock.

 

[Sci]

Why does it have to be ANY capital? We know from the latest movie that Vulcan has (had) a population of 6 billion in the time of TOS. Why would the first Vulcan city have to be the capital? Spock walked to the city and then through it to his parent's house. It didn't seem to be that big of a place. A smallish, university town seems a better fit for Spock.

Um, I don't think anyone is arguing that Spock's hometown must necessarily have been the capital. I certainly wasn't after Christopher's response to my question. The discussion just shifted to the question of Vulcan's capital, that's all.

 

[JD]

Didn't "Yesteryear" establish ShiKahr as the capital city of Vulcan?

No, just as the city where Spock's family lived, nothing more. There's nothing in canon suggesting it's the capital, although the script for ENT: "The Forge" makes it the site of the Earth embassy. I believe it was Spock's World by Diane Duane that portrayed ShiKahr as the capital, although J. M. Dillard dissented and established a city called ShanaiKahr as the Vulcan capital. Jean Lorrah's The Vulcan Academy Murders made it the site of the Vulcan Science Academy, but I don't think it was said to be the capital there.

I'm reading SW on my Nook right now, and it referred to shi'Kahr (it's spelling) as the little town nearest the Science Academy. I couldn't find any references to it being the capital, but I could have overlooked something.

 

[Christopher]

^Oh, okay. Memory Beta said it was Spock's World that cited ShiKahr as the capital, and I'm fairly certain there were some books that did make that claim, because I remember having trouble reconciling J. M. Dillard's ShanaiKahr with other books.

I'm not sure, but my impression is that maybe Spock's World said ShiKahr started out as a small town near the Academy and then grew into the capital by modern times.

 

[JD]

Ah, could be. I'll admit when I did the search, I was just looking a couple sentences on either side of the one containing the term, so I could have overlooked something farther away from it.