When did Vulcan achieve spaceflight?
- Thread starter EJA
- Start date
Simple answer is yes. The Vulcan had not only space flight, but star flight as well. There is some debate as to whether the Vulcans interstellar voyages were FTL or less than.
They wre buildng monasteries in other star systems thousands of years ago. (Three thousand?) Obviously when the Romulans left, the capacity for them to do so existed.
They wre buildng monasteries in other star systems thousands of years ago. (Three thousand?) Obviously when the Romulans left, the capacity for them to do so existed.
antiquityscion
Commander
It has never been said explicitly in any of the series as far as I know, but it has been implied that there were space-faring Vulcans in the time of Surak. "Those who marched beneath the raptor's wings," more specifically (from Enterprise), and they are implied to be the ancestors of the Romulans who left Vulcan. How advanced is left for interpretation, but I would guess they were equivalent to Earth during the Eugenics wars or WW3 with pre-warp interstellar travel. I think it is also implied that during those wars, Vulcan entered a dark age, and may have lost the ability to travel space for a period of time.
I am not up on the Trek novels, but there are a number of books that cover that topic, too, and I think (just heard, never read for myself) that some novels conflict with other novels.
I am not up on the Trek novels, but there are a number of books that cover that topic, too, and I think (just heard, never read for myself) that some novels conflict with other novels.
Quark mentioned they didn't have warp drive in the 20th century.
Surak was nailed to an atomic cross, so that places a hard minimum on their engineering abilities at that time. I mean, it was only twenty-four years between Hiroshima and Tranquility for us.
But Hiroshima was an isolated incident... I have a feeling the Vulcans had a full scale nuclear exchange. In Enterprise, Soval compares the Vulcan wars as akin to humans World War III.
The Forge said:
True, but I was just saying that they would likely be very close to the technology for conventional spaceflight if they had the technology for atomic weapons, and may well have had it already.
I sort of wonder if post-FTL people don't really consider STL travel in the same category. I mean, there's less difference in speeds between a bicycle and a Saturn V than a Saturn V and the Enterprise.
I sort of wonder if post-FTL people don't really consider STL travel in the same category. I mean, there's less difference in speeds between a bicycle and a Saturn V than a Saturn V and the Enterprise.
I like to think that Vulcans had sublight capability prior to Surak, but didn't develop warp drive (or their early equivalent of it) until around the 3rd or 4th Century. Unlike Humans, I don't think Vulcans weren't in a real great rush to explore as much as they can as quickly as they can. They proceeded at what was a logical pace to them, IMO...
antiquityscion
Commander
yeah, even after they discovered Warp, Vulcans didn't go far or explore like humans. It sounded like they primarily kept to themselves and just colonized close-by and uninhabited planets.
I suppose after encountering Andorians, Telerites, and Klingons, all who were emotional and in their own respective ways, aggressive, Vulcans saw little gain in "seeking out new life," and Vulcans contacting humans after Zephram Cochran's flight was almost atypical of standard Vulcan policy (probably wanted to control human development because humans progressed faster than Vulcans in a post-cataclysmic war).
An Enterprise episode (can't remember which at the moment, and I'm paraphrasing) T'pol says something to the effect the Vulcans didn't explore, just observed from afar, because they didn't want to interfere with other cultures or "get into trouble."
Would the pre-Surakian Vulcans have proceeded at a "logical pace"?
One might of course argue they'd spend so much time fighting each other that they wouldn't get very far even in warp nine starships... Or that they would see no point in developing warp nine when this wouldn't help at all in gaining supremacy in the Vulcan home system, the only worthwhile strategic goal in the universe.
Not exactly. What he said was that he could give the Ferengi the secret of warp before "even" the Vulcans had it - while possessing a time-traveling spacecraft. He might well have meant that he'd draft Rom's help in starting a marketing tour from Earth AD 1947 through Andor AD 1259 to Vulcan 1978 BC...
One wonders if this should be taken to indicate that humans, like Vulcans, had the ability to travel to the stars before their respective nuclear wars, and regained that ability after the nuking. Certainly Earth had interstellar unmanned probes in 2002 already; perhaps there were also crewed sublight vessels that flew to distant stars, more successful sisters to the Charybdis?
Timo Saloniemi
One might of course argue they'd spend so much time fighting each other that they wouldn't get very far even in warp nine starships... Or that they would see no point in developing warp nine when this wouldn't help at all in gaining supremacy in the Vulcan home system, the only worthwhile strategic goal in the universe.
Not exactly. What he said was that he could give the Ferengi the secret of warp before "even" the Vulcans had it - while possessing a time-traveling spacecraft. He might well have meant that he'd draft Rom's help in starting a marketing tour from Earth AD 1947 through Andor AD 1259 to Vulcan 1978 BC...
One wonders if this should be taken to indicate that humans, like Vulcans, had the ability to travel to the stars before their respective nuclear wars, and regained that ability after the nuking. Certainly Earth had interstellar unmanned probes in 2002 already; perhaps there were also crewed sublight vessels that flew to distant stars, more successful sisters to the Charybdis?
Timo Saloniemi
What about proto-Vulcans like the Mintakans? Were they Vulcans who culturally collapsed or were they the result of Sargon sowing his oats as Spock speculated?
No official (canonical) answer exists as far as I know. The Mintakans may simply be a species that naturally resembles early Vulcans the way El-Aurians are physically indistinguishable from Humans, IMO.
Or they may be another offshoot of the Vulcans that did away with technology.
Or perhaps they are the ancestors to both the Vulcans and Romulans, who knows? Not all societies become starfaring ones, or some even have the technology at some point and then lose it for whatever reason...
Or they may be another offshoot of the Vulcans that did away with technology.
Or perhaps they are the ancestors to both the Vulcans and Romulans, who knows? Not all societies become starfaring ones, or some even have the technology at some point and then lose it for whatever reason...
antiquityscion
Commander
True.
Or they could have been an offshoot of the ancestors that eventually became Romulans. Maybe not all the Romulan Ancestors stayed together, but some could have settled on the Mintakan planet. The Debrune were an offshoot of Romulans, so there could be more offshoots.
If you want to get real old school, there are the preservers (like the Paradise Syndrome), or Sargon's people.
