Romulan Vs. Vulcans

[Shoshuro]

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/vie...icle/1479.html

Although I disagree with parts of this article (it makes it sounds like the vulcans and romulans are two different though similar races/species) I do like one idea from it.

Could the Vulcans come from Romulas and could there be a conspiracy about it? On both sides, not just from one or the other.

Just curious about if Refs would put something like this in their game.

[qerlin]

I think it's already been established in the shows or movies that the Romulans are in effect Vulcans; they split abou the time of Surak. Which would hardly give them time to develop ridges on their foreheads.

[Owen E Oulton]

Dunno who wrote the essay, but it ignores facts established in many episodes, most notably Gambit, Part II.

[Shoshuro]

I take that as no, neither one of you would use that in their games, since that was what I had asked.

[Yuber Okami]

Well, i have always thought that the ridges are mostly a cosmetical variation of the vulcanoids, as we humans have several "etnias"(i don't know if i have written it well) with differnt colours of skin and varying sizes and even facual features.Think about the oriental's eyes in comparison with the rest of humanity. Maybe the entire romulan race has those distinctive features because they are a whole ethnia who travelled off-world...ehm...does anyone understand my poor english??

[qerlin]

I understand what you're saying Yuber. And your English is just fine; better than most rap artists, at least.

[Yuber Okami]

qerlin, you will never be aware of how happines your post has brought to me. Thanks!(but, what do you think about that idea? i think it's better than the "we developed the ridges to adapt to Romulus's environment" theory)

[C5]

To answer the original question, I don't think I'd use this theory in my games... but it could be a very interesting idea to toy with their mind. One of my PC is a half Vulcan with a hatred of Romulans, and I could quite see a Romulan seeding the doubt in his mind with such a theory... especially if I plant along some false clues about it (and casually comment about "having seen an interesting idea I might use on the Net"...)

[Tobian]

If I was being Cynical I would see this as a prelude to some major changes in the timeline in Enteprise again! hehe. But i'll not start out an ENT bash

From what it's saying, I agree to some of the points it's made, but then it has also been suggested in the past that Vulcans did not nativelly come from Vulcan anyway. it's very possible that the 'ridges' on the Romulans brow are to do with a fusion with another Vulcanoid Offshoot (By Sargons people etc) which had been divergent for millions of years.

One singular thing which makes me think that the Romulans left Vulcan - why would anyone move to Vulcan on purpose! It was suggested that one of the reasons that the planet of Vulcan is no so inhospitable (other than it's natural location in the hot end of the habitable zone around it's sun(s) ) is due to the extended warring. Perhaps the Romulans simply left because their land was now so inhospitable! It's also likelly that the Vulcans were simply in a strong majority. While peaceful, Vulcans can and WILL fight if neccessary.

just my musings

There are some interesting arguments there (espeically about the uninspired naming they used!) and it's an interesting source, but no I don't think I'd use that mythology in my game either.

[Yuber Okami]

Well, there are some theories concerning the unhospitability of Vulcan: one is that Vulcan was once a lustful jungle planet, but vulcans made it a desert world by devastating the planet in their wars. The wildest theory says that Vulcan is not the original homeworld, of which the asteroid belt in the same system are the last remmants(the theory is that vulcans destroyed their own homeworld in a megawar!!!).
(note: this theories come from a LUG sourcebook, but there are conutless more out there.You know, theories are for free...)

[qerlin]

Originally posted by Yuber Okami
qerlin... what do you think about that idea? i think it's better than the "we developed the ridges to adapt to Romulus's environment" theory)

It's a better explanation. A few thousand years wouldn't create that much physiological difference. Even Mankind, in that amount of time has only seen a few cc's difence in brain size, a few inches in size, but no real major physical differences.

[C5]

Originally posted by qerlin
It's a better explanation. A few thousand years wouldn't create that much physiological difference. Even Mankind, in that amount of time has only seen a few cc's difence in brain size, a few inches in size, but no real major physical differences.

Well I don't know. After all, the average height of humans has also been increasing in the past thousand years, I think. Plus, I heard once that it takes three generations for people to adapt to living in the Andes mountain (where the air is much thinner). Granted, it mostly involves the red globules concentration in the blood and the ribcage capacity, but one could imagine developping ridges on the forehead is not a very big evolutionnary step for Vulcans in comparison.

1701st post. Nice number

[Tobian]

Depends on the changes..

As C5 said, it's just not that big of a change. Plus you also have other factors in there. One way or another the Vulcans and Romulans had some sort of war in their past - this has the effect of masivelly reducing numbers. This in and of it's self creates the effect of thinning down the population so that you get clusters of subspecies - and it narrows a given gene pool. This is then amplified over several thousand years - and the Vulcans lose their head ridges and the Romulans gain theirs.

To be honest both Romulans and Vulcans are quite variable. Sometimes they look perfectly human with pointy ears, sometimes they look decidedly green/yellow - and the same goes for Romulans, so it's not very hard to imagine that we are only seeing very small subsets of these aliens when we see them - and they have quite a large racial range, just as humans do now!

There is also a quality of 'preferential breeding' - where a society, can favour one type over another, or indeed there was already a subspecies of Vulcan with particularly prominent brow ridges, which had a much higher representation in the limited population they had when they moved to Romulus.

Or maybe it's a side effect of wearing those 'centurion' helmets so low down to their brow line - they all got heat rashes which swelled up on their foreheads

[T'lara]

I ever understood why Romulan's had ridges. (Sounds to me like Ruffles have Ridges chip campeign) The whole thing that was shockig was whe we saw the Romulans for the first time seeing they looked exactly like Vulcans, Balance of Terror, TOS. They looked like Vulcans but had emotions and that was what was so shocking about them. Infact Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek IV: Undiscovered Country (1991) both had Romulans that did not have headridges. Yet the Romulans had the headridges in the TNG Episode Neutral Zone (1987). Reading Romulans background in Way of D'era LUG and Aliens Decipher neither have given a valid explenation of how in 75 years this changed?
One would argue the Klingons but since the TOS Movies that introduced the Klingons they have had their headridges. The reasoning because of make advances from TOS until the movie era but they have stuck with the design and never devated from it since it was introduced. Yet Romulans they have not stayed make up consistant until after the TOS Movies?! I just say do what you think makes sense. To me: my Romulans do not have ridges.

[Yuber Okami]

T'lara, they don't have ridges in my games neither. And when you make a tricorder reading of them, it's almost impossible to differenciate them from Vulcans...(this adds a lot of fun as my players cannot relay in their super technology )