Spock's unification movement

[FaxModem1]

So, after the events of Star Trek VI, Spock retired from Starfleet, and became an ambassador. Eventually, he went to Romulus to personally try and incite change in the Romulan people. Now, imagine how this might be seen on the interstellar stage, of a Federation citizen leading an insurrection movement inside a foreign government. Wouldn't this have consequences? Wouldn't the Cardassians, Tholians or whomever not want to allow Federation citizens inside their borders, for fear of Federation citizens preaching the better way to go about things?

[Lord Revan]

I suppose it would depend on 2 things, how the unification movement acted (say if the movement worked thru the hierarchy of the Romulan Star Empire it would treated differently then if it worked thru armed strikes against said hierarchy) and how the Federation would act about it, meaning would it be seen as officially unsupported actions of private citizen of the Federation or as officially supported covert action against an enemy of the Federation.

[Elheru Aran]

I always got the impression from the novelization that the Federation was officially extremely hands-off as far as that went; Sarek had to personally ask Picard to get involved. It was the act of a single citizen on his own initiative. If it worked out, well and good, but if not, it's not their fault.

It could be viewed, for example, like the democracy movement in China, which I suspect it was obviously intended to parallel. Should a Tienanmen Square type incident have occurred, the Federation would have made an official protest in the name of freedom and democracy or some such bullshit, but the official state of affairs would have continued.

[Lord Revan]

It's also quite safe to assume that the Romulans wouldn't like the word that there's a covert group trying to change/undermine the current regime to get out. We do have remember that Spock being on Romulus isn't odd in and off itself, with him being a Federation Ambassador. What was odd during the episodes was that Spock was there without telling the Federation authorities about being there or why he was there, something the Federation would probably want to hide if possible.

[NecronLord]

To be honest, I always found the entire movement a bit baffling, as its aims were so nebulous. Did the movement expect that the Romulans would want to become like the Vulcans, or merely have some sort of cultural exchange?

It may be that the Federation didn't care at all about it because the idea of the former working was so implausible. It's enough of a miracle that the Vulcans manage to generation after generation, teach their children not to express love to their parents, let alone the idea that the Romulans, a 'passionate people' would start.

[Simon_Jester]

True- but the Romulans and Vulcans come from the same genetic stock, and haven't been separate long enough for divergent evolution to set in so far as we know.

It seems likely that if you took a Romulan child and raised them on Vulcan they'd grow up nearly indistinguishable from a Vulcan- and vice versa. The differences are cultural, which means that cultural exchange, at least, is a possibility.

The Spock I know from TOS and the TOS movies wouldn't waste decades of his life on a completely fruitless and futile endeavour, and trying to convince Romulans to be Vulcans sounds like such an obviously pointless thing.

[Lord Revan]

I suspect that Spock wasn't trying to chance the romulans into vulcans overnight but rather use the vulcan philosophy of logic and ethical thinking (bare in mind that Vulcans don't belive in pure cold logic but logic tempered with ethics) to make it so that there could cultural exchange and possible unification eventually and lets remember that Unification (the 2 parter that is) is one of the few stories where we see "regular" romulans in a semi-neutral setting, most of the times we see either goverment agents, military members or Tal Shiar agents interacting with federation members they're most likely cutting a more antagonistic front so that they wouldn't seem weak regardless of their personal feelings.

[FaxModem1]

To be honest, I always found the entire movement a bit baffling, as its aims were so nebulous. Did the movement expect that the Romulans would want to become like the Vulcans, or merely have some sort of cultural exchange?

It may be that the Federation didn't care at all about it because the idea of the former working was so implausible. It's enough of a miracle that the Vulcans manage to generation after generation, teach their children not to express love to their parents, let alone the idea that the Romulans, a 'passionate people' would start.

Vulcans do express emotions to each other, its just in a rather muted process, for fear of killing each other if they let their emotions roam untamed. Last time they did so led to a nuclear war after all.

[TithonusSyndrome]

The Dominion razed Romulan territory in the 2370's, then the Reman coup beheaded their government, and finally a supernova destroyed the Romulan homeworld in 2387. If you think the present lack of faith and mistrust in established institutions is dismal in modern day America, I suspect it may have been even worse within the RSE. By this point, reunification might have more cultural pull on a people feeling lost and shaken to the core of everything they ever held for granted about their nationhood; maybe not enough to turn the RSE into some kind of junior partner in a personal union with the Federation, but enough to shape policy or even drive migration of Romulans towards Vulcan worlds.

[Prometheus Unbound]

The Dominion never invaded Romulas?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Romulan territory =/= Romulus. I can't recall specifics but there was mention I believe of "the Romulan front" in the later war episodes, it's reasonable to assume their territory took at least some damage.

Even if not, their fleet certainly took some pretty solid hits. Enough to lower confidence and prestige no doubt.

[Prometheus Unbound]

yeah but Sloan was saying to Bashir that the Federation and Romulans would be the only ones who came through the war intact - presumably the Romulans weren't too heavily invaded. They came in late and at that point they turned the war to a defensive one for the Dominion. They only had a few episodes before Chintaka was invaded.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Their territory probably only suffered minor damage, but as I said their Fleet is another matter, especially given the losses they apparently suffered in the final battle near Cardassia. Given the time when Sloan gave his estimate, it's possible that he didn't anticipate the Romulans taking such damage.

Quite how Sloan can say the Federation was going to cone through "intact" is beyond me, given the fairly enormous losses they had already suffered (7th Fleet being all but wiped out for instance), the occupation of Betazed, the later Breen raid on Earth, etc.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Well he knew the disease would kill off the founders... he was clearly talking about assuming they win, though.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Even assuming a win, the Federation hardly emerged "intact." Certainly they may not have taken as much damage or casualties as the Romulans who joined up late but I fail to see how Sloan would consider the Klingons to be "not intact" and the Federation intact.

Of course, if he is referring to nations which would be comparable to the Federation post-war in relative terms it makes more sense: the Cardassians would be finished and the Klingons would probably be xhausted, so even a weakened Romulus would be able to counter a weakened Federation.

It's also possible that Sloan is bullshitting to manipulate Bashir into carrying out the mission.

[FaxModem1]

Here's the exact line:

To evaluate an ally. And a temporary ally at that. I say that because when the war is over, the following will happen in short order. The Dominion will be forced back to the Gamma Quadrant, the Cardassian Empire will be occupied, the Klingon Empire will spend the next ten years recovering from the war and won't pose a serious threat to anyone. That leaves two powers to vie for control of the quadrant, the Federation and the Romulans.

The Federation may be damaged, but it probably has comparable intact infrastructure compared to the Romulans, whereas the Klingons have been losing ships and troops since their civil war and the Cardassians are being invaded back to their homeworld.

[TithonusSyndrome]

If you count the homeworld as "infrastructure", then yeah, easily. We all saw their sun wipe out the planet in the Abrams movie, which could very well be the Romulan Holocaust that sets off their equivalent of a "return to the homeland" movement.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Even assuming a win, the Federation hardly emerged "intact."

The Romulans and Federation were the only ones able to come out of it "relatively intact" were his exact words.

They did win. And they did emerge intact and, a few hundreds of thousands or low millions of deaths aside (this is an entity of more than one trillion lives), they're intact, all their territory is still theirs, other than SFHQ itself, its military assets and ship building is intact. We know that for a fact, as we saw it.

Sloane wasn't wrong. ok *after* the war, the Romulans had their senate and government destroyed (ST:NEM) but that has nothing to do with the war projections.

Their ship building yards seemed up and running ok - with new designs such as the Valdore class being designed and produced in numbers.

Up until Nemesis, the government was mostly unaffected. Romulus was never attacked.

The only bit we know in DS9 was that in the final battle the Romulan flagship was destroyed and that their lines were crumbling. That's their ships in this battle, not the entire empire. So they lost an Admiral. They have hundreds - the Federation certainly does.

The Cardassians were destroyed as an empire, completely.
The Klingons had most of their fleet destroyed (partially as they were the only defense for many weeks against the Breen weapons) and had their leader killed and got a new leader all in the space of a week. They'd take a decade to recover - as we saw.

That left the Feds and Romulans, *assuming* they won, to "vie for control of the Alpha Quadrant". And they did win. And they were the two largest to come out of it.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Evidence that the Klingons lost most of their fleet while the Feds didnt? i'm genuinely curious here.

[FaxModem1]

Evidence that the Klingons lost most of their fleet while the Feds didnt? i'm genuinely curious here.

I've always assumed that it was due to the Klingon Civil War, the Klingon invasion of Cardassia(and fight with the Federation), subsequent push out of Cardassian space by the Dominion, Gowron's wasting of their resources to humiliate Martok and prop himself up as a great general, and of course, holding the line with the Breen until the Federation and the Romulans devised a countermeasure to the Breen weapon.

That many losses over the course of around two decades is enough to push back the Klingon Empire in its capability to fight.

While the Federation lost 39 ships from Wolf 359, they seemed to have heavily recovered by the Dominion War, if not surpassed that, in ship numbers and armament.

[NecronLord]

To be honest, I always found the entire movement a bit baffling, as its aims were so nebulous. Did the movement expect that the Romulans would want to become like the Vulcans, or merely have some sort of cultural exchange?

It may be that the Federation didn't care at all about it because the idea of the former working was so implausible. It's enough of a miracle that the Vulcans manage to generation after generation, teach their children not to express love to their parents, let alone the idea that the Romulans, a 'passionate people' would start.

Vulcans do express emotions to each other, its just in a rather muted process, for fear of killing each other if they let their emotions roam untamed. Last time they did so led to a nuclear war after all.

Spock is very very explicit that he's never told his mother that he loves her in The Naked Time, when the contamination takes his emotional control away, he is seriously depressed about how he behaved on Vulcan.



So unless you want to argue that Spock observed more emotional restraint than most Vulcans, no, basic expressions of familial love are culturally proscribed on Vulcan. It's easy to see why the Romulans left, given that the Surakian religion (it has monks and priests after all) that took over their homeworld appears to demand absolute suppression of emotion even to the extent of suppressing parental love.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Spock does observe more restraint than most vulcans. I'd argue that easy. It's part of his character's story and lore - that he feels he has to prove himself over other vulcans as he's half human.

Sarek loved his wife etc.

[FaxModem1]

Spock also had a rather problematic relationship with his father, stating to Picard that in the end, "The arguments were all we had." In contrast, T'pol's relationship with her mother or Tuvok's relationship with his wife or children seemed rather warm in comparison.

[NecronLord]

T’Pol’s childhood and formative years may be discounted, she grew up before the Syrannites took over Vulcan and returned it to "Surak’s true teachings" in Ent: Kir’Shara. It’s emphatically stated, and a key point of multiple Enterprise episodes, that the Vulcans are not following "Surak’s true teachings," and that a social reform happens during and after the series.

I would like to hear more about Tuvok’s family relations? I do recall him using terms like love and friendship quite frequently, but on the flip side, his daughter completed kolinahr, the ritual to purge all emotion, so she certainly can't love him back after that point, if she ever expressed that before. Spock, McCoy, and the Vulcan Priestess are all again, quite explicit about what Kolinahr does in TMP, so unless Kolinahr has changed its definition (possible but no evidence exists), remember that when coming back from Kolinahr training, Spock had basically forgotten his friends, until he had his mind fried by attempting to meld with Vejur.

During TOS it is known, shown and rumoured that vulcan relationships are strange, right down to "the men from Vulcan treat their women strangely" from Chapel, followed immediately by "you wouldn't, couldn't hurt me." TOS Vulcans' interpersonal relations are significantly aberrant compared to human norms, and Romulan, witness the Romulan commander in The Enterprise Incident:

COMMANDER: With me. Romulan women are not like Vulcan females. We are not dedicated to pure logic and the sterility of non-emotion. Our people are warriors. Often savage. But we are also many other pleasant things.
SPOCK: I was not aware of that aspect of Romulan society.
COMMANDER: As a Vulcan, you would study it. As a human you would find ways to appreciate it.

While Spock may be driven to excel, he also says that all emotional display on the planet is considered in bad taste, and the priests administer a psychic ritual to eliminate all emotion (the Kolinar) for the truly devoted.

In TOS, certainly, everyone refers to Vulcan interpersonal relationships as tremendously screwed up by human (and Romulan) standards, this is not contested by anyone when it's said, and we even see that love rivalries in their arranged marriages (the Romulans don't have that!) are solved by fights to the death. T'Pring has no way to get out of her betrothal to Spock other than getting someone killed. Oh, and for bonus points, T'Pau brings a hired killer to kill people in Kal-if-fee if they see cowardice. And if the wedding guests misbehave, the groom is excecuted. Feel the logic of Vulcan interpersonal relations.

MCCOY: Leonard McCoy, ma'am.
T'PAU: Thee names these out worlders friends. How does thee pledge their behaviour?
SPOCK: With my life, T'Pau.
T'PAU: What they are about to see comes down from the time of the beginning, without change. This is the Vulcan heart. This is the Vulcan soul. This is our way. Kah-if-farr.
(Spock is about to strike the gong again, when T'Pring intervenes.)
T'PRING: Kal-if-fee!
KIRK: What is it? What happened?
T'PAU: She chooses the challenge.
MCCOY: (pointing at T'Pau's bodyguard) With him?
T'PAU: He acts only if cowardice is seen. She will choose her champion.

The elephant in the room with Unification is why anyone would want to convert to Surakism in the first place; Surakism has arranged marriage (and forced marriage where the woman gets no say if the man is enough of a badass!) and Syrannism/Surakism has robed priests being carried around in sedan chairs and 'logical' people being born in caves (STV), so, yeah. I'm pretty sure the average Romulan would point and laugh if you suggested they adopt a lifestyle of 'logic' and ritaul combat mating.

The treatment of Unification given in TNG is very much as if adopting Vulcan ways is something that should be desired by the Romulans, I seriously question that point. Certainly the Vulcans are less warmongering than the Romulans, but Romulan women, as evidenced by the Romulan Commander, get to choose their partners; Vulcans do not. At least half of Romulans have a very, very very very strong reason not to want to be like Vulcans, nor to tolerate Syrannism/Surakism.

T'PAU: He will have to fight for her. It is her right. T'Pring, thee has chosen the kal-if-fee, the challenge. Thee are prepared to become the property of the victor?
T'PRING: I am prepared.

Yeeeah. While TOS is distinctly a product of its time, we see that Romulan women have more reproductive and sexual freedom in TOS and Christine Chapel talks about how wierd (and hurtful, either emotionally or physical) Vulcan mating is in TOS.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Spock also had a rather problematic relationship with his father, stating to Picard that in the end, "The arguments were all we had." In contrast, T'pol's relationship with her mother or Tuvok's relationship with his wife or children seemed rather warm in comparison.

Quite - and in part it was due to his half human nature. Sarek wanted him to join the Vulcan Science Institute (I think?) whereas he saw Starfleet as "human". Spock joined Starfleet, but he's the most Vulcan Vuclan we know. Other Vulcans show more emotion than him - Tuvok, T'Pol especially. Then there's Valaris (pride, desire, paranoia), Sarek (annoyance, anger, arrogance (TOS)), that racist wanker captain who played baseball (anger, pride etc - which actually got the better of him and cost him in the game). There was Administrator V'Las in Ent who was downright emotional. Anger, paranoia, rage, sarcasm, impulsiveness. Ambassador V'lar had a sense of humour, was warm etc. Even Soval would get irritated visibly, employ sarcasm and show anger.

Spock, unless under the influence of something, comes across as far more dispassionate than any other Vulcan I've seen.


I think yes, Spock did observe more emotional restraint than most Vulcans, precisely because he's not fully Vulcan. He had to prove it to himself and especially to his father.