TNG Romulans: Canon or Not?

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-02-14 12:39am

In TNG, we find that now Romulans have cro-magnon foreheads as well. When we saw bumpy headed Klingons in ST:TMP< the excuse was they wew "always" like that, but they now had the budget to visually show this.

HOWEVER, we saw a Romulan in ST 5, and SHE didn't have a bumpy forehead....

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2004-02-14 12:52am

I was under the understanding, though, that ST: V was not considered cannon. (or was that TMP?)

(POST 4000)

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-02-14 01:09am

How does the work, exactly? By paramount's policy, anything filmed is canon - correct? This ought to include STV

I don't recall any of the Romulans from TOS having those stupid foreheads that are in TNG. Maybe there was something in the water.

As for TNG, why the fuck did the makeup artists or producers decide they needed to change them? They worked perfectly in TOS because they looked identical to Vulcans.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-02-14 01:12am

Straha wrote:I was under the understanding, though, that ST: V was not considered cannon. (or was that TMP?)

Nope, they're all canon.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-14 01:14am

One incident versus many doesn't mean that the majority is void. I'm surprised that you would even consider such an absurdity.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-02-14 01:19am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:One incident versus many doesn't mean that the majority is void. I'm surprised that you would even consider such an absurdity.

Ah, I see. So she a mutant, then?

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2004-02-14 01:19am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:One incident versus many doesn't mean that the majority is void. I'm surprised that you would even consider such an absurdity.

The point is that with a movie budget, Romulans weren't cro-magnons. Shaky argument, but I hate cromag Romulans so...

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-14 01:20am

Lord Poe wrote:
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:One incident versus many doesn't mean that the majority is void. I'm surprised that you would even consider such an absurdity.
Ah, I see. So she a mutant, then?

I think it's more of a racial offshoot.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-02-14 01:28am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:I think it's more of a racial offshoot.

Then she had a lot of ancestors in TOS. So why was no one suprised by her appearance?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-14 01:39am

What? Why would they if that's what they were used to seeing?

Perhaps the non-arched Romulans were the "public" race, or for a time did the Empire's dirty work until a certain point.

EDIT: Besides, why do they have to be surprised, or even indicate that they are? That would be rather rude, I think.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-02-14 02:16am

Romulan uniforms dont look very good. It would have been better to give them some realistic looking military uniforms.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-02-14 02:57am

IIRC, according to the (non-canon) novelization, the Romulan ambassador to Nimbus 3 had a human ancestor.

As for TNG, why the fuck did the makeup artists or producers decide they needed to change them? They worked perfectly in TOS because they looked identical to Vulcans.

Hell, that's how they were supposed to be, given the way TOS Balance of Terror was written.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-02-15 08:44pm

Uraniun235 wrote:IIRC, according to the (non-canon) novelization, the Romulan ambassador to Nimbus 3 had a human ancestor.

Well then, what about the Romulan ambassador in ST:6?

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2004-02-15 11:05pm

Lord Poe wrote:In TNG, we find that now Romulans have cro-magnon foreheads as well. When we saw bumpy headed Klingons in ST:TMP< the excuse was they wew "always" like that, but they now had the budget to visually show this.

HOWEVER, we saw a Romulan in ST 5, and SHE didn't have a bumpy forehead....

The Romulan brow ridges of TNG aren't common to all Romulans. Some Romulans still look like Vulcans, and are used to infiltrate Starfleet accordingly.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-15 11:10pm

Out of universe reason is that they most likely wanted to make it easy to visually identify Romulans, since they had an expanded visual effects budget from TOS. Same reason they changed Klingons to make them more alien looking.

In universe reason? I haven't the foggiest. I blame some random omnipotent magic space pixie.

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2004-02-16 12:14am

More than one of the novels, both TOS and TNG, tried to explain the difference between the Ridged and Non-Ridged Klingons.

1. The Klingons in TOS were 'lesser' Klingons, from colonies offworld from the main Klingon Race, perhaps conquered back in the days of Khaless, or even before. Enrolling in the Imperial Navy might have been similar to joining a Roman Legion, granting Citizenship and the chance to rise in station. The Ridged Klingons were the High Command, using them in harrassment tactics and border patrol whilst they were warring with the Romulans.

2. The TOS Klingons were half-breeds... perhaps with lost Human colonies, Orion women, or another compatible species. As above, they enrolled for the Citizenship, or simply to raise in station. Some even went so far as to have plastic surgery to gain the ridges (the explaination I heard for the appearance of the TOS Klingon Captains on DS9). Again, the Ridged Klingons considered them expendable and useless for anything but border patrols.

3. The TNG Klingons are of a 'Royal House', or 'of the Line of Khaless'. The Ridged Klingons were from Quo'nus(sp?), the Klingon Homeworld. Tthe non-ridged were lesser houses or even inhabitants of other worlds the Klingons conquered. The Emperor could only come from one of these Royal Houses, and in one novel "The IDIC Epidemic" they were extremely vulernable to the Klingon variation of Smallpox, while the non-ridged were immune.

Why did the Ridged Klingons begin appearing in TNG? Perhaps because of the Treaty with the Federation. After all, when you're no longer at war with a nation, you begin to relax, allow open visits and friendships between populations.

After all, considering TOS and the crew of the Enterprise, the Klingons may have thought that non-Caucasian humans were 'sports', not wholy developed cultures that finally overcame the early human's racist tendancies.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-02-16 12:29am

Actually, ridged Klingons appeared in the TOS StarTrek movies, not in TNG. The problem with saying that non-ridged Klingons are a different breed is that some Klingons appearing in the TOS series return in the TOS movies/TNG+ as ridged Klingons. For instance, Kor has appeared several times, starting as a TOS non-ridged Klingon and ending as a ridged Klingon.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2004-02-16 01:32am

LadyTevar wrote: 3. The TNG Klingons are of a 'Royal House', or 'of the Line of Khaless'. The Ridged Klingons were from Quo'nus(sp?), the Klingon Homeworld.

The problem with that line of logic, is that Khaless appeared in a TOS episode, "Savage Curtain", and of course, he was non-ridged.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-16 01:34am

Has there ever been a case of a previously non-ridged Romulan later having ridges? If not, I call at least two different Romulan races.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2004-02-16 03:37pm

So to recap:

TOS: No ridges for Klingons (not even Kahless). No ridges for Romulans.

TOS Movies: Ridges for Klingons. No ridges for Romulans.

TNG & TNG Movies: Ridges for Klingons. Ridges for Romulans.

DS9: Same as above (and we see three TOS era Klingons who now have ridges).

Voy/Ent: Ditto with the rest of B&Btrek.

Don't recall seeing any recurring Romulan characters that changed from non-ridged to ridged, and I've seen all of the shows except the last three seasons of Voyager...

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2004-02-16 05:48pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Has there ever been a case of a previously non-ridged Romulan later having ridges? If not, I call at least two different Romulan races.

not different races, just different sub-races. Could be that a more Vulcan sub-race make up the more honorable ones & the logical scholars, while the more divergent sub-race evolved to be more humanlike in terms of emotional and unconventional capablility.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-16 05:49pm

Race as in the real life definition, not Trek's convulted version of it when they mean "species."

But pretty much, and that's not a bad theory there.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2004-02-16 06:00pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Race as in the real life definition, not Trek's convulted version of it when they mean "species."

But pretty much, and that's not a bad theory there.

sorry. Just used to the generic sci-fi/fantasy definition of race as a distinct sub-species (as in Drow, dark-elf, wood-elf, high-elf, human, half-elf, gold dwarve, shield dwarve, etc). If you were to go by species, then you should still technically lump Romulans and Vulcans together. They're still polar offshoots of the same species, and for some odd reason they are genetically identical but their bloodwork and foreheads are different.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-16 06:02pm

Are you sure about bloodwork? Because I remember seeing Roms with green blood in the TNG era.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2004-02-16 07:25pm

As far as blood is concerned, IIRC Spock had kind of dark green (forest green?) blood in TOS.

In TNG Romulans had pea soup green blood.

Klingons always had red blood except in ST 6 they have pink (Pepto Bismol colored) blood.

Still the whole "racial" thing might be something akin to showing the Federation humans in one entire show being all tall Africans, then in the next show being all short Asians. Sure, it's entirely possible, but (you'd think) unlikely...

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TNG Romulans: Canon or Not?

TNG Romulans: Canon or Not?

Re: TNG Romulans: Canon or Not?