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I Like Romulans and I Cannot Lie
May. 15th, 2009 12:43 amNo spoilers here for the new Trek film, just something vaguely inspired by it. Expect a fair number of rambly Trek related posts in the next few days – if nothing else, the new film has reminded me I don’t post about Star Trek nearly often enough.
I’m not really criticising the new film here, but I was disappointed that for the second film in a row, the Romulans were completely wasted as villains. Eric Bana’s better than I expected, but he doesn’t get to do much, and his character doesn’t have the opportunity to show off what makes the Romulans unique. He’s a decent villain, just not a specifically Romulan one. It’s a shame, because this is probably the last time we’re going to see Romulans for a long time – I doubt they’ll show up in the sequels, and there doesn’t seem any prospect of another TV series ever being made.
Anyway, the Romulans always have been one of my favourite species in Star Trek. There’s a couple of things I really like about them. One is that they seem like a fairly civilized society – they’ve got some sort of elective government, they seem to have gender equality, they don’t glorify conquest like the Klingons do – hell, outside of Nemesis’s Remans, there’s no evidence they’ve ever conquered anyone… and I try and forget Nemesis for a variety of reasons. Commander Sela seems to rise to a very high rank despite having human ancestry. They’re not an evil society like the Cardassians or the Dominion; they’re a little too paranoid for their own good, but it does seem like they’re a decent people with a few unfortunate excesses, not something that needs to be utterly destroyed and replaced with a Federation culture like, say, the Ferengi. I've always imagined the Earth-Romulan war was the result of a miscommunication, and the Romulans would actually get on fine with the Federation as neighbours if it wasn't for centuries of mistrust and paranoia on both sides...
The other thing – and it’s something Trek has never really delved into – is that, well, Romulans *are* Vulcans. The two people split only a few thousand years ago – the shows often act as if they’re a totally different species, but really, they’re the same people, just a different culture.*
And that’s interesting, because the Vulcans always insist they needed to completely suppress their emotions, devote themselves totally to logic, or they’d have destroyed themselves. But the Romulans demonstrate that’s not true – Romulans can control their emotions, and they don’t repress them utterly. It works for them; it should work for Vulcans. Now, if the Romulans were directing their aggression outward, if they were Klingons, the Vulcans might have a point – but the Romulans are insular, they tend to go in for isolationism, not expansionism.
I’m not nitpicking, mind you – I like the contradiction. The Vulcans are, after all, for all their talk of “infinite diversity” actually pretty narrow-minded. Sarek cut off all contact with his son for almost two decades for choosing Starfleet over the Vulcan academy. It actually makes a lot of sense that they’d keep insisting their way is the only way, even when confronted with an entire empire of fellow Vulcans who demonstrate otherwise. Hell, maybe it’s the Vulcan influence that causes the rest of the Federation to treat Romulans as a different species – they’re just not willing to accept that they’re the same people, and there’s a deliberate policy of ‘othering’ Romulan civilization.
* Well, there’s the whole forehead ridge thing, but that seems to be a little inconstantly applied – Nero doesn’t have them, neither did the Romulan ambassador in Star Trek VI. I’m going to fanwank that ridged and non-ridged Vulcans are different ethnic groups, and for whatever reason, ridged Vulcans made up a disproportionate percentage of the original Romulans.
I’m not really criticising the new film here, but I was disappointed that for the second film in a row, the Romulans were completely wasted as villains. Eric Bana’s better than I expected, but he doesn’t get to do much, and his character doesn’t have the opportunity to show off what makes the Romulans unique. He’s a decent villain, just not a specifically Romulan one. It’s a shame, because this is probably the last time we’re going to see Romulans for a long time – I doubt they’ll show up in the sequels, and there doesn’t seem any prospect of another TV series ever being made.
Anyway, the Romulans always have been one of my favourite species in Star Trek. There’s a couple of things I really like about them. One is that they seem like a fairly civilized society – they’ve got some sort of elective government, they seem to have gender equality, they don’t glorify conquest like the Klingons do – hell, outside of Nemesis’s Remans, there’s no evidence they’ve ever conquered anyone… and I try and forget Nemesis for a variety of reasons. Commander Sela seems to rise to a very high rank despite having human ancestry. They’re not an evil society like the Cardassians or the Dominion; they’re a little too paranoid for their own good, but it does seem like they’re a decent people with a few unfortunate excesses, not something that needs to be utterly destroyed and replaced with a Federation culture like, say, the Ferengi. I've always imagined the Earth-Romulan war was the result of a miscommunication, and the Romulans would actually get on fine with the Federation as neighbours if it wasn't for centuries of mistrust and paranoia on both sides...
The other thing – and it’s something Trek has never really delved into – is that, well, Romulans *are* Vulcans. The two people split only a few thousand years ago – the shows often act as if they’re a totally different species, but really, they’re the same people, just a different culture.*
And that’s interesting, because the Vulcans always insist they needed to completely suppress their emotions, devote themselves totally to logic, or they’d have destroyed themselves. But the Romulans demonstrate that’s not true – Romulans can control their emotions, and they don’t repress them utterly. It works for them; it should work for Vulcans. Now, if the Romulans were directing their aggression outward, if they were Klingons, the Vulcans might have a point – but the Romulans are insular, they tend to go in for isolationism, not expansionism.
I’m not nitpicking, mind you – I like the contradiction. The Vulcans are, after all, for all their talk of “infinite diversity” actually pretty narrow-minded. Sarek cut off all contact with his son for almost two decades for choosing Starfleet over the Vulcan academy. It actually makes a lot of sense that they’d keep insisting their way is the only way, even when confronted with an entire empire of fellow Vulcans who demonstrate otherwise. Hell, maybe it’s the Vulcan influence that causes the rest of the Federation to treat Romulans as a different species – they’re just not willing to accept that they’re the same people, and there’s a deliberate policy of ‘othering’ Romulan civilization.
* Well, there’s the whole forehead ridge thing, but that seems to be a little inconstantly applied – Nero doesn’t have them, neither did the Romulan ambassador in Star Trek VI. I’m going to fanwank that ridged and non-ridged Vulcans are different ethnic groups, and for whatever reason, ridged Vulcans made up a disproportionate percentage of the original Romulans.