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Thread: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
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2019-09-19, 05:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
This is a very interesting Star Trek question. I watch all types of Star Trek TV shows and I notice that Vulcan don't express any feeling whatsoever. So my question is are all Vulcans lack emotions?
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2019-09-19, 05:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
They have them, they just repress them behind rigid mental discipline and focus on logic because they were a violent race before then. Every now and then there will be an episode that deals with what happens when you break through their self control. Bottom line? People get wrecked. Super strong physically, powerful telepaths, and full of rage, it doesnt go well.
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
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2019-09-19, 05:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
They don't lack emotions, they intentionally suppress them because they experience them at extreme and frequently self-destructive intensity.
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2019-09-19, 06:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
It's weird how many writers just treat them like stuck up, arrogant humans. Their emotions are in fact far more powerful than those of humans, and if they don't keep themselves under tight, logic-based control they will simply self-destruct as a society.
"Is this 'cause I killed the hippie? Is that even illegal?"
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2019-09-19, 07:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
Vulcans don't lack emotions. They just keep their expression of them to a minimum. They obviously love, laugh and hate. It's just not the loud and in-your face expressions that humans and other races have.
While there are examples of Vulcans with no control being violent animals, there are also occassional examples of Vulcans with control and more emotional expression than others. They just tend to extremes.Knowledge brings the sting of disillusionment, but the pain teaches perspective.
"You know it's all fake right?"
"...yeah, but it makes me feel better."
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2019-09-19, 07:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-19, 07:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
It doesn't help that it feels like the writers often forget that distinction too.
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2019-09-19, 07:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
They'll understand that beneath their unfeeling exterior is a heart that's breaking silently and in more pain then any of us could possibly understand. Because that's what it is to be Vulcan.
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2019-09-19, 08:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
Best example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXtjlHmZiQI
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2019-09-19, 10:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
I recall T'Pol shows more and more expression over the course of Enterprise as a major part of her character arc. Other than that, I don't recall many Vulcans that embrace emotions, although I vaguely recall there was a group that thought this way.
Vulcan culture is centered around "logic" and suppressing emotions. I put the former in quotes, because I don't see how real world logic, of any sort, justifies Vulcan's rigidity and tendency to be dogmatic on debatable issues of science, ethics, politics, etc. Vulcans have a bunch of conclusions, like T'Pol's insistence that time travel is scientifically impossible, or Spock's insistence that logic dictates one man's life is not worth risking the ship, that are just bunk...
If Vulcans ever got away from suppressing emotion, it would eliminate what makes them Vulcans. I'd be interesting in finding the exceptions, but the Vulcans that show up on the television show are going to be typically cold and overly sure of their reasoning.
Yet, it makes it hard to even explain the various disagreements among various Vulcan splinter groups, weren't the Vulcans on the show last season sure about their approach on that subject was the only logical one?The laws of physics are not crying in a corner, they are bawling in the forums.
Thanks to half-halfling for the avatar
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2019-09-20, 04:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
Ahh, the Vulcans. Lawful Neutral, the species.
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2019-09-20, 05:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
Vulcans are biologically the same species as Romulans.
And Romulans are technically one of the major species, but they're basically less interesting and more boring looking Klingons, so people tend to forget they exist.The Hindsight Awards, results: See the best movies of 1999!
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2019-09-20, 05:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
I like them more than the Klingon, because the Klingon are too easily defined as "Space Warriors", with or without Honorable added on top of it.
The sort of threat the Romulans can present is varied, and the hoops the main characters have to jump through to realize the threat makes for interesting storytelling. Their powerful foreign intelligence makes them come off as scheming and plotting.
However, the few times we get to see their military leaders (that aren't top-level Politician/Commanders like Tomalak or Sela), we usually see down to earth people who care about the cost of war and the lives of those under their command.
It's just that.. Romulans threat dont make for entertaining movies.
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2019-09-20, 06:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
Yeah, it got to the point where the Klingons were so heavily characterized by the Space Viking warrior cult shtick that it bent credulity that they made it into space, let alone formed a galactic empire that could rival the Federation in any meaningful capacity. They used to be - in TOS - chauvinistic imperials with attitudes of Age of Exploration Europeans and a penchant for fencing, they moved more transparently into being Not-Russians in the TOS movies, and then when Roddenberry made them Federation allies they gradually reduced Klingon into mostly being about the stupid strutting displays and the associated demeanour more than anything.
The Romulans benefit heavily from being under-explored but with enough to imply they've got something actually to them.
Eh, you can't really blame Nemesis sucking on the Romulans. There's just far too much contrivance to get to "Picard's evil clone tries to destroy Earth with a Mary Sue super-ship and hitherto unmentioned space-orcs" that it's difficult to see a Romulan Plot in there and more that it's "we want to do Wrath of Khan again regardless of how little sense that makes".
Then there's Star Trek (2009), which, well, Nero could've been anything really. Whether you liked the movie or not, the villain was barely a part of it and in all likelihood he was made a Romulan mostly because the audience had heard of Romulans at some point of their lives rather than because it had any meaning for his character or its portrayal. Though I'm pretty well convinced that the Romulans would be smart enough not be annihilated by a single super-nova, that's the kind of respect I afford them as a fictional society.
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2019-09-20, 06:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
Yeah, Klingons are just completely ridiculous, as are all these ultra-warrior species that just go on about honour, battle, honourable battles and battles of honour ALL. THE. TIME. There is no way that species wouldn't have battled itself to extinction ages ago unless they breed like bacteria, or ever developed technology because everyone just keeps breaking stuff.
And yes, the strutting and loudmouthing just makes them seem incredibly insecure."Is this 'cause I killed the hippie? Is that even illegal?"
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2019-09-20, 07:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
I actually also like how the Cardassian's initial multidimensionality as a people and antagonist made them interesting, and how they contrast with the Romulans.
The Romulans are big, big proxy users. They use puppets and plots to array their enemies against each others with minimal intervention by themselves.
In a way, the plot of Star Trek VI is a perfect Romulan plot.
By comparison, the Cardassian are active participants of all conflicts they are part of. They will use their fantastic intelligence apparatus as a mean to undermine the opposition and boost their military. The Carsassian seem much more overt imperialists, while the Romulans do it via "sphere of influence". Always claiming everything they see so they can make their opponents ultimately settle on less.
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2019-09-20, 07:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
It seems that despite calling themselves an 'Empire', the majority of their population was in their home system.
Spoiler: Star Trek OnlineAlso, they were actually manipulated into causing the Hobus Supernova directly by the Iconians because in the future, during a War with the Iconians who were pissed at how they were crushed hundreds of thousands of years ago, Empress Sela, a Klingon Admiral and the Play Character go back in time to try and stop the Iconians from surviving their extinction in a last-ditch effort to save the races of the present Galaxy, but they find that they weren't really all that evil back then, just kind of arrogant and aloof. Only for Empress Sela to kill one of their leaders in a fit of rage as their homeworld was being bombarded, causing the others to swear revenge against the Romulan people, which led to said manipulation and the subsequent Supernova, which was actually designed to destroy the Romulan people. The only reason you're able to stop the War is because you grabbed their super fancy encyclopedia in the past and gave it back to them when you got back to the future, since Sela caused it to be lost by shooting the one of them.
Star Trek Online gets WEIRD."And if you don't, the consequences will be dire!"
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2019-09-20, 07:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
Regarding Vulcans, it bothers me how they consider themselves a 'logical' race, yet they still send children into the desert to die and murder each other over marital property disputes. As much as some writers forget that they have emotions under their logic others forget that they have extremely illogical traditions.
Then again, being stuff out of the original series, people have had decades to think up some kind of defense for this, I'm sure.
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2019-09-20, 07:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
There is something to be said about tradition, and Vulcans obviously value traditions very highly.
I mean.. Logic is not the ultimate determiner of everything. You can use logic with two different sets of values and priorities and end up with two different outcome.
Sf Debris explained how four Vulcans, with four different sets of ethics and value would come with four different opinion sets regarding Abortion and the Death Penalty.
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2019-09-20, 08:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
At the very least, the Klingons being able to keep abreast with - or surpass - their Alpha Quadrant rivals technologically feels increasingly absurd as the franchise went on.
Sure, they occasionally raise the topic of non-warrior Klingons contributing to their society in scientific or medical capacities, but when any non-violent related occupations are utterly overshadowed by any bloodthirsty a-hole with a sword it's not a position your best and brightest will consider -- and what's the point of being a doctor in a society that regularly promotes death over the spectre of dishonour? Then there's the fact that you're only drawing on your own species, since despite being an empire which apparently conquered and enslaved many worlds there's never a mention of a non-Klingon participating in any kind of meaningful role in their conquerors civilization... actually that's never addressed from TNG-onward at all to my knowledge.
So, you've got a single species, one that regularly wars with itself, who look down their nose at scientists, engineers, doctors, and merchants as lesser lifeforms -- and they can not just fight but utterly trounce the Federation, a rational science-nerd utopia composed of dozens of species crossing over a hundred worlds devoid of internal strife and with presumably a highly functional economy (of dubious realism, admittedly)... because they fight good, I guess? I'm not sure what wielding objectively poorly-designed swords and wearing obtrusive armour in a world of matter-disintegrating phased particle weapons brings to the art of war in the 23rd to 24th centuries, but whatever.
Then again the phasers have a rather spotty track-record in terms of lethality, so maybe the stupid swords have a use.
Do we accept STO as some kind of canon? Not that I mind really, but I'm still not gonna care about it if you say yes.Last edited by Kitten Champion; 2019-09-20 at 09:01 AM.
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2019-09-20, 09:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
There was an interesting theory floating around that said (and I'm paraphrasing, and may miss some stuff)
Most of the Klingons we see are the warrior aristocracy of a race where that is ceasing to mean anything. As daily life becomes more egalitarian for the Klingons, that your grandfather was a great warrior means a lot less, and so the warrior aristocracy clings HARD to notions of honor and worthiness through combat and other traditional things... because they're slipping away. Worf, being raised away from those traditions, clings particularly fiercely, because they help give him identity; his brother, Kurn, is a bit more pragmatic.
You see some of that in the Klingon episodes of TNG, where Gowron is a compromise candidate to lead the high council, despite being less than ideal from the point of view of the warrior's code... the leadership acknowledges that the ideologically ideal candidate is not necessarily the best candidate for the job, even as they project the idea that he is the ideal candidate.
Now, as to Romulans and Vulcans, I personally think that Vulcans have somewhat crippled themselves. The philosophy of Surak, that of the rejection of emotion in favor of logic, leads to people who don't know how to deal with emotion save through repression; if their repression fails, they go crazy. Since Romulans are, for all intents and purposes, a separate culture of the Vulcan "species" (as much as that concept means in a series with half-Vulcans and half-Klingons), and didn't experience quite that sort of savagery, I think that they learned to get a handle on their powerful emotions, while Vulcans simply didn't... the analogy would be that both start with very violent dogs. The Romulans train theirs so, though it's still violent, they can get them to respond to commands. The Vulcans just lock theirs in a cage so, if it gets out, they have no control over them.The Cranky Gamer
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2019-09-20, 09:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
That WOULD be an interesting angle; a bunch of angry douchebros posturing and shouting in defiance of their encroaching irrelevance, thoroughly deconstructing the idea of a warrior culture.
Klingon #1: "Imma great warrior!"
Klingon #2: "Okay."
Klingon #1: "Seriously, I fight really good!"
Klingon #2: "Yes, thank you."
Klingon #1: "I took seven heads in the battle of-"
Klingon #2: "That's nice."
Klingon #1: "I fought like a-"
Klingon #2: "Yes, yes, yes, now let me fill out the tax return in peace."
A shame it isn't canon."Is this 'cause I killed the hippie? Is that even illegal?"
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2019-09-20, 10:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
Out of curiosity, which Star Trek TV shows have you watched? It'd be pretty hard to have watched TNG, Voyager, or Enterprise and missed that Vulcans had emotions that they merely rejected/suppressed/kept under wraps. That was pretty much the parts of being Vulcan that these shows ever addressed.
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2019-09-20, 10:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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2019-09-20, 10:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
That's a great theory. But I don't think we need to go *all the way* toward completely decadent culture.
The Military-Political cast of the Klingon Empire (the "Houses", great and small) are indeed a specific elite. But they also are the ones who provide massive economic wealth through Conquest of other worlds and culture.
The rest of their society let them have their power trip because they are fed, funded and encouraged in their respective fields it also helps that most commoners are allowed into the Warrior Caste if they want to. As long as someone qualifies as a "Warrior", any political leader is also allowed to Multicast into Scientific field, Spycraft, Medecine , Engineering or what not.
It might be seen as a weird distraction by more traditional warriors, but there's the occasional Scientist-Warrior that proves they gain the edge on the battlefield via these "distraction", and may start a fad among House's to fund scientific development for battlefield advantage.
There is a degree of collectivism on the part of Klingon where "Helping the Empire" is glorious. So if a house comes out with a good tech development, they would probably gain glory by sharing it to the High Council instead of keeping it for themselves.
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2019-09-20, 11:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
It seems sort of like the USMC, where every marine is a rifleman, despite having decidedly non-combat related duties. I remember seeing an 'admin specialist' role in the US Army and its Marine Corp equivalent was 'COMBAT admin specialist' - alas it appears that the relevant MOS titles have been updated so they're not so silly (I think they're 42A and 0111 respectively now).
Edit: It's former MOS 4615 Combat Lithographer and its US army equivalent, 21L Lithographer.Last edited by Brother Oni; 2019-09-24 at 02:33 AM.
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2019-09-20, 12:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
“Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because we actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe”- Marcus Cole
This has become my philosophy!
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2019-09-20, 06:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
Or if you want to get Laconic. Space-Sparta.
All the Kingon's are the all the elite, and all the the boring stuff is done by the subjugated space-Helots
(Ok real Sparta wasn't like that)
While you're expanding you could probably cash in the previous foes resources, combined with a one track mind to beat the next foe who technically has stuff that is a bit better than you have.
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2019-09-20, 07:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?
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2019-09-20, 08:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Are All Vulcans Lack Emotions?