Romulan emotions...

[Tern 0]

Me is guilty of rare posting as well. But before everything -

 

Happy Birthday, Valeris B)

 

You're making a noticeable point. Depending what it is meant by "path" of course, I think that if they both were on the same path, the separation of the race wouldn't happen at all. There was something very significant that lead to a desire to divide the paths, a reason that would not exist if all individuals were thinking the same way and having the same values and unquestionable belief that the way is one and true.

 

Usually it happens that when something is risen to a degree of extremety (be it idea or way of life), its very opposite starts to be advocated and sought. This is because of the need for balance, even in a society and most of all in an individual (or at least those who are able to think for themselves and are not blind followers of that which someone says to be right). I presume that if this balance was refused to those who started to feel a need for passion by the rest of the society who believed logic must prevail, then this people saw that the only way for them is to separate the paths. The inner paths, so to say. On the society level this lead to the Journey.

 

This is just my theory on this. If they stayed "on the same path" such inner differences would lead to social instability, wars, and hardly the two "sub-races" would achieve that which they did otherwise.

[Valeris 2]

Thank you Tern.

 

Now that my internet finally works again, I can say that I agree. With Surak's birth, a new "path" was created. Everyone has to, to be cliche, follow his or her heart. However, enough people agreed with him that it was time for change, and thus a new path for the entire race was created. Rather like, to make a parallel in human history, which I am relatively certain all of us have grown up hearing, Christianity. With Jesus' birth and teachings, an entirely new path was created. Some humans would take it, some would not. Luckily for humans, it was not dramatic enough to cause half of them to take to the stars in search of a new home where they could follow their own religion, but it did change the entire course of humankind and its governments, and still has resonating effects today. And I agree with your comment about balance. Humans did not decide to split off paths and look at the Crusades and even the holy wars going on in the Middle East today. I wonder if Vulcan would have looked like Earth now had the Romulans stayed...

 

Just to let everyone know, I am not trying to force my opinions of Christianity on you, just using it as a parallel. I know it is a delicate subject to some people. I use it because I am a Christian and thus know a lot about it.

[Tern 0]

I am not sure what exactly you mean by Surak's "new path"? Do you mean that he was the founder of the philosophy of "emotional control" that gained popularity among Vulcans and transformed them into what they are now and so brought whole new beginning to the race? Thinking on this, it has a point too that must be mentioned. Otherwise I was rather thinking of S'task (Surak's apprentice) who later challenged Surak's philosophy and who brought the idea to separate the race. But surely both Surak and S'task served their nation its best purpose, each being a catalyst of a new period of race's development during their time.

 

It is interesting to think on, perhaps the whole course of human history would be different if religious wars were avoided. I am almost sure Vulcan would have gone through similar periods as ours if the differences escalated more with time and all were forced to stay on a single planet.

[Spockstellaiter 0]

Fascinating

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O/

[ddillard 2]

Myself I can see both sides of the coin, and also see why it was deemed necessary for the two groups to split apart.

 

The Vulcan society had been ravaged by wars and terrible violence brought on by their own passionate emotions. One solution was to turn to logic to drive their decisions and actions rather than their emotion. The Vulcans chose to accept this solution and took it to it's extreme end of learning to suppress them in order to keep them under control. I can understand this point of view as with their demanding that their lives be ruled by logic it does cause them to be more analytical when making decisions and less likely to make a rash decision based off the heat of the moment. As we all know allowing our emotions to rule us rather than us ruling them can be very painful for us as well as others and can lead us to be very destructive. On the other hand I can also see where suppressing emotions to the extreme that is demonstrated by "modern" Vulcan society can cause them to miss an important aspect to be considered when making any decision and that is the "human element" and may not be able to clearly see the response that it will evoke in other more emotional races.

 

On the other hand the in chose to embrace their emotions and to live their live on that path. Embracing ones emotions is a good thing, but my theory is that in the early Romulan culture there was probably a lot of struggle for power that made their culture very unstable, by embracing the emotions and allowing them to rule their decisions it probably led to a very violent society in which the faction that held the most power would have used fear to rule, as we see to some extent with the "current" government, and there was probably a very high crime rate. I believe that at some point in Romulan history they began to see that allowing their emotions to rule them was self destructive to their society and chose to work towards controlling them. They did not go to the Vulcan extreme of attempting to suppress them completely but worked hard at learning to control them and to allow their "logic" to be a little more prevalent in their decision making, but again did not go to the extreme that Vulcans did. I believe that they found a happy median that worked for them, but it did on the flip side cause them to turn their emotions on other races in the means of conquest and a thirst for power as an entire race rather than seeking power for each individual person. Granted I believe that there is still much desire among them to gain personal power but they, control those urges until they see an opportunity arise that will allow them to gain that power without severely damaging the race as a whole.

 

Most of this is speculation on my part but it does seem plausible to me. I will stop rambling on now. lol.