Clip of said moment:
Also… the skingasm that Data gets from the Borg Queen gives new meaning to the term “arm porn”.
Well, this shows my naive ignorance – what is the old meaning of “arm porn”?
Oh. Is that all? I was expecting something NFSW!
Thanks.
I finished listening to this podcast today, and near the end the Crew are talking about this lovely lady from Star Trek: Insurrection.
This actress Donna Murphy went to my high school, and she grew up in Topsfield, Massachusetts. She was too many grades ahead of me for me to know her. But one of my best friends was in her high school class. He says she was pretty damn attractive in high school too.
EDIT: (Added this quote from IMDB)
[i]On working in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998): “I hadn’t seen much of Star Trek, so this really was like stepping into a whole new universe. But I feel a sense of honor and responsibility being in it, because I know that the fans of the series and films have such affection for and devotion to all the cast members, and particularly Picard. So I take my seduction of him very seriously.” (1998)[/i]
First mentioned in Diane Duane’s Spock’s World, I believe… a very good read.
Has anybody retconned why the Romulans afterwards developed forehead ridges? Or is it like the Klingons… “We don’t speak of it”?
And Chuck, several times you’ve disparaged the lack of continuity in Star Trek Novels as opposed to Star Wars novels. I beg to differ… did you read Splinter of the Mind’s Eye?, written before it was revealed Luke and Leia were siblings? Ewwww! Plus lots of novels written before the Prequels (Like The Mandalorian Armor, with Boba Fett’s backstory) have continuity problems with Episodes I, II and III.
There are plenty of specific examples of continuity issues in both franchises. But on the whole, the Star Wars universe tends to hold together more tightly overall.
Though I’m not sure I’d call that fact disparaging. Each system actually has its benefits. Trek saw a much more wide range of stories early on, from a wider variety of sources. Star Wars, OTOH, held together a little tighter over the years.
Honestly, I’m a big fan of both.
There was a Ferengi Borg in Peter David’s novel Vendetta. As they have said, novels aren’t canon in Star Trek (with a couple exceptions), but I tend to put his stuff in my personal canon. I like the way he works to tie things together across series
Examples
- Trelane was an immature member of the Q Continuum
- The Doomsday Machine was a prototype of a weapon to fight the Borg, but was launched unmanned.
Hrm. The Vulcan/Romulan ancestory was pretty much understood from way back when, but my google-fu shows that it wasn’t made explicit in TOS (although, it may just have been considered obvious.)
It is ret-canon that the majority of Romulans have the crap-on-their-forehead, while a minority are indistinguishable from Vulcans. (One of the stupider changes Hollywood has made to an established franchise.)
Trying to make a snarky remark but can not think of one worthy of your comment.
Those of us who prefer to look at sexy men made a thread to rival the gutter thread. As time went on the content merged into one big gutter.
I have read many a ST book in my time but I could not quote where i get my information.
Yeah, I went looking for the Arm Porn thread and couldn’t find it (stupid vBulletin search…) But the gutter is certainly equal-opportunity these days.
And the goggles, they do nothing.
I figured the obvious similarities between Vulcans and Romulans were partially explained by the TOS episode where the crew finds the last surviving consciousnesses from an alien race preserved in a few glowing orbs. One of them (Sargon, IIRC) refers to the crew as their children. Kirk replies that he couldn’t mean humans because we clearly evolved on Earth, but Spock mentions how that would explain some of Vulcan history. So maybe the orbites were the ancestors of both Romulans and Vulcans…
Although, this now contradicts the TNG episode where multiple species (Humans, Romulans, Vulcans, Klingons, Cardassians etc) all have genetic sequences preserved in their DNA that combine into a tricorder program to produce a hologram explaining that the humanoid bauplan was seeded into the DNA of different planets’ fauna by the first humanoid species in the galaxy (which looks suspiciously like the founders 
).
Then again, now that I think about it, I can’t remember if the Vulcans were actually involved independently of the Romulans. If not the two episodes could still be compatible…
The TOS isn’t clear on Romulan origin.
As for Diane, Actually She started with my enemy, my ally. and proceeded that Rihannsu arc through 5 books published between 1985 and 2006. ( Spock’s world was like 1987 and refranced these works)
These novels tell that the romulans left vulcan about 1500-2000 years prior to TOS. They ARE vulcans ( biologicaly) however 1500 years of evolution on a different planet has changed them slightly. ( not the ridges thing… more on that later)
Following these novels being printed FASA’s officialy licensed Trek game and source material accepted this as Star trek fact.
every RPG source ever officialy licensed has said that Romulans are vulcans that left vulcan and formed their own society. They get this information from the official “Bible” that is given to them by paramount. ( referance Steven Long, former writer for both Decipher and Last unicorn games) It’s vauge… but it says that much. Just that they are an offshoot of vulcans and left vulcan “many hundreds of years prior to TOS”
But all of this is moot because Romulans comeing from vulcan IS cannon. In Unification TOS the Romulan guy and Spock speak of “RE-unification”. If they had never been unified… they couldn’t very well be Re-unified.
In Star trek Enterprise “Kir’Shara” V’Las asks Talok what will happen now that their operation has failed; Talok replies, “The reunification of our people is only a matter of time.”
Same goes for the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Awakening” includes a line from the long-deceased Surak referring to the enemies of logic in his time as “those who marched beneath the raptor’s wing”; this would appear to be a reference to the symbol of the Romulan Empire.) The commentary from the episodes states that this is indeed an obvious reference to the romulans.
as for the Ridges. In TOS Romulans looked Identical to Vulcans. In TNG’s first season the Romulans got the ridges. Then during the summer they show Star Trek 5: Romulan with no ridges. Then a few years of TNG and they have ridges. Then a year later Star trek 6 shows the Romulan ambasador with no ridges. ( while unification airs a few weeks before st:6 with romulans haveing the ridges). Just a stupid costume mistake. In cannon I guess some have them… and some don’t. Maybe they had a virus!!!
There’s a set of Diane Duane Star Trek novels that really delves into Romulan history and origin. And she even gives the Romulan’s their own name for themselves “Rihannsu” (Romulan being the Federation bastardization of their race’s name.)
I agree with you Chuck, that Star Trek “canon” is kinda all over the place.
But Diane Duane has a nice take on the Romulans.
Here’s the deal:
(And this is not completely consistent with Enterprise Vulcan stuff or with Nemesis Romulan stuff).
(and this is from memory, so I may get some things wrong).
In the days of Surak (the leader of the Vulcan peace movement), Surak had a brother named S’Harien. S’harien was a master sword maker.
S’Harien opposed the Surak peace movement of Surak, and I forget the details, but out of some stubborn honor thing, S’Harien would not allow his people to war with Surak, and S’harien and his people instead built many big space vessels and they left Vulcan to find another place to call home. There were maybe 12 ships, with 1000s of Vulcans on each. And these ships did NOT have FTL drives. They were intended as generation ships—essentially it would take generations (they knew) to get to a suitable planet.
So, the since all those opposed to peace left Vulcan, the remaining Surak followers easily thrived and became the peaceful, logical, emotion-repressing Vulcans that we know “today”.
Meanwhile, the S’harien colony ships travel through space, looking for a home. Many ships were lost. But S’herien’s ship made it to the planet now known as Romulus (Rihan) (and Remus (C’Hiran)). But remember now, the ship DID NOT have FTL drives. So, just like the final five in BSG, relativistic time meant that thousands of years past on Vulcan, while much fewer years past aboard S’Harien ships. As a result, S’Harien’s people (who we now know as Rihannsu (Romulans)) have a much more primitive sensibility than Vulcans—and you could even retcon in that they could look physically a little different (foreheads) because Vulcans are literally more evolved than Romulans.
Anyway, here’s are the Diane Duane novels to read to get to know Romulans:
Spock’s World (not really part of the series, but fits into it.)
- My Enemy, My Ally
- The Romulan Way
- Sword Hunt
- Honor Blade (Oct 2000) (ends on a cliff hanger “To Be Continued”)
And then, thankfully, Diane Duane finally finishes the series years later in 2006 with
- The Empty Chair
And in Jan 2007, all 5 novels were collected together in one volume entitled: The Bloodwing Voyages
I highly recommend.
LOL! GWC Hive Mind at work again. I was busy writing my post about the Diane Duane Rihannsu novels at the same time your were posting that.
Cool.
LOL ! I bet if we had a super huge frak party we would all find out that we had all been to the same used bookstore at some point!
Well, at the risk of showing my age, I must reveal: I bought each of those books brand new the year each was published.:o