The Romulan brow

steamwright

The Klingon forehead has been well discussed, to the point of TPTB deciding they needed a canonical explanation for the variance between smooth and wrinkled. By comparison, I've not heard a canonical explanation for the variances in the Romulan brow, smooth and (for a lack of a better word) pronounced.

First, is there a canonical explanation, and does it cover why Nero and Co. had smooth foreheads (they were from the Prime Timeline)?

If there is no canonical explanation, what do you suggest one should be?

For me, I see the pronounced brow as a possible social trend. In our real world, I recently saw a video report stating how a significant number of Koreans were opting for cosmetic surgery to their eyelids to alter them from the smooth Asian look to folded, or "double-eyelid" look, which I've heard referred to as a Caucasian look. I can imagine a Trek explanation noting a Romulan societal trend to use cosmetic surgery to enlarge their brows, possibly either as a mark of beauty to the Romulan way of thinking, a mark of respect to some previous Romulan who may have had a prominent brow, or as a means of distinguishing themselves from Vulcans. By the time of Nero, that fashion was passing. With such an explanation, it could allow for the apparent discrepancy of prominent-browed Romulans in Enterprise in the same culture as smoothed-browed Romulans in TOS, since the trend might not be universal, or might have cycles of social interest.

warmaker001b

From what I've seen of the movies and TV shows, I saw no explanation for the differences. Just chalk it up to different people working on Star Trek over the years doing something different. FYI, it went like this:

TOS - Smooth
TOS movies - Smooth
TNG/VOY/DS9 era shows - Pronounced
TNG movies - Pronounced
JJ Trek - Smooth

rattler2

My personal headcanon is that its more of a regional thing. Depending on where your from determines how pronounced the brow is. Kinda like how human faces differ depending on ethnic origins.

grandnaguszek1

It could be a trait that is recessive in some and dominant in others.

antonine3258

Regional variation, some genetic drift - fortunately, most Romulans wore helmets in TOS, so it's less of a problem than the Klingon forehead one (the ridged ones just had helmets on! Nothing to see here citizen)

markhawkman

rattler2 wrote: »

My personal headcanon is that its more of a regional thing. Depending on where your from determines how pronounced the brow is. Kinda like how human faces differ depending on ethnic origins.

yeah, genetic drift made that trait more common on Romulans than Vulcans over the years. But since we lack an in-universe explanation... we don't know if maybe some Vulcans have it too.

marcusdkane

The Mintakens were described as proto-Vulcans, and they had the pronounced forehead. IMHO, that makes that the standard for the species, and the smooth headed an alternate group. I'm wondering if the Vulcan-Romulan schism wasn't solely along ideological lines, but also a certain aspect of racial politics as well (possibly with some of the smooth-headed Vulcans-of-the-day siding with those who marched beneath the raptor's wing and choosing to leave as part of the exodus) in what was essentially a group leaving to remain true to their origins and nature, rather than embracing the new manifesto. Of course, over time, Romulan society evolved from those High Vulcan concepts, but I belive that that would explain canonically why there were smooth headed Romulans seen in ToS, where Enterprise Romulans were of the ridged TNG variety (No different to watching an Icelandic TV program, or a Kenyan TV program... Both show Humans, but both notably different from the other...) That's my theory at least... :cool:

(Also, the ToS Romulan helmets do feature a ridge... )

iconians

I always figured it was environmental conditions on Romulus that led to the Romulan brow, in a similar way the Remans evolved on Remus.

lordinsane

warmaker001b wrote: »

From what I've seen of the movies and TV shows, I saw no explanation for the differences. Just chalk it up to different people working on Star Trek over the years doing something different. FYI, it went like this:

TOS - Smooth
TOS movies - Smooth
TNG/VOY/DS9 era shows - Pronounced
TNG movies - Pronounced
JJ Trek - Smooth

It is interesting thing is that thanks to the overlap of the later TOS movies and TNG, the two smooth Romulan appearances in the TOS movies were alongside pronounced appearances in TNG. If one looks for an in-universe answer, that does seem to suggest a cultural trend.

jake477

My guess is as a Vulcan race, the early Romulans had them all along much like ethnic groups have different features from Earth however they were seen as quick tempered and warlike compared to other Vulcans, basically the age old battle between the hawks and doves of society. For example, most western societies now are not very "tough or rigid" as many are in the far east like North Korea or China. They never evolved anything but it was just another group of people who called themselves Vulcan. Both share a common ancestry like people from Africa and Canada sharing the same genes dating back to the early proto humans. The Romulans got tired of the logic and wanted another path so they left aka Sundering. The difference in language could be argued the same for countries of today.

To hit my point home, imagine if the USA got sick and tired of the rest of the world and decided to move to a new one because Europe was getting too overbearing and intrusive, so everyone packed their bags, got on ships and left. Still human deep down but are Americans. Just like Brits are British.

lordrezeon

Well I haven't heard any canon reasons for why the Romulan's suddenly gained forehead ridges by TNG. From a practical production standpoint it was probably just to better differentiate them from Vulcans.

As for Nero and his time traveling bunch, I've seen a batch of production photos where they were doing makeup tests comparing makeup with ridges to those without. The shaved head and tattoos seems to be something they were really insistent on, and the ridges without hair just looked ridiculous.

gulberat

I always wondered if the brow ridges were associated with more "northern" or cooler climes on Vulcan. I have noticed that the Romulan build also tends to be shorter and stockier, which is favorable in a cooler climate. I wonder if the Romulans manipulated their own genome to bring out cooler weather adaptations, and in doing so made the forehead ridges the most common phenotype on their world.

kojirohellfire

I'm just going with the regional drift theory. Some Romulans have them, some don't. It just depends on where you're from.

yreodred

I once read a theory that Vulcans once had that the romulan brow too, but by developing their telepatic abilities the lost them. for me that doesn't make much sense, since such a evolutionary chage would need more than a few hundred years.

I think it's just a regional thing and that some vulcans may have a "romulan" brow too.

jonsills

It may also be associated with the changes in Romulan culture, from the brief glimpses we saw in TOS to the first appearance of Romulans in TNG. It's possible that the ridged forehead is associated with a "higher class" of Romulans, if you will, a more aristocratic caste (who would carefully preserve the genes for the ridges by marrying only others of their caste). As Romulan culture became more, well, underhanded, the aristocracy displaced the more common folk among Romulan leadership, and we began to see primarily (or even only) ridged Romulans.

(I swiped elements of this from John M. Ford; in The Final Reflection he posited that the reason no one from the Federation had seen a ridgehead Klingon was because they would create "fusions", combining Klingon DNA with that of the "lesser" neighboring races. This, they reasoned, would give them insight into how their potential opponents thought. Presumably, until this fusion system was abandoned, Romulans would have thought that Klingons had pointed ears... Fusion Klingons were regarded as lower-caste, but could earn their way into leadership positions, as the protagonist of the novel did - climbing from a mere Lineless One, often used as a piece in klin zha kinta (the Game with the Living Pieces), through the ranks of the Imperial Fleet, until attaining the rank of Thought-Admiral, one of those directing Fleet strategy.)

artan42

The most likely explanation is it's simply a ethnographic difference, maybe they were from the sunniest parts of Vulcan and evolved a built in sunshade and they were the race of Vulcans that were most likely to revolt against the rest.

jorantomalak

jonsills wrote: »

It may also be associated with the changes in Romulan culture, from the brief glimpses we saw in TOS to the first appearance of Romulans in TNG. It's possible that the ridged forehead is associated with a "higher class" of Romulans, if you will, a more aristocratic caste (who would carefully preserve the genes for the ridges by marrying only others of their caste). As Romulan culture became more, well, underhanded, the aristocracy displaced the more common folk among Romulan leadership, and we began to see primarily (or even only) ridged Romulans.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this post , if you take for a second to think of what it is to be romulan how their society is structured and this theory fits perfectly.

You have a xenophobic , aristocratic , caste ruled race who has a very high impression of themselves and what it means to be a romulan smooth heads would be looked down on as vulcan like.

So ridged would be something that would distinguish romulans from vulcans thus by as you explained the nobility and highers castes only marry those whom have head ridges.

and those without the ridges would be of a lower caste therefore not commonly seen in latter years aka TNG era .

by TOS era id expect that smooth head roms were starting to be phased out in the social aristocricy and culutural climate or at the very least almost completley phased out except for a few notables.

yreodred

jorantomalak wrote: »

I think you hit the nail on the head with this post , if you take for a second to think of what it is to be romulan how their society is structured and this theory fits perfectly.

You have a xenophobic , aristocratic , caste ruled race who has a very high impression of themselves and what it means to be a romulan smooth heads would be looked down on as vulcan like.

So ridged would be something that would distinguish romulans from vulcans thus by as you explained the nobility and highers castes only marry those whom have head ridges.

and those without the ridges would be of a lower caste therefore not commonly seen in latter years aka TNG era .

by TOS era id expect that smooth head roms were starting to be phased out in the social aristocricy and culutural climate or at the very least almost completley phased out except for a few notables.

Makes sense.

In ENT, Episode 4x14 "The Aenar" romulans had ridged haeds.
My explaination is, that smooth headed Romulans did climb the romulan society and had to prove themselves over and over again and become so tough because of that.

mirrorchaos

iconians wrote: »

I always figured it was environmental conditions on Romulus that led to the Romulan brow, in a similar way the Remans evolved on Remus.

i dont see how, the vulcan part of them evolved inner eyelids that protect from heavy sunlight, especially reflecting off sand in heat waves. that would of carried to the romulan half as romulans still live on a world covered in sunlight, albiet a bit less due to the more temperate nature of Romulus. with genetics it should take a very long time to lose those eye lids, but if the eye brows developed to protect romulan eyes from the stars light.. it doesnt make that much sense as the sunlight is no where near as strong as it is on vulcan.

there must be a reason these vulcans developed ridges. perhaps romulan scientists introduced a genetic alteration in every romulan female that coded her offspring to produce strong ridges to proudly show there is a difference with the romulan people. ovbiously genetics the way they are and that darwinism going on, these things dont walys take and you get romulans that end up with no ridges.

pure speculation but thats all i got.

greatbriton

jonsills wrote: »

It may also be associated with the changes in Romulan culture, from the brief glimpses we saw in TOS to the first appearance of Romulans in TNG. It's possible that the ridged forehead is associated with a "higher class" of Romulans, if you will, a more aristocratic caste (who would carefully preserve the genes for the ridges by marrying only others of their caste). As Romulan culture became more, well, underhanded, the aristocracy displaced the more common folk among Romulan leadership, and we began to see primarily (or even only) ridged Romulans.

That is by-and-large also my general 'head canon' of the disparity. I generally use this to also explain the differences in aesthetics between ENT's depicted (i.e. 'modern') Romulan civilisation in 2150s, to their more 'decadent' portrayal in TOS/2260s, before turning back to a more utilitarianistic society seen in the TNG era (and perhaps earlier, as per VGR's "Eye of the Needle"). It is conceivable that this possibly short-lived 'cultural revolution' is what sparked a crackdown on the populace, and the expansion of Tal Shiar's role as the Empire's de facto Thought Police.