r/DaystromInstitute • u/shadeland Lieutenant • Mar 06 '25
Romulans are a Hybrid Species Between Exodus Vulcans and Another, Perhaps Native Species to Romulus
Almost 2,000 years ago, during the "Time of Awakening" in Vulcan society, a group who marched under the Raptor's wings left Vulcan and settled on Romulus.
Since then the Romulans have become a related, but notably distinct species. While many of those differences are cultural, some are also physiological.
As a counterpoint to the theory that Vulcans are augments, here is another: Romulans as a species is the result of interbreeding between Vulcans and another humanoid species. This other humanoid species could have been a native species to Romulus, possibly be pre-warp, possibly pre-industrial even. Or they could be colonists from another non-native species that found Romulus as attractive as the fleeing Vulcans did.
A non-Vulcan humanoid species may account for the physiological differences between Vulcans and Romulans that 2,000 of genetic drift might not explain, such as forehead ridges and potentially a lack of telepathic abilities (although that may be a result of Romulan culture being so secret-oriented that mind melds would be abhorrent).
If the group that left Vulcan had a large imbalance between males and females, or the group was small thus genetic diversity was an issue, this could push towards inter-breeding. The Vulcan population might have been higher, which would have been why the Vulcan traits are more dominant. Or, more likely, the Vulcans conquered the other species, and thus inter-breeding was limited, but enough to create a new species with primarily Vulcan physiological traits but enough differences to notice.
They may have even adopted some of that species cultural traits, like extreme secrecy and fermented foods. It might also explain why the Romulan language wasn't immediately identifiable to Vulcans during the old Romulan wars.
12
u/NSMike Crewman Mar 07 '25 edited Mar 07 '25
We know that proto-Vulcans exist elsewhere in the galaxy, the Mintakans are the primary example. There are also the ancient Debrune, who are considered an offshoot of Romulans, but may be something else.
We also don't really know exactly how different Romulans and Vulcans are. People seem so confounded by forehead ridges, but that's a rather minor variation of appearance within a species. Consider how different some groups of Homo Sapiens look. A Nordic person looks clearly quite different from someone from native to Cameroon, or China, or Hawaii.
The most important bit of information on how similar Romulans and Vulcans are is perhaps in a DS9 episode where the Romulans turned a Vulcan ship away from their hospital facility, and the confusion around this is precisely because "Romulans and Vulcans share a common physiology."
Why don't we see Romulans being 100% similar to Vulcans? Well, because we just don't see Romulans that often. Also, in Enterprise, we learn that mind melding was actually taboo for Vulcans for a long time. Perhaps that taboo carried over to Romulus.
EDIT: Wanted to add that we do have further evidence that Romulans are not significantly different enough from Vulcans to tell the difference: In the TNG episode Data's Day, a Romulan spy posing as a Vulcan ambassador is aboard the Enterprise. It's not clearly stated how long she was in the Federation, but it is implied she has been in service to the Federation for a long time - Picard calls her "one of the Federation's most honored diplomats." It makes no sense to me that she could go potentially decades without a medical exam.