Subj : Re: Why do Romulans have ridges? To : rec.arts.sf.tv,rec.arts.startrek.current,alt.tv.star-trek.enterprise,alt.tv.star-trek.next-gen,alt.tv.star-trek.ds9 From : Mercury Date : Mon Oct 03 2005 01:00:30 From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.ds9 wrote in message news:1128202806.955133.136280@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > 2000 years ago, the Romulans left Vulcan. They thought Surak's "no > emotion; pure logic" preaching was nuts, so they left Vulcan & carried > the warring culture with them. Fast-forward to the "present" and we > see Kirk & Picard & Sisko fighting against or allying with those Vulcan > descendents, but calling themselves Romulans. Same species... > different names. > > So why the ridges? 2000 years is NOT a long enough time to evolve a > whole new species. > > troy > Some Vulcans have ridges. Most do not. It's a natural, probably regional variation, like skin color is among humans. The Vulcans that left Vulcan were disproportionately of the ridged variety, but not all. So now most Romulans have ridges, but some do not. This explains why the Romulans in TOS were ridge-less (pure chance that those were the ones Kirk managed to encounter), why Spock passes for Romulan (though they are a minority, there are still plenty of ridge-less Romulans), and why we have seen ridged Vulcans (I'm sure we have, but I'd be hard-pressed to name names right now). .