So there I was, over the New Years weekend (is that what we’re calling it right now – let’s run with it) and alternating spending time writing a new novel and watching all the Star Trek: TOS movies in order. Just bing, bang, boom. There goes the Motion Picture (now with more slow pans) and hey look it’s Khan (Spoiler Alert: The Genesis Device contained zero Phil Collins) and now we’re Searchin’ for some Spock and suddenly it hit me:
The Vulcans are full of shit.
They stand around the talk about how they value logic above all else. How they want to purge emotions because those are lesser things. Jokes aren’t cool to Vulcans, they don’t get them, they aren’t logical. Except it’s all a ruse.
For a race that shuns everything not logical they sure do have a whole lot of mysticism and ceremony, don’t they? Where is the logic in the guy who hits the gong every time the High Priestess (and yes that is her credited role there guys) utters some Vulcan hoopty-doo? Why are there women whose only job is it to hold their arms at the right levels and increase symbology?
Is it logical that everything we see of Vulcan in these films is basically rocky crags of religion and prayers and mystic proclamations? How do Vulcans synergize these two halves of themselves? I’ve never heard a Vulcan discuss the unfortunate religious base on the planet. They don’t seem to even notice it.
I’ve got a theory as to why.
The entire “We love logic most” is a joke. It started back when they first found humans. “Hey,” they thought, “let’s see how long they buy this act.” and well – we bought it. We bought it so hard they had to keep it up or be revealed as the biggest jerks in the galaxy.
Except then we go off into the galaxy and we meet Klingons and Romulans and everyone else and they all treat humans like backwards fools. That’s because they’re in on it. They keep waiting for humanity to get wise, but no, we are in so deep we can’t even see the punch line from where we are.
The only other reason I can think of in here is that the Vulcans truly think this much pomp and circumstance and religion is 100% logical. Which, hey nothing against religion here, but it doesn’t fit pure logic. It just doesn’t. And the mental leaps it would take to do so would put Kirk Cameron in line to be the first Vulcan.
So either the Vulcans are so deeply flawed that think useless ceremony is logical but jokes aren’t or they’re the biggest jerks this side of V’Ger. You decide. I’ll be over here, mind-melding with a beer.
Eisner & Harvey award winning editor, writer & tired person. Co-Writer of AMELIA COLE, ARTFUL DAGGERS and ACTION CATS. Editor of Jamal Igle's MOLLY DANGER. Writer of lots of other comics, novels & essays.
