Talk: Ni'Var

Vulcan in Lethe[]

Is it really safe to say that planet from which Sarek takes off in Lethe is Vulcan? I don't think there's anything to establish that, the sky, while not unprecedented, looks atypical for Vulcan, and this very episode actually shows another Vulcan world that looks pretty much indistinguishable from Vulcan. -- Capricorn (talk) 17:39, October 23, 2017 (UTC)

Having rewatched the episode, I've noticed there's no on-screen evidence to prove whether the teaser footage you refer to or the flashback graduation planet is the planet Vulcan or a Vulcan colony. So, I then considered what the production personnel have to say about this. As far as I can see so far, the closest we have is this twitter post naming Vulcan as the graduation planet: [1] However, I have no idea if Anthony Oliviera actually worked on the episode or was just an observant bystander, so I'm looking further into what the production staff have to say about this issue and will let you know. --Defiant (talk) 03:21, October 24, 2017 (UTC)

Capricorn, what elements of the other planet make you think it could be Vulcan? Here is an image of the planet and its moon. [2] Personally, I am not seeing it. It looks a larger version of our moon or Mercury to me. I just checked the Star Trek: Star Charts (pp. 22, 58). which is being used as a source for this series. In the book, the inner planet T'Khut was of the same class as Mercury, so the artist or artists might have been instructed to make a Mercury-like planet.--Memphis77 (talk) 03:50, October 24, 2017 (UTC)

I have it on good authority (now) that the graduation flashbacks are intended to be on the planet Vulcan. --Defiant (talk) 22:12, October 24, 2017 (UTC)

I initially misinterpreted the graduation site as the seventh moon of Eridani D (took me three views to figure out that that wasn't true), hence my talk about another Vulcan world in my initial comment. Good to hear that there's cause for establishing it as being on Vulcan. However, what about the scene in which Sarek sets off? -- Capricorn (talk) 16:20, October 25, 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I've confirmed that's meant to be Vulcan too --Defiant (talk) 23:33, October 25, 2017 (UTC)

Ah, very cool. I don't suppose you could integrate this confirmation in the article? -- Capricorn (talk) 16:33, October 26, 2017 (UTC)

How do you propose we do that (aside from, of course, listing "Lethe" in the "appearances" list)? --Defiant (talk) 21:36, October 26, 2017 (UTC)

When you said you've confirmed things, I was assuming you had some kind of citable source. Or at least "x confirmed this in a mail" or something. Anything to make clear within the article that this isn't just the unexplained assertion of whoever added the info. -- Capricorn (talk) 17:32, October 30, 2017 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to publicly disclose my sources, as this information comes from private messaging. --Defiant (talk) 19:39, October 30, 2017 (UTC)

Seriously, what other planet should this be? Let's try not to be MA/de here... --Jörg (talk) 19:44, October 30, 2017 (UTC)

A Vulcan colony world, like for example one with moons ;). But seriously, Defiant, I appreciate your position, but is there absolutely no way around this? Information needs some kind of source... even stating that it was confirmed by a production member who wishes to remain anonymous, a la this, seems infinitely preferable. Or maybe you could ask Tom for advice, I'm sure he's come upon this kind of situation before. -- Capricorn (talk) 23:40, October 30, 2017 (UTC)

This interview with Jason Zimmerman, the series' visual effects supervisor, confirms the planet seen in "Lethe" was Vulcan. [3] Kennelly (talk) 22:22, March 28, 2018 (UTC)

Native species[]

Would the species Debrune originate from Vulcan since they are a off shoot race of the Romulans.(Hunter R. Gray (talk) 03:55, November 12, 2018 (UTC))

Is there any proof anything called a Debrune ever even walked the planet? Or that the Debrune belong to a species other then the Vulcans or Romulans? -- Capricorn (talk) 10:49, November 12, 2018 (UTC)

In TNG Gambit part 1 there is a throwaway line that says they are an offshoot race of the romulans and they had some outpost in the 4th century. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hunter R. Gray (talk • contribs).

Yes, the race thing is true I guess. There's still the other point though. -- Capricorn (talk) 12:59, November 18, 2018 (UTC)

If I remember correctly I thought they said it was an offshoot race of the romulans. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hunter R. Gray (talk • contribs).

Wrong Quadrant[]

Canonically, Vulcan is in the 40 Eridani system and in the Beta Quadrant, the map in Discovery is a mistake and shows real life stars in the wrong position.

The map that appears in Star Trek: Picard (seen in the trailer) fixes this mistake. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by LordQutus (talk • contribs).

Vulcan being in the 40 Eridani system was never canonically established, only in supplementary sources. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 02:22, August 20, 2019 (UTC)

And to boot, the trailer isn't canonical either. -- sulfur (talk) 02:41, August 20, 2019 (UTC)

Syrranite government[]

Would it be appropriate to list Vulcan's affiliation as "Syrrannite" post-Vulcan Reformation? The Syrranites weren't a government, technically, but we know that at the end of "Kir'Shara" the High Command was disbanded and T'Pau became the new head of state. - Mitchz95 (talk) 02:00, January 23, 2020 (UTC)

I don't think so. Putting aside the fact that the High command was apparently re-established at some point, and whatever we're supposed to make of the Confederacy of Surak, there's also the fact that just because a Syrrannite was a crucial figure in a period of reform doesn't mean the planet then officially belongs to that sect. Oh, and also I don't think T'Pau was ever said to be head honcho either. -- Capricorn (talk) 04:18, January 26, 2020 (UTC)

Higher Gravity Canon Source?[]

I've searched the 3 episodes used as sources in the paragraph, and neither of them mention Vulcan having higher gravity than earth. Furthermore, I don't recall any characters feeling unconformable because of the gravity on the planet in any episode/movie where Vulcan shows up. So, what is up with that? --Tuskin38 (talk) 16:49, March 2, 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Considering how much the heat and atmosphere was mentioned in "Amok Time", a higher gravity alone would have been a bigger factor in Kirk's failings battling Spock. My only guess is that someone attributed the superior Vulcan strength to higher gravity or something. --Alan (talk) 17:01, March 2, 2020 (UTC)

This obviously does not constitute a canon reference in itself, but just to clarify, the "someone" in question was Gene Roddenberry. As quoted in The Making Of Star Trek, pp. 223-224:

I FRANKLY NEVER EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT SPOCK'S BACKGROUND WHEN I FIRST CREATED THE CHARACTER. ALL I WANTED AT FIRST WAS POINTED EARS AND A FAINTLY SATANIC LOOK. ONLY AFTER THE SERIES WAS WELL UNDER WAY DID I REALIZE THAT WE WOULD NECESSARILY HAVE TO TALK ABOUT HIS HOME PLANET. AT THAT POINT I BEGAN TO WORK BACKWARDS IN AN ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY WHAT I HAD CREATED. I DECIDED THAT BECAUSE HE HAD LARGE EARS, ONE OF THE POSSIBLE REASONS FOR THIS IS AN ATMOSPHERE THAT IS THINNER THAN EARTH'S. HAVING ESTABLISHED CERTAIN SUPERHUMAN CHARACTERISTICS, I HAD TO WORK BACKWARDS ON THAT, TOO. I DECIDED THE REASON FOR HIS GREATER STRENGTH IS THAT HIS PLANET WOULD HAVE TO BE SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN EARTH, WITH A GREATER GRAVITY, THUS REQUIRING GREATER STRENGTH.

--Side Rat (talk) 19:06, March 6, 2020 (UTC)

Rename article[]

Per MA:POV, we're supposed to write articles as though they were written at the end of time (hence the use of past tense). This being the case, would it not be more proper to use the "latest" name of the planet, Ni'Var? --Seaswimmer56 (talk) 16:14, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

The rename would be to "Ni'Var (planet)"... as there's already a ship of the same name. The shift would also require that ship to be renamed to "Ni'Var (ship)".

Going on the assumption that we do rename this, I would suggest that we LEAVE all of the prior references to "Vulcan" as... "Vulcan", because that is the name of the planet in that era. -- Sulfur (talk) 17:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I would also suggest having a redirect for 'Vulcan (planet)' to lead to the newly renamed page. But that's probably common sense.Tuskin38 (talk) 17:48, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I was trying to imply that in my prior suggestion of leaving the pre-31st century references pointing to the planet as "Vulcan". -- Sulfur (talk) 17:58, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Kind of like how "Ni'Var (planet)" already redirects to "Vulcan (planet)"? So many keen minds around here...–Gvsualan (talk) 18:38, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, we should proceed as suggested by Seaswimmer and Sulfur. 31dot (talk) 09:46, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that the planet is/will be more prominent than the ship, and can have the base title. Since we'll need at least a few "Ni'Var something" pages, it will be easier to have the planet without a disambiguation. - Archduk3 15:01, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Support.Memphis77 (talk) 18:03, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I acknowledge that according to the site’s POV policy, this page should be moved. However, this might be a case in which the principle of least surprise and similar real-world considerations should take precedence. As of today, we have one episode referring to the planet as Ni’var, and nine entire series and thirteen films in which the planet is referred to as Vulcan. The name Vulcan has entered the culture-at-large in a way that very few fictional planet names have. We don’t know viewer numbers for Discovery, but I think it’s fair to say that many, many more visitors to this site will be familiar with the name "Vulcan" than "Ni'Var." Even looking forward, three upcoming series will continue to refer to the planet as Vulcan, because they will be set in periods in which that is the planet’s name.

It’s possible to have the entry maintain our "end of time" POV while keeping the article at "Vulcan (planet)": just start the article with "Vulcan was the name by which of the inhabited M-class planet later called Ni'Var was known for much of its history. It was located in the Vulcan system, in Sector 001..." and so forth.

Moving this article to Ni'Var right now strikes me as something akin to recentism, insofar as such a concept can be applied to an encyclopedia of the future. —Josiah Rowe (talk) 20:37, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree. I would even consider having Ni'Var as a separate page. Has it been unambiguously established that the new name refers to the physical planet, not to their government? Even if the planet was renamed, principle of least surprise applies here, in my opinion.KeizerHarm (talk) 22:56, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Josiah. Changing the name of such an influential planet in the Star Trek universe based on the events of a single episode set in the far future would be confusing to readers, and we can acknowledge the name change in much the same way the change from Weytahn to Paan Mokar is acknowledged on that article. - Mitchz95 (talk) 22:57, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Hey all! Longtime no see. Can I complicate this a little? Our articles about planets aren't really about the particular sphere of rock, they're more about the history, society, political entity, etc. Rather than rename a page that represents 5 decades of development of lore, and rather than change the whole policy to accommodate this, may I suggest making Ni'Var (planet) a new page entirely and covering new material there. Unification III mentioned that Romulans and Romulo-Vulcans each have their own regions or continents, so I think it's safe to say that the political geography of the planet has fundamentally changed. So not only would a new page solve the renaming problem, but it would also let us start fresh with what we canonically know about the state of the planet in the 32nd century. --- Jaz 23:23, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I think that if this encyclopedia is to be written in in-universe POV, then this page should be at "Ni'Var". -- UncertainError (talk) 00:19, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I concur it should be caled "Ni'Var". People searching for 'Vulcan' will still easily be redirected here. Ima Wiz Iway amway Imagineway Izardway. 14:04, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with article rename Tuskin38 (talk) 18:02, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Just something in response to the point made by Josiah Rowe; as much as I agree that society/pop-culture at large will be more familiar with the name Vulcan more than any other fictional planet, I'm not sure I see its relevance. Despite being one of the biggest wikia/fandom type sites around, the site traffic for MA will always be miniscule when compared to the audience figures for Discovery, in large part because MA is about quality not quantity?

That said, I do agree that this isn't something which should be rushed, so as much as I am currently in favour of renaming the page (all links will redirect here, and anyone who is coming in from the wider pop-culture audience will have spoiler warnings and the relevant info on the name change at the top of the page), perhaps wait and see if we get any more info during the rest of the season before making the final decision? Considering it's where Burnham was raised, where her birth mother now lives, and is the closest thing we have at the moment to an answer for the burn, I'm sure it will at least be referenced more than once throughout the rest of the arc.

In addition, have to say I like that the info box contains both names, and regardless of direction the name of the page as a whole will go in, hope this stays. MadeIndescribable (talk) 11:30, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

My point in mentioning the unknown viewership of Discovery was that we can’t assume that every reader of the site, or even most readers, have seen "Unification III". We're instructed to avoid spoilers even in edit summaries. If we move this article now, then anyone who searches for "Vulcan" will be spoiled that the name of the planet has changed, before they can even see a spoiler notice.

That might be an argument for waiting to move the page until after our spoiler period has ended. —Josiah Rowe (talk) 13:32, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

For a real-world comparison, consider how Wikipedia handles Istanbul and Constantinople. The history of the city under the name Constantinople is substantial enough to merit its own article, even though from the perspective of the writers the city changed its name long ago.

Similarly, our hypothetical end-of-time archivists could reasonably assume that readers might be interested in the substantial history of the planet before its name was changed. Thus we could have the bulk of this article’s material at its current location, and the new information at Ni'Var or "Ni'Var (planet)", reducing the potential astonishment of real-world readers. —Josiah Rowe (talk) 13:57, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I support Jaz's idea of making "Ni'Var (planet)" into its own separate page for all new information, that occurs after their Unification with the Romulans and leaving Vulcan (planet) as it is for all of the new information, that will occur before their Unification with the Romulans, in the current and future shows/episodes that will be taking place.

I think each page should be linked together with a See also or other such template -- M o r p h i a s (^C | _T/D/W | ^E) 594 contributions and counting 16:57, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Josiah Rowe, fair enough, sorry I misunderstood what you're saying, that's totally a valid point about spoilers. Makes me lean even more into the opinion that as things stand we should change the name eventually, but wait until at least the end of the season to see what new info we're given/develops as well. MadeIndescribable (talk) 17:31, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm opposed to having separate articles because it's almost certain that in the future we will get information about the planet Ni'Var (something about its orbit, or a landform, or an animal, etc). Should this information be placed at "Ni'Var", splitting natural history facts about the same planet between two articles? Or should it be placed at "Vulcan", splitting facts about Ni'Var between two articles? Or should the large amount of natural history facts about this one planet be duplicated at two articles? -- UncertainError (talk) 22:55, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I'll respond to a few things quickly up front here:

• Policy and precedent is pretty clear this should move.
• There is no valid in-universe argument to keep the article at "Vulcan (planet)", and there is no way to make "Vulcan" the "most" anything name in-universe either.
• MA contains spoilers, with or without warnings, so that has no bearing on what we should do. That said, we're not really in a rush here either.
• Vulcan isn't "going" anywhere if this page moves, in that there will still be the redirects, we will still use that name for the correct time periods, the Vulcan category will still be there, etc.
• Policy is for references to be correct, so the continued use of Vulcan in future content should result in more links to "Vulcan (planet)". If that is an article or redirect shouldn't have any bearing on its use, and if you think it does the problem is most likely you.

Splitting the page is ultimately short sighted IMO. As already pointed out, there would be a lot of duplication right away, and quite frankly every user not following the recommended changes already can't handle the few places we duplicate bits of articles. The problem would only get worse every time Ni'Var is used going forward, and we do have some reason to assume this won't be the only time. Also, real places on Wikipedia aren't good comparisons to fictional places we will most likely only see a handful of times overall. Despite Vulcan being around for half a century in the real world, we know very little in-universe about it when compared to other worlds that were created long after it was. Unless a show is set on the planet, I doubt we would have enough info to really warrant two articles.

With all that said, the reader expectation that the article be at "Vulcan", with or without the disambiguation, is something that should be considered, but I'm of the opinion that that doesn't carry much water the more you think about it. We don't have James T. Kirk at "Captain Kirk", even though that is the what is in the zeitgeist. Meeting reader expectation isn't a goal in and of itself, it's a multiplier to another argument, and multiplying nothing doesn't do anything. - Archduk3 20:21, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Sidebar name[]

I suggest that the name in the sidebar should be displayed as |name = Vulcan (pre Unification)<br />Ni'Var (post Unification) -- M o r p h i a s (^C | _T/D/W | ^E) 594 contributions and counting 17:29, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Good idea, done! - Mitchz95 (talk) 19:25, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Homeworld to Romulans too[]

Ni'Var, Vulcan, is now the homeworld to both the Vulcans and the Romulans. I also found this image at Startrek Cbs at Instagram (image link) -- M o r p h i a s (^C | _T/D/W | ^E) 594 contributions and counting 21:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Gravity[]

are there any canon sources that specify that Vulcan has a higher gravity than Earth? Wratched (talk) 12:27, 20 August 2023 (UTC)