"The scientists aren't certain how these intense fields would affect our nervous systems. Let's do some more testing and experimentation. After all, a hundred years from now, all the stars we're planning to explore will still be there, eh?"

--Baloo

I HATE double-posting!

--Baloo

It depends upon the cultural bias that goes along with longevity. If you have a long time to develop an idea, you might feel less pressure to come up with something new than if you have a limited time to make your mark.

Somehow I think that the Romulans brought the Vulcan (cultural) characteristic of thoroughness with them when they went into exile. They might have (as with many non-western societies here on Earth) decided that "progress" was less important than perfecting what they had. New ideas aren't very important if the old ones are perceived as adequate, and might be viewed as disruptive of the "natural order" of things.

The Japanese had gunpowder technology during the middle ages, and simply decided that it didn't fit into their scheme of things, so they outlawed the technology until the middle of the 19^th century. Why couldn't the Romulans have had theories that predicted the possibility of FTL travel (or disproved it, for that matter) and simply decided not to pursue the technology, since the technology they had already met their perceived needs.

If they were confronted with a race of spacefaring beings who used FTL technology, they might already have had the basic theory worked out and were just waiting for a reason to use it? If they had been space travellers for that many hundreds of years, I would suppose that even if their theories "disproved" the possibility of warp travel, they probably had plenty of speculation on how it might work anyhow.

We ourselves possess many theories of how FTL travel might be done, but few ideas regarding how to implement them. In a few hundred years, we still might not know exactly how it could be done, but perhaps if confronted by a race of beings who actually did it, we might gain clues as to how it could be done by examining their technology. The laws of physics are universal, after all. If our understanding of how FTL travel might be possible was good enough, a working example of the technology might be all we needed to understand how it could be done.

Another thing that we humans take for granted is the fact that whenever we discover any useful technology, we will implement it almost immediately, even if we do not fully understand how it will affect the development of our society or the health of its inhabitants. Asbestos was a good fire-resistant material when it was first discovered. Everything from brake pads to theater curtains to drywall contained asbestos, because it reduced the risk of fire so well. It was a comparatively recent discovery that inhaling asbestos dust could cause (or increase the risk of) cancer.

Perhaps the Vulcans (and by extension, the Romulans) have a long-standing tradition of fully exploring the implications of any new technology before they implement it. The reason the Romulans didn't have Warp when first contacted by the Federation might be that they weren't confident that this new technology had no unpleasant side effects. When confronted with a technological society that used that technology, they decided that it was better to risk partially-understood technology than to depend upon the (unproven) good will of strangers.

</Speculation>

--Baloo

PS: This thread sure has a lot of long-winded responses, doesn't it?

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"I'll be the sky above the Ganges
I'll be the vast and stormy sea.
I'll be the lights that guide you inward.
I'll be the visions you will see."
--
R.E.M.

One: Further evidence that the Romulan-Vulcan separation occurred in the distant past is supported by the fact that not even Spock had heard of the Romulans in "Balance of Terror". What's more, the Romulans were the ones to first say they were distantly related to the Vulcans, suggesting (as usually occurrs in society) that the ones who were forced to leave are the more likely to remember the parting.

Two: There is one definite reference made by Spock (and I can't remember when) that the wars that nearly consumed Vulcan, just before their leader and founder of their faith (what's his name? it escapes me) began to teach them to rise above their emotions, happened nearly a thousand years ago. This is very close to being the amount of time the Romulans would have needed to get to their new home, forget how to use warp drive, and then learn how to use it again. Precedents for that are ample, how long was it before we discovered indoor plumbing again after the collapse of Rome? Too, the war provides good excuse for the Romulans to leave, especially if we consider that they rejected S's (the leader again) philosophy of logic above all. This war also, as devastating as it was, gives us reason to understand the Vulcans failure to begin exploring sooner. After such a war the technology, or at least the reason or will to use it, would have been lost.

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Peace!
Brigs

Now, fandom has generally assumed that Vulcan was a rather advanced planet at the time of those wars. There's really not much evidence either way, but for the renegade Vulcans to seriously consider fleeing the planet as an option, there would have to have been a pretty advanced spacefaring tradition, warp drive or not. They probably had access to all sorts of advanced drive systems that present day space programs would love to get their hands on.

So regardless of warp drive, the Romulans could have probably made it to their new home in a relatively short period of time, with a few stops along the way.

Of course, an alternate theory would be that not all of the renegade Vulcans agreed with each other, and were dropped on several planets, with only the Romulans surviving. Perhaps this explains the existance of the Mintakans, described as protovulcans. They could have been outcasts who chose Mintaka as their new home, but for some reason were not able to hold on to their history or their technology, and reverted to a primitive society. This does depend on where exactly Mintaka is located, however.

Meanwhile, back on Vulcan, the juggernaut of progress is tempered by the cool cautiousness of logic. This explains why Vulcan is not 2,000 years ahead of the rest of the Federation in terms of technology. As for the Romulans, their energies were focused on taming their new home, and they would not look back to the stars until later.

------------------
"I'll be the sky above the Ganges
I'll be the vast and stormy sea.
I'll be the lights that guide you inward.
I'll be the visions you will see."
--
R.E.M.

Some additional thoughts:

1. There must have been a lot of dissenters that later became the Romulans. Otherwise the event of leaving or being expelled from Vulcan would not have been an important event in Vulcan history, and, after all, the huge Romulan civilization needs some basis. So there must have been a huge fleet of "Romulan" ships leaving Vulcan forever, warp drive or not.

2. Maybe the Vulcans actually lost trace of the dissenters, maybe the later Romulans even left Vulcan prior to the climax of the civil war, whereupon all Vulcan starships might have been destroyed or abandoned. The Vulcans did not tell anyone of the Romulans because they didn't know of them themselves.

3. I think the Romulan War must have been very short (in terms of number of space battles, not necessarily years), just as it has been described several times in this thread. There hasn't obviously been a "normal" first contact situation, and during a long war there would have been lots of possibilities to get to know the enemy, at least what they look like.

4. The Romulans most probably did have warp drive. Even if the Neutral Zone in "Balance of Terror" was directly outside the Romulan star system, it would have taken years to reach the Fed outposts with impulse drive and attack them. Moreover, the complete Romulan War must have taken place inside the Romulan Star system in this case. And no one of the Federation managed to explore the Romulans during this time?

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