InsaneJournal

Worldbuilding in the new reality
My absolute main kink, whether fanfic or profic or movies or tv shows, is for solid worldbuilding.  I want to know about culture, government, history, religion, ethnology, psychology--all the soft-science background details.  So, for instance, for the new Star Trek timeline/AR, I have all kinds of ideas about how I think the surviving Vulcans will react.  My impressions of Vulcan culture are taken from all the tv shows and movies, combined with the classic Star Trek books from the 80's/90's (e.g. Spock's World, the Vulcan Academy Murders, Sarek, the Pandora Principle, Dwellers in the Crucible, Strangers from the Sky, etc.  Note that Kurtzman and Orci consider Spock's World to be canon, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  Here is a summary of Vulcan history interludes from that book.)

So.  Here's Vulcan culture as I have interpreted it:

Vulcans are intensely private.  There are some things they simply Do Not speak of, particularly not with outsiders.  Pon Farr is one of these things, but not the only one.

Vulcans are extremely conservative.  (I don't mean modern American politics, I mean in the literal definition of "not wanting change.")  There are elements of Vulcan society that literally haven't changed in over 5,000 years.  For example, when Spock needs Fal-Tor-Pan at the end of ST:III, that ritual hasn't been used in a looooong time.  But the High Priestess still knows how to do it.

Vulccans are an odd combination of incredibly blunt and incredibly opaque.  Some things they will think are self-evident and wouldn't refer to directly because they assume they don't need to, or only refer to obliquely/by implication.  But once they decide something needs to be spoken of, they can be far more blunt and matter-of-fact than Humans are comfortable.

Family is everything and marriage isn't just between two people.  It's a social contract between two families, as well.  The extended family is extremely important, with the right to influence/interfere in education, career, marriage, children, etc.  Arranged marriages for political/economic/genetic alliances were common even before the Reformation when Surak brought mastery of emotions.  And some families are more equal than others.  Spock's family is one of the most important--he's related to T'Pau (who ruled the Vulcan council by the end of Ent. and could override Starfleet in TOS), his father was the Vulcan ambassador to the Federation, Spock is descended from Surak.  If they're not exactly the Vulcan equivalent of royalty, they're close.  Also, marriage is at least as much about the telepathic bond between spouses as it is about sex and surviving Pon Farr.

Family affects gender roles.  The pattern is, young and middle-aged men go out and work among offworlders (Starfleet, diplomatic corps, science) while young and middle-aged Vulcan women pursue careers closer to home; if career sacrifices need to be made for marriage and children, it's the women who make them.  This is not to say that young/middle-aged women can't have the same kind of careers; they do, it's just unusual.  BUT old women (i.e. women past child-bearing) have power, sometimes huge amounts of power.  They're high priestesses and clan leaders (and remember how important family is to Vulcans).  Every time we've seen a really really old Vulcan woman, the Vulcan men in her vicinity have been very deferential.  Not just ceremonially, either.

Vulcans have deep passions, particularly the violent passions.  Mastery of their emotions is necessary.  Before Surak, they were well on their way to tearing themselves apart.  Depending on which novel, they may or may not have reduced themselves to the brink of extinction on more than one occasion.  Surak changed that.  Vulcans are very conscious of the inner barbarian and how easy it is to lose control and descend into chaos and violence.  If their control sometimes seems overly tight, it's because it has to be.  The people who didn't agree with Surak left and became Romulans.  (This is one of the things Vulcans generally hate discussing directly, which is how in the original timeline nobody knew the Vulcans and Romulans shared common ancestry until TOS.)  However the Romulans have evolved to keep themselves in check, you really, really don't want to see a Vulcan who's lost all control.

Vulcans truly believe themeselves to be superior to all other species, including Humans.  They really are arrogant.  Even Vulcan Starfleet officers tend to be absolutely convinced that Vulcans are better than Humans in any way you can think of.  (To be honest, they are usually smarter and stronger than most species.)  They tend to be insular; they don't go out and found lots of colonies and mix with other species.  Aside from diplomats and Starfleet officers and a small percentage of scientists, they tend to stay on Vulcan, among their own people.  Which has a lot to do with thinking themeselves superior.  They tend to be suspicious of non-Vulcans, except for that small percentage who are fascinated with them, and who are generally looked down on by most of society.  Vulcans honor diversity in theory but not necessarily so much in practice.

How will this affect the rebuilding of Vulcan culture?

First, they are going to want to replicate Vulcan society as closely as they can.  This means not only replicating institutions, but trying to recreate families/clans with whatever fragments of them have survived.  The needs of the many are going to outweigh the needs of the few by a dramatic margin.  They are also going to be understandably nervous at having such a small population.  It's almost certainly at least twice the number they need for genetic viability, but that doesn't mean they can relax.  They are going to  be looking at the worst-case-scenario and just how easy it would be for a plague or another attack to wipe them out.  They are going to want to try to increase their population, but they're going to want to do it within the traditional family structure if at all possible.  I.e. no whipping up babies in test tubes and raising them in creches.

This leads to my second point.  There is probably a severe gender imbalance in the survivors.  Women (particularly of child-bearing age) are more likely to have had careers that let them stay close to home, i.e. on Vulcan.  Given Pon Farr, this is almost a death sentence for however many men there are more than women, if Vulcans follow their instincts and don't marry outside their culture.  (A few of them will be able to beat Pon Farr with meditation.  Most won't.  If nothing is done, when they start going into Pon Farr there will be a lot of challenges and duels to the death.)  Most of the survivors of either gender will be widowed; Vulcans are betrothed at age seven, and that betrothal is a binding contract strong enough to be referred to as a "marriage."  They will start arranging marriages for each other as soon as possible, particularly for those about to go into Pon Farr, but there won't be enough women to go around.  I can see two possible solutions: 1) as unbonded males get close to Pon Farr, put them in stasis until there is an unbonded woman available for them, and use genetic manipulation to increase the ratio of girls to boys in the next generation born.  This has obvious disadvantages.  2) marry non-Vulcan women.

Marrying non-Vulcan women has challenges of its own.  Even if you ignore Vulcan prejudice, their main goal is going to be to remake Vulcan society.  This means that all the children have to be raised as Vulcans, and the women have to be willing to live as part of Vulcan society.  They're also going to have to meet Vulcan standards for intelligence and appreciate/understand/support Vulcan emotional reserve.  And assuming you have women that fit the bill ... most Vulcan marriages are arranged.  Most Vulcan men are not going to know how to arrange their own marriages when dealing with Vulcan women, much less women from another species.

So, if I were Spock Prime, going off to help rebuild Vulcan society, here's what I would suggest:

First, the Federation is probably going to offer to help the Vulcans rebuild.  If nothing else, construction and relocation; Vulcans are probably going to have gaps, as well, in what skillsets are available in the surviving population.  Their instinct will probably be to turn down the help or accept it but do so on as minimal level as possible.  Instead, accept it, but say that given their need to preserve Vulcan culture they want to have approval over everyone who comes, and make sure they can live integrated in Vulcan society without causing waves.  And then for primary criteria have educated, single women of child-bearing age who might be able to learn to fit into Vulcan society permanently.  Let in some men, too, so it doesn't look too weird, but there's no reason to mention to anybody that the primary criteria of who they're letting in is bride-hunting.  Don't lie, but don't bring it up.  Ask people who have problems fitting in to leave.  Watch them carefully, and if they look to be attracted to any unmarried men, do whatever needs to be done to evaluate the suitability of the relationship and arrange a marriage.  This will both help get much-needed brides and keep needed skills the Vulcans don't have/don't have enough of within their community.

Second, get the Vulcan Science Academy up and running again.  Allow in offworlders, but only those who are intellectually up to the challenge and seem to be able to fit in to Vulcan society; make it clear to all applicants that they will have to fit in to Vulcan society for the time it takes them to complete their degree.  Skew acceptances towards females.  Do the same watching/arranging as with the women relief workers.  This will both help get much needed brides and keep Vulcan's influence in the sciences going.

These two methods may not fully solve the problem, but they'll at least lessen it, as well as keeping Vulcan society from turning in on itself and becoming isolationist.  He should be aided by the fact that the most xenophobic Vulcans will have died with Vulcan; the ones who survived are more likely than average to have an open mind concerning non-Vulcans.  (That's not necessarily saying much.)
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