One of the easiest examples of creativity in a long-running franchise is reversing a group’s moral position. InStar Trek, a lot of races have established positions in the franchise. Most Klingons in the show’s early period appeared as antagonists. New and old writers would later introduce heroic members of the species to mix things up.Star Trek: Discoveryreverses this paradigm to introduce a rare, but not unprecedented, faction of evil Vulcans called the Logic Extremists.
Star Trek: Discoveryhas an unfortunate hobby of speedrunning through plot details. While some earlierStar Trekshows relied on standalone episodes with contained narratives,Discoverywants to have arcs. OtherStar Trekseries play with extended storylines over several entries across seasons, butDiscoveryoften tries to accomplish the same task in only two or three outings. This can leave some interesting narrative details without the depth they deserve.
What do the Vulcan Logic Extremists believe?
Vulcans are known for their stoicism and consistent reliance on cold, hard logic. This was not always their defining trait.Vulcans were oncea wrathful, homicidal, warlike species that engaged in constant civil conflict. Their paranoia, passion, and capacity for violence almost led them to extinction. The nightmarish reality forced the Vulcans to reconsider their philosophy and develop a new cultural direction. A great thinker named Surak proposed a widespread policy of suppressing and controlling emotions. While this did eventually become thedominant lifestyle among Vulcans, many factions rebelled against Surak’s repressive wisdom. This led to yet more war, causing countless casualties and age-old grudges between groups.
While some enacted violence in rebellionagainst Surak’s logic doctrine, others devoted themselves so stringently to the idea that they became logic extremists. Most Vulcans don’t acknowledge these extremists, branding them fanatics and criminals. The logic extremists take the broad concept of emotionless, fact-based decision-making far beyond Surak’s wishes. It is not enough to deaden one’s feelings in favor of inarguable truisms. The logic extremists also see themselves and their species as inherently superior to all other races that don’t follow the same philosophy. Logic extremists consider intermingling with lower species, including humans, a sin against their race. They see the Federation of Planets as a failed experiment, choosing to destroy any collaboration that does not center them as its guiding star. Vulcan extremists carry out acts of terror to enforce Vulcan supremacy, logical doctrine, and racial separatism. One might argue that allowing a philosophy based around the ethical application of rational thought to become an eliminationist strategy of violent self-reliance would be a maddeningly emotional impulse. Theywould not appreciate that assertion.
What did the Vulcan Logic Extremists accomplish?
The logic extremists first appeared in the sixth episode ofStar Trek: Discovery. “Lethe” focuses heavily on revealing the past ofDiscovery’smain character, Michael Burnham. It raised those memories by involving a similar event. In 2256, logic extremists inserted a clandestine agent posing as Sarek’s personal assistant.Sarek, an ambassador andFederation representative, became a target several times. The attack in 2256 involved the disguised extremist enacting a suicide bomb attack to crash their ship while en route to a meeting with two Klingon envoys. The explosion destroyed the vessel and critically injured Sarek, but he did survive. This mirrored an earlier attack that targeted Sarek’s son, Spock. Spock is the product of a relationship between Sarek and a human woman. The logic extremists viewed that pairing as an aberration, prompting them to attempt to kill young Spock. They bombed a Vulcan Learning Center, presumably killing dozens of innocent Vulcan children, to get to Spock. The attack failed, leaving Spock alive. It did, however, severely wound Spock’s adopted sister, Michael Burnham. Burnham briefly died before Sarek brought her back. Admiral Patar was also a logic extremist, but her presence in the series was limited.
DidStar Trekever use Vulcan extremists elsewhere?
Several otherStar Trekstories introduced villainous Vulcans, butThe Next Generationaddressed this concept most directly. The two-part episode “Gambit” centered on the Vulcan Isolationist Movement. This group had very familiar goals. They wanted their species removed from the Federation, and all alien influence forced off the planet. The show depicted T’Paal, whoposed as a Romulan warriornamed Tallera. She worked to steal the Stone of Gol, which would have amplified latent psychic powers. She would have used that gift to purge all non-Vulcans from Vulcan. Picard realized that her anger would prevent her from using the stone. The V’Shar took her into custody and set out to find the other Vulcan Isolationist Movement members. InStar Trek: TheNext Generation Companion, “Gambit” writer Naren Shankar explained the concept like this:
We went for people who very logically felt that Vulcan’s ‘problems’ were linked to contamination by illogical people, so in a logical sense you say ‘Get rid of them’… I just thought it was a very logical way to arrive at racism being the answer to your problems. It was a different but very believable tone for the Vulcans.
The idea of Vulcan extremists remainsfascinating toStar Trekwriters. Neither version of the concept thoroughly explored the concept. There’s still plenty of meat on the bones of this premise. Vulcan extremists may seem pragmatic, but any policy pushed to its breaking point becomes highly illogical.
