#pre surak vulcan

[starrylol]

made a non-binary vulcan warrior, inspired by @purpleenma 's cool warrior characters! 💞

[purpleenma]

Pre-Surak Spock

Love me some sketching of anything pre-Surak Vulcan but especially with my baby boy Spock 💜

*The ones on top are from 2022 and the other two are from 2023 for The Ritual

[hellweaver]

Some fantasy on ancient Vulcan warrior long before the Time of Awakening

[lichqueenlibrarian]

“I do not answer murder with words,” Spock said, “or defend him to one not fit to have looked on him.” He heard the ancient madness in his voice and did not flinch from it.

The Price of the Phoenix, Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath

[agios-rio]

Here's the guide on AO3 (it comes with a complementary K/S fic ☆).

text version under the cut ⤵

Gods & Goddesses

Fai-tukh (Knowledge)

Tel-alep – “The Watcher”

The first wise god to ever walk on Vulcan’s sands was Tel-alep. He collected all available Vulcan knowledge & filled his library with carved stone tablets, vellum papers, incised bones & shells, colourful knotted cords. He gave as he took, & shared his collection with whoever wanted to learn. In times of conflict, Vulcans turned away from him, caring more for their immediate safety than abstract knowledge – & Tel-alep seemingly vanished. It is said he still watches all of Vulcan from the shadows & meticulously chronicles its history, as well as notes every advancement in the sciences.

Alep-tel – “The Bitter”

The second wise god of Vulcan was Alep-tel, who came to restore what was left of Tel-alep’s collection after the war that had led to it being abandoned by Tel-alep & the mortals. Piecing together what he could & collecting old knowledge to fill the gaps left by time, he spent a hundred seasons alone, caring for what he had inherited. When he was finished, the library opened its doors again to whomever wanted to learn, but the passing of time had placed it into obscurity – as the legends go, Alep-tel still spends most of his days in solitude, waiting for willing students, growing old & bitter.

Sochya (Peace)

Kir-alep – “The Placid”

Kir-alep ruled from his seat on Mount Seleya, overlooking all of Vulcan. He had the responsibility of ensuring peace throughout the sands & the oases alike, & he did so as well as possible. However, peace seldom comes & stays without sacrifice, & so with every change of the season, he chose & sacrificed some of the few who lived at the foot of the mountain for the peace of the many. Without taking joy in it, he upheld this practice to keep his people from destroying one another completely.

Alep-kir – “The Sullen”

Alep-kir was a mortal who climbed the stairs to Mount Seleya to demand answers for the deaths of his brothers & sisters who died in the sacrifices. Answer he did not receive, but instead he was offered godhood as a means to pacify him. In the hopes he might change the fate of the next few, he accepted. He stayed on the mountain to witness the deaths of the people below, but his mind was still ablaze with grief & anger over his long-gone siblings that he remained where & who he was, trembling but unmoved by the suffering beneath.

Ashaya (Love)

Valdena – “The Giver”

Love, joy, & beauty are what the goddess Valdena represents. She is usually portrayed as a Vulcan woman & is said to be the most caring of the gods – appearing as a mother, a sister, a wife, a daughter, depending on what role she fulfils for whoever encounters her. Even though she is associated with all kinds of love, not just the romantic one, many legends about her have the (re-)union of star-crossed lovers as a central theme.

Dena-vel – “The Guard”

Dena-vel is the goddess of love & possessiveness. She seeks to hide the beauty of the world she loved to keep it from strange eyes & hands. She is said to have helped build the walls that once encompassed the city of Gol, where the best artists, sculptures, poets, & musicians used to live. As a fierce protector who knows little boundaries when it comes to fulfilling her duty, many legends about her are written in blood. 

Tadek-adir’es (Absence)

Kal-ap-ton – “The Mourner”

The Mourner represents grief & is said to be the most dangerous of the gods. Bound to his belt, he carries a pouch full of tears. He who meets him risks his life: The Mourner can take the weight off the Vulcan’s shoulders & allow him to weep to alleviate his grief, but not all of those touched by him are able to free themselves again of their emotions. Many of them succumbed to their misery & wandered out into the desert never to be seen again.

Tyr-al-tep – “The Unforgiver”

Tyr-al-tep is the god of guilt & regret over the death of loved ones. He is the one whispering in the ears of grieving Vulcans, telling stories of what could have been had the tragedy of death not occurred – stories of love & joy, of futures rendered impossible by the present. He leaves nothing in his wake that lessens the pain, only a gruelling feeling of emptiness & absence, cursing those who encounter him to live out the rest of their lives with feelings of shame & sorrow.

Vaikaya (Devotion) or Sa-kai-lar (Brothers)

Ket-cheleb – “The Destroyer”

Anger & rage are what moved Ket-cheleb to kill his brother, & those emotions are what he brings to all those who cross his path. His broad & rough hands carry weapons of all kinds, & he is said to often appear where he is welcomed the least – whenever there is no predetermined course of action to a conflict, no specific decision yet towards peace or violence, he will appear & tip the scales towards the latter. Many tales about wars from ancient times describe Ket-cheleb arriving at the first light in the morning & the last light at night falling over battlefields full of dead.

Cheleb-vel – “The Embracer”

If Vulcans had saints, Cheleb-vel would be the one of the black sheeps. He stands for acceptance & blindness & indifference out of love, even in regards to the things in life that are the hardest to accept. Without judgement, Cheleb-vel stands by the sides of even outcast & hated Vulcans, often being the only one to acknowledge their existence. It is said that Cheleb-vel handed his brother the stone with which he struck him dead in the vast red desert, & never harboured resentment for him in his last moments.

About The Practice

One way is to read the lines themselves, which stand for the qualities associated with the gods, though there is no absolute consensus as to which ones those are. As the result, the task of interpreting is left to the palmist herself*, leading to various different schools of thoughts within the trade (the entirety of which too numerous to list in this short guide).

Additionally to that, intuition plays a much bigger role in Vulcan Palmistry than it does in equivalent Terran practices. Since Vulcans are touch-telepaths, they can gain much more information from the skin contact itself as opposed to the mere placement of the lines. It is unknown what exact kind of information is transferred between the one who is being read & the one who reads, but the leading theory is that it comes from the subconscious of the one being read. 

*According to Vulcan tradition, it is custom only for women to learn the practice of palmistry. This text uses the appropriate pronouns to reflect that.

[lead-acetate]

Spock would have been a pre-Reform poet.

no essay. but! I thought that would be interesting so I wrote a fic with the premise, having some worldbuilding fun with pre-Reform (or rather, non-Reform) Vulcan poetry, poetry scene, rituals and Stuff. Believe it or not, it's not all just elaborate foreplay.

Yes, Fuck the Government

Rating: Explicit

Vulcan, a dangerous civilization of enormous military power, has entered tentative negotiations with Starfleet. Vulcans, however, are passionate, violent and unpredictable and, though the current autocrats are still strong, there is unrest brewing in the capital. When the Starfleet delegation lands, Captain Pike urges their subordinates to do a little reconnaissance in their spare time. Lieutenant Kirk stumbles upon Vulcan poetry that has been known to start and end wars; and then, after some trial and error, upon a poet. * It is essentially a… cautiously M-rated poetry reading and then some gratuitous sex. Also Jim gets an autograph.

ao3 link again 🥰 enjoy!

[android-and-ale]

CHAPTER SIXTEEN IS LIVE! 

You asked what the Sh’Raan looks like from space and the amazing Spongy Nova delivered! Show them some love for bringing everyone’s favorite Totally Innocent Vulcan Botany Ship to life! If you like spicy art, check out their offerings on AO3!

Last time we left off with Jim propped behind a dead Orion and unexpected words from Captain Spisee. This time, we kick off with Jim wondering if perhaps he should've obeyed Major Sepsis and stayed in the MedBay after all. 

Get ready for an action packed chapter with some REVELATIONS about the crew! 

P.S. Chapter 16 is titled, “Sh’Raan Cast List” because, by reader request, I dropped a full list and description of the Vulcan crew into the beginning notes. You’re welcome! 

If you’re new here, have a summary:  

Shenanigans ensue when one middle finger to the Academy too many gets Starfleet Cadet James T. Kirk booted off planet for a summer internship aboard the V.S.S. Sh'Raan.

He's hiding a major secret from the oh so earnest and helpful Vulcans, but the longer he's on the ship, the more Jim starts to wonder if they're keeping secrets from him, too.

Excerpt:

Captain Spisee handed Jim a heavy sheet of rich, cream paper embossed with gold dusted Vulcan calligraphy bearing the ship’s name. It was a bit cheap by the standards of Vulcan stationary aesthetics, but shipboard life meant some sacrifices. In the most elegant handwriting he’d ever had the privilege to lay eyes on, it read:

Human Enrichment and Optimal Health Program:

- One (1) Daily Shoulder Pat (more provided upon request) - Seventy (70) Seconds of Hug Time Per Week (divided between crew members as you deem necessary) - Three (3) Discrete Instances of Daily Praise - Three (3) Structured Entertainments per week - Minimum of One (1) Social Companion per meal (more available upon request)

Jim looked up from the Human Enrichment And Optimal Health Program and into Captain Spisee’s luminous brown eyes. There was no hint of mockery or malice there. He was an earnest scientist, possessing both cheekbones so sharp you could cut glass with them and the quadrant’s most excellent taste in guest furniture. He’d been given a unique task, and on Surak’s Katric Ark, he performed it with the same thoroughly Vulcan scientific intensity he would give the discovery of a new species of cave moss.

“We would appreciate detailed weekly feedback on the efficacy of our Human integration efforts,” said Captain Spisee.

“This is…” Intense? Weird? “Incredibly thoughtful.”

“You are not required to reciprocate the Daily Praise,” said Captain Spisee. Despite his words, Jim could swear one corner of his mouth twitched upwards two entire millimeters.

[theshadowrealmitself]

All those pre-Surak fics and none about the violently emotional poets I know existed 🔫 anger isn’t the only emotion that Vulcans feel strongly, how come there isn’t more pre-Surak/no-Surak fics that acknowledges that and actually delves into the destructive emotions that Vulcans feel that caused an entire species to take up regulating their emotions to be as visually emotionless as possible

Also I wanna read more about Vulcans who follow their traditions not because they’re just honoring them but because they’re still the type of people who created those traditions

Also most (if not all) of the fics I’ve read of pre/no-Surak show Vulcans as individualistic, but from what we can kinda see off-screen, it looks like they should be more into having huge clans and wanting/needing others around them, also not even just their own clans, we get some kind of mention as to how others view clans in comparison to their own clans (like Spock’s family) so there does seem to be a sense of community

[lilgynt]

i love going through star t//////rek fics like you want racism or racism baby

[vanilla-phantoms]

I am thinking SO ridiculously hard about pre surak Vulcan rn, specifically about hairstyles

Most Vulcans we see have that very uniform bowl cut, but not all of them, and I figured it must be something to do with practicality because it would be illogical to value appearance over functionality, but we also see most romulans with this hair, and I thought maybe some of this could be attributed to most of the romulans we meet being of some military status

Anyway I’m trying to think about what pre reform hairstyles would look like, since I’m trying to design a character for a fic I’m writing, and I don’t love the long-hair-on-men styles that I see most fanartists assign to pre surak vulcan (love how they look but don’t love the. Hm. Well it’s a bit racist innit. But that’s another post. Hope this isn’t hitting the hornets nest but please think about the traits and images you automatically associate with “violent primitive alien culture”). And I don’t see any reason WHY Vulcans should have long hair in the past other than it maybe being distinctly different from the present and a visually appealing design

Vulcans at the time of Surak were not pre industrialization. They had NUCLEAR warfare after all. They’re referred to as a “warrior race” but this was MILITARY warfare. Surely, the military officials of the past would’ve had practical haircuts too, maybe similar to the Vulcans we see on the show. The only difference I can think would be that they would be less uniform. More room for trends and self expression. (And there was surely more hairstyle variation among civilians but the character I’m making is a military official)

So that opens up a lot of possibilities, once we’ve figured out what would make sense it becomes a question of “what would’ve been popular then”. I think I’m going to find a time period of earth to base the hairstyles off of

[anonover]

do i know anything about trek? no. am i still gonna talk about this? yes.

like okay, this might be completely incorrect but i believe that the vulcans, pre-surak, had a people that they considered insuperior and that people was entirely wiped out. surak came, created the whole logic thingie and people forgot/covered up this genocide.

well, you may be asking, why do i think this? because vulcan has no metaphors. at least not outright metaphors. it has no inner language, certain cues that can point to traits and ideologies that other can agree with. metaphors, allegories, figurative language forms when one party needs to hide something from another. certain key phrases are passcodes and who else would start this type of deception other than a mariginalized people? but. there's not much figurative language left like said. so. vulcan had marginizalized people that the oppressing party commited genocide against.

just a thought, a headcanon if you will :)

[starrylol]

Day 4 of trektober-challenge - First contact

Naturally I wanted to draw some pre-Surak Spock meeting a lost Jim.

Process vid under the cut!

[purpleenma]

The Ritual Duel Braid

I'm slowly building up a post around this idea I have that hair and braiding were of great importance for pre-Reform Vulcan and all the headcanons surrounding it. Tonight I felt in the mood of sketching Spock rocking one of them.

Vulcan warriors would wear this braid for an ancient ritual duel where the contenders must try to cut their opponent's braid with their lirpa blade, risking their lives in the process. The length of a warrior's braid was deeply important, since the longer it was the more skilled and practiced the warrior was perceived as, being that no edge had touched their hair in battle.

It was a rare ritual to perform even back them, for deep offenses to one's honour or their kin.

[eldritchazure]

i have a surak-era oc who i’m gonna ramble about here from time to time.

he’s from t’paal because i’m Fascinated by that region for some reason. i really wish there was more info on it but alas. i’ll have to make shit up as i go. he was born in one of the enclaves but i’m thinking he was raised in a temple of akraana there.

(people don’t know what the goddess akraana presided over, only that she was the wife(?) of the war god khosarr, so i’m gonna make things up. i’m thinking she was some kind of goddess of magic, prophecy, and art because it’s convenient and also cool. also since one of the enclaves where her disciples lived is now an artists’ enclave so it works. her worshippers were kinda like a mystery cult, similar to the cult of despoina, hence why people don’t know what her deal was today. sorry for the info dump, i find this kind of thing REALLY interesting so i think about it A Lot.)

so this guy was a disciple of akraana and raised in one of her temples. the reason why he was sent there as a child was because he had these “visions” of the past and the future. the actual reason for the “visions” was that his mind was frequently temporally displaced. not permanently or constantly like spock’s was in disco, but it kind of came and went? like he’d be going about his day and then all of a sudden BAM there’s gonna be a horrible famine here At Some Point in the Near Future. or BAM someone was murdered horrifically at this spot A Very Long Time Ago. or someone was born at this spot and a lot of people were full of joy about it A Very Long Time Ago. he couldn’t tell when exactly things happened/would happen, only vague impressions. this is why he was dropped off at the temple by his parents. they didn’t know how to deal with the visions and figured the temple people might. is this logical or at all responsible parenting? definitely not. but i’m thinking the visions put great mental strain on him and by extension his parents through the familial bonds so maybe sending him to live with the people who specialized in that kind of thing would be able to take care of him better. whether or not that’s true remains to be seen.

i have no idea how the temporal displacement happened, or why it isn’t like how spock’s was. at this point it’s plot convenience. idk maybe it’s some weirdo space entity?? idk idk. anywho he mistook the weirdo space entity for akraana (or maybe it was akraana. who knows. ANYWAY.)

so yeah he gets these visions. maybe they slowly drive him a little mad? i don’t know!! i’ll figure it out, or maybe i won’t. but yeah he gets visions and then writes them down in a bunch of notebooks over his life. he doesn’t know what most modern things are so they’re written through a kind of fantastical/mythological lens. he predicts different wars with aliens but he doesn’t know they’re aliens so he calls them like, demons or spirits or whatever. even technology that could be found at that time he probably didn’t know about, because i’m imagining that the temple/area he was raised in was one of the ones that was generally against technology. so if he were to predict the radiation from the nuclear weapons being used at the time, people wouldn’t know what he meant until it was happening.

eventually the notebooks are found and now they’re in a museum somewhere displaying the history of the region. most historians dismiss his prophecies as the ramblings of a madman but those who look closely enough do admit it is somewhat eerie how they seem to mirror a lot of big historical events.

for example, a ship full of vengeful demons wearing the faces of vulcans emerging from a portal, who will consume t’khasi from the inside out.

anywho. at the moment his name is tova. this is subject to change. his story is pretty barebones at the moment and is little more than a concept that i’ve written out here in a very long winded post. i’ll probably flesh it out some more, add some much needed Drama and probably a healthy serving of Angst, as you do.

[tossawary]

I wish we saw more casual diversity among Vulcans in regards to... well, everything: fashion, art, history, geography, language, religion and philosophy, occupations, familial units, and logical styles and emotional management, and so on. The monoculture that "Star Trek" tends towards is both unrealistic and kind of boring.

(I think that my ideal "Star Trek" show would have a minimum of two matching non-humans in the main crew who are from opposite sides of their planet; these two alien coworkers have almost NOTHING in common. It immediately creates compelling character dynamics.)

Anyway, even within the specific Surakian Logic sect that Spock and his family seem to belong to, there's still opportunity for fun, divisive hobbies among this particular group of Vulcans. We can have judgey Vulcans looking at other Vulcans' weird, harmless antics and saying, "What illogical behavior," while the other Vulcans are judging them back for being illogical in their own opinion. Let Vulcans be REAL nerds: I think that pre-Surak historical reenactment is not an uncommon hobby, both casual LARPing and hardcore reenactment.

It's educational to spin and weave and sew your own pre-Surakian garments! It's educational to forge your own weaponry! It's grounding, like meditation! It is humbling to truly realize the complicated labor involved in fabrication. Even when they were surrendering to their emotional urges, you know, Vulcan ancestors were not completely illogical: they knew how to fashion a comfortable garment well-suited to the desert. Camping in the wilderness and foraging for food connects oneself to nature, teaches about history, and settles oneself in the present.

Also, it's good physical exercise and emotionally cathartic to beat the shit out of each other with foam-wrapped lirpa, screaming at the top of your lungs. It's very logical. There's a medical team on standby, reading on their pads and drinking tea.

You beam down in the wrong part of the desert at the right time and find a bunch of scantily-clad Vulcan warriors (outfits depend on the chosen time period and location) (of all genders) shrieking and rolling in the dirt, until a timer goes off, and then the scheduled mock-battle is over and everyone helps each other up. (Depends how hardcore the group is, of course.) (Also, yeah, obviously, some of these groups have a hook-up culture attached / embedded.) Two bleeding guys who were previously punching each other in the face salute each other and part ways, one to go write a new archeological paper based on his findings here ("Fascinating") and the other to his low-level government desk job ("Most invigorating exercise").

If this happens anywhere near where people live, then the neighbors are shaking their heads and saying to each other, "I don't know how anyone could come to their conclusions and call it logical. Their foundational premises must be flawed." 😐 Some of them while closely watching the entire scandalous affair through binoculars and telescopes, of course. 🤔

[agios-rio]

holy shit do you think Vulcans practice palmistry?? like maybe as a ritual and/or intimacy thing?