Poetically I noticed that the planets reflect the species: Vulcan is arid & harsh, though tamed it still has a fire within. Andoria is colder on the surface & has frequent violent blizzards, but has a warmth beneath it's surface. Qo'nos is a world constantly wild, active, and in the extremes, though it is very hardy and steadfast. Earth is world of all trades, adaptive to near anything, a beating heart equally capable of grand destruction and great creation.

The idea that Vulcan has a number of names in their language makes sense. The world where we are is called Earth, Terra and Sol 3 in the English language alone.

The Romulans have a similar issue having been named after one of the legendary founders of Rome on Earth.

2:12 - so they "dumbed it down for us"..yes, Rick, i see that

"he's all about hot stuff" i see what you did there, and approve

"So, Vulcan in Terran is a god of forging and volcanos? Yes, I think that fits as the name of our home. It just makes me wonder - with all that Mythology, why do you call your own planet 'dirt'?"

When Spock was asked what his real name was he replied, "You couldn't pronounce it." Since there is nothing overtly different about Vulcan vocal cords this exaggeration hints that there is something about mispronunciations or people struggling with pronunciations that the Vulcans find really offputting or offensive and so they routinely provide names to outsiders customized to make pronunciations easier for them. Most likely they came up with the name Vulcan and provided that.

And let's all try to forget about the time when they were called "Vulcanians". :)

I'd imagine the universal translator just turns whatever name they call thier planet to Vulcan.

The Vulcan lore I'm familiar with is from the novel Spock's World. There is a scene in the book where Kirk brings up the subject of the Planet's name. Going with the idea of it being called that from Earth mythology.

“Other races do this to humans” All them earther mentions but no Hewmon???

I would suggest that the pre-Awakening Vulcan civilisation was probably centred around the coastal regions. However, as a result of their significance these regions were likely the most heavy contested during the various wars and as such were largely destroyed, hence their apparent absence from archaeological records. This would also explain the dominance of the inland desert regions as in the Time of Awakening onwards these areas would, ironically, be the most hospitable and thus culturally prominent. Additionally, the powerful coastal regions may have been the strongest holdouts of the old pre-Surak ways and therefore been tainted in the cultural memory of the Vulcans compared to the deserts in which Surak made his home, plus, of course, if this is the case then the coastal regions would also be the main area from which the Romulans originated resulting in yet further depopulation of those regions. Furthermore, the significance of the coastal regions would also lead them to be heavily nuked leaving large amounts of radioactive fallout which would take time to decay thereby further increasing the divide between them and the inland regions as the coasts took the longest to recover from the past whilst the desert cities and regions grew to prosper. A potential analogy with our world could be Mesopotamia which for millennia was one of the greatest centres of human civilisation but was devastated by the Mongols in the 13th century to such an extent that the region still hasn't fully recovered. Edit: sorry, that turned into a bit of an essay.

Hahaha chained to your desk. No help is coming.

No, it was actually a reference to the once-theorized planet Vulcan. A supposed planet, closer to the Sun than Mercury. The Joke was "Look, we found planet Vulcan, it's just in another system".

Vulcan probably wasn't as much of a desert world before their nuclear war. Sure, the initial consequence is nuclear winter, but long-term after the dust settles the lack of plant life could cause the runaway warming of the atmosphere.

in a star trek book i have Data said vulcans real name was T"Khasi and the other planet is T"khut im not sure how cannon that is but it fits the show and it works for me

It was made canon that the Vulcans didn't evolve on Vulcan. While the Vulcan records don't go back to their origin the Romulan records apparently do. In STP Narek says: "Some say it dates back from long before our ancestors first arrived on Vulcan."

Any chance you'd be interested in doing some dives into Stargate lore?

Everyone, compliment his video. Vah na'vu ma glanek s'ahm la u'nam-tor yeht'es t'Yel-Halaya heh n'T'Khasi kup kitaya tanaf na'suk-sef, il rik ish kal-tor etwel t'nash wak. Hi, Rick. #🖖

Because they want to hug everyone.

Nevasa is the star, the Vulcan Sun that we call 40 Eridani A. And you missed the name T'Khasi which is my favorite name for the planet. (The Star Trek Stellar Cartography book is beautiful). Thanks for the video.

My head cannon was it was just coincidence. In a universe of thousands of species, cultures, languages it is just inevitable that similar sound combinations will pop up.

So it's called Vulcan similar to why most countries have an English name on official documentation despite having local names (Japan vs Nippon, China vs Gònghéguó, etc).

1:44 i speak Klingon with a terrible Terran accent.. it' not "KRO-nos" ..it's "COH-Nos!"

*i can imagine that early human vulcan interactions and conversations were painfully comedic and that the humans sounded like the vulcan equivalent of Ernest T Bass from an american series about the life in a small southern town and the mountain resident with a predisposition of throwing rocks or bricks when upset*

Oh Vulcan? I bet Vulcan the primarch of the 18th legion would be greatly flattered by this obvious gesture of respect!

Huamns! Lol! God love ya, Rick! Great viedo! -Vic

Honestly, the one that really sticks out to me has always been Romulus, but this was actually fascinating. I didn’t know this cool in-universe explanation! Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you friends.😊

I have always been interested in the Ancient Pre-Historic Humans of Halo franchise. What I am not clear on with them is were they a singular species when they were technologically advanced and then de evolved into separate species by the Forerunners or were they multiple subspecies when they were advanced and just collectively called humans?

Who else remembers when Dr McCoy said to Spock "thats why you were conquered." Implying earth was the conqueror

Fan theory: Vulcan, Tattooine, and Arrakis are all the same planet. 😜

Loved your closing metaphor comparing planetary features to the Vulcan psyche.

A rather nice but apocryphal source is the 'Vulcan's Forge' novel, which posits that Vulcan *started* as a temperate world, but a spatial cataclysm (I forget the specifics of it) turned it into the desret is is today. Also don't forget the Intelligences of the Deep Sand....

For that human mythology bit well... Apollo and the Olympians exist as a real entities in Trek lore who galivanted around space thanks to TOS... So he could have gone there at some point and given his name to the planet.

BRB, checking to see if there's a Qo'noS video around here...

Universal translators. It's just how the UT translated into Earth standard.

Yes, please give us more in depth looks at planets from all SciFi!! Some suggestions: Cardassia, Romulus, Risa, Kashyyyk, Felucia, Coruscant, LV-426 and Klendathu!

Translation is an art, not just someone making it “easier” for foreign speakers, but rather trying to evoke the same thought and feeling in the foreigners mind as the native speaker experiences when saying or hearing their word in their mother tongue. So if one of those names for the planet carried the same feeling for a Vulcan that the English word “Vulcan” did for a human, then “Vulcan” is a valid translation, and arguably a better one than a straight transliteration of the Vulcan word that would mean nothing to a human who had not learned the language.

"We see a similar thing happen with the Klingon world and Qo'nos." Ahem... I think you mean "Kling" as stated in Season one of TNG! By the honour of Kling!

Another excellent video. Thank you... 👍

I throughly enjoyed this one, Rick! Good job.

There is a novel, I can't remember the name, were not only is it reviled that there is a silicon based society deep underground that actually has influenced Vulcan society from the beginning. But also, that originally, Vulcan was tropical world close to earth, and that it was due to one of it's suns undergoing an expansion, that the world is mostly desert.

Vulcans have a surprisingly good sense of humor after all so I wasn’t surprised by this video at all.

They named it after the Vulcan that appeared in Patrick Troughton’s first Doctor Who episode, as that came first..........!

Have you thought about doing a video on Gallifrey?

A very well made and detailed video. As always, taken with a grain of stardust as you say. If I remember correctly, I may not, knowing my faulty brain, Mount Surak was bombed during a point during the Earth/Roumlan war. I'd have to re-read the Enterprise Novels during that period. But either way, great video Rick. Really good.

They tried to call it something else but it Vulcan't

A cool and we'll researched video, and enjoyable to watch! I would like to suggest a planet for a video: Earth, from Firefly. I think it would be interesting to see a video upon this alternate Earth that had some significant differences from our own, though any alternate, fictional Earth could be fascinating to learn about, and to hear your insight on it's unique fictional lore. Great video as before, I look forward to the next!

I can't believe you passed up on the opportunity to mention terrans as "hoo mans"😂 as the Ferengi would scoff, lol😂.

Oh hell yeah, I love the environmental deep dive, you should call the series “Planetary Index” 😂

I got a economic inuniverse Sci Fi question regarding about Halo. What does the Natonal Debt of the UNSC look like after the Human-Covenant war?

If you're looking for another sci-fi universe to really delve in, you should look at Farscape.

I recall in one of the Star Trek TV series, it was noted by Spock or T’Pal or Tuvock...I don’t recall specifically that it was mentioned that Vulcan developed fusion technology before fission tech. That would have made the ancient VulcanWorld War briefly portrayed in ST Enterprise a thermonuclear exchange. Scary stuff if one really considers that those nuclear detonations were not Hiroshima sized yields but more like Castle Bravo or Ivy Mike shot sized detonations. Overachievers to a one, those Vulcans. lol

I often wondered how food was grown on such an arid planet.

Now explain where the Romulans got their name ;)

Cowboy Bebop has an interesting representation of Mars. . . That's kinda niche, however it's a subject widely open to comparison analysis. Mars was also the geo locale for at least parts of Robotech. Mars as a SciFi subject could be a hefty multiple episode documentation... You've done a great amount of bits and pieces here and there already. Live long and prosper!

Ni'Var : Now it's Vulcan and Romulus

I'd love to see you take on some of the Babylon 5 species

Since I first saw TOS as a kid. I've always thought of Vulcan, Romulus and the like, as being the names manually put into the language database, when humanity first learned of the different species. Long before the show takes place. That is why many species, planet names and other words, such as the Romulan Officer ranks, and their moon fit a common theme (Rome). The initial human translaters used familiar words I.e. from history or ancient pantheons, to make the "new languages" easier to remember. In Enterprise we see hoshi manually translating, and gradually expanding the language database. Once the Universal translater is invented, the alien languages we already knew, were kept as is. And these were possibly even used, in the development of the Universal translater AI, as training data. I might just not remember. But I can't think of any aliens introduced in TNG or later, that are named in the same way as those we know about early TOS.

The biologist in me wants to know if an arid planet can support enough life to support a large population. I assume that most of the water is underground, but in Star Trek Discovery we saw Ni'Var had clouds, rain, and red trees growing outside.

I love the idea of doing videos about Trek planets. :) Cronos please!

well i wouldn't say anything from STD is spoilers since it can't even be considered of the prime timeline, that Enterprise was a total giveaway for that.

Pretty awesome video

They did something neat with Koronos too, since the Klingons have time wobbly bobbly crystals on one of their moons right? Also, the Vulcan hand sign is derived from a hand gesture Rabbis make during specific rituals etc. Imagine making the hand symbol with both hands, and join them together with your thumbs forming the bottom of a triangle. This was Nimoy's idea, and I guess they just ran with triangles. It's all in the documentary his son was making with him when he passed.

Scientists updating Newton's calculations and others noticed that there was more gravitational pull than could be explained by the mass of the known planets in our solar system. So speculation was that a very small planet orbitted the sun inside the heleiosphere of the sun in between Mercury and the sun. This purposed planet was called Vulcan. In the end it was determined that sunlight had mass. That explained the anomaly in readings. You're welcome.

He’s all about “hot stuff.” 🤣

I liked the explanation in the first few chapters of "Spock's World". It claimed that the planet Vulcan was a tropical paradise with little seasonal change until a solar flare flash-fried it into a desert wasteland. Fits the 'God of the Forge' aesthetic rather well. Although we don't need the 'cthia' part of that book that didn't quite work for me.

Sending help with lock breakers. I’ve got you buddy.

Qo'nos next please

Vulcan's companion planet is Too' Hot? Well done.

Carved...into "untouched" but heavily carved... stones :P *hugs*

the andorians call us pink skin

Lol! Imagine being chained to you desk. This post was made by the unchained gang

It's possible the humidity along the coasts would make the environment more uncomfortable than farther inland. With the small oceans sea trade was likely minimal.

Can you answer a question on Vulcan temperature, what does it go down at nighttime, I only found one link saying about 45 degrees F for the evening time. Thanks! Cynthia

The “Anvil” Conjures up images of Vasquez Rocks..

The Vulcans call their planet Tikut in their language I believe or was it their sun ?

I fucking spit my coffee on my phone at 0:23

Remember when Bones called Spock a Green Blooded Hobgoblin.🤣🖖

0:24 - not gonna lie Vulcan kinda thicc tho, got that wagon like a Pixar animation mom 😶😂

“You’ve been so worried about his Vulcan eyes, you forgot about his Vulcan ears!” Kirk to McCoy.:)

I'll love to hear about Betazed!

I have a theory as to why their cities aren't near the shores. They used to build their cities next to water, and those cities were the largest and more important, but as such got nuked during Surak's time, and the nuclear reactors in those cities went critical when the cities got hit, poisoning the coast lines and water. So in the centuries immediately after, new urban centers were built inland, and even after the radiation cleared, their new cities were so advanced they didn't need to settle around bodies of water anymore to be self sufficient and maintain trade, as they had shuttles and technologies for efficient water making or deep earth water extraction.

Yippee more videos

The Triangle is the most logical of shapes.

Great vid! could you do a culture index for the Rigellians? I saw one in lower decks & I'm really intrigued.

Sorry my Universal Translator is lazy.

2:02 He reminds me of Reverend Jim.

Anvil region and The Forge are typical tools one would expect the God Vulcan to use when making weapons and such. Incidentally the God Vulcan also happens to be the type to lose his anger and can go into a state of rage. Sounds familiar? Just like the god himself, the surface of the homeworld is heavily scarred and defaced severely.

"Spock's spiritual movement of Vulcan-Romulan Reconstruction came to past in the 32nd century." Wow, only 800yrs after he prophesied it!

Time to get your Vulcan on

random Question: so in Voyager, through Tuvok, we learn that Vulcans have to train in order to be able to control their emotions. Q: what happens to the Vulcan youth that fail to control their emotions? are they exiled? to where? or are they 86'd cuz they'd be a disturbance to their order?

I’d love some Star Wars worlds

For the bit about other names for Humans, you forgot the most important one: Hu-Maun, as the Feringi like to say.

Very interesting, although can't technically be classed as a planet. By current definitions it only meets 1 of 3 criteria- have sufficient gravity to form a sphere. I could accept that one criterion would change due to space exploration - the need to orbit our sun would likely change to need to orbit a star. But the final criterion is quite fundamental, the need to have cleared it's near orbit of similar sized objects which it would fail due sharing its orbital path with another celestial body

I could be wrong but there used to be a hypothetical planet called "Vulcan" that orbited the Sun within Mercury's orbit. I suspect Gene Roddenberry got the name Vulcan from the hypothetical planet closer to our Sun than Mercury which was meant to account for perturbations in the orbit of Mercury before Einstein's General Relativity made the existence of such a planet no longer necessary to explain Mercury's orbit. You're still right though because that hypothetical planet was named after the Roman god Vulcan.

"Guards! Rick's sending pleas for help again!"

Why didn't the Romulans take the other planet? The Remans could have took the moon of that planet to set up a system just like they were use to. Vulcan wouldn't have to change it's name then. Thanks for the vid Rick, like your work.

On the topic of planets from other franchises, I’ve wondered for a while now if Vulcan & Reach from Halo are the same planet in different universes.

There is a little more to the name. Newton's model didn't quite account for Mercury's orbit, so some astrophysicists speculated that they're might be a protoplanet between the sun and Mercury, which they named Vulcan because it would have to be hot enough that it would basically just be a ball of lava. Einstein debunked that conjecture - but Trek's original audience, scifi nerds in the 60's, would likely have recognized the reference.