#forgotten lore

y'all forgot that Metal Sonic Has The lost Labyrinth and Yet Even the Devs Forgot And Never Used this Fact to improve metal Sonic and his character.

Also here's some alts

Also in "Amok Time" they establish that Vulcan culture is traditionally matriarchal

Spock is the equivalent of a prince on Vulcan, as his grandmother was the ruler of the planet, and his father was a strong political figure as well. This is never brought up again after "Amok Time" that I can recall.

Spock may be vegetarian (I can't recall if people just assumed that or if he said so himself, honestly) but that would be something that his human heritage enabled him to be. According to written lore that didn't make it into the show (I'll find my source one of these days), Vulcans, while somewhat omnivorous and capable of eating things other than meat, also have sharpened incisors due to the necessity of eating meat on a literal volcano planet where not much vegetation grows. They are somewhat obligatory carnivores, even if they are capable of using replicators for their meat now.

Vulcan parents encourage pets because it fosters a sense of responsibility. If Sarek is an indication, they also tend to turn a blind eye to pets helping young children with emotional stability. Whatever works as they learn control. (see Star Trek: The Animated Series, the one where Spock goes back in time to his own childhood)

Same as the previous one's source; Vulcans have a rite of passage as a child heads into adolescence, to prove they are ready to learn how to be an adult (heavily implied to at one point be a "ready to join the hunt/the nomadic clan's moving/etc. type thing) where they venture out into the wilderness and have to survive alone for a period of time until they find some sort of truth about themselves. Children are not told this part, but Sarek confides that parents usually follow from a distance to ensure their safety, at least in modern times, which almost got child!Spock killed when he ran away to perform his rite without telling them.

Vulcans do not sweat, according to written lore, although they can't help the human actors sweating onscreen. On Vulcan, water is far too precious a resource to waste this way. They also do not produce as much saliva as humans.

In light of the moisture-preserving situation, Vulcan genitalia is also constructed differently; you know that genital slit trope in fanfic? Apparently, this also started with Vulcans. They also self-lubricate, but this only occurs after they've been worked up enough to open.

Obligatory mention that "fuck or die" was Pon Farr, and people remember that part but they don't remember that in canon it's actually "fuck, fight, or die". They can also just pick a fight until somebody passes out and that's fine, which was the solution to Spock's when T'Pring decided not to marry him.

Vulcans still practice arranged marriage, technically speaking, but when the time of the marriage comes it's perfectly acceptable for ether of the parties involved to pick a fight or choose a champion to fight for them to avoid it.

Sarek and Amanda did not show up to what was supposed to be Spock's wedding, despite arranging it, although T'Pring brought a number of relatives, which leads me to believe neither of them actually thought he'd go through with it anyway.

This isn't strictly confirmed by canon, but I'm pretty sure when Pon Farr was introduced nobody actually said it was a men-only thing.

While the Vulcans of TOS originally pretended they did not have emotions at all to humans, it was later admitted that they actually do not only have but fully acknowledge their emotions. It's just that their emotions are so overwhelmingly powerful that, for a highly telepathic race, they began to become catastrophic. Surak began preaching control after a world war devastated something like 90% of Vulcan's population.

Addendum to that last point: You know how when a normal human bursts into room in a panic and screams "Fire!" or something similarly catastrophic, and the onslaught of movement and panic that ensues? Imagine that, but with the full force of everyone else's emotions assaulting you from every direction, feeding off of each other. It's no wonder they ended up so few.

Vulcans already had space travel before the time of Surak, and when some disapproved of his teachings, they left the planet entirely and settled the planets of Romulus and Remus. Interbreeding with the native Remans dulled their volatility, and despite their protest against Surak, they (later known as the Romulans) clearly do practice greater emotional control than many species. I'm not going to get into the ethical considerations of the Romulans and Remans in this post.

Spock established that mind melding is incredibly culturally significant on Vulcan. Doing so by force is absolutely out of the question by law; during their wars, Vulcans found out they could kill each other with thoughts alone in this way, which is why in modern times it's typically reserved for close family members (not that Trek writers would have you remember that, with how often Tuvok melds with random aliens. At least Spock didn't usually volunteer unless it was a survival situation.)

The "Vulcan neck pinch" was never REALLY explained, but Spock was able to produce the same result via telepathy through a wall, so personally I take this as confirmation that NO, we are not in fact expected to believe that every bipedal race in the galaxy has a knockout nerve in the neck, but that it's simply a limited form of the killing-mind-meld Vulcans can do. (and seriously fuck William Shatner for claiming Kirk can do it but McCoy somehow can't. Even if it was a nerve thing that doesn't make any sense.)

Sarek and Amanda are disgustingly sappy for a Vulcan couple, with Sarek constantly asking for physical/mental affection in public. Spock's awkwardness when they came aboard the ship was justified on several levels when the first thing his father does in front of the captain is ask Amanda to kiss him.

Holding hands is familial affection to Vulcans. The index and middle finger held out, pressed together, and touched to the other person, is the actual equivalent of a Vulcan kiss. (Spirk shippers, I love y'all, but calm the fuck down about the hand holding. Spones shippers, y'all got Spock figured out with all those random two fingered touches to McCoy's bare skin. There's no way Bones doesn't know what that means.)

Vulcans can go for two weeks without sleeping, but can also sleep for several days at a time. When healing, they can put themselves into a Tolkien-elf-esque trance in which they are well aware of what's going on around them, but all of their physical energy is devoted to healing, allowing them to recover from injuries that would otherwise be fatal.

Unsolicited skin to skin touch when you are not family members is highly frowned upon by Vulcan society (LOOKIN' AT YOU CHAPEL).

"T'hy'la" was meant to be open to interpretation, though Gene Roddenberry described as meaning "friend, brother, lover". Based on other quotes by him, the closest modern English equivalent to what he imagined is probably a queerplatonic bond. (ship what you ship, personally I am in tired parent!Spones land. The point is, Roddenberry WANTED you to ship what you ship!)

Most creatures on Vulcan have a seven-year breeding cycle.

Sybok was born in 2224 and Spock in 2230, only six years apart, so we can lay to rest the question of whether Vulcans have sex outside of Pon Farr. YES. THEY DO. Romulans at this point in time no longer experience that biological drive, so no, you cannot even blame it on Sybok's mom going through it.

Not to get into individual family histories, but Sybok's mom was a Romulan princess but Sarek somehow got custody and by the time Spock is grown up they're at war, so take from that what you will about Romulan/Vulcan political tensions.

Due to the greater gravity on Vulcan than on Earth, Vulcans are notably stronger and have greater endurance than humans. They also require less oxygen to breathe.

Vulcans are traditionally nomadic; there are not many old settlements on Vulcan, by their own historic standards. They also in TOS seem to construct out of stone and adobe rather than metal, which makes sense. They do have something against closable doors in family residences, it seems as of Star Trek: The Animated Series, where all door frames in Sarek and Amanda's home are empty except the ones to the outdoors. This may have something to do with a total lack of privacy ANYWAY due to how highly telepathic they are, combined with sheer practicality for air flow purposes in a desert shaped by volcanic activity.

No matter what Tuvok says, Vulcans DO consider insults logical, at least if you consider Star Trek: Enterprise canon now that it's been removed from the main timeline (which was honestly a good decision on the writers' part). This does make sense though, given that they interact with many different species, some of whom expect insults as part of communication (*cough*Klingons*cough*), and they do have their own volatile history. It makes sense there would be linguistic holdovers.

Vulcan marriages are traditionally held as a Pon Farr ceremony of marriage-or-challenge (the fuck, fight, or die trope from earlier), so the couple in question are not generally present for any celebration that may occur. They're uh, busy.

Vulcan emotions are so powerful that the mere overflow from an ill Sarek's mind was enough to put Captain Picard out of commission for the duration of his contact with that emotion.

Solkar, the Vulcan from First Contact, was so into Zefram Cochrane that their handshake (again, handholding alone is considered familial affection. A strong handshake would be a lot of telepathic feedback, especially from a species that doesn't know how to shield) induced a lifelong bond between the two and a draw towards humans an Cochrane's family in particular in Solkar's family line. Solkar was Sarek's grandfather. Not much is canon about Vulcan's method of choosing government officials, but nepotism/inhertance seems illogical and unlikely. However, if inheritance is a holdover from the pre-Surak age, it's possible that Solkar's daughter is the one ruling Vulcan during TOS.

This got way longer than I expected it to and the order is probably all jacked up, so I'll stop now. I take only constructive criticism, but while I am shit at remembering episode titles, I am reasonably confident that all of these are or were at one point official canon.