Are Vulcans Mary Sues?

[Putaro]

Well, perhaps not everyone loves them all the time but I'm trying to come up with Vulcan weaknesses besides no sense of humor. So far it's a pretty short list. I'd like to be able to write in some Vulcan/Earth relations and I'm looking for reasons why the Vulcans would logically want to ally with Earth as well as ways to keep it from being "T'Pol saves the day due to Vulcan skill X, again".

Please help me out if you can think of any!

Vulcan advantages:
Smarter than Humans
Longer lived
Stronger
Able to survive harsh desert conditions
Third eyelid to protect against bright lights
Somewhat telepathic
Controlled emotions

Disadvantages (shown in the series):
Don't see well in the dark? (not sure if this is canon or not - there seems to be some disagreement on this)
Annoy other races with arrogance of logic
Pon Farr
Don't understand emotions well

Potential disadvantages:
Low birth rate?
Solitary - don't co-operate well?
Don't swim well?

[crystalswolf]

One of the pitfalls that I thought Vulcans would fall into was that their culture would become stagnant. The passion and drive to do anything other than the status quo would be quelled in a heartbeat so it seemed to me that they would need their relationship with humans just to evolve. I don't know if this helps any.

[Brandyjane]

That's a good question, and it's one I've struggled with in my writing, as well.

One weakness I can think of that T'Pol shows is that she doesn't heal as fast from the radiation that cracked everyone's skin at the end of season three. (I can't remember which episode, but it's right at the end of the third season, when Trip tells her she looks like an old oil painting and then she tells him her age.) I don't know if it's safe to extrapolate too much from that one incident, but I've decided that while Vulcans might be stronger than humans and immune to a lot of illnesses that affect humans, when they do get really sick, they take longer to recover.

In "The Forgotten," T'Pol seems to indicate that she thinks it is a weakness in Vulcans that they cannot let themselves experience strong emotions like grief. While we might see at as a strength that they can effectively suppress their strong emotions, at least one Vulcan wishes she could experience emotions safely.

I agree with crystalswolf's assessment about the stagnation of their culture. They don't seem to adapt to new ideas as well as humans. Vulcans have been a spacefaring species for a really long time, and yet, even without them sharing a lot of technology, Earth isn't too far behind them. I, too, think they need a partner species to help them move forward once they've reached a certain point.

The mate-bond could be a potential problem, if a Vulcan gets seriously ill or even dies when his or her mate gets sick or dies.

As for the night-blindness, I'm pretty sure that it is not canon, but I've seen it used so many times that I've accepted it for my purposes. I think you could safely go either way with that one.

[Aquarius]

I don't buy the night blindness thing. On an arid, bright, hot world, people would need to come out when it's cooler and easier to deal with things. In their hunter-gatherer days, they would've had to come out in the evening to do what they had to do.

[Putaro]

Thanks crystalswolf, that is useful.

@Brandyjane - the radiation healing was one I'd forgotten, thanks!. The mate bonding/death pops up a lot in fan fic, and maybe some of the novels, but I don't think it's in any of the main stream stuff, is it? It would tend to make bonded Vulcans *very* risk averse. If you know that your mate will probably die if you do, any notion of self-sacrifice to protect your mate goes right out the window.

@Aquarius - I think your analysis on night blindness makes sense. On the show, T'Pol often just had candles in her cabin but she was never shown stumbling over things. On the other hand, it's just so nice to have something they're not good at!

Let me add to the lists:

Advantages:
Acute hearing (how did I forget that?)
Acute sense of smell (is that only female Vulcans?)
Healing trances

Disadvantages:
Slow healing from radiation
Stagnant civilization
Strong emotions are dangerous?

I put poor swimmers on the list because I thought their bodies would be denser than humans and therefore they wouldn't float well. Memory Alpha seems to show weight/height ratios about the same as humans, though. Any thoughts?

[Aquarius]

I think the obvious disadvantage is that they wouldn't do well in cooler or humid climates. I don't imagine any Vulcans lining up to go snowboarding or anything like that.

[smirnoffmule]

Re the radiation thing, in Surek's Soul T'Pol says that Vulcans are more resistant to radiation than humans, but then there's different kinds of radiation, and of course it's up to you how canonical you consider the spin-off books to be (personally I just rob the bits I like and leave the rest ) And it might well be like Brandyjane says - they're more resistant generally, but when they get it, they get it bad. Bit like the Vulcan man-flu.

I agree on the stagnation thing, and I think we definitely see in Enterprise canon that Vulcan society is very resistant to change and new ideas. The same traits lead to a tendency towards social isolation too - I think it's telling in however many decades Vulcans and humans have been in contact, Elizabeth is the first known hybrid. I can see in that respect allying with a more outgoing species might be to their advantage - humans can go out and say hi and collect new information and technology etc, while Vulcans can reap the benefits.

[Reanok]

I think the night blindeness of Vulcans was created in some fanfiction story.I never thought Vulcans had night vision problems.Vulcans are Vulnerable to cold tempertures .

[Misplaced]

I think the night blindeness of Vulcans was created in some fanfiction story.I never thought Vulcans had night vision problems.Vulcans are Vulnerable to cold tempertures .

I believe it was BlacknBlue that came up with the poor sight in the darkness thing (Rigil Kent uses it too -- and I mentioned it a teensy bit in Sa'akh). For me, with the extra eyelid, they would have no problem in bright light. BlacknBlue's belief in poor night vision comes from the idea that they are evolved to adapt to the brightness of their desert planet and therefore their eyesight is not as keen in the dark. *shrug* I rather like his (?) stories where Vulcans look at a human artist's rendering of a Vulcan landscape and are suprised that we see it so differently (so brightly) than they do.

But it is a fanon thing. Not canon. Not book canon, as far as I know either. You can look up Memory Beta for book/animated series stuff on Vulcans as well.

[Putaro]

Thanks for the ideas everyone!