Vulcan (Star Trek planet)
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In the fictional Star Trek universe, Vulcan, or Vulcanis, is a reddish Minshara-Class planet orbiting the star 40 Eridani A, 16 light years from Earth, and is the homeworld of the Vulcans.
Much of its surface consists of deserts and mountain ranges, and large areas are set aside as wilderness preserves. It is much hotter than Earth and its atmosphere is thinner; as a result, humans tend to tire out more quickly. Zones of habitation are divided into provinces. According to Spock, Vulcan has no moon, although it does have a lunar colony, according to the episode Unimatrix Zero (). The film featured what appeared to be a large moon; the non-canonical novel Spock's World explained that this was a second planet, not a moon. The DVD edition of Star Trek; The Motion Picture, however, had edited the Vulcan skyline to remove the heavenly body in question, and redesigned the Vulcan surface into something more in keeping with the later films.
It was theorized that Vulcan was settled by colonists from Sargon's planet in approximately 500,000 B.C.E.
Locations
- Fire Plains of Raal
- Gol (ancient city destroyed before the Great Awakening)
- Mount Seleya
- ShirKahr
- ShirKahr Academy
- T'Karath Sanctuary
- Temple of Amonak
- Vulcan's Forge (often abbreviated as 'The Forge')
- Vulcan Science Academy
- Vulcana Regar
Native Lifeforms
- favinit (similar to an orchid)
- sehlat (described as a giant teddy bear with six-inch fangs)
- Vulcan molluscs
- Vulcan sandworms
Trivia
- According to the non-canonical book Star Trek Star Charts, Vulcan's population in the 2370s is 4.9 billion.
- In the original release of ', a scene on Vulcan showed a moon, contradicting a statement made by Spock to Uhura in '. In the 2001 Special Edition, this was removed.
- Early references to the planet in novels and other background material created for gave the planet's name as Vulcanis and its inhabitants were called Vulcanians.
- The 40 Eridani-A Starfleet Construction Yards are located in Vulcan's star system, perhaps in orbit of Vulcan or elsewhere in the system. These yards are one of the larger starship construction facilities in the Federation.
- Star Trek fanon placed the planet around either Epsilon Eridani or 40 Eridani. The Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Home" set the distance between Vulcan and Earth at 16 light years, making 40 Eridani the correct location. 40 Eridani A is confirmed to be Vulcan's home star in Star Charts (Pocket Books, 2002).
- Several non-canonical Star Trek sources, including the novel Spock's World by Diane Duane, have reconciled the conflicting statements on whether Vulcan has a moon by making Vulcan part of a double planet system. Vulcan's smaller sister planet is named T'Kuht (sometimes spelled T'Khut), a feminine name that means "watcher" in the Vulcan language; Terran astronomers call it Charis, after one of the Graces who married the god Vulcan in some versions of Roman mythology. While non-Vulcans often describe T'Kuht as "Vulcan's moon" (compare Pluto's so-c
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