About the Role and Motivation of Vulcans in Guiding Humans

It's astonishing how entitled humans can feel. Considering the Vulcans, a highly advanced race with a tumultuous past, one wonders why they would feel obliged to share military technology with this new and often aggressive species. Imagine being an advanced species encountering these hairless apes, a species that nearly destroyed itself and primarily focused on self-destruction. Would you naturally want to provide such potentially dangerous technology?

Instead, the Vulcans chose to guide humans, giving them just enough to start but not enough to cause significant harm to the galaxy, with or without their actual consent. Their approach highlights a dual strategy: a conservative and cautious guidance to ensure human advancement without risking catastrophic consequences.

The Vulcans’ portrayal in Star Trek: Enterprise showcased them as extreme conservatives, actively repressing mind melds in their culture until later seasons. They had strained relations with most species and were desperate to convert humanity into their logic-based society, driven by their desire for peace and order. The Andorians and Telerites, in particular, treated the Vulcans harshly, underscoring human uniqueness in their interactions.

The Motive: Human Grooming or Unnecessary Cruelty?

The Vulcans' guiding of humans raises several ethical questions. Were they grooming humans for their own benefit or showing unnecessary cruelty by withholding critical information? The Vulcans wanted to ensure that humans, who had almost destroyed themselves multiple times, would become a logical and peaceful culture similar to their own. This was not just about humanity's well-being, but also about preventing the creation of more semi-hostile neighbors who might disrupt the galaxy's peace.

The core of the question lies in the nature of their actions—were the Vulcans intentionally fostering human growth or merely stifling it? Given their history of repression and cautiousness, it's plausible that they genuinely believed their actions could lead to a better future for both species. However, the ethical implications of withholding critical information and the ultimate consequences of human advancement under their guidance cannot be overlooked.

The Consequences of Guiding or Withholding Knowledge

Their guiding approach had both positive and negative outcomes. On one hand, it promoted human advancement, allowing them to develop technologies and understandings that would have been impossible otherwise. This guided progress also helped humanity avoid immediate catastrophe, as the Vulcans' withholdings prevented them from causing widespread damage.

On the other hand, this guided growth led to humanity’s emergence as a semi-hostile force, which was the very thing the Vulcans aimed to avoid. The question remains: did the potential long-term benefits justify the short-term restraints, and if so, was it ethical?

In the end, the balance between guiding and restraining is a complex issue. It reflects the duality inherent in any advanced race's approach to more primitive species. The Vulcans' actions, while driven by their own interests and beliefs, also set the stage for a thousand futures, some of which remain uncertain and open to interpretation.