Time of Awakening The Time of Awakening was a period in Vulcan history when the violent and warlike Vulcan race switched to more peaceful ways . It occurred sometime during the 4th century of the Earth calendar , although some Vulcans had already begun to mentally train themselves to suppress their emotions ca . 3000 years earlier . ( ) The change was brought on by a Vulcan named Surak , who preached a philosophy of using logic to control emotion s , as well as total pacifism . He was effective in spreading his teaching across , though he encountered heavy resistance from many Vulcans , especially " those who marched beneath the raptor ' s wings " . A war ensued , and Vulcan was about to " tear itself apart " using weapons like atomic bomb s and the Stone of Gol . In the end , the war came to a conclusion and a sizable group of Vulcans eventually left the planet , becoming the ancestors of the Debrune and the Romulan s . Despite Surak ' s death due to radiation sickness at Mount Seleya shortly before the last battle against " those who marched beneath the raptor ' s wings " , both his katra as well as his writings were preserved in a katric arc and a device called " Kir ' Shara " , respectively . Although both became lost and would not be rediscovered until the mid - 22nd century , Vulcan society rose from the ashes by embracing logic and began to rebuild its civilization - a process which took almost 1 , 500 years . One outcome of this was that the Stone of Gol was dismantled into three pieces and scattered across space , far from Vulcan . Legend would eventually claim that it was destroyed by the Vulcan gods . ( ) Appendices . Background information . There is no actual proof that these Vulcans were actually rebelling against Surak ; all that is canon ically known is that a group of Vulcans left the homeworld around this time , but whether or not they opposed Surak ' s teachings has never been officially stated on - screen . It is , however , likely that the faction Surak referred to as " those who march beneath the Raptor ' s wings " were the precursors of the Romulans , given that the Romulan Empire ' s emblem is a raptor , and their violent , warlike culture . A deleted scene from would have established that , even after the embrace of logic , Vulcans continued to war over which exact interpretation from the teachings of Surak was correct . This resulted in a cycle of violence , with one faction trying to suppress another faction , only to find that this was impossible and the other faction eventually retaliating . The cycle was eventually broken by the embrace of non - violence . In an ultimately omitted line of dialogue from the script for , it was established that a series of statue s overlooking the Fire Plains were built around the Time of Awakening . In the same excised line , T ' Pol dated the period as being " more than two thousand Earth years ago " as of 2154 ( mid - 22nd century ) , which would date the Time of Awakening to 153 ( mid - 2nd century ) or earlier . In , it was referred to as the " Time of " the " Awakening , " with a definite article . The name was also formatted that way in the " Home " script . In , Q claims it was one of Quinn ' s " self - destructive stunts " that created a misunderstanding which ignited " the hundred - year war between the Romulans and the Vulcans " . This war was never further elaborated on , but Q apparently assumed Cpt . Janeway knew about it . It is possible this was intended as a reference to the atomic war following the Time of Awakening . Apocrypha . There are several novels that deal with the " Time of Awakening " , though revelations in s Vulcan Reformation trilogy have rendered them somewhat inconsistent with the " Star Trek " canon . These include :