Romulans

A warrior civilization from the planets Romulus and Remus. An offshoot of the Vulcan people who left Vulcan two thousand years ago to found the Romulan Star Empire, the Romulans are a passionate, aggressive, but highly honorable people. The ancient Romulans reached across much of the quadrant with outposts and settlements.

Physiology
Rihannsu blood chemistry is significantly different from that of Terrans. Like their Vulcan ancestors, the Rihannsu have copper based blood, which is green rather than red. The Rihannsu physiology is not identical to that of Vulcan however, since the two races have had two millenia to evolve in different directions.
Living on the Two Worlds, which are somewhat colder and a good deal wetter than Vulcan, the Rihannsu have undergone a few changes. Their long pointed ears, used by Vulcans to radiate excess heat, have shortened somewhat. Rihannsu have slightly more exterior insulating body fat, and lack the gaunt look of Vulcans. Rihannsu skin is a slightly lighter shade of green than Vulcans, since they do not need the extra sun protection provided by excess skin pigmentation.

Society
In Romulan society, military rank influences social standing. Because Romulans are a militant civilization who consider defending the Empire and their own personal honor of foremost importance, military service and accompanying rank are decisive factors i n determining social eminence. It is a society with a clearly defined caste system. Every Romulan is accorded a social standing associated with the power and military rank he commands. The highest ranked Romulan is the "Fvillha", or Chief Praetor, the Speaker of the Praetorate. He holds immense power, and those under him rank progressively lower to end with the lowest of the low, prisoners. Prisoners of the Romulan State are scorned as less than Rihannsu, as Romulans identify themselves. Without honor, they rank lower than even slaves do.

The pillar of the Romulan political organization is the House system. It is a clannish system with hereditary succession to continue the lineage. However, the House is not as narrow in scope as a feudal family, as it encompasses a larger cross-section of society. The servants of a House adopt its name as their own, and though they are not equals to their masters, they are considered part of the House. As with each individual Rihannsu, a House is accorded a social rank and status according to the culminative status of its members and its past service to the Empire. The status of a House can be generalized into two categories, the Greater House and the Lesser House. Both are integral to the social structure of the Romulan Empire. The most important person within a house is the hru'hfirh, or Head of House, and each member of the house is given a station to function in. As adoptions are common in Romulan society, adopted Romulans are accorded the same status and prestige they would have held within their own biological House. However, the adopted may have to bear responsibility to two Houses instead of one. The number of members within a House reflects its social prestige, with more being better. An unique form of revenge in Romulan society is done by kidnapping young children of the rival House and rearing them as their own. Children taken in this way are usually never seen again.

Respect and honor form the basis of Romulan society. A lack of deference to one's rank is to show a lack of "mnhei'sahe", or "the ruling passion", an appreciation of honor, duty, courtesy and strength. With Romulans, a successful negotiation must leave all parties satisfied that they were dealt with honor. Their status, their "face", must be acknowledged during the proceedings and remain intact after the encounter. To deny a Romulan appropriate mnhei'sahe, the offended Romulan may initiate a duel to restore his honor, or if the disgrace is too great, surrounding parties may decide to preserve the memory of his honor and kill him before further damage is done. Mnhei'sahe is not clearly defined in statutes, but it is a long-standing custom of showing deference and honor and guides the lives of all true Romulans. Every Romulan knows by the actions and bearing of another exactly what rank and social status he has. Subtle observed cues, previous reputation, current military rank, and past experience all determine the level of respect accorded to a Romulan.

Rihannsu History
It is often a truism that cultures are shaped by their history, but with the Romulans it is a demonstrable fact. To trace the history of the Romulans, it is necessary to go back to the history of ancient Vulcan.

Ancient Vulcans were not at all like Spock, the most well known Star Trek Vulcan. Early Vulcans were an extremely emotional, violent and warlike people. The planet was divided into hundreds of small clans and city- states, each with diverse governmental structures and religions. Because Vulcan was (and is) an extremely dry world, water and resources were scarce. Clans and cities fought violently to acquire the resources to continue to survive. In fact, during any given period on the planet, it was unlikely that any more than 10% of the planet was not at war.

Around 80 BC, in Terran dating, a Vulcan named Surak began publicly expousing the mental practice of logic, and the philosophies of peace. As one could expect, in a turbulent world filled with wars and warriors, his philosophies were slow to spread. However, spread they did, and Surak gradually gathered a small following of devoted followers -- the first true Vulcans, as we now know them. Among these followers was one named S'Task, keen of mind and heart, and Surak's finest pupil.

In the year 20 BC, Vulcan received its first contact with aliens from other stars. The signals beamed in from the edge of the Vulcan system by alien vessels so shocked the Vulcans that several wars and declarations of war were put on hold until the matter could be settled one way or another. Officials met, and it was decided that the planet would meet the aliens united. Contact was made via transmissions from Vulcan, and a time and place of meeting agreed upon.

On the day of the meeting Surak was detained by vehicle troubles, but his pupil S'Task was there in his stead. Unfortunately, the aliens were not true to their word of peace, for they were Orion pirates, intent on enslaving the unsuspecting world. When the aliens landed, the Vulcan emissaries were greeted with stun rays and blasters, rather than overtures of friendship, and a large proportion on the leadership of Vulcan was taken prisoner and held for ransom, among them S'Task.

Thus began the "Ahk", the greatest of all Vulcan's wars, which they fought in their primitive ships using their not at all primitive psi- powers. With their mind talents, Vulcan adepts could force Orion pilots to attack each other, or dive their ships into the sun, and the Orions quickly learned that they should not have tangled with this superficially primitive species.

S'Task himself escaped captivity during the war, organizing an in-ship rebellion, overpowering his captors, and eventually crashing the ship into the Orion mothership, narrowly escaping in a rescue pod. He was found, many weeks later, drifting in space, half-starved, and clinging to life only through the force of his own anger.

In this way began the split between Surak and his student S'Task. After his experience with the Orions, S'Task renounced the pacifism of Surak, saying that pacifism was inappropriate in the hostile universe waiting in interstellar space. However, S'Task was not willing to promote his philosophies actively against Surak, for fear of prodding Vulcan back into a state of war and anarchy. Surak had long preached that "The structure of spacetime is more concerned with means than ends: beginnings must be clean to be of profit", and S'Task agreed with his old master. It was with this in mind that S'Task proposed an alternate solution.

The world was not working as it was, said S'Task, so a clean beginning was in order. The followers of S'Task would use Vulcan's newly advanced space technology and venture out into interstellar space to find a new world and make a clean beginning.

Fifty years later, the first Vulcan far-travel ship, Rhea's Helm, cut in its engines and left orbit, sealing a rift in the species which has not been sealed to this day.

In all, there were 16 far-travel ships in the fleet, each carrying approximately five thousand of the "Declared", those who committed to the journey and placed all their property into a trust to build the ships. When the ships left Vulcan, it was with the belief that they would be able to find a suitable planet within 30-50 years of ship time. The ships were designed with a 100 year viability envelope, so this left plenty of time for the Travellers to find an appropriate world, should the first few stops be unfruitful.

Unfortunately, the Travellers planned their route using data taken from captured Orion vessels, and used the data in a very negative way. Because the Orions had lied to them before, the Travellers were inclined to distrust the data, and planned their trip so as to avoid any star mentioned in the databanks. In this way, the Travellers hoped to avoid any further contact with hostile aliens. The undesirable concomitant of this strategy was that the Traveller's course led straight through a particularly barren, lifeless, and consequently unexplored section of the quadrant. Rather than taking 30 years, their journey stretched out over 100 years, and they barely arrived at a habitable world before their ships fell apart from old age.

In the course of the journey, 11 of the 16 original ships succumbed to various disasters: mind destroying aliens, black holes, and gravity wells. The five remaining craft were rewarded for their perseverance with the discovery of not one, but a binary pair of habitable worlds orbiting the star 128 Trianguli. After some discussion, the worlds were named ch'Rihan and ch'Havran, "of the Declared" and "of the Travellers", in the tongue which the Travellers evolved from the Ancient Vulcan dialect to replace their Vulcan language. In this new tongue, the travellers called themselves "Rihannsu", or "the Declared".

At planetfall, the Travellers found themselves suddenly with two empty worlds to populate. Land was distributed by lottery, and most of the population debarked, leaving only a few small "Ship Clans" who were reluctant to abandon the far-travel ships completely. However, life on the two worlds was not idyllic: of the 18,000 Rihannsu who settled on the two worlds, approximately 6,000 died in the first ten years of their settlement.

Oddly enough, these 6,000 did not die of disease or starvation, but mostly from the violent deaths of war. Upon settling down the Rihannsu promptly picked up where things had left off on Vulcan, warring and feuding for various reasons, primarily territory and resources. In such an atmosphere it was only a matter of time before a warlord emerged to impose a central structure on the factions and clans by force, and such a warlord was T'Rehu, the Ruling Queen.

T'Rehu built up an army in about 67 AS (After Settlement) and within 10 years had more might than any in the Two Worlds. When her power was sufficient, she brought her armies to the Grand Council and there demanded recognition. Only S'Task stood before her, and turned and left when the Council granted her demands. A few years later when famine struck the South Continent she called the Council, including S'Task, together. She derided the Council for incompetence, and when S'Task turned his back on her dishonorable display she had him killed, setting herself up as Ruling Queen. As head of the Grand Council and later as Ruling Queen, T'Rehu dabbled in tyranny and beneficence, taking lives and saving them at her whims for some 18 years.

However, 20 years is a short time in the history of a world and after smarting under her rule for several years the warlike clans of the Eastern continents of ch'Havran revolted and defeated her armies. In place of the Ruling Queen a Tricameral house of Praetorate and Senate was set up which was sufficiently resilient to have survived to this day.

So in relative stability, with regular localized factional wars, the Rihannsu lived for well over 1000 years. The Rihannsu enjoyed all the arts and developed them over this time: sculpture, music, painting, science and war. All were relished and enjoyed. And then, the Rihannsu suffered a rude awakening.

In approximately 1600 AS, the Federation vessel USS Carrizal came out of warp at the far edge of the 128 Trianguli system and began surveying the area. They found, to their surprise, two worlds there with an apparently highly developed agrarian civilization on each. The crew dubbed the worlds "Romulus" and "Remus" in reference to an ancient Terran legend. In standard first contact procedures they beamed in messages of peace and good will. They received no response. After surveying the system for a time, they returned to the Federation with the news of their discovery.

On the Two Worlds the arrival of the aliens had an extremely disturbing effect. Tales of the Orion pirates had survived through the years, and the settlers still remembered that the Orions had preceded their treachery with offerings of peace. They were determined not to allow history to repeat itself, and set about organizing their defence. Over the past 1600 years, the Rihannsu had developed an extremely effective industrial system. They knew they could not match the technology of the ship that had entered their system, but years of war had taught them that sheer numbers could overwhelm any technological advantage.

By the time the next Federation ship arrived, the Rihannsu had constructed some 7,000 crude, cylindrical vessels impulse powered with particle beam weapons. When the USS Balboa coasted into the Trianguli system, it was blown to bits by the massed particle beams of 50 spacecraft. Shortly thereafter, the Rihannsu captured the USS Stone Mountain, took her apart, studied the design, and added warp drive to their primitive craft. Thus began what was known to the Federation as the "First Romulan War".

The Federation's StarFleet was stymied and confused by their inability to defeat the Rihannsu, who were flying craft that were little more than tin cans with warp power drives. Time and again, larger and larger task forces were sent into Rihannsu space and were systematically obliterated by the Rihannsu. At about this time, the Federation made first contact with the Vulcans, and asked them if they knew anything about this seemly maniacal race. The Vulcans responded with characteristic caution, that they knew of some who might match the description, but that they had left Vulcan long ago. As StarFleet continued to send task forces into Rihannsu space the Vulcans suggested that, if these were indeed the ones who had left long ago, it would be best to make peace. It took StarFleet several more years to realize that they were never going to prevail, and a treaty was eventually negotiated -- the only treaty in Federation history to be negotiated entirely by data upload, as the Rihannsu refused to meet the aliens in person.

The treaty stipulated a band of space between the Federation and Rihannsu territories one light year thick, which has since become known as the "Romulan Neutral Zone". And so the situation stands now: the Rihannsu on one side, fiercely developing their defences to avoid being taken advantage of by aliens once again; and the Federation on the other, completely unable to comprehend the reasoning and historical context behind the implacable hostility of their counterparts.

In 2311, thousands of Federation lives were lost to the Romulans in the Tomed incident. Soon after, the two sides signed the Treaty of Algeron was - reconfirming the Neutral Zone, and explicitly forbidding the Federation of developing or using cloaking technology. In the fifty years following the treaty, there was no further incidence between the Federation and the Romulans.

However, there have been attempts to destroy or at least go to war against the Federation. The Enterprise-D, under command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, once intercepted a Romulan scout ship fleeing from a Romulan warbird. After the scout ship entered Federation space, the Enterprise covered it with its own shields and rescued the ship. They learned from a Romulan aboard, Admiral Jarok, that the Romulans were provoking war by building a settlement right on the Neutral Zone. Jarok requested Picard to assist him in seeking out and destroying the outpost before full-scale war erupts. The captain agreed to go, but not before making cautionary preparations. When they arrived, there was nothing but a cloaked satellite and t wo warbirds waiting at the wings. Admiral Jarok only realized then that he had been the bait to lure the Enterprise into a Romulan trap, but Picard had enough wile to prepare for treachery and 4 Klingon Birds-of-Prey decloaked at his signal. The Romulans decided to retreat, and Jarok took his own life in shame.

In 2367, Romulan operative Sela attempted to use mental conditioning of StarFleet officer Geordi La Forge to force him to assassinate Klingon Govenor Vagh, a move calculated to spark distrust between the Klingons and the Federation. In that same year, the Klingon civil war broke out. Sela managed to form a covert alliance with the Duras familly, giving then supplies needed to win the war. If the Duras family won, the Romulans would have considerable influance in the Klingon Empire. It ultimatly failed due to interferance by an Federation Armada, that had set up a blockade.They were able to detect cloaked ships and they were discovered when they attempted to get by.

In the late 2360's, an underground movement emrged on Romulas, seeking to promote reunification of the Romulans with there distant cousins. When the Romulan government bacame aware of the movement in 2368, Proconsul Neral tried to use it as a cover for an attemtped invasion of the planet Vulcan. The invasion was thwarted by Starfleet. Ambassador Spock chose to remain undercover on Romulas, to try and suceed in the reunification.

The Federation licensed Romulan cloaking technology for use on the USS Defiant. The Federation circumvented the limitations set by the Algeron Treaty because a warship was not included within the provisions. There were many restrictions and terms applied to the usage of the cloaking device: it could only be deployed in the Gamma Quadrant and all information Starfleet had about the Dominion would be shared with the Romulans. The the information however, made some Romulans, especially those within the Tal Shiar, Romulan's intelligence agency, nervous of the Dominion threat.

The Romulans believed the Dominion to be the greatest threat to the Alpha Quadrant in the last century. Accordingly, the Romulan government attempted to collapse the Bajoran wormhole in order to prevent a potential Dominion invasion. The plan, which would have included the destruction of Deep Space Nine to eliminate witnesses. It failed when a cloaked Romulan warbird accidentally caused Miles O'Brien to timeshift into the near future, were he witnessed the Romulan attack. Upon returning to the present, He warned station personal, thus preventing the plan from being successful.

Two years later, when an alliance of the Dominion and the Cardassian Union threatened to destablize the Quadrant, the Romulan forces joined with Federation and the Klingon Empire, contributing a fleet of Romulan warships to the defense effort.

Later the Romulan Empire signed a non-aggression pack with the Dominion.