Nathaniel Romulan

## Nathaniel Abraham Levi Romulan

Nathaniel Romulan, shortly after his promotion to Field Marshall of Her Majesty's Imperial Army.

## Further info

### Role/Jobs

Imperial Field Marshall, Tactitian and Scholar

### Family

Romulan/Emala FamilyPenelope of Emala (Spouse) Graham Romulan (Brother)

### Important actions

Bloody PushImperial Military Restructuring Act

A revered figure, yet a controversial leader surrounded by the Eternal Empire’s broad reaching society, **Nathaniel Abraham Levi Romulan** remains nevertheless an important character for the understanding of the Royal Imperial military as a whole through foreign eyes of galactic reach. As a lower class but still intellectual nobleman, he exceeded in many fields of study, work and overall competition when siding together with others; his most notable contribution to history was, however, in the military business of the nation. His years in service proved uneventful and monotonous for the most time, but even so with the career of field tactician, Nathaniel's doings came as crucial for the development of newer strategies and tactics combining the many Corps of the Empire, especially in turbulent times such as the Great Northern War, between the Eternal Empire and the Dyss Berserkers, when both sides sought for complete military domination over each other. In the end of conflicts, however, it was the Imperials who would lick their wounds in defeat, and he would inherit much of the consequences back home for the actions of him and his comrades during the war's greatest undertaking; the Bloody Push.

Despite his vastly intelligent nature, Nathaniel's policies also brought him the reputation of risk taker and sometimes impatient amidst an upcoming event. Although a great intellectual and reformer of military discipline systems wide across the Eternal Empire, perhaps his greatest weakness was actually dealing with the process of passing the act by the many aristocratic protests without faltering or collapsing it in the meantime. Many of his ideals, though rebuffed by a confident military high command at the time of their propositions, came to be adopted with the passing time for their versatility, let it be on the hands of other more innovative officers with similar plans or the ever more complex evolution of combat tactics throughout further years.

Field Marshall Romulan, *Earl of Falka*, scholar of the Court, was a character filled with potential to stand out amidst a sea of prominent figures in the Eternal Empire, and that was precisely what he strived for in his lifetime.

## **Early Life**

Nathaniel was born the second son of a lower aristocracy family living in the recently colonised planetary domain of Voice of Ancestors, in March 11th, 2215. He was commonly regarded as physically weak and frail during childhood, something that greatly isolated the boy from outside contact in his younger years at the family’s estate. In 2224, he was diagnosed with a rare respiratory dysfunction responsible for greatly impeding his free roaming and advancement through the education institutions of the region; through a span of several years, he almost succumbed to the disease eight times as a teenager in his tense bed rest. By then, his nine years older brother, **Graham Romulan**, had followed a military career as a cadet in the Royal Navy, something that, with the passing of time and the slow recovery of Nathaniel, only influenced the young sibling’s aspirations for adulthood later on. At seventeen years of age, he had finally recovered from his crippling disease. In 2234, he also applied to enter the military, joining as a student in the **Royal Naval Military Academy of Hammersfield**, at the Dominion of New Jamestown. Soon enough he would find himself with a goal fit in the Empire at last.

### **Naval Lineages**

Unfortunately his stay in the Royal Navy cadet school was a turbulent and delicate matter to deal with in the course of his 5 years of studies there. Nathaniel was much fond of the aristocratic directionism present in the navy, but that admiration mattered little when the young cadet sought for autonomy to study classified material by his own  company. Amongst ignoring orders from instructors and superiors, potentially revealing naval secrets and endangering fellow cadets several times in his span there, Romulan was almost forcefully relieved from his post at the academy in New Jamestown four times. By the end of his senior year, it was becoming clearer he was shifting mind to become more of  a strategist, rather than the usual ship captain most others commonly strived for; he aimed for a harder but more unique opportunity to acquire, something found lacking in the Imperial Armed Forces at that time. By the age of 24, with much effort and persuasion of the higher instructors to not reject his pass as an officer, he had finished his cadet studies in New Jamestown, a year earlier than most in the Empire would usually do to acquire the famed officer status.

As noncommissioned officer, Nathaniel showed little interest in taking command of screening vessels and thus kickstarting a naval career in his youth like his brother had done; he was after something grander, combining both the powers in the void and those present in the planetary grounds alike together to form a flexible yet way of attack and defense for the nation’s military. He strived for a complete understanding of the war boards, and by then he had come half-way through the paveway to become an grand strategist for Her Majesty’s Royal Forces across the Galaxy.

### **Grounded At Last**

Following suit, he wasted little to no time with the graduation in the Naval Academy, and soon after rejoined the scholar ranks to attend in the much more complex army matters the Empire had focused on mastering. Nathaniel was being now sent to New Earth, for much more rigorous officer training in the capital; his first scores were the highest of that year. Nevertheless, his gambling nature in battle situations were constantly reprised by the local instructors and fellow competitors, matters that usually lead to heated arguing amidst an ongoing training session or worse, accounted by nearby onlookers. It was not his grades that slowed down progression of his stay in the academy, but instead the behavior that plagued the lowborn aristocrat the key factor for delaying a concrete graduation from the army field. Later on, the threats went as far as to him being almost forced to volunteer as a common foot soldier for the ongoing Third Campaign of the Southern Thrust by a collection of fellow officers, an event that was almost passed through if not by Nathaniel’s rambling being heard amidst the occurrence by a passung Field Marshall on the academy’s grounds.

Even so, most threats and reprisals paled in comparison to his actual forced discharge in the last year of training at the **Royal Academy of Army Tactics of Lura**, during the final weeks of 2243. After a full on duel arranged by him and a divisional commander, which he lost as his weapon failed to function amidst the endeavour, he was promptly scratched off from the records and refused to receive a proper graduation in the Army branch, thus impeding him from an actual role as the so desired army tactician. Despite the vast knowledge acquired in his younger years, the situation had much remained the same, and his fate seemed to be one of someone stuck down in defeat regardless of his intelligence and perseverance in the face of a great challenge.

In the next few years, Nathaniel had shifted some ideals, but also maintained others in the meantime. The prospect of civilian life was now a much more realistic approach than ever, and with some years of experience managing the Romulan estate prior to his discharge, he had also made himself a reliable administrative figure in Voice of Ancestors, especially when dealing with crop growing and slave labour in the local market. Still, he always held the high hopes of sometime returning to the Armed Forces one way or another, a prospect that encouraged him ever so more to read upon the matter and active write about it also whenever a new idea rose from his head. One such brewing thought culminated into the ‘***Combined Push***’ Essay, a collection of one thousand pages describing how the Empire could properly expand and maintain itself afloat with a fragilized economic bubble and a saturized slave market following a victory in warfare. The project took him around three years to fully finish and publish; and even so, it was an astonishing failure in terms of public reception…

## **The General Staff**

By the dawn of 2246, much of the previously constant economic progress found by Nathaniel's side was falling into a stagnated status. A slave uprising had rendered the Romulan estate in almost complete anarchy, and the early death of *High Baron Frederick Romulan*, Nathaniel's father, inherited his brother the family lands in Voice of Ancestors, arranging his own ruling system, instead of adhering to his own more active policies present during his father's rule. Amidst the increasing recession though, an increasingly interesting opportunity arose from the warring Imperial horizon. A certain group of acquainted veteran army figures had just returned from deployment during the Third Campaign of the Southern Thrust and they had many opinions on how to better arrange the army and other forces of the Eternal Empire entirely; together, they formed the small, but still nevertheless influential, **Society of the Red Rubies**. In New Earth, the heart of the Imperial pride, one such notorious man connected to the group, General Lionel Firefly, had taken his time away from the chaotic frontlines to read and evaluate the newer academic writings whenever he had the opportunity to, something that eventually led him to stumble onto the much controversial *Combined Push* writing of one Nathaniel Romulan, published years prior and planets away from the opulence of the capital. At first, he had taken a critical interest much aimed at also bashing the essay promoted by the man who had dropped out from the army academy, but after a second in-depth reading of the material for actual criticism, Lionel had grown quite fond of its strategic ideals and predictions after conflicts for the Empire. He became one great voice over the idea when partaking meetings with the society, and soon enough he also advocated for a more serious conversation with the group over the matter; although some heavy weightening resistance opposed Lionel’s proposition, his own authority had massed enough alignment to coerce the remaining members to give in, and discuss with the author of the writing in person to hear more detailed viewpoints in New Earth.

When Nathaniel received an invite from far away, seeing his brother’s holdings slowly fall out of grasp and the estate collapsing with sheer stagnation at its forefront, he had little choice but to go and finally feed his intrigue for the call. Soon enough he would find himself surrounded by innovative-thinking men and women of the Imperial Army staff; the most notorious time of his life was about to begin.

### **An Unexpected Opportunity**

Upon his arrival to the private Imperial Court meeting, Nathaniel found himself awaited by dozens of officers to unravel his thesis of military matters and prove himself right over whatever points the society had questioned throughout the debate. The man, who by now was entering his early 30s and stood shorter than most he talked with, found at first mostly aimed stares and critical eyes all around towards his presence, something he was always too used to by this point in time. He made sure to answer many of the initial questions with great enthusiasm, displaying an unusual quickness and versatility whenever the group moved on to another topic to further discuss in. One persistent member of the Red Rubies however, a military attaché of New Jamestown, **Penelope of Emala**, was far from backing down amidst Nathaniel’s swift rebuffs against the other officers, and made sure to counter argument his ideals with great precision of words and toning throughout her discussion with the essay writer, going to the point where only the two were ones actually debating anything by the end of the gathering. At the resolution of the occurrence though, the ferocious debate had at last made up the minds of many there present and of General Firefly’s himself, a move bound to break a stalemate found amidst the main group of the society. Despite Penelope’s respectful, though infuriated, oppositions, it came to be that in the end, Nathaniel Romulan was honourably invited to join the group even with his lacking experience and unfound army occupations in the past, with intents of helping the army’s dispositions to develop newer tactics and doctrines to defend, assault and annihilate everything found facing the path of the Eternal Empire; a brighter opportunity was about to commence at last for the second Romulan brother.

Now, he had at his disposal enough room to work for his military mindset with much less bother by civilian life than anytime beforehand. He soon enough also adhered to the financial group of nobles present in the society, making acquaintances, contacts and connections that could also benefit him and his own wealth enough of a buffer to never suffer the humiliation like before entering the select aristocratic group. Even still, however, when it came to voicing his own strategic opinions and formulating a brand new set of ideas (Being them useful in some cases, whilst also not in others…), Nathaniel had almost always found himself opposed by one reverberating figure; Penelope. The two had grown to become fiersome rivals in mere matters of short months, and whenever one advocated for a unified all-or-nothing battle tactic, the other was quick to vow for a decentralized doctrine of quick overrunning movement in the battlefield to undermine the other’s lead in a project. They were quickly attributed the key names for two major rivaling factions whenever a new topic was brought in for discussion, and they remained so for a considerable period of the initial phases of the group; the Romulan Style - A more risked yet advantageous stratagem combination - and the Emala Style, a truest successor of the *fire by rank* traditional royal ideal. Yet as the time passed and the discussions intensified, the external shell of both characters only seemed to become a ruse to disguise the personal affairs both idealists began sharing in the shadows...

### **Calm Before the Storm**

In the eventful span of two arduous years, much of Nathaniel’s life was seeing drastic changes from the younger years his life had sculptured. The Empire saw much same likewise however, with the third campaign directed to the south finally ending in a bloody victory, and now finally allowing for veterans of the conflict to return home, replenish their forces and await another assignment that would bring the Empire more victories. This had prompted Nathaniel to once more apply for the military service as an army officer, as in his previous works with General Firefly, he had only been cited as a civilian advisor, a post he’d be comfortable with, if not for the fact he had no voice over the actual process of implementing their work into the Armed Forces, lacking much of the needed prestige and notoriety to put those thesis in uses in battles and everyday planning. With that, and along with some incentive coming from the most supportive members of the society, Nathaniel re-entered an army military academy to finish his last year of training, aiming to finally be officialized into army meetings and receive the ground title of Brigadier-General, a position kept for low-ranking strategists, instead of high warriors of Imperial warfare campaigns.

Things also took major turns for his personal life however. The heated confrontations conducted between Nathaniel and the Countess of *Falka*, Penelope, were now but a facade to disguise their unusual relationship when left alone together; One not as enemies, but as close partners if nothing else more. This relationship would further increase with each passing week, month and year, meetings and discussions from the society only leaving it more evident as their previously rivaling nature seemed to slowly diminish as time went by… Nevertheless, it took some time before the affair left the secretive start it began as, but it still left the shock to most when the mystery was uncovered. Years later they would take as step further though, with an official marriage being arranged in the early months of 2251, in the Emala estate of New Jamestown. Some controversy did surround the two however, especially as the Emala Family lacked the finances at the time to maintain itself in the planet and needed a helping hand for the matter, but it falters to explain why did they still maintained their ties despite the passing of the decades later on in life.

By 2249, now under the employment of the Imperial Army, his authority, voiced support provided by Firefly, and a much more composed and subtle temper to fellow officers had allowed for a gigantic opportunity to push more daring changes into action over the Armed Forces as a whole. His skills over naval and army capabilities had made him versatile into choosing whatever approach was more needed and actually approved by the army council and naval admiralty, and although he took little credit for sharing such a low rank at the time, what mattered most was the fact things took the changes with welcome arms, rather than with plain distrust for their actual use. In the end though, the sub-branch that had most been affected was one few sought to realise being an actual factor in modern warfare; the Air Corps. Throughout the span of 2251 to 2256, changes to structural ranks, newer models requested for commission and larger air bases were all implemented with the borders both to the North and the West; those were some small but resounding victories that would later on open new pathways to further development over the air force and even the ground crews maintaining them, not to mention the slow-paced change in view of the Imperial pilots and their usual marginalized nature in the Armed Forces.

These changes were small ones, but they marked the beginning of a new era for the newer generation of military leaders. With the promotion of Lionel Firefly to the position of Field Marshall, he had to scramble for an officer staff to better arrange correlation in his designed sector; and many already knew from the very start that it was certain one man was already in mind of the methodical army commander all along to join his side...

(Article still in development. More added regularly)