Romulan Star Empire

The Romulan Star Empire is the single state government of the Romulan people. Encompassing a very large area of space in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, the Star Empire has undergone massive societal changes since her founding in the 5th Century AD.

## History

In the 4th Century AD, the Vulcan people were experiencing enormous turmoil on their homeworld. Although they had achieved primitive space flight, factional warfare and extreme violence still raged on their planet, not dissimilar to the conditions on Earth in the early 21st Century. A solution was proposed by the philosopher Surak, following a path of pure logic, and the expulsion of all emotion from the mind and body. However, these philosophies were met with resistance by many Vulcans, and soon the Vulcan people threatened to exterminate themselves with atomic weapons and other more exotic devices. Eventually, the passionate, emotional Vulcans, known as "those who marched beneath the raptor's wings" left Vulcan. It is not recorded in the histories of Vulcan or Romulus whether this was peaceably by some kind of concord, an exile as a vanquished foe, or an escape into the unknown (akin to the escape of Khan Noonien Singh from Earth in 2036).

Whatever the circumstances of their departure, a great exodus began from Vulcan, with two offshoots eventually heading off in primitive low-warp fission-powered sleeper ships. One offshoot became the Debrune, settling towards the galactic south. The second, larger group, headed off towards the galactic east, finally reaching a distant and uncharted system. They named their new home Romii, and the twin habitable worlds they found Romulus and Remus.

On Romulus, they found a lush, if cool (by human standards) habitable world suitable for colonisation, although lacking in some important minerals for development. Remus provided the answer, although the smaller twin was a far harsher world. Remus was tidally locked, with one side always facing Romii. This meant that one side of the planet was baked in constant sun, the other frozen in endless night, and life clung to the thin border of twilight in between. The new colonists to this world also found another unexpected element when they landed to exploit Remus' mineral wealth; they were not alone. Remus had not always been tidally locked, and at some point sentient life had evolved on the world. This life, which the colonists called the Remans, now lived in burrows in the darkness, regressed from a formerly post-industrial society back to a medieval level of society.

A deal was struck between the Romulans, as the new colonists called themselves, and the Reman natives. The Remans agreed to mine the various mineral veins of their world, accustomed as they were to the harsh living conditions, low light and bitter cold of the dark side of Remus, in return for becoming citizens of the new Romulan Star Empire and Romulan assistance in rebuilding their society back to modernity (and beyond).

Historians have debated the legitimacy of this agreement since the opening of diplomatic relationships with the Star Empire brought their history to light in the 2280s. There are those in the Federation and other galactic powers that see it merely as a thinly veiled contract for the enslavement of an entire species, one with little choice in a desperate situation on an otherwise inhospitable world. However, the Romulans of the 5th Century were not the Romulans of the 23rd or early 24th Centuries. All contemporary records show that there was a genuine effort to support the Remans, but that unfortunately the task of rebuilding an advanced society from nothing proved rather too much for the early Romulans and that the welfare and Home Rule of the Remans slipped further and further from the priorities of successive Romulan governments.

The nascent Romulan Star Empire grew, gradually encompassing a number of nearby star systems. The Romulans had discovered and developed fusion power by the mid-15th Century, which became the main power source for their starships for the next seven hundred years or so.

At some point in the late 18th Century, the widening gap between the homogeneously Romulan aristocracy and the merchant classes, comprised of a mix of alien races and less influential Romulans (to say nothing of Reman labourers) led to a short but violent civil war. The Romulan Civil War lead to the overthrow of the Emperor, the dissolution of the Monarchy and the ascendency of the Senate and their elected leader, the Praetor. This had previously been little more than a council of advisers, and now became the seat of power in the Star Empire.

The reformation of the Star Empire took a considerable time, the the plight of the Remans sunk ever further lower in the minds of the Senators. The bourgeoisie had won their plight against the aristocracy, on the backs of the lower classes, with the Remans suffering the most. The Senate and the Praetor were not blind to the powder keg that was under them; no-one understands revolution like those who have just precipitated one, and so a new security agency, the Tal-Shiar, was founded. The official reason given for the existence of the Tal-Shiar at their founding was to act as bodyguards and an impartial security force for the Praetor, the Senate and Romulan government as a whole (the former Imperial Guardsmen being rightly considered untrustworthy). However, the true purpose of the Tal-Shiar was far darker. They were to monitor, investigate, and infiltrate the lower classes and to disrupt any attempts to undermine the power of the Senate or the Praetor.

The Tal-Shiar proved frighteningly effective at eradicating most threats to the power base of the Praetor, but the Remans proved difficult to infiltrate. This was for several reasons. Firstly, they were naturally insular, not trusting outsiders (especially non-Remans) and the conditions in which they lived on Remus were difficult for Romulan Tal-Shiar operatives to work in.

By the end of the 21st Century, through the use of probes and limited contact with traders, the Star Empire had learned of the continued existence and expansion of their ancient ancestors, the Vulcans, and of several new players on the galactic scene. Expanding the Tal-Shiar into an external (as well as internal) intelligence and espionage agency, the Star Empire infiltrated Vulcan society, using their physiological similarities to blend in. The Vulcans, unaware that any of the emotional exiles had survived, did not suspect infiltration, and it wasn't until the 2260s that the possibility of Romulan infiltration was considered a threat.

Tal-Shiar agents learnt of United Earth and how they had risen from the ashes of atomic annihilation to a thriving interstellar power in only a few decades. This pace of development, especially with their friendship with the Vulcans, greatly alarmed the Senate. United Earth's growing diplomatic power, currying favour with the disparate Tellarite Confederation‏‎ and Andorian Star Empire, was viewed as the greatest threat by Senate. These short-lived children on the galactic stage were clear puppets of the Vulcans, so the Romulans believed, and they were being used to assemble an alliance to conquer and subjugate the Romulans and finish what had begun with their exile so many years ago (Romulan isolationist dogma had by this point firmly rewritten history to caste the Vulcans in the role of the aggressor, and their ancestors as the emotional, expressive, artistic and loving individuals daring to live in Suraks dominating and oppressive regime of Logic. The reality of the exile, as mentioned above, is still unknown and debated by historians.)

This belief was seemingly confirmed when an Earth starship, the S.S Terra violated Romulan border territory in the Gamma Trianguli System in 2147. Romulan border patrol ships destroyed the ship, unaware it was actually an exploratory vessel with no prior knowledge of the Star Empire. The Star Empire had been making preparations for war for several years, believing that United Earth was the lynch-pin and that destroying their ability to wage war and taking their outlying worlds would force the Vulcans to abandon their own invasion plans.

On the eve of war, the Reman resistance flared up into outright rebellion. Praetor Kaiseus and the Senate alike had underestimated the Remans, and several mining facilities were entirely under Reman separatist control before the Tal-Shiar could respond. Lacking sufficient men to storm the facilities, the Tal-Shiar was forced to request assistance from the Imperial Romulan Navy, threatening to bombard the separatists from orbit unless they surrendered their arms. Unable and unwilling to delay their plans for the invasion of United Earth space, Praetor Kaiseus made an unprecedented move; he brought the Remans to the bargaining table.

The negotiations were terse, but the end result was that the Remans returned to work, temporarily, and would be granted Home Rule, once the Star Empire was victorious in their war with United Earth. Reman strength, so it was said, would be proven with their contribution to the war effort, and duly rewarded.

However, this compromise was not without it's problems. The Tal-Shiar, particularly the senior staff, were disgusted at what was seen as a capitulation by the Praetor and their position being undermined, especially in the face of the Imperial Romulan Navy. Conversely, the Admirals of the fleet were in full support of the Praetor, as kept the invasion on schedule and outwardly appeared as if the might of the Imperial Fleet was what brought the Remans to heel rather than the cloak and dagger activities of the Tal-Shiar. The two organisations had long vied for resources and political power, and the failure of the Tal-Shiar to put down the rebellion was an enormous PR coup for the Navy.

The history of the Earth-Romulan War is detailed in other articles and will be kept brief here. The forces of the Imperial Romulan Navy attacked the border outposts of United Earth in the Gl 440 and Innes' Star Systems in 2150. Taken utterly by surprise, the United Earth Star Navy fought a series of desperate delaying actions until 2152, with a human offensive not being feasible until 2158. In the interim, only her allies were able to mount strikes, with limited successes due to the disparate nature of their forces and having little experience working under joint commands. In an ironic twist, given Romulan fears that lead to the outbreak of war, the conflict lead to greater co-operation between the allied powers, with the wartime Confederation of Planets being formed to better coordinate efforts between different fleets.

The tide of the war turned firmly against the Star Empire by 2158, and although the Imperial Romulan Navy did stall the grand offensive of that year, defeat was inevitable and by 2160 they had been drawn into a desperate final battle at Cheron. The Tal-Shiar did manage to pull one small victory from the total disaster of the war; using their agents inside Vulcan High Command, they arranged for the peace treaty, the Treaty of Gamma Trianguli, to be signed entirely via subspace radio. Considering no Romulan personnel had been captured, or even their corpses recovered, and no Romulan worlds conquered, this preserved the secrecy behind the origins of the Romulan people. It was not until the 2260s that the physical appearance, and ancestry, of the Romulans was common knowledge. (although some Vulcans had suspected, and this information was heavily suppressed and kept from their new Federation partners).

The terms of the Treaty of Gamma Trianguli were humiliating for Star Empire. Praetor Kaiseus abdicated, and died in suspicious circumstances shortly afterwards (believed to have been a plot by the Tal-Shiar, but never proven). The period after the war was rife with political machinations, individuals using the turmoil to advance their own positions, plots and counter-plots. In the victorious Confederation of Planets, the Imperial Romulan Navy was considered an enormous threat, and part of the treaty stipulations was the disbandment of the navy and the mothballing of their remaining ships until such a time a new defence force could be established, monitored at a distance. Inside the Star Empire, much of the blame for Romulan defeat during the war was conveniently then pushed onto the Imperial Romulan Navy, although this was unfair. They had been asked to do too much with the resources they were given, and it is generally considered by historians that the war was lost for the Star Empire once United Earth began deploying M/AM powered warships.

The Tal-Shiar relished the dismantling of their rival, and used the turmoil of the Antebellum to acquire starships of their own (officially listed as destroyed or dismantled). The new Praetor, Karzan, was also very much a chosen of the Tal-Shiar, who controlled increasingly large aspects of life inside the Star Empire. In the place of the disgraced Imperial Romulan Navy the Romulan Star Navy was born, stripped of their Imperial title.

In a tragic turn, the reduction in the fleet and the increase in the power of the Tal-Shiar meant that more resources were poured into the intelligence service, and rather than Home Rule, as they were promised, the Remans were subjected to a brutal campaign of oppression and intimidation. Also, during the conflict Romulan experiments with antimatter had begun, centred on Remus . These experiments, intended to provide the Imperial Romulan Navy with M/AM power for a new generation of warships, ultimately ended with the Remus Disaster, which destabilised the planet's orbit by several degrees, poisoned the atmosphere with toxic gases and radiation, and destroyed much of the little farmland the planet possessed, further increasing Reman dependency on the Star Empire for their continued survival. In the aftermath of this disaster, Praetor Kaiseus outlawed all experimentation with antimatter. With their world poisoned, and the Tal-Shiar reinvigorated in their campaign of oppression, the Remans became slaves on their own homeworld, and in the late 2170s, the light of Reman independence flickered at it's lowest ebb.

Forced by treaty stipulations to curtail her expansion efforts in the galactic north and west, the Star Empire now looked to the south and east. Praetor Karzan, in a shock to his Tal-Shiar supporters, called for a rebuilding of the fleet, in secret, to expand into these areas. Some tentative exploratory efforts had been made in the galactic south in the early 22nd Century, but hazardous nebulae, ion storms and other treacherous stellar terrain made the region dangerous to explore, let alone exploit. The stellar west was relatively unknown, as the few systems that had been explored were resource poor, and the focus on the Confederation of Vulcan and United Earth to the east had curtailed further efforts.

First contact with the Gorn Confederacy occurred in 2190 in the galactic west, and two years later in the galactic south, Romulan and Klingon scout ships met each other for the first time. The Klingons were of little concern immediately, as they were too distant to mount an offensive against the Star Empire and vice versa. The Gorns however were another matter entirely. Gorn paranoia clashed violently with Romulan diplomatic overtures and the prying eyes of the Tal-Shiar, and almost immediate war broke out between the two powers.

The 1st Gorn-Romulan War was fought to a bitter stalemate, neither size possessing the strategic range or firepower to overcome the other. The failure of both sides to achieve any headway in the conflict led to the deepening of the rivalry and hatred between the two powers, and a tacit acknowledgement by the senior Admirals of the Romulan Star Navy that any attempt to exact revenge on the Federation for their humiliating defeat thirty years earlier would, at that time, be fruitless.

To the galactic south, skirmishes with enterprising Klingon Houses had led to more promising combat results, and in 2212 the Star Empire expanded these skirmishes into a major offensive, known in the Star Empire as the Corvus Campaign (in Klingon parlance, referred to as the chu'Degh Offensive). This campaign was highly successful, seizing a number of resource rich worlds and restoring public faith in the fleet, in the guise of the Romulan Star Navy, as an instrument of Imperial ambition. The success was marred only by the untimely death of Praetor Karzan, unusually young but of natural causes. The successful campaign was dedicated to his memory by the Admirals of the Romulan Star Navy, approved by his successor, Praetor Emerlex. As the fleet consolidated their prizes along the new border with the Klingon Empire, they braced themselves for the inevitable counter-offensive. However, no such attack ever materialised; in 2218, another first contact situation changed galactic politics forever. The USS Triton (NCC-866), a Federation Hyperion Class Exploratory Cruiser made first contact with the Klingon Empire. After a terrible misunderstanding of protocol, seven members of the Starfleet Away Team were killed, and the Klingon Empire had a new enemy.

The new antagonism between the Klingon Empire and her historical adversary, the Federation, could not have come at a better time for the Star Empire. The Klingon Defence Force was now too occupied with facing off against Starfleet in the north to divert forces to retake their lost territory in the south, and Starfleet would now be unable to focus their undivided attention on the Romulan-Federation Neutral Zone or risk a Klingon invasion. With these strategic considerations, the Star Empire expanded along her borders with both the Federation and the Klingon Empire, reinforcing border defences, as well ploughing the resources coming from the newly conquered systems to the south into expanding the Romulan Star Navy for another offensive into Gorn space.

An unfortunate upset in these plans was only discovered when the offensive began. Tal-Shiar agents had proven rather unsuccessful at infiltrating the Gorn Confederacy, an issue largely put down to the physiological differences between the Romulan and Gorn peoples. Intelligence on the state of the Gorn Confederacy was therefore thin on the ground, and the revelation that the Gorn Royal Navy had upgraded their warships with Phaser-based weaponry put the warships of the Romulan Star Navy onto the back foot. Romulan starships had not significantly changed since the Earth-Romulan War, still using fusion power and being armed with the Cohesive Fused Deuterium Irradiation Cannon, backed up with fusion-tipped Missiles. Being hampered by a rigid adherence to fusion power, Romulan warship designers focused on firepower and stealth, both of which could use stored power reserves rather than requiring constant high power outputs. The Capsize Class, introduced in 2225, was the vanguard of the Romulan Star Navy during the 2nd Gorn-Romulan War five years later. These cruisers were also the first Romulan ship to feature a viable Cloaking Device although these early cloaks could more accurately be described as stealth systems, built into the hull and requiring careful angling of hull plating along with sensor absorbent materials.

These new systems helped to offset the firepower advantage possessed by the Gorn Royal Navy, although the 2nd Gorn-Romulan War of 2230 still ultimately ended in a white peace, either side able to press the advantage. Interestingly, both sides came to the same tactical conclusions from the war; greater firepower was required to break the deadlock, and both set along the same course, namely Plasma Weaponry, albeit from quite disparate scientific principles.

One of the factors behind the indecisive conduct of the Romulan Star Navy in the 2nd Gorn-Romulan War was the increasing number of border skirmishes occurring with Klingon forces on the southern border. Unlike Gorn warships, which had only improved incrementally in the decades between the two major conflicts the Star Empire had faced them in, Klingon designs had improved enormously and threatened to totally outclass the Romulan Star Navy should full scale war erupt. Even the latest Capsize Class Cruisers were hard pressed to counter the fast, M/AM powered D6A Kl'ar (Leader) Class Heavy Cruisers and D5 Qa'HoS (Relentless) Class Light Cruisers then being deployed by the Klingon Defence Force. A faster, lighter warship was required.

This requirement resulted in the now infamous Cricket Class, entering service in 2240. Although the border issues with the Klingon Empire had largely been resolved by that time (with their attentions turning again to focus on the Federation), the class was a great improvement over earlier designs in terms of speed and manoeuvrability, and she was eagerly received by the Romulan Star Navy.

In 2243, first contact was made with the Mirak Star League. This was a mixed occasion for the Star Empire. Although another potential enemy and another border to monitor, the Mirak were long time enemies of the Klingon Empire, and the worlds on the new Romulan-Mirak border were resource poor and strategically unimportant. This led to what can best be described as a mutual disinterest, with the border becoming a quiet backwater.

With the new Cricket Class bolstering the strength of the Romulan Star Navy and the Klingon Empire and the Federation on the verge of all out war, in 2248 the Star Empire once again declared war on their rivals, the Gorn Confederacy. With the tactical flexibility of the Cricket Class, and improved logistics and supply bases established along the frontier, Romulan forces were finally successful, with several resource rich worlds brought under Romulan control. Now that the Gorn Confederacy had been brought to heel, and new resources secured, Praetor Emerlex announced a bold new edict to the top Admirals of the Romulan Star Navy and the leading officers of the Tal-Shiar. The Star Empire would at last avenge her loss during the Earth-Romulan War and strike back at the United Federation of Planets. The chief problem with attacking the Federation however was the unpredictable nature of the Klingon border to the south.

Fortuitously, later that year the Klingon Empire under Chancellor Durak signed the Treaty of Korvat with the Federation. Far from securing peace between the two powers, the treaty merely drove the Klingon Empire into looking for further allies against the Federation. Klingon diplomats approached the Star Empire, and with the new Emerlex Doctrine, the timing could not have been better for the two great powers. The Klingo-Romulan Alliance was signed, not only securing the southern border but bringing Klingon and Romulan interests into alignment, and giving both powers access to badly needed technological advances possessed by the other (for the Klingon Empire, access to Romulan Cloaking Technology, and for the Star Empire, access to Klingon M/AM technology).

## See Also

United Federation of Planets

Klingon Empire

Gorn Confederacy