Taurhai Unity

The **Taurhai Unity** was an interstellar civilization located in the Beta Quadrant, bordering the Romulan Star Empire's spinward and rimward flank. The Unity's central world was Chi'tan, home of the Taurhai species. (LUG: *The Way of D'era: The Romulan Star Empire*)

## History

When they first began to venture into space, the Taurhai applied their philosophy to other species they encountered. The first race they made contact with were the Biloreans, a humanoid species that had reached the early spaceflight era in their development. Bilor II, their homeworld, was still ravaged by wars over resources and philosophical division. Using their superior technology, the Taurhai brought an end to these wars and forced the Biloreans to deal with each other without violence. They taught them the ideals of *taurite* and how to live together in peace. The Biloreans abandoned their primitive ways and were soon assimilated into the Taurhai Unity.

Over the centuries, the Taurhai encountered many other species on hundreds of worlds. Each time they met a less-developed race experiencing the growing pains civilization, the Taurhai offered their assistance, bringing their wisdom and experience to help elevate the species above its humble beginnings and become a productive member of the Unity. In that way, the Unity grew and the influence of the Taurhai spread. Assisting each new species often took considerable time, but the Taurhai considered it their duty, as the most developed species, to assist the less-developed. (LUG: *The Way of D'era: The Romulan Star Empire*)

### Conflict with the Romulan Star Empire

The Taurhai made first contact with the Romulan Star Empire in 2309 when one of their exploratory vessels reached the edge of Romulan space and encountered a patrol ship. The Taurhai greeted the Romulans peacefully, but were met with hostility and distrust. The cautious Romulans allowed the Taurhai to make the first move, in order to gauge their intent and capabilities. The Taurhai simply requested an exchange of knowledge and diplomatic greetings, and offered information about the Unity, their species and their culture. In return, the Romulans ordered the Taurhai to respect their borders and withdraw from Imperial space, which they did.

Upon studying the information they'd gathered about the Romulans, the Taurhai were disappointed to learn that while the Empire was technologically sophisticated, the Romulans themselves were not as culturally developed as they had hoped, and instead were paranoid, isolationist and warlike. They took what they could and offered nothing in return. Clearly, to the Taurhai's thinking, the Romulans were a species in need of what the Unity could offer, whether they wanted it or not.

Having reached that conclusion, the Taurhai sent a second vessel into Romulan space in 2313. The ship made contact with a Romulan outpost and offered to share the Unity's advanced technology as well as the "cultural education" the Romulans needed to become a "civilized" species. The Romulans correctly interpreted this "invitation" as an overture to war and opened fire on the Taurhai vessel. The subsequent retaliation disabled the outpost's defensive systems, and the Taurhai destroyed the Romulan warbird sent to intercept their ship. The Taurhai vessel then vanished from normal space down some kind of "subspace funnel," using technology unknown to the Romulans. From that moment, the Romulan Star Empire and the Taurhai Unity were at war.

The Unity's goals were clear: they wished to put an end to Romulan aggression and to "correct" their militaristic and racist culture, by force if necessary. The Taurhai had no wish to harm the Romulans, but would not be dissuaded from their obligation to them and to the rest of the galaxy. They would save the Romulans from their own barbarism, even if they had to destroy their civilization and force them to begin again.

The initial stages of the war went badly for the Romulans, who were outmatched by Taurhai starships and technology at every turn. The Romulans quickly discovered that their cloaking devices were useless against Taurhai sensors, and that their disruptors and torpedoes were inferior to Taurhai shields. Using their subspace funnel technology, Taurhai ships could appear virtually anywhere, strike, and withdraw before the Romulans could respond. The Taurhai always carefully restricted themselves to military targets, avoiding damage to civilian populations and sites, and the Romulan Star Navy struggled to replace their losses and build newer, more powerful ships.

Imperial strategists estimated it was only a matter of time before the Taurhai broke down the Empire's defenses overran Romulus itself. The Romulans found themselves fighting a war of attrition, while the Taurhai could afford to take as much time as necessary to wear down the Empire's forces without suffering significant losses themselves. The Romulans realized that if they had any hope in winning the war, they needed to go on the offensive, and take the fight to the Taurhai themselves.

The Romulans gambled on a daring plan: a fleet of Romulan warbirds using improved cloaking technology would invade Taurhai space. The Romulan leaders hoped their new cloaks would conceal the warbirds long enough for the fleet to reach Chi'tan, the Taurhai homeworld. There, the Romulans would carry out a savage bombardment of the planet's surface, an attack intended to demoralize and dishearten the Taurhai. The Romulans suspected that, like the Federation, the Unity lacked the stomach for real war.

The gambit paid off, and the Battle of Chi'tan took place in 2343, spelling victory for the Romulan Star Empire. Although Taurhai defense forces destroyed many of the Romulan attackers, the orbital bombardment of Chi'tan forced the Taurhai to retreat into their own space and ended their attacks on Romulan worlds. In the peace negotiations that followed, the Taurhai agreed to respect the Empire's borders, and the Romulans agreed to avoid Taurhai space.

Although the bold savagery and cleverness of the Romulan attack took them by surprise, the Taurhai did not give up on their plans for the Empire. More than ever, they believed that the Romulans posed a threat to galactic civilization and must be dealt with. The war with the Romulan Star Empire had proved to the Taurhai they still had much to achieve, and the Taurhai enjoyed nothing more than a good challenge. (LUG: *The Way of D'era: The Romulan Star Empire*)

According to one later account, the Taurhai Unity had been annexed by the Romulans, and its member species made client races of the Empire. (*PIC* novel: *The Dark Veil*)

## Technology

By the 24th century, the Taurhai had reached a point of technological development that put them almost a full level ahead of both the Romulan Star Empire and the United Federation of Planets. Their technology included sophisticated gravity control, the creation of temporary "subspace funnels" that connected distant points in normal space, and advanced manipulation of matter and energy.

One standard piece of technology used by all Taurhai was the *shen*, a combination tool, weapon and social symbol.

Taurhai transporter and replicator technology was capable of producing exact copies of objects down to the quantum level. The Taurhai did not duplicate living beings because they considered it a violation of an individual's unique achievements. They could, however, reproduce all other necessities of live at will. However, Taurhai artists would still create original works by hand, though all common items were replicated. Such devices eliminated the need for manual labor among the Taurhai as another other than a hobby or art form. (LUG: *The Way of D'era: The Romulan Star Empire*)

### Starship technology

Taurhai starships, nicknamed "star dragons" by the Romulans, were long and sinuous. Their design used modular segments connected in a series behind a main command and engineering section. Structural force fields and gravity induction units were used to control the shape and position of the individual segments, allowing the ship to make complex, non-standard maneuvers by "coiling" and "bending" as needed.

The heart of the ship was the wedge-shaped command and engineering section, the bottom of which was flat, with concave gravimetric deflectors to port and aft. The dorsal surface curved down from the aft portion of the wedge, thinning out towards the edges, similar to the saucer section of many Federation starships. This section of the ship contained the command center and engineering systems, including the sophisticated graviton control systems which provided propulsion and powered the subspace drive system.

Taurhai ships were powered by total matter/energy conversion, transforming any type of matter (usually stored stellar gasses like hydrogen) into pure energy. This allowed for ships to function for unlimited periods of time without need for refueling. Taurhai vessels did not possess standard warp drives, instead utilizing their graviton projectors to open "funnels" through subspace, much like temporary microwormholes. The Taurhai would then "fall" or "slide" through the funnel, and exiting immediately on the other side, traversing many light-years near-instantaneously; longer distances would typically require several such "jumps" to cross. Sublight propulsion was provided by gravity induction, allowing the Taurhai ship to "fall" in any direction at speeds approaching the fastest impulse drives. This generated a graviton wavefront around the vessel which would be detectable by gravimetric sensors. (LUG: *The Way of D'era: The Romulan Star Empire*)

## External links

* Taurhai Unity article at ***Memory Beta***, the non-canon *Star Trek* wiki.
* Taurhai Unity article at ***Star Trek Expanded Universe***, the fanon and fanworks *Star Trek* wiki.