Romulan Star Empire

The Romulan Star Empire, also known in some Romulan languages as the Rihannsu Star Empire, is the primary Romulan state. Located in the Beta Quadrant, the Romulan Star Empire was founded through the unification and conquest of the planet Romulus and of dozens of star systems over many sectors of space. The Romulan Star Empire is known to have existed as long ago as 2152, when it made first contact with United Earth, and is infamous for its ethnocentric, xenophobic, and expansionist foreign policy.

Traditional Structure of Government
The Romluan Star Empire's head of state is the Emperor, but real power rests with the head of government, the Praetor, who presides over the Senate. The Romulan legislature is the Imperial Senate, to which senators may ascend through inherited station, riches, or elevation by the Senate itself. Elevation to the various levels of government is often also controlled by the Romulan Continuing Committee, who confirms elevation to the post of Praetor and which has the authority to expell senators. The Continuing Committee is presided over by the Praetor and composed of senators and other high-ranking Romulan officials, including the Chair of the Tal Shiar. ("Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" [DS9].) Romulan aristocracy holds a great deal of sway over the Senate, and many of the nobility's richest and most powerful noblemen are members of the government.

The Tal Shiar is the secret police agency of the Star Empire, ruthlessly enforcing the law upon the Romulan populace. Even the members of the Imperial Fleet and the Senate often live in fear of the Tal Shiar, with its carte blanche to deal with threats to the state as it sees fit. Very little in the way of free speach or sentient rights exists within the Empire because of the Tal Shiar's actions, as dissent is not tolerated. ("Face of the Enemy" [TNG].)

The Romulan seat of government is the Hall of State in Ki Baratan, Romulus. The Romulan Continuing Committee possesses a great deal of power over the assignment of high-ranking positions within the Senate and government in general.

Early History
The Romulan race is an offshoot of the Vulcans, composed of the desendants of Vulcan dissidents who left their homeworld when Surak's philosophy of cthia spread throughout the planet. Led by S'Task, these Vulcans, numbering 80,000, left Vulcan around the time of the 4th Century of United Earth's common era. Settlers landed on Romulus (also known as ch'Rihan) decades later, after a number of other planets had also been settled by some of these dissident Vulcans. None of these other offshoot civilizations would survive the coming millenia.

Early on, these first Romulans were devestaed by a disease that had a profound effect upon Romulan physiology and psychology thereafter. (Catalyst of Sorrows.)

The 22nd Century
By the 22nd Century, Romulus was united under the Romulan Star Empire and had begun a campaign of expansion and conquest. The Empire had already conquored the Remans, the native inhabitants of Romulus' sister planet of Remus. Persuant to those goals, the Star Empire began a decades-long project of infiltration of their long-sundered Vulcan cousins, culminating in the rise of V'Las to the position of Administrator of the Vulcan High Command; V'Las, a nationalist and Romulan agent whose adherance to cthia was tenuous at best, initiated ethnocentric and jingoistic policies, nearly bringing the Confederacy of Vulcan to war with its long-standing rival, the Andorian Empire, a number of times. In 2154, V'Las and his Romulan masters planned to start a war with the Andor by claiming that the Andorians had begun developing weapons of mass destruction based upon Xindi technology; recognizing that the rising influence of the radical pacificist sect known as the Syrannites might harm civilian support for the war, V'Las and the Romulans had the United Earth Embassy on Vulcan bombed and framed the Syrannites; unfortunately, this plan backfired, and United Earth Starfleet Captain Jonathan Archer, Syrannite leader T'Pau, and Vulcan UE Starfleet officer T'Pol vindicated the Syrannite teachings by uncovering the Kir'Shara and leading a coup d'etat removing V'Las from power and abolishing the Vulcan High Command, while former Vulcan Ambassador to United Earth Soval gave the Andorians advance warning of the Vulcan first strike. The Romulan plot had failed utterly.

Babel Crisis
Later in the year, the Romulan Star Empire engaged in a covert campaign under the command of Imperial Fleet Admiral Valdore, to destabilize the Alpha Quadrant by igniting a war between Andor and Tellar, utilizing a remotely-controlled ship with primitive holographic technology. Mimicing ships from either side, it would then attack the opposite side's ships, devestating interstellar trade and threatening to ignite a war. United Earth volunteered to mediate a peace confrence at the neutral planetoid of Babel, and Archer once again thwarted the Romulans' attempts to start a war by uncovering evidence of the drone ship's existence. Archer then organized the first united fleet operation of Andorian, Tellarite, Vulcan, and Earth vessels in what came to be regarded as one of the first steps towards the founding of the United Federation of Planets. (Star Trek: Enterprise.)

The Earth-Romulus War
In 2156, the Romulan Star Empire and United Earth went to war. The Earth-Romulus War was fought with atomic weapons between the two fleets ("Balance of Terror [TOS]), and even reached Earth itself ("Homefront" [DS9]). The war ended in 2160 with a victory for United Earth at the Battle of Charon; during the war, no Human or allied personnel ever personally encountered a Romulan, and so their origins as Vulcan offshots remained unknown to the galaxy at large. That year, a treaty was negotiated over subspace radio, establishing the Romulan Neutral Zone around much of the Romulan Star Empire, behind which the Empire would retreat for over one hundred years. ("Balance of Terror" [TOS].)

The 2200s
In 2266, the Empire emerged from its coccoon, testing the strength of their now-unified adversaries by launching an attack on several Earth outposts along the Neutral Zone with their advanced plasma weapons and cloaking device. (The Earth outposts had been established by United Earth and fallen under the jurisdiction of the Federation Starfleet in the meantime, though their original names had remained.) The USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk responded, destroying the bird of prey and making first visual contact with the Romulans, uncovering the longstanding secret of their relation with the Vulcans.

In the 2260s and 2270s, the Romulans entered into a tenuous alliance with the Klingon Empire, sharing technologies such as the cloaking device and acquiring a number of Klingon D-7 battlecruisers for the Imperial Fleet. The alliance would be sundered by 2273, when Klingon Captain Kor, Son of Rynar, of the IKS Klothos led a major Klingon victory over the Imperial Fleet at the Battle of Klach D'Kel Brakt. ("The Enterprise Incident" [TOS], "Blood Oath" [DS9].)

In 2293, the Romulan Ambassador to the United Federation of Planets, Nanclus, was involved in a conspiracy with a number of high-ranking Federation and Klingon officials to assassinate the Klingon Chancellor and Federation President in order to avert peace talks between the two states. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.)

The 24th Century
The Klingon-Federation alliance prompted the Star Empire to step up its rivalry with the Federation, and by 2311, it seemed that a war was inevitable. That year, peace negotiations broke down at Romulan Space Station Algeron, and war was only narrowly averted after the Tomed Incident, in which the leader of the Imperial Fleet of the Romulan Star Empire, Admiral Vokar, launched an unprovoced suicide attack upon the Federation's Foxtrot Sector, claiming thousands of Federation lives. The attack was unsanctioned by the Star Empire, however, and when the Klingons prepared to join the Federation in battle against the Romulans, the Praetor ordered the Imperial Fleet to back down at the last minute. The Romulan Star Empire then negotiated what came to be known as the Treaty of Algeron, in which the Star Empire agreed to again withdraw within its borders while the Federation agreed to refrain from developing cloaking technology. (Serpents Among the Ruins.)

The Star Empire's promise to withdraw within its borders was only tenuously followed, however; illegal trade between the Empire and the outside galaxy continued, such as the smuggling of Romulan ale into the Federation inviolation of the Federation's now century-and-a-half-old trade embargo upon the Empire. Many wealthy Klingons and Klingon houses remained in debt to the wealthy Romulan houses, and the Romulans maintained covert attempts to influence foreign states under the administrations of Praetors Aratenik and Dralath. Dralath, in particular, was a true tyrant, and would often have senators who spoke out against him murdered personally on the Senate floor. His policies badly hurt the Romulan economy; indeed, the Star Empire was still recovering from his economic excesses as of the 2370s. Under Dralath's administration, the Tal Shiar launched a number of operations to attempt to once again place agents within the Federation, even creating a clone of Starfleet Captain Jean-Luc Picard and acquiring a Soong-type android to attempt to replace noted Starfleet officer and artificial lifeform Data. Research into the banned thalaron particle weapons technology was initiated under the Dralath administration, as well, and Dralath was also responsible for the attack on Narendra III that resulted in the destruction of the USS Enterprise-C; Dralath was removed from power by a coup d'etat subsequent to the attack, which inadvertantly solidified the then-floundering Federation-Klingon alliance. Upon Dralath's removal from office, the clone and android projects were abandoned.

Dralath's successor, Narviat, assumed power in 2344 after having led the coup against Dralath. Narviat's government was responsible for launching the infamous massacre on Khitomer after the Tal Shiar recieved false intelligence from the Cardassian Union of a secret program by Klingon Chancellor Kravokh to develop weapons of mass destruction for use against the Romulans on that planet. Nonetheless, Romulan covert activities dropped dramatically under Narviat's administration until 2364, when several Romulan outposts and colonies were mysteriously destroyed. The Romulan Star Empire at this point reemerged from the Neutral Zone, once against dispatching ambassadors to foreign states and reestablishing itself as a major quadrant power. It was later discovered that the colonies had been destroyed by the Borg in one of their earliest incursions into the Alpha Quadrant.

Re-Emergence
The Romulan Star Empire was involved in a number of isolated conflicts along the Neutral Zone with the Federation for the next ten years. In late 2366, it was discovered that the Romulan Star Empire was aiding the House of Duras in its attempt to gain the Klingon chancellorship in the Klingon Civil War. The Empire also came into conflict with a growing movement of its own citizenry who sought peaceful reunification with Vulcan and the adoption of cthia, known as the Unificationists and led by the legendary Spock of Vulcan.

The Dominion War
In the early 2370s, Narviat's government came to regard the Dominion as the gravest threat to national security that the Romulan Star Empire currently faced. It granted permission to the Federation to install a cloaking device on a Federation starship posted at Starbase Deep Space 9 in 2371; later that year, the Tal Shiar launched an unauthorized invasion of Dominion space in conjunction with the Cardassian Union's Obsidian Order. The invasion force intended to destroy the Great Link by decimating the unnamed Founder homeworld; however, it was a disaster, as the Founders had learned of it after impersonating a Tal Shiar agent. While the Tal Shiar was able to recover from the loss of many of its personnell, the Obsidian Order was not so lucky and virtually ceased to exist after the attack. ("The Die Is Cast" [DS9].)

In 2373, Praetor Narviat sent a fleet of ships to join in a joint Klingon-Federation task force that was preparing to repell an expected (but unappearing) Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant. Narviat faced significant opposition from those who favored neutrality, however, and by the end of that year, had signed a non-agression pact with the Dominion, pacifying those members of the Senate who believed that a war that damaged the Federation and Klingon Empire could only benefit the Romulans. The next year, Narviat was assassinated, and the Continuing Committee elevated Neral, who had been made Proconsul only a year earlier, to the praetorship. In mid-2374, Emperor Shiarkeik was assassinated by an archpriest in the Imperial Cult, prompting major riots throughout Ki Baratan even as the Senate continued to debate the Star Empire's neutrality. Shortly thereafter, Senator Vreenak of the neutrality faction was killed when his shuttle, departing Deep Space 9, exploded; the Tal Shiar investigated and discovered a damaged Cardassian data rod containing what appeared to be a recording of a high-level Dominion plan to launch an invasion of the Star Empire. Praetor Neral then declared war upon the Dominion and formally allied the Romulan Star Empire with the United Federation of Planets and Klingon Empire for the first time in interstellar history. ("In the Pale Moonlight" [DS9], "Blood and Sacrifice" [Tales of the Dominion War].)

The Star Empire remained allied with the Federation and Klingons for the duration of the conflict, during which it used Remans as shock troops and cannon fodder. Nonetheless, Shinzon of Remus, the remnant of Dralath's plan to clone Federation officers, emerged as a skilled leader in the Imperial Fleet; after defeating a Dominion garrison that had captured a Tal Shiar facility containing a prototype thalaron weapon, Shinzon was even granted command of his own Romulan warbird. ("Twilight's Wrath" [Tales of the Dominion War].) In 2375, the Imperial Fleet attempted to fortify a Bajoran moon upon which the Republic of Bajor had allowed it to build a hospital facility at one point; after facing the possibility of the Federation severing its alliance with the Romulans over this attempt to gain a foothold in the Bajor system, however, the Star Empire relented.

Later that year, Senator Kimara Cretak was disgraced and expelled from the Senate after attempting to access the personal database of Koval, Chair of the Tal Shiar. Koval and Cretak had been rivals for some time; Cretak claimed that she had done so in an attempt to determine which of Koval's enemies might be working with a rogue Federation agency known as Section 31 to have Koval assassinated. At her trial before the Continuing Committee, Koval claimed that he had uncovered evidence that Section 31 did not exist, and presented such to the Committee; unbeknownst to Praetor Neral and company, however, Section 31 did exist and Koval had become their mole in the Romulan government, engineering the plot to disgrace Cretak in order to give Koval the open seat on the Continuing Committee that Cretak would otherwise have gotten, using Bashir and Starfleet Admiral William Ross as pawns in their game. ("Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" [DS9].)

The Post-War Era and the Watreii Affair
After the Allied victory in the Dominion War, Romulan forces occupied much of the former Cardassian Union in conjunction with the Federation and Klingons, and some Romulan ships were even stationed at Deep Space 9 in the months following the war for continued Alpha Quadrant protection. (Avatar, Books One and Two.) In January 2377, a Romulan colony was viciously destroyed by a mysterious power known as the Watreii, who claimed to be the original inhabitants of Romulus. Possessing extremely advanced weaponry, the Watreii threatened to destroy Romulus; Neral, recognizing that the Imperial Fleet was overextended, that the Federation and Klingon Empires were not going to intervene, and that the Star Empire could simply not afford another large-scale war, ordered the Fleet to the Romulan system, to concentrate defenses around Romulus and Remus, believing this to be their next target. A number of Romulan ships went rogue, however, joining a rogue fleet of civilian and Starfleet ships in an attempt to confront the Watreii. (Vulcan's Soul, Book I: Exodus.)


 * Exactly what happens in the Vulcan's Soul trilogy will not be known until the next two books are released, but it is logical to infer that the trilogy will likely end with the sundering of the alliance with the Federation, the fall of Neral, the ascension of Hiren, and the rise of Shinzon, setting the stage for the events of Star Trek Nemesis.

Shinzon of Remus
By 2379, Hiren had replaced Neral as Praetor of the Romulan Star Empire. Hiren accepted the defection of Starfleet Lieutenant Soleta to the Romulans, giving her command of a ship in the Imperial Fleet. The Romulan-Federation alliance was over by this point, and the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation were contending for control over much of the still-rebuilding Alpha Quadrant. Domestically, Hiren faced another crisis with the rise of Shinzon of Remus to political prominance; Shinzon had won the loyalty of the Star Empire's Reman servant class, and many in the Imperial Fleet supported the jingoistic policies he supported towards the Federation. In October of that year, Hiren and the entire Imperial Senate save Tal'Aura were killed by a thalaron weapon that Tal'Aura placed in the Senate chamber on behalf of Shinzon. Tal'Aura and two Commanders in the Imperial Fleet, Donatra and Suran, back Shinzon when he claimed the title of Praetor for himself. Unbeknownst to them, however, Shinzon was dying, requiring a complete transfusion of blood from Jean-Luc Picard, the man he had been cloned from, due to imperfections in the cloning process. Shinzon lured the USS Enterprise to Romulus under the guise of an offer to negotiate a true peace treaty; this attempt to capture Picard failed, and the Enterprise crew later thwarted Shinzon's attempt to destroy all life on Earth using the thalaron weapon aboard his flagship, the Scimitar, killing Shinzon. (Star Trek Nemesis.)

The Post-Shinzon Era
With the fall of the Senate, the Romulan Star Empire devolved into chaos, and supply lines throughout the Empire were damaged. Tal'Aura claimed the Praetorship and recieved the backing of now-Proconsul Tomalak, a former commander in the Imperial Fleet. However, her claim to power was contested and tenuous, with several different factions vying for power. These factions included a "war hawk" group that favored preemptive strikes against Earth and Vulcan led by former Senator Pardek. The Imperial Fleet itself constituted another rival faction, much of which had fallen under the leadership of Commanders Donatra and Suran, former Shinzon backers, after the death of Admiral Braeg. Donatra and Braeg had had a romantic relationship, and Donatra believed Tal'Aura responsible for Braeg's death. The Tal Shiar was yet another rival faction, having fallen under the leadership of Rehaek after he assassinated Koval, as were the Remans themselves, now under the leadership of Xiomek, a former colonel in the Imperial Fleet. The Unificationists, under the leadership of Spock of Vulcan, also constituted a rival faction in the immediate post-Shinzon era.

Starfleet Captain William T. Riker of the USS Titan led a Federation taskforce into Romulan space in late 2379 in an attempt to broker a power-sharing agreement amongst the rival factions, to ensure social stability on Romulus, and to distribute humanitarian aide. Capt. Riker barely averted an armed conflict in orbit of Romulus between the disjointed Imperial Fleet and a fleet of older ships commanded by Xiomek's Reman forces, brokering a deal whereby the Remus became a protectorate of the Klingon Empire the Remans and would be allowed to settle on the Romulan continent of Ehrei'fvil. Unfortunately, the presence of the Klingon Defense Force in Romulan space over the course of the next year sparked a number of brushfire conflicts; even as Tal'Aura solidified her position as Praetor, winning the support of all the rival factions save the Imperial Fleet, the domestic situation for the Star Empire deteriorated. At least one fleet of ships led by Admiral Mendak went rogue, launching attacks on Klingon ships throughout the Star Empire, and Dontra's contingent remained unsupportive of the Tal'Aura government. Reman settlement in Ehrei'fvil failed, and the Klingon Empire granted the Remans the right to settle on a planet in the Klingon Empire; eventually, the entire Reman population was transported there. Mendak's fleet destroyed that planet's moon, however, damaging the new Reman homeworld's ecology, before all of its crew killed themselves with honor blades.

In late 2380, Commander Donatra assembled a fleet of ships loyal to her at Archernar Prime. There, she declared the existence of the Imperial Romulan State and herself to be Empress of the I.R.S. Empress Donatra then annexed Xanitla, Ralatak, and Virinat, which constituted the Romulan Star Empire's most important farming worlds. Facing the loss of the Star Empire's major food sources, Praetor Tal'Aura prevailed upon Federation President Nanietta Bacco and Klingon Chancellor Martok, Son of Urthog at a confrence on the neutral world of Grisella not to recognize the sovereignty of the Imperial Romulan State and to aid the Star Empre in defeating Donatra's fleet. Chancellor Martok, unmoved, immediately gave Klingon recognition to Donatra's government, while President Bacco refused to take sides while assuring Tal'Aura that the Federation would provide humanitarian aide, including food, to the Star Empire's people should it be required.

Sources:
 * Titan: Taking Wing
 * Articles of the Federation
 * Vulcan's Heart