New Romulus

New Romulus, also known by its Rihannsu name Mol'Rihan and formerly known as Dewa III or Vastam, is the capital of the Romulan Republic.

History
Formerly an Iconian colony, the planet Dewa III was home to a race that was brutally oppressed by their Iconian overseers some two hundred thousand years ago. When a rebellion began against the Iconians, Dewa was the first planet targeted. The rebels bombarded the planet from orbit, killing thousands and destroying the planet's geothermal taps which provided energy. The remaining Iconians escaped through one of their gateways, leaving the native Dewans to fend for themselves. Thousands of years later, the Dewans were preparing to make their way into space when they discovered an intact Iconian gateway abandoned in a subterranean cavern. The Dewans abandoned their space program and directed all their energies towards reactivating the gateway. However, the damage to the geothermal power taps caused by the rebel bombardment made the gateway unstable, and when it activated it caused massive tectonic and volcanic instability, plunging the planet into nuclear winter and resulting in the extinction of the Dewan race.

Arrival of the Vulcan exiles
After the Vulcan Reformation, the Sundering fleet - those Vulcan exiles who followed S'task - arrived on Dewa III, naming the world Vastam. Remaining for six months, the exiles faced innumerable challenges - the hostile wildlife, radiation from the Dewan extinction, the weather, the planet's geological instability, and basic survival needs such as food and water - while uncovering the buried relics of the Dewans. A mass meeting was held to discuss the future of the colony; after spending two decades onboard their ships, some exiles wished to remain on the planet rather than return to space, while many others agreed that the challenges were too great to consider remaining. The divisions resulted in bloodshed, with the deaths of 247 people in the fighting and the loss of the Sword of the Raptor Star, one of the blades of S'harien. The colony's leaders agreed that anyone who wished to stay could do so, but no one did.

The exiles thus returned to their ships and departed Vastam, continuing on until they settled on the planet they called ch'Rhian - Romulus.

The rise of New Romulus
Romulus would be destroyed by the Hobus supernova of 2387, destroying both Romulus and Remus. The Empire began to splinter, with the "old regime" of fear and deception set up by Empress Sela on Rator III. The survivors of Spock's unification movement, led by his pupil D'Tan, sought to establish a new, more open society for the Romulan people, one free of the isolationism and xenophobia that had dictated Romulan policy for centuries. To that end, the unificationists formed an alliance with the Reman resistance forces under Guard Captain Obisek, who fought against Sela and the Tal Shiar regime in the old Empire. After Sela's disappearance in battle with Reman forces and their allies in orbit of Brea III, D'Tan and Obisek combined their movements and settled on Dewa III/Vastam, which was renamed Mol'Rihan, or New Romulus. A new government, christened the Romulan Republic, was subsequently established, with D'Tan as Proconsul.

Seeking to end the long conflict between his people and their neighbors, D'Tan reached out to the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire, both of whom had aided Obisek in fighting against the Tal Shiar, to provide support for the new colony, establishing an embassy near the primary staging area.