Phi'lasasam

Phi'lasasam was an aspect within Romulan culture and was known as the Education.

Unlike the children within worlds of the United Federation of Planets, the offspring of Romulans were trained for duty, honor and service to the Romulan Star Empire from birth. At the age of five, assuming that the child in question passed the inspection, they would then be placed in the "phi'lasasam" which was a combination of primary, secondary school, college and Starfleet Academy. Whilst between the ages of five and twenty, Romulan children attended such training centers in every local town or large neighbourhood. There, he adopts his classmates and teacher as his "family" without ever severing the ties of those of his natural family.

Due to centuries of selection and weeding out of the week, Romulan children were known to develop much quicker than their Human counterparts. They were also known to naturally absorb the information from their teachings much more readily when compared to Humans. In fact, their elders were known to push them even harder to succeed at an early age whilst Human children were, comparitively, hardly pushed at all. As such, Romulan young had a much more of their time learning, training and exercising which meant they gained skills at an early age. By the age of ten, a Romulan was as mentally mature as a fifteen year old Human.

The push towards maturity and excellence, however, had an impact on the social skills of young Romulans. Unlike Humans who take such skills for granted, Romulans tended to favor solitude whenever possible. To counter this development, social skills were introduced during the teenage years in order to make up for this deficiency. Thus, whilst they were present, they were not instinctive to most Romulans.