Romulan history

This page details the history of the Romulans and their Empire.

Early History
The Romulan race was an offshoot of the Vulcans, composed of the descendants of Vulcan dissidents who left their homeworld when Surak's philosophy of cthia spread throughout the planet. Led by S'task (though some sources credit the philosopher Tellus), these Vulcans, numbering 80,000, left Vulcan (approx. 4th century A.D. on Earth). Settlers landed on Romulus (also known as ch'Rihan or Rom'lass) 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 millennia. (TOS novel: The Romulan Way; Last Unicorn RPG: The Way of D'era; Decipher RPG: Player's Guide)

Early on, these first Romulans were devastated by a disease known as the gnawing that had a profound effect upon Romulan physiology and psychology thereafter. (TLE novel: Catalyst of Sorrows)

Some Federation historians hypothesize that a wormhole was responsible for the dissident Vulcan fleet's arrival at the twin planet system. (Last Unicorn RPG: The Way of D'era; Decipher RPG: Player's Guide)

The Romulan Star Empire was officially formed upon the first meeting of the Imperial Senate in 938 A.D. (Earth relative date) (Decipher RPG: Player's Guide)

Between 1270 and 1370, the Romulans somehow returned to Vulcan (possible proof of the wormhole hypothesis) to wage war against their biological brethren. Vulcan strategy and tactics won out over the Romulans' naked aggression. (Last Unicorn RPG: The Way of D'era; Decipher RPG: Player's Guide)

In 1411, the scientific arm of the Tal Diann discovered the means to isolate a quantum singularity and harness it for use as a power source for their starship fleet. This enabled the Romulan Star Empire to venture out beyond their solar system and become an interstellar power. (Decipher RPG: Player's Guide)

In 1696 the Imperial Senate abolished the position of emperor and installed a new leadership role known as praetor to command the military. (Decipher RPG: Player's Guide)

The mid-21st century (between 2041 and 2069) saw the empire's expansion briefly halted due to a number of skirmishes with the Klingon Empire. (Decipher RPG: Player's Guide)

At some point, early in their history, the Romulan Star Empire were engaged in a brutal war with the Hiram Assembly which started badly for the Romulans. Conflicts reached the outskirts of the Romii system and there were worries that the Star Empire might lose the war. However, the Empire turned back the tide and conquered the Hiram Assembly. The Assembly's colonies were taken by the Romulans while the Hiram themselves were exterminated and made extinct. (TOS novel: Captain's Blood)

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 made first contact with Humanity when an Earth starship, Enterprise fell victim to a cloaked minefield in Romulan territory. A pair of Birds-of-Prey, also equipped with cloaking devices, confronted the vessel and forced it to leave the system. This site was apparently a test location for the Romulans for their new cloaking technology, Romulan stealth technology was still very much in its infancy, the cloaked mines were considered a relative success but the power requirements for cloaking a whole ship were problematic, sometime after the encounter with the Enterprise the prototype cloaking ship Praetor Pontilus was destroyed in an antimatter containment failure caused by it’s stealth systems, it would be decades until a successful system could be developed. (ENT episode: "Minefield"; novel: The Good That Men Do)

Vulcan Reunification
Through the early 22nd century the Romulans worked to infiltrate the Vulcan government, seeking to "reunify" the with their ancestral brother, though presumably under Romulan rule. By 2254, a Vulcan sympathizer, V'Las, working alongside the undercover Romulan agent Talok, had successful risen to the position of Administrator of the Vulcan High Command. (ENT episode: "")

V'Las attempted to damage Vulcan and destabilise the region by pushing the High Command to war with the Andorians, claiming the long-standing rivals of the Vulcans were developing weapons of mass destruction based on Xindi technology. Recognizing that the rising influence of the radical pacifist sect known as the Syrannites might harm civilian support for the war, V'Las had the United Earth Embassy on Vulcan bombed and framed the Syrannites; unfortunately, this plan backfired, the Earth starship Enterprise was sent to investigate, discovering the Syrannites had been framed. (ENT episode: "The Forge")

While the former Vulcan Ambassador to United Earth Soval boarded the Enterprise to give the Andorians advance warning of the planned Vulcan first strike. Captain Jonathan Archer and his Vulcan first officer T'Pol tracked down the Syrannites and with their leader T'Pau 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. The Romulan plot had utterly failed. (ENT episodes: "Awakening", "")
 * It is not known whether V'Las was actually a Romulan himself or a Vulcan who had been recruited by the Star Empire.

Babel Crisis
Later in 2154, 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 modified T'Liss class starship as a telepresence remotely-controlled drone, using holographic technology to mimic other vessels. The vessel was used to implicate forces from either side, it would then attack the opposite side's ships, devastating interstellar trade and threatening to ignite a war.

United Earth volunteered to mediate a peace conference 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. (ENT episodes: "Babel One", "United", "The Aenar")

The Romulans once again attempted to gather more Aenar to control their drone ships by using Orion mercenaries in slaving operations on the Andorian homeworld. This attempt would fail and their development of superior warp engines was halted. (ENT novel: The Good That Men Do)

The Earth-Romulan War
In 2156, the Romulan Star Empire and United Earth went to war. The Earth-Romulan War was fought with atomic weapons between the two fleets, and even reached Earth itself. (TOS episode: "Balance of Terror"; DS9 episode: "Homefront")

The war ended in 2160 with a victory for United Earth at the Battle of Cheron; 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. (TOS episode: "Balance of Terror")

The 23rd Century
In 2266, the Empire emerged from its cocoon, testing the strength of their now-unified adversaries by launching an attack on several Earth outposts along the Neutral Zone with a ship commanded by Keras. This ship was equipped with an advanced plasma weapon and a new cloaking device. The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), under the command of Captain James T. Kirk responded to one of the outpost's distress calls and engaged the Bird-of-Prey. In the course of the battle the Enterprise made the first visual contact with the Romulans, uncovering the longstanding secret of their relation with the Vulcans. Upon defeating the Romulan ship Kirk made contact with the vessel, speaking briefly to Commander Keras, the first time that a human and Romulan had spoken openly with each other. (TOS episode: "Balance of Terror") In the 2260s, the Romulans entered into a tenuous alliance with the Klingon Empire. The alliance, spearheaded by Proconsul Merrok aimed to contain the Cardassian Union. The first non-aggression and technological exchange treaties were signed in 2267. The Romulans obtained a number of D7 class vessels in exchange for giving the Klingons cloaking technology. (DS9 novel: A Stitch in Time; FASA RPG: Star Trek IV Sourcebook Update; TOS episode: "The Enterprise Incident")

Tensions between the two powers were evident when Klingon forces engaged Romulan forces near the Triangle in 2272. (FASA RPG: Star Trek IV Sourcebook Update) The alliance finally ended in 2273, when Klingon Captain Kor, Son of Rynar, of the, led a major Klingon victory over the Imperial Fleet at the Battle of Klach D'Kel Brakt. (DS9 episode: "Blood Oath")

In 2276, Romulan khre'Riov Ael t'Rllaillieu led a coup d'état along with a faction called the Free Rihannsu Movement and overthrew the corrupt Tricameron that ruled the Praetorate and the Senate at that time. Shortly after the coup, t'Rllaillieu was named the first Empress of the Romulan Star Empire. (TOS novel The Empty Chair)
 * It is unknown how long t'Rllaillieu's reign lasted, but it surely had ended by the year 2311 and the infamous Tomed Incident.

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. (TOS movie: The Undiscovered Country)

The Tomed Incident
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 unprovoked 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. (TLE novel: Serpents Among the Ruins)

Isolation
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 in violation of the Federation's then 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. 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 inadvertently solidified the then-floundering Federation-Klingon alliance. Upon Dralath's removal from office, the clone and android projects were abandoned. (TOS novel Vulcan's Heart)

Numerous problems would plague the Star Empire during this time beyond politics including the rogue Vulcan T'Uerell who hid the bulk of her forces within the Beta Quadrant and harassed Romulan forces in 2333. (ST video game: Legacy)

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 received 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. Under the Narivat administration, the Tal Shiar initially 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 radiation weapons technology was initially pursued; eventually, however, a new faction assumed power in the Senate, and Narviat abandoned these programs. Thereafter, covert operations against foreign powers decreased dramatically. (Vulcan's Heart; TNG novel: Death in Winter; Tales of the Dominion War short story: Twilight's Wrath)

Re-emergence
In 2364 several Romulan outposts and colonies were mysteriously destroyed. Assuming Federation attacks, the Romulans reemerged, only to find the Federation had suffered similar attacks. It was later discovered that the outposts had been destroyed by the Borg in one of their earliest incursions into the Alpha Quadrant. (TNG comic: Operation Assimilation; TNG episodes: The Neutral Zone, Q Who?)

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. (TNG episode: Redemption)

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. (TNG episode: Unification)

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. (DS9 episode: The Search)

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 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 personnel, the Obsidian Order was not so lucky and virtually ceased to exist after the attack. (DS9 episode: "The Die is Cast")

In 2373, Praetor Narviat sent a fleet of ships to join in a joint Klingon-Federation task force that was preparing to repel 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-aggression 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. (DS9 episode: "In the Pale Moonlight"; short story: "Blood and Sacrifice")

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 warbird. (DS9 short story: "Twilight's Wrath")

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. (DS9 episode: Shadows and Symbols)

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. (DS9 episode: "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges")

Post-War
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. (DS9 novels: Avatar, Warpath)

The Watraii Affair
In January 2377, a Romulan colony was viciously destroyed by a mysterious power known as the Watraii, who claimed to be the original inhabitants of Romulus. Possessing extremely advanced weaponry, the Watraii 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 Watraii. (TOS novel: Vulcan's Soul - "Exodus")
 * The conclusion of the Watraii affair is told in the final two books of the Vulcan's Soul trilogy.



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. (NF novel After The Fall)

Domestically, Hiren faced another crisis with the rise of Shinzon of Remus to political prominence; 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. (TNG movie: 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 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. (TNG novel: Death in Winter; TTN novel: Taking Wing)

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 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. (TTN novel: Taking Wing; ST novel: Articles of the Federation)

In late 2380, Commander Donatra assembled a fleet of ships loyal to her at Achernar 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 conference on the neutral world of Grisella not to recognize the sovereignty of the Imperial Romulan State and to aid the Star Empire 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. (ST novel: Articles of the Federation)

Alternate Timelines
In a variant timeline where Humanity never evolved, the Romulan Star Empire was engaged in a long bloody war with the Klingon Empire for many years. The Klingons, along with the Vulcans, attempted to form a lasting peace between the warring parties. The Romulans used this opportunity to deploy an agent disguised as a Vulcan to trick the Klingons in lowering their guard long enough for a military strike to be staged against several colonies and the Klingon homeworld itself with an entire continent suffering from immense damage. The war would shift to the Klingons advantage when they employed suicidal attacks against Romulan ships. Several races were exterminated by the Romulans for being neutral or siding with the Klingons. This timeline was erased when Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) used the Guardian of Forever to ensure that Humans evolved on Earth. (TOS novel: First Frontier)

Another variant timeline was instigated by the Romulan themselves in order to gain dominance over the Federation by reducing the influence of Earth. To accomplish this, the Praetor send androids into the late 21st century where they assassinated Doctor Palmer and his two top aides. The resulting timeline was called Second History by the Romulans and greatly impacted the timeline as it made the Vulcans the prime movers of an interstellar government called the Interstellar Alliance of Planets. Though this body was smaller then the Federation, they were far more ruthless and quite capable of fighting the Star Empire. This timeline was erased by Spock, Kirk and Thea because its affects were slowly driving all the inhabitants of the timestream insane. (TOS novel: "Killing Time")

In a possible parallel timeline, the Romulans were victorious in the Romulan-Vulcan War and conquered their ancestral home world of Vulcan. However, the wormhole linking the two regions vanished once more meaning that the conquerors were cut off from Romulus. What followed was a return to the aggressive, war-like behavior that Surak had worked hard to remove with the establishment of a Vulcan empire that would began a period of aggressive expansion until it encountered the Romulan Star Empire. The two powers were hostile to one another as both saw themselves as the true inheritors of their heritage which brought about a tense period between the twin empires. 

In yet another parallel timeline visited by the USS Defiant, the Romulan Star Empire conquered Earth. This timestream was witnessed through a anomaly near Earth that sent several vessels into this alternate timeline. 

In one possible future that Jean-Luc Picard saw while suffering from temporal jumps to the past, present and future due to Q, it was revealed that the Romulan Star Empire was conquered by the Klingon Empire. However, once the temporal anomaly was stopped, it is likely that this future may not come to pass. (TNG episode: All Good Things...)