Created by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane on Aug 16, 2016 @ 1:52pm

THE ROMULAN STAR EMPIRE

The ROMULAN STAR EMPIRE is a major interstellar state ruled by the Romulan people. It neighbours the United Federation of Planets and is commonly seen as its chief rival for domination of the quadrant. It is a xenophobic and ethnocentric totalitarian state, ruled by an absolutist Senate and kept in line by its fearsome secret police, the Tal' Shiar.

The Romulans made war on the burgeoning Federation in the immediate years before its formation, and have been its implacable enemies ever since. After a long period of isolationism, they re-emerged into galactic politics in 2364 - since then, their power has grown, being nullified only by an equally strong Federation.

The Romulans participated in the First Dominion War, seeing the tactical sense of preventing the Dominion access to the Alpha Quadrant. However, shortly following that victory, a coup occurred on Romulus which overthrew the Senate and installed a military government.

The new military government was quick to test its strength. In response to increasing Klingon raids on its spinward and Triangle borders, the Romulans declared war on the Klingons. The conflict raged for four bloody years, but eventually, following the momentous Battle of Prygus, the Romulans gained the upper hand.

In 2385, they conquered Qo'noS and occupied it. For the next seven years, the Romulans were bogged down in a costly and unwinnable guerrilla war against the surviving Klingons, until a plan (dubbed The Ultimate Solution) was hatched to eradicate the Klingon species from existence. However, dissident republican elements within the Romulan government made public the plans for the Ultimate Solution, drawing widespread intergalactic condemnation. Under increasing pressure at home and abroad, the military government finally abandoned Qo'noS, leaving the Klingon Empire in ruins, and finally authorised new republican elections, marking a return to a civilian government.

The new government quietly rebuilt its strength, but twenty years later, the arrival of the Kem D'Neel in the Alpha Quarant signalled a new time of trial for the empire. The Romulans suffered as much as anyone from the genocidal attacks of the Enforcers, losing almost half of their standing military and billions of its citizens. The Romulans sent a fleet to Coriana III to assist the Federation, and their contribution in numbers was second only to Starfleet's on that historic day.

Shortly afterward, the Romulans made First Contact with the Locusta Regime. This inter-dimensional power managed to manipulate two important events in recent Romulan history - reunification with Vulcan and a new Incursion into Federation space. The Locusta convinced the Senate that the Federation was responsible for the Kem D'Neel attacks, and that the acquisition of large quantities of the element known as Letridium would be useful to make weapons if the Enforcers should return. In 2413, a Romulan fleet attacked and destroyed the Vigilance Platform in the Federation's Vega system, seizing the letridium there. The Federation prepared for war, but the involvement and lies of the Locusta was made public, and, humiliated by how easily they had been manipulated, the Romulans withdrew back behind the Neutral Zone.

Nearly two decades later, a new incident threatened war between the two powers. A Federation fleet destroyed several Romulan listening posts in the Neutral Zone, sparking a massive Romulan backlash. The Romulans invaded the Federation in force in the summer of 2429, destroying Starfleet's Neutral Zone fleet and laying siege to Bolarus. Unknown to them, the Federation was teetering on the edge of civil war at the time, and the attacks on their listening posts were a ploy to cement the Neo-Essentialists' hold on the Federation's reins of power.

In 2430, a secret meeting took place on Limbo between the crew of the USS Phoenix and Admiral Delora Radaik, the victor of the Battle of Prygus against the Klingons some half-century previously. Admiral Radaik was given proof of the Neo-Essentialist involvement in the Starfleet attacks on the Neutral Zone outposts, and seeing the threat to the quadrant's delicate balance of power if the Federation collapsed, she returned home to convince the Senate to withdraw from Federation space.

In 2432, Delora Radaik was elected Praetor of the Romulan Star Empire. Her first act was to call for a reaffirmation of the Treaty of Algeron between the Federation and the Empire, beginning a path back to peace for both powers. Unfortunately, her efforts were hampered by an expansionistic Senate faction known as the Warhawks, who sought to trigger a new conflict between the Federation and the Empire. With the intervention of the starship Phoenix, the plan was thwarted.

In mid-2433, negotiations began between the Federation and the Romulans regarding a new peace treaty between the two powers. That process was successfully concluded by the summer of 2435. Both governments have since ratified the new Treaty of Peace, hopefully ushering in a new era of goodwill between the two powers.