Created by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane on Aug 16, 2016 @ 1:55pm

ROMULANS

ROMULANS are bipedal humanoid sentients who formed and rule the Romulan Star Empire.

When Surak introduced logic to his people in an effort to quell the violence on his homeworld, there were many Vulcans who rejected his ideas. They fled Vulcan two millennia ago and went out into the stars, eventually settling on a world they named Romulus. The ex-Vulcans kept up their old martial ways, carving the Romulan Star Empire out of the nearby systems and rising to a position of power in the galaxy.

Two thousand years of living on Romulus has changed the Vulcan physiology of the first settlers. Romulans and Vulcans are very similar physically, with pointed ears, upswept eyebrows, and green blood, but there are subtle anatomical differences, the main one being a V-shaped bone ridge on the Romulan forehead. Romulans also no longer possess the Vulcans' transparent interior eyelid. It is difficult, but not impossible, for a medical scan to separate Vulcan and Romulan readings.

In the modern age, aside from a brief period of military rule, the Romulans practice a form of communistic republican government ruled by an oligarchic Senate. Starfleet Intelligence believe the democracy of the Romulans to be something of a sham, given their reliance on secret police to control their populations. Political dissent in the Empire is a crime punishable by death. Like Eastern Europe during Old Earth's 20th century, the Romulan people do not have the same free access to information that Federation citizens do. Their collective belief in their own superiority over other races goes beyond arrogance, manifesting an xenophobia and outright racism.

Today, the Romulans remain a militarily strong people and the Federation's chief rival for control of the quadrant. Their victory over the Klingons fifty years ago, and the speed of their offensive to besiege Bolarus in 2429 shocked many in Starfleet Intelligence. Could it be that, while the Federation has grown weaker as a result of its own internal divisions, the Romulans have remained strong and are now the pre-eminent Alpha Quadrant power?