I will admit they did a good job with what they had, but it is not RSE, it is not the Romulans we saw on screen for 50 years, or anything like it. Cryptic missed a tremendous opportunity. Oh well.
Perhaps you didn't read my post, but let me do a TL:DR:
The Republic IS made up of the Romulans we've been seeing for fifty year. It's just not made up of the Romulans that people remember from the TNG.
It's the TNG Romulans who were the oddidity.
Or rather, from the time Romulans were introduced in "Balance of Terror" to the episode "The Defector" Romulans were generally portrayed as honrable, dutiful and as a group who were more alike to the Federation members (especially humans) than not.
This is a 26 year timespan. After "The Defector" (and arguably durring) is where the Romulans went from the duitful, honorable and proud-to-xenophobic race to the card carrying villians. But that image ONLY lasted through TNG. DS9 moved Romulans away from being card carrying villians and into the realm of being almost purely real-politck, though they had lost the honor that had previously marked them. Most of their involvement in DS9 was, in fact, not as enemies, but as patsies to be manipulated by the Federation to fight in the Dominion War, not as plotting, scheming backstabbers. In fact, they never once tried to betray the Alpha Quadrant Alliance in the Dominion War for their own gain, instead they spent blood and gold to fight a war that was happening CLEAR ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE FEDERATION. Seriously people, look at the Star Maps, the Dominon incursion, Cardassian space and DS9 are as far away from the Romulans as you can get in the Federation, yet the Roms threw everything they had into the war effort. Yes, their long-hated enemy the Breen was involved, and they could have just tangled with them on that shared border, but instead they threw down as far from their own supply lines and home turf as they could, with many souls given to the void to defend two ancient enemies and to liberate a people whom they had no real stake in.
That's not the act of a card-carrying, self interested villian who's out only for themselves. It was certainly in their self interest, but there's clearly more at play than simple real politck there, but rather a concept of a soldier's honor and the duty to protect one's enemy and one's ally from a greater foe... IE the concept of mnhei'sahe.
There are very few actual outright villians in Star Trek. The Borg Collective, the Domion, a few one shot species. The Romulans ain't really one of them, not if you base it on their actions. They have their fair share of villians, but if you're going to base which faction is the most villianous by the actions of their leaders, well, the Federation Admiralty gives the Romulans a run for their money. Rather, the Romulans are a people outside the Federation with their own morals and objectives that often conflict with the Federation, and they are willing to go outside of what the Federation considers moral to get their own ends, but that alone does not a villian make.
Anyway, back to my point, this idea that the Romulans can't be good guys flies in the face of evidence as seen in Star Trek time and again. They are proud. They are self-interested. They are arrogant (as all Vulcaniod species seem to be). They are willing to go to length that others are not, yes, but there have morals, they have honor (though not a warrior's honor like the Klingons, but rather the soldier's honor of a.. well.. Roman as befits their name).
Further, as I said, Cryptic did not restrict itself to ONLY the shows and movies when looking at how to make the Romulans, but instead drew on the Rihannsu and Vulcan's Soul series to flesh out Romulans society. We don't play as the high ranked senators and commanders in the Romulans Star Empire, who's plays at politics and shifting alliances were the stuff people were used to from the show. Rather, we play as a Romulan colonist, proud of their heratage and people, but far removed from the inner circle of the Empire. It's a different perspective than what many players expected, but it is a legitimate one.
That said, there is a case that this is a betrayal of expectations in a way. People expected to be a part of the RSE and to be playing and involved with those games. That is a fair critism, but it's not the story Cryptic felt they wanted to tell, or that would be popular among their players (the right or wrong of this position is up to individual opinion, I like the opportunity to play a Romulan untainted by the sins of the RSE and more in line with their portrayal in TOS and the Rihannsu series, but others wanted to be a part of that).
But to say that it is somehow bad storytelling, or that it's not the "Romulans we've seen on screen" is simply incorrect. Romulan commanders and officier constantly showed honor and compassion, cunning and savagery, duty and betrayal. Instead of fixating on the ONE aspect that is missing from the Romulans in STO (one which, as I have explained, is a TNG creation that became overly large in that series and did not fit with other portrayals), instead look and see how much work Cryptic actually did to tell the story and tie it into the Romulan lore of Star Trek. You're blinded by the TNG Romulans, and are missing the much better and more rounded Romulans.
You're also being blinded by this odd desire to play the villain.
You know, there was a game that let you play a Bad Guy; that game has been dead for quite some time now, and even before it died we're told that not enough people went villain to make it worth anyone's while. It's just that the kids (and in my experience they tend to be in their early to mid teens) who want to be Teh Ebil Villyuns are often extremely vocal about it. (Then when they get their way, they have no idea how Evil acts, which is why when I run D&D games I don't even let anyone try to take Chaotic Evil as an alignment. Either someone took it because they thought it would be kewl, or they become a greater threat to the party than any of my monsters.)
And Trek's never been good at Bad Guys anyway; the opfor has always been more complex than that. The closest they've gotten have been the Borg and the Dominion - and the Borg do what they do because those still capable of thought believe it actually is in the victims' best interests, and the Founders of the Dominion were conditioned by their past to fear any intelligent life they didn't control.
So yeah, if you're waiting for your chance to play the moustache-twirling cardboard villain, I suggest you try something else until the urge passes, because Cryptic isn't going to make that game.
there is a case that this is a betrayal of expectations in a way.
LOL... Everybody knows what the Romulans are. Here's a clip from a Star Trek game that's on the that's on the market now, where Klingons are invading Romulan space, and the Romulans are "seeking revenge" for Hobus. I wish I was playing that game!
In STO, the Romulans raise cute furry epohh's, have reverted to primitive crop farming, want to make friends with all the friendly neighboring species they can find, and all their ships come standard with a Bajoran Vedek disguised as a Romulan named Tovan Khev.
What went wrong??
you bastich! lol it took me a good 2 min to stop laughing enough to read on!! lmfao
At first I thought: Holly wall of text, Batman! :P
But this has to be one of the best if not the best post regarding this issue on the forum. Thank you for taking the time to elaborate this.
^what he said, tho I disagree on a couple points you largely are bang on. There is one bit tho I want to answer:
So, the question is then, what do you wish to play? Do you wish to play with a faction that has rounded characterization, that has a long philosophical and cultural history that embraces ideals of honor, duty and passion? Or would you rather play a facist state where all that matters is your own personal advancement?
Both would be my answer after all they are both bits of the whole that made Romulans the race I most wanted to play and get involved in.
In short, the only reason why the RR is the way it is, is because that's all Cryptic would budget for it. They could not/would not do the work necessary for a full shipline, fleets and starbases, multi-party PVP, and so forth. The rehashed Vulcan wannabe faction we got instead of the RSE is solely because of that.
I will admit they did a good job with what they had, but it is not RSE, it is not the Romulans we saw on screen for 50 years, or anything like it. Cryptic missed a tremendous opportunity. Oh well.
That said, there is a case that this is a betrayal of expectations in a way. People expected to be a part of the RSE and to be playing and involved with those games. That is a fair critism, but it's not the story Cryptic felt they wanted to tell, or that would be popular among their players (the right or wrong of this position is up to individual opinion, I like the opportunity to play a Romulan untainted by the sins of the RSE and more in line with their portrayal in TOS and the Rihannsu series, but others wanted to be a part of that).
And that, I think, is where they screwed the pooch rather hard
Which returns us to the original message of the "Balance of Terror": "we are more alike that we are different".
So, the question is then, what do you wish to play? Do you wish to play with a faction that has rounded characterization, that has a long philosophical and cultural history that embraces ideals of honor, duty and passion? Or would you rather play a facist state where all that matters is your own personal advancement? Do you wish to see the continual development of the story of the Romulans, however flawed it is at time, or do you wish for them to be in a TNG stasis?
Perhaps they could have added more political factions and infighting and some more of the cunning that Romulans have always been noted for, no matter the portrayal. But cunning is exceptionally hard to write well, and I feel that Cryptic did as good a job as can be expected of a MMORPG. I, personally, did not feel I was playing a Fed or Klingon officer, I felt like I was playing a Rihannsu who had to step up in difficult times. Could they have done better? Of course. But they could also have done much much worse.
Frankly, I feel that the development of the Romulans, given the canon they had to work with, is believable and functional. To any who say that they should stand on their own and not take outside help, I point out that it is foolish to not use the Federation's soft heartness against them to aid the Rihannsu, and to then turn that aid to gain aid from the Klingons by playing their fear of a shift in the balance of power against them. There is no need for backroom dealing and treatury when honeyed words and truth work just as well, perhaps better. Certainly, D'tan is a little to soft for my taste in some respects, and we could do with more displays of classic Romulan cunning and pride, but, to quote an entirely different science fiction movie:
I think you're looking at this the wrong way Romulans do not need to be a dichotomy , where either you're in the Old Trek camp or the New Generation camp.
The STO lore should try to bridge the gaps between the differences not divide them. Are some Romulans honorable? yes. Do they have admiral qualities? sure but lets not try to look at them through rose coloured glasses. To say all acts of deception or guile are Tal Shiar while every honorable Romulan is an ordinary citizen trying to be free of an oppressive regime is a mistake in my opinion. Then we're just trivializing Romulan society into the guys with white cowboy hats and the guys in black cow boy hats.
Neither Romulan view of doing things is wrong they're just different views of solving the same problem.
To say either group is evil does the Romulans an injustice since evil is subjective and we should not be trying to measure our belief system against theirs.
The problem with STO is they seem out of character with both groups and are closer to Vulcans than Romulans.
Let us not forget that in the balance of Terror the little engagement was to test the federation if it was ready to be invaded. Or at least I think that was the plan it's been awhile since I saw the episode.:P The old trek Romulans may have been honorable and proud but that pride turned into a desire for conquest and prejudice against the other races not a desire to fight by their side in some glorious apocalypse mission.
I believe even proud noble Romulans tend to look down on the other races , look at Law even when he was trying to be helpful he called them lessor races.
I think we can agree that both versions of the Romulans are a proud people dedicated to duty.
There should be a focus on rebuilding Romulan dominance not building the Romulan Federation of alpha quadrant allies. With a symbosis of both ideals of sneaky and honourable not a polarization of them.
"Losing your homeworld can have that effect on a species..."
They abandoned their home world once before and we got a race that became xenophobic and reclusive if anything I think it would push them further down that path than them becoming warm and welcoming.;)
I'm not saying Romulans are either/or, I'm just trying to address the complaint that Romulans aren't being portrayed as being back-stabby treaturous types like they were in the series (by which people mean TNG, 'cause that's the only series that portraid them like that) by showing how they are a lot more rounded. I probably sound like I'm skewing to far the other direction (and to a certain extent I am, as I empathize and understand the Romulans-as-honorable-solciers better than I understand the Romulans-as-realpolitck-players). I can wrap my mind around the concept on mnhei'sahe, but I have trouble understanding some of the myself-ahead-of-all-others backstabbing in TNG Romulans.
Would I like to see more politicking within the Romulan storyline? Yes, absolutely, as noted in my signature is part of being a Romulan is politics. The problem comes in then that because STO's story is on rails, how can Cryptic portray politics while making players feel like they have agency?
It takes either very, very skillful writing, and while I'm not as anti-Cryptic's writing as some, I will admit I don't think they can pull it off, or a branching storyline, which just doesn't work in STO or games like it due to limitations of resources and time.
But, yet, we do see some classic Romulan politicking for their own benefit. It's just because they're making peace rather than looking to start a war people don't recognize it. How D'tan plays the Federation and Klingons off against each other is CLASSIC real-politick diplomacy. Yes, D'tan is a Reunificationist more interested in peace than war, but he's not a fool or an idiot. He knows what he has, what he needs, and he GOT IT with little to no trouble for the Republic. He played two warring powers off each other, and got them BOTH to supply him, not just give him promises of peace, but to outright fund the establishment and expansion of the Repubic and thereby allowing it to grow without outside threats so that it eventually can reclaim all the territory of the old Empire.
But because he does it with honeyed words and truth people don't recognize it for what it is, the most brilliant political move a Romulan ruler has done in the last CENTURY or more. In one swoop he secured the Republic's borders, convinced the two great powers in the Beta Quadrant that the Romulans were not threat, and then got them BOTH to bankroll him and his Republic as they move to consoldate power. AND he managed to divorce himself from the baggage of the old Empire, giving them a clean slate that's unmarred by the many missteps of the Empire in dealing with the Federation and Klingons.
It's brilliant, effective, and very Romulan. But because it's D'tan and it doesn't lead to war, somehow it's not? I don't get it. Romulans are not stupid, they don't pick fights they don't think they can win. They are rational players of Realpolitick, not warmongering mustache twirling villians!
Perhaps people are in denial that the Romulans are not longer a Great Power. This is understandable, after all the status quo for Star Trek for 50 years was that there were three Great Powers in the Beta Quadrant: The Federation, The Klingons and the Romulans. The Romulans lost that status starting with the events in Nemesis and culminating in the Hobbes incident. And before someone says "they could of rebuilt in 20 years", that may be true, if they had a unifed government. But they didn't. All that politicking and backstabbing people love the Romulans for... well, it bit them in the TRIBBLE. Without a strong central government, the Empire basically fell into feuding successor states. As it happens, the players are members of one of those successor States, the Republic. We know of at least one other, Sela's Empire, which had consolodated most of the Empire under her until THAT new government was gutted (as seen in the game with the Iconians and Elachi), which, likely, resulted in further fracturing, leaving the Republic as the single large successor to the Empire, and the most powerful one with Sela's Empire gutted. Rational Romulans who value their people's freedom (in the sense of Romulan self-determination outside of another power) will naturally gravitate towards the faction with the highest likelihood of maintaing that. Right now Cyptic has set that up to be the Republic, who are presenting themselves as white hats so that they can get the outside aid they need.
Yet, they field Scimitars equipped with Tharalon Weapons and have fulled adopted the Reman seperatists who made it a point to collect said tharalon weapons. They viciously hunt down the Tal Shiar and Sela's Imperials and gut their operations in no-quarter-given combat. Claim game mechanics all you want, but STO has missions where you give quarter to enemies when it is thematically appropriate (perhaps a little to little in the Fed's case, but that's a different discussion), and the Romulans don't do it.
Is the Republic the Romulans of TNG, who deal from a position of power and strength? No. And they cannot be given the started story of Trek. Are they Romulans? I agrue they are. Are they Rihannsu? Yes, that we are most definately.
First off, for the OP. "Real Romulans" haven't gone. I stand in agreement that many of the Romulans, and heck, a lot of their actions / stances / etc. haven't gone anywhere - well, except for their traditional arrogance, which could be downplayed some and/or sacrificed for now with the whole "we lost our homeworld" stuff...
However, I, too, have felt a bit "wishy washy" with the whole campaign. Solid writing, but the overall background - we're too busy building a new homeworld and trying to get set as the "legitimate" Romulan government - buried one small fact that nagged me throughout:
D'Tan is a unificationist.
Yes, all this work I'm doing - as some guys sig says - starting out as a simple farmer to climb the ranks of the Republic Star Navy to become a level-capped dilithium and mark farmer - is more truth than we think, not just on the gameplay level (what do we do after the storyline and 50 again? ) but also on a plotline level, shortly after the Republic gets back on it's feet enough to be a legitimate power, D'Tan's probably gonna go off to Vulcan and try to cut a deal with them to become "emotional Vulcan pacifists"... which means more farming for me, but I'll swear and kick when my plow bounces off a rock while the Vulcan studies the rock to avoid more problems... :P
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Would I like to see more politicking within the Romulan storyline? Yes, absolutely, as noted in my signature is part of being a Romulan is politics. The problem comes in then that because STO's story is on rails, how can Cryptic portray politics while making players feel like they have agency?
It takes either very, very skillful writing, and while I'm not as anti-Cryptic's writing as some, I will admit I don't think they can pull it off, or a branching storyline, which just doesn't work in STO or games like it due to limitations of resources and time.
Actually it wouldn't be all that hard , all they would need is a cut scene of the senate to give a broader sense of the Republic's feelings. Something like this..
D'tan "We are no longer capable of surviving on our own so I've come to harsh decision that we will seek out an alliance with the major powers of the Alpha quadrant. "
Senator one"This is outrageous you would have us throw away more than 300 years of tradition and culture for hand outs! Are we to be beggars at the doors of infidels?
Senator two"I for one will not vote in favor of an alliance with our enemies this will be the ruin of us!"
Senator three" Hear D'tan out! My people are starving my brother was hunted down by the Tal shiar and murdered we can not do this alone , at the very least we must try for peace!
Senator three I do not trust these Veruul but I care for my people who are suffering gravely. While I do not condone an alliance with the Alpha powers I will abide by the Senates vote.
D'tan"Very well let us vote on it. All in favor? All opposed? The vote for a temporary Alliance with the Alpha powers passes.
{cheers and jeers from the crowd}
{Senator one storms out while two just shakes his head in dismay}
Something like that at least give us some context to the republics feeling. Not the solitary voice of D'tan telling us what to do. One could even throw in intrigue like later possibly senator one in a misguided attempt to save his people plots an assassination of D'tan. There's just so much more they could have done with this to make it feel legitimate rather than some crazy unifcationist giving out commands.
But, yet, we do see some classic Romulan politicking for their own benefit. It's just because they're making peace rather than looking to start a war people don't recognize it. How D'tan plays the Federation and Klingons off against each other is CLASSIC real-politick diplomacy. Yes, D'tan is a Reunificationist more interested in peace than war, but he's not a fool or an idiot. He knows what he has, what he needs, and he GOT IT with little to no trouble for the Republic. He played two warring powers off each other, and got them BOTH to supply him, not just give him promises of peace, but to outright fund the establishment and expansion of the Repubic and thereby allowing it to grow without outside threats so that it eventually can reclaim all the territory of the old Empire.
But because he does it with honeyed words and truth people don't recognize it for what it is, the most brilliant political move a Romulan ruler has done in the last CENTURY or more. In one swoop he secured the Republic's borders, convinced the two great powers in the Beta Quadrant that the Romulans were not threat, and then got them BOTH to bankroll him and his Republic as they move to consoldate power. AND he managed to divorce himself from the baggage of the old Empire, giving them a clean slate that's unmarred by the many missteps of the Empire in dealing with the Federation and Klingons.
Some might argue the price for D'tans getting what he wants is too high. In exchange for hand outs and offers of protection the Romulans are sacrificing their most valuable resource the Romulan people themselves. How many food credits is a Romulan body worth hmm?
That's why people tend to think of him as a sell out he trades Romulans for supplies and promises of protection. Promises I might add that can be withdrawn at a moments notice , what then hmm?
It's brilliant, effective, and very Romulan. But because it's D'tan and it doesn't lead to war, somehow it's not? I don't get it. Romulans are not stupid, they don't pick fights they don't think they can win. They are rational players of Realpolitick, not warmongering mustache twirling villians!
Maybe I'm alone in this but it's not just that he doesn't want war. He gives off an odd aura like as if he has no direction...like if he's trying to imitate Spock than trying to be his own person or that of a Romulan.
Perhaps people are in denial that the Romulans are not longer a Great Power.
Perhaps but if fans are in denial would you not think the same of the Romulans too. Why are they so accepting of this? Have all the grudges of the past just magically wiped away? Do they no longer have any pride?
Is the Republic the Romulans of TNG, who deal from a position of power and strength? No. And they cannot be given the started story of Trek. Are they Romulans? I agrue they are. Are they Rihannsu? Yes, that we are most definately.
Even Vulcans are violent naturally it takes years of mental training to control such behavior. How then are Romulans managing such a control without strict levels of social conformity? It just comes off as awkward to me at best.
I will be the first to admit that there needs to be more showing of the Republic political process. Debates about ongoing policies and such would be a great thing to have as ambient noise in a senate chamber in game, even if the player can't participate in the conversation (though it wouldn't be that hard to write debate dialogue trees that a player can go through).
And for the love of the Great Bird, people, the Romulans and Klingonon are in the Beta not Alpha Quadrant. I know it sounds nitpicky (and that DS9 always seemed to refer to everything as the "Alpha" quadrant), but it drives me up the wall to see it misused
Some might argue the price for D'tans getting what he wants is too high. In exchange for hand outs and offers of protection the Romulans are sacrificing their most valuable resource the Romulan people themselves. How many food credits is a Romulan body worth hmm?
That's why people tend to think of him as a sell out he trades Romulans for supplies and promises of protection. Promises I might add that can be withdrawn at a moments notice , what then hmm?
If there is one thing that the Republic has in excess right now it's people. It is very... Romulan... to trade the one thing they have for the things they do not have. Further, let's look at what those people get to do as they work with the other Great Powers. They get integrated and have the run of much of their space. They can make use of second-line ships of their allies, giving the Romulans a chance to analyze that technology. Certainly it's not the high end tech for those groups, but, interestingly, it is divergent technology from the Romulans, so any information on it is advantageous.
Further, if you're the Federation and Klingons and know you have X number of warbirds spread throughout your territory, are you going to back out of your obligations to the Republic? Those warbirds, with the most advanced cloaking technology in the two Quadrants are a knife poised at those powers throats, if they back out, all they can cause widespread havok on shipping and to the interests of the Federation and Empire, with little to no risk to the Republic.
Perhaps but if fans are in denial would you not think the same of the Romulans too. Why are they so accepting of this? Have all the grudges of the past just magically wiped away? Do they no longer have any pride?
Well, the fans don't have to live in fear of Hiirogen and Tal Shiar raids to drive home that they are not members of a Great Power. ;p
In seriousness though, because we're dealing with a fictional universe that we come to for entertainment and fun, rather than actually living there, it's easy for fans to not think through the consiquences and put themselves in the mindset of the NOW of the timeline. This isn't a bad thing, just the way human's approach fiction. Me, being a role-player and such tend to get more "in the moment" than the average joe player.
Anyway, yeah, I do think that the would be less in denial than the fans simply due to the fact that they have actually had to live with the consiquences of that loss of power. They shouldn't be happy about it, they would likely wish to reclaim that position, but they know it, the evidence of it is constantly beating them in the face.
I will admit I would like to have seen more of that pure Romulan pride shining through. An attitude of "this to shall pass, we will deal with the problems of the now, and return stronger for them" I think is how they should be acting. After all, this is not the worst it has been for the Declared. But also bear in mind the majority of NPCs and even the PC are not from the old power blocs of the Empire. They never had any real power to begind with, they were colony farmers thrust into a bad situation and trying to make it work out for them. This bleeds through into the portrayal.
Could they have done a different or better intro rathedr than farmer? Probably. I can think of a few ways to have done the almost exact same storyline in a more Romulan way. But I'm not a writer for Cryptic, I'm just a player. I feel they gave the Romulans a fair story, one I enjoyed and found sufficiently Romulan, though it could have been better.
As to the grudges of the past, no, of course not. However, politically they have been. Neither the Klingons or Federation can hold the Republic responsible for the crimes of the Empire. That does not mean a Klingon, a Bolian or a Human will not hold a Romulan responsible for them. Or that a Romulan will not hold the Klingons in contempt for their actions against the Empire. But that is in the realm of RP and isn't something Cryptic needs to be showing people when they are concerned with the broad strokes of the story. They could toss a few NPCs being malcontent about dealing with the Federation and Klingons here and there, and in fact, they have. Go stand on the step to the capitol city on Mol'Rihan sometime, the NPCs there talk politics and some will occasionally say things about not liking dealing with the Feds and Klingons.
Even Vulcans are violent naturally it takes years of mental training to control such behavior. How then are Romulans managing such a control without strict levels of social conformity? It just comes off as awkward to me at best.
There is no other way to say this:
Surak was wrong.
The Vulcan people do not need strict regime (either of emotions or society) to survive. That is the ENTIRE point of being a Romulan. That is what S'task discovered and taught, that the emotional passion of their people is not something to be feared and protected against, but to be embraced. That is what Romulan society proves. The only portrayal of the Romulans as some sort of hyper-strict society was in TNG (DS9 and later did not show common folks, merely politicians and military). STO is not built strictly on the TNG interpretation of Romulans (which, as I noted in my first post is more like them being "evil Vulcans" rather than what they are as "anti-Vulcans"), but draws heavily on the Rihannsu and Vulcan's Soul series, where we saw a lot of life outside the politicians and military ("The Romulan Way" showing the most of this).
Now, you can make a case that this makes STO as being outside the strict canon of the shows. That I will grant you. However, if you ignore those book series when it comes to Romulans, you're doing yourself a disservice. They are excellent series and change a otherwise one-dimensional race into a proper society with a multifaceted and complex history and philosophy rather than a simple foil for the Federation.
LOL... Everybody knows what the Romulans are. Here's a clip from a Star Trek game that's on the that's on the market now, where Klingons are invading Romulan space, and the Romulans are "seeking revenge" for Hobus. I wish I was playing that game!
Romulans are seeking revenge for Hobus. Remember who blew up Hobus and Romulus & Remus with it? Tal'Shiar. Seems to me that we're kicking some serious Tal'Shiar butt during the Republic storyline.
And for the love of the Great Bird, people, the Romulans and Klingonon are in the Beta not Alpha Quadrant. I know it sounds nitpicky (and that DS9 always seemed to refer to everything as the "Alpha" quadrant), but it drives me up the wall to see it misused
I wasn't sure about that myself but Memory Alpha said it was part of the Alpha quadrant so I assumed it was correct I guess not?
If there is one thing that the Republic has in excess right now it's people. It is very... Romulan... to trade the one thing they have for the things they do not have. Further, let's look at what those people get to do as they work with the other Great Powers. They get integrated and have the run of much of their space. They can make use of second-line ships of their allies, giving the Romulans a chance to analyze that technology. Certainly it's not the high end tech for those groups, but, interestingly, it is divergent technology from the Romulans, so any information on it is advantageous.
I seem to recall someone saying how there's too few of us left to be fighting amongst ourselves or something like that.. Which would make that statement incorrect. Though I'm not one hundred percent sure on that the mind tends to play tricks on me at times.
Further, if you're the Federation and Klingons and know you have X number of warbirds spread throughout your territory, are you going to back out of your obligations to the Republic? Those warbirds, with the most advanced cloaking technology in the two Quadrants are a knife poised at those powers throats, if they back out, all they can cause widespread havok on shipping and to the interests of the Federation and Empire, with little to no risk to the Republic.
Little or no risk to the Republic? I think it would be of great risk given should either side actually feel the need to confront new Romulus they wouldn't stand much of a chance in a conflict. That was kind of the whole point of them making the Alliance in the first place.
Well, the fans don't have to live in fear of Hiirogen and Tal Shiar raids to drive home that they are not members of a Great Power. ;p
In seriousness though, because we're dealing with a fictional universe that we come to for entertainment and fun, rather than actually living there, it's easy for fans to not think through the consiquences and put themselves in the mindset of the NOW of the timeline. This isn't a bad thing, just the way human's approach fiction. Me, being a role-player and such tend to get more "in the moment" than the average joe player.
Anyway, yeah, I do think that the would be less in denial than the fans simply due to the fact that they have actually had to live with the consiquences of that loss of power. They shouldn't be happy about it, they would likely wish to reclaim that position, but they know it, the evidence of it is constantly beating them in the face.
I think you're missing the point I'm making here this is a group that has been heavily indoctrinated. Do we have any real life examples of this sure just look at Germany and Japan they suffered horrifically in ww2 and any normal person could see the writing on the wall but even then for a lot of them defeat was unfathomable.
Sure you could say they were traumatized by the destruction of their home world but the problem with that is they didn't experience it most if not all were off world. It's not even like it's the only planet they have just one of sentimental significance. So I find it hard to buy into the whole sudden change in mentality because of the loss of a single world that many may not have even visited.
The Vulcan people do not need strict regime (either of emotions or society) to survive. That is the ENTIRE point of being a Romulan. That is what S'task discovered and taught, that the emotional passion of their people is not something to be feared and protected against, but to be embraced. That is what Romulan society proves. The only portrayal of the Romulans as some sort of hyper-strict society was in TNG (DS9 and later did not show common folks, merely politicians and military). STO is not built strictly on the TNG interpretation of Romulans (which, as I noted in my first post is more like them being "evil Vulcans" rather than what they are as "anti-Vulcans"), but draws heavily on the Rihannsu and Vulcan's Soul series, where we saw a lot of life outside the politicians and military ("The Romulan Way" showing the most of this).
Now, you can make a case that this makes STO as being outside the strict canon of the shows. That I will grant you. However, if you ignore those book series when it comes to Romulans, you're doing yourself a disservice. They are excellent series and change a otherwise one-dimensional race into a proper society with a multifaceted and complex history and philosophy rather than a simple foil for the Federation.
If you have some cannon evidence to prove Surak was wrong then I'm all ears but if it's considered non cannon then your point is moot. Just saying well because this story was great it should be fact doesn't make it fact. The fact is TNG Romulans did happen in the official story line and to ignore them would be like a person covering their eyes and pretending it never happened just because it wasn't the reality they wanted.
I wasn't sure about that myself but Memory Alpha said it was part of the Alpha quadrant so I assumed it was correct I guess not?
Actually, color me confused now too. You're right that Memory Alpha lists the RSE in the Alpha Quadrant. STO's map has it in the Beta Quadrant (and STO's map is actually based on a older map of the Star Trek galaxy that was published in the 90s that I rmember studying... so...). The first edition of the "Star Trek Encyclopedia" lists the Romulans in the Beta Quadrant (along with the Klingons), while the Federation is in both.
I blame DS9 and it's Alpha-Quadric centric dialogue.
I will not longer harp on this at all since canon is clearly confused on the issue, and varying sources give varying information. However, I do maintain that while we're dealing with STO, the Romulans are in the Beta Quadrant, as the STO galaxy map clearly portrays this. But now I am annoyed at the old writers who moved things around...
I seem to recall someone saying how there's too few of us left to be fighting amongst ourselves or something like that.. Which would make that statement incorrect. Though I'm not one hundred percent sure on that the mind tends to play tricks on me at times.
D'tan makes that claim, and then send ships out to fight the Tal Shiar. His message always came across to me as reflecting his desire to make peace and reunify the Romulans.
To put this in perspective, WW2, the bloodiest human conflict, impacted a small percentage of the world's population. So while any politician afterwords could certainly talk like to many lives had been lost and that we should stop killing each other, it would not actually be the case.
Little or no risk to the Republic? I think it would be of great risk given should either side actually feel the need to confront new Romulus they wouldn't stand much of a chance in a conflict. That was kind of the whole point of them making the Alliance in the first place.
War is complex calculus. Yes, the RR would lose in a throwdown fight with either power, but the cost would be high. Let's assume, for a moment, the Klingons decide to break the treaty and invade. They most certainly would win, but the ships from the Republic that was working with them would be able to extract a bloody cost from the Klingons for doing so, as what can the Klingons do against a dozen warbirds within their space that decide to go hunting? Not much, but those warbirds are in a target rich enviroment with nothing to lose. Same for the ones in the Federation. By spreading ships into both sides, D'tan raises the cost of an attack on the Republic by having forces pre-deployed within their space to cause maximum harm.
That's what I mean by it brings little risk to the Republic to do so. It's not like having those ships within Republic territory would change the likelihood of victory.
Further, there is a level of plausible deniability to the actions of those vessels who are officially working for one side or another. Given the distance they might be from Republic space, if they "go rogue" what can D'tan and the Republic do? What can they be diplomatically expected to do beyond condemn the attacks and demand the ships return to Republic space to face trial?
I think you're missing the point I'm making here this is a group that has been heavily indoctrinated. Do we have any real life examples of this sure just look at Germany and Japan they suffered horrifically in ww2 and any normal person could see the writing on the wall but even then for a lot of them defeat was unfathomable.
Sure you could say they were traumatized by the destruction of their home world but the problem with that is they didn't experience it most if not all were off world. It's not even like it's the only planet they have just one of sentimental significance. So I find it hard to buy into the whole sudden change in mentality because of the loss of a single world that many may not have even visited.
Canonotically, the destruction of Praxis was expected to cause the fall of the Klingon Empire due to the damage it caused to Quo'nos. This is due to the fact that the Klingon Empire is heavily built around their capitol world with little given to the outter colonies. The capitol is the heart of their Empire, its where the majority of shipbuilding, economic activity and government is located.
Even with a more decentralized government like the Federation, an attack on Earth was a big deal. Earth is the capitol of the Federation government, and headquarters of Starfleet and also one of their primary shipyards. The destruction of Earth has always been considered to be a near decapitating strike by even those within the Fed.
I see no reason why Romulus would be different for the Romulans. The Romulan's Empire is arguably even more centralized than the Klingons (who have their noble house system to help decentralize their government). This means that all administrative, all military and all governmental bodies were destroyed by the Hobbes Incident. This is not the equivalent of Japan losing in WW2, this is the equavalent of if Japan lost WW2 by the US dropping Fat Man and Little Boy on Tokyo and Kyoto rather than on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
I could use other real life examples, but I don't want to to treat on any forum policies.
Regardless, in a highly centralized society, the fall of a capitol is not just a psycological blow to them, but a huge economic, military and cultural blow. What is England without London? France without Paris? China without Beijing? It's a little harder for Americans and Canadians to get with our highly decentralized governments that also end up with our national capitols as down on the list of economic and size. They aren't really the "heart" of the country in the same way as they are in most other countries (really, it's a weird Canada/US thing, just about ever other country in the world the capitol is the largest and most important city).
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that the loss of Romulus would invaribly utterly scar the psyche of the Romulan people. It would also take decades or more to recover from that. It's only been 20 years, and it's not been 20 years of attempting to rebuild, but rather 20 years of in-fighting between political factions who are attempting to claim the entire pie for themselves. Sela and her faction nearly grabbed it all, but in the end they failed and disappeared, leaving the Republic as the last successor state standing.
If you have some cannon evidence to prove Surak was wrong then I'm all ears but if it's considered non cannon then your point is moot. Just saying well because this story was great it should be fact doesn't make it fact. The fact is TNG Romulans did happen in the official story line and to ignore them would be like a person covering their eyes and pretending it never happened just because it wasn't the reality they wanted.
The evidence is that the majority of common-folk Romulans don't need either. The evidence is in the TOS portrayal of Romulans are fundimentally like the rest of us, not as some facistic regime that requires a top-down approach to maintain control of the population.
Further, I repeat yet again, that STO's portrayal is not simply based on the portrayal of Romulans in the serieses, but also on the Rihannsu series of novels and the Vulcan's Soul series of novels. I would suggest taking the time to read them, but I can understand if you don't have it (it's a lot of reading, five Rihannsu novels, Vulcan's Heart and the Vulcan's Soul trilogy is a total of nine novels to read...). If you don't like that, that's fine, but it is what it is. For STO you can't JUST look at the series for information on the Romulans, but need to look at the other sources they used.
Further, Surak has always been portrayed as a radical reformer in a radical time, was it nessesary to save Vulcan? We don't know, the Vulcans seem to believe so, but the Romulans disagreed (which is why they left). This is like asking a question of "was Christianity good for human civilization?" You can't really know the answer because while you can points to the changes a philosophy or religion bring about to a people, you cannot know what those civilizations would do without them. Heck, you could make an argument that Surak's philosophy stunted Vulcan's growth and development. After all, the Vulcans ended up being a minor player overall, while the Romulans developed one of the big three powers in Star Trek (and had done so BEFORE they were portrayed as a fascist state in TNG).
Another matter of evidence that supports the idea that Surakian philosophy might, in fact, not be as good as we know it to be is the matter of Ponn Farr. We have no dialogue or evidence to suggest that Romulans suffer from Ponn Farr, while only Vulcans do. There's a lot of fanon interpretations of this, some choose to interpret this as a result of the Romulans not supressing their emotions like the Vulcans do. Though it could be genetic drift, a result of removal of something that was in the Vulcan biome or any number of other things.
Well at least I kicked a hornet's nest and provoked a killer conversation here... Seems most of us agree that the romulan plot is good but not what it should have been. What it should have been is what is in flux, tho most seem to agree more vengeance(esp against tal shiar), more politics, and less blow jobs for KDF/Fed
Canonotically, the destruction of Praxis was expected to cause the fall of the Klingon Empire due to the damage it caused to Quo'nos. This is due to the fact that the Klingon Empire is heavily built around their capitol world with little given to the outter colonies. The capitol is the heart of their Empire, its where the majority of shipbuilding, economic activity and government is located.
Spock
"The moon's decimation means the deadly pollution of their ozone. They will have depleted their supply of oxygen in approximately 50 Earth years. Due to their enormous military budget, the Klingon economy does not have the resources with which to combat this catastrophe."
"The moon's decimation means the deadly pollution of their ozone. They will have depleted their supply of oxygen in approximately 50 Earth years. Due to their enormous military budget, the Klingon economy does not have the resources with which to combat this catastrophe."
And were they not highly centralized, their manufacturing and agricultural resources would have been distributed across a number of worlds, and the loss of Qo'noS, while regrettable, would not have been the death-knell of an entire interstellar empire.
However, the nature of the Klingon Empire requires that they be highly centralized, lest one of the subject worlds decide it should be the seat of a new Empire.
It's actually a touch ironic that the Romulan player experience starts on Virinat. According to the game's lore, Virinat was once the "breadbasket" of the RSE, supplying food for dozens of worlds. However, with the rise of replicator technology, Virinat was no longer a major player in the Romulan economy; thus, in order to keep any imperial ambitions in check, it was thoroughly marginalized. Had the RSE not kept the provinces down in the same manner as the Klingons (and as most historical empires, for that matter), they could have survived the loss of the homeworlds to the Hobus supernova. It was the centralization of the Empire that proved their downfall. Moving the flag to Rator III was potentially useful, but in the event proved to be too little, too late, particularly given Sela's use of Hirogen troops to keep order (something I imagine the Rihannsu would have bitterly resented, just as the American colonists resented the British use of Prussian mercenaries to keep the peace in Earth's history).
SUPER POLITICALLY CORRECT, WARM FUZZY, FEDERATION CLONES?!
Am I alone in wanting to have enjoyed a nice, dark, plot of backstabbing, intrigue, secrecy, and straight up EVIL?! Fairly early on in the plot Tovan's ex-girlfriend offers you to join the Tal Shiar... WHERE IS MY ACCEPT OPTION?! Later theres a fantastic opportunity to Join the Empress or even just go with the programming.... again not an option :mad:
Its a great story.
When you boil it down the major reason is not wanting to anger the pvp crowd.
I say that with no disrespect cause I love to pvp but it's still a dumb reason imo.
now most of the content in legacy of Romulus is rightly awesome, but still could have been done without having to enslave *cough* "ally" yourself to the federation or Klingon empire. The romulans shouldn't be puppets they should stand on their own two feet. But from start to implementation there are contradictions in the romulan story overall.
The Tal shiar was really devastated during the start of the dominion war. and even though time elapsed they still couldn't take over the military, and even after the hobus incident they still more then likely couldn't stop even the remnants of the military much less control it. and even with sela forming a alliance with the hirogen and the elachi, I don't think the military would follow a mad "halfbreed" like that I think some if not most of the military would break off and fight as the romulan empire in exile.
I feel like we're sorta shoehorned to playing young luke skywalker who lives on the farm till the empire takes his family away. But then we get mixed messages from this minifaction that claims to be peaceful.
you get chided Tovan aka 'jiminy cricket' for building a tiny thalaron weapon and killing epohhs behind glass in the mission "mindgames" but then to use them on freakishly huge capital ships with planet killing thalaron weapons which violate treaties against the use of them, (due to the cruel nature of these weapons and there being wmds) thats perfectly ok................:rolleyes: Most of the major alpha quadrent powers have banned them e,g the feds and kdf. Either D'tan has been replaced with a imposter by species 8472.
or the federation and Klingon empire just don't care having eleventy buhmillion doomsday devices floating in space.
*edited to include this fact that d'tan says romulans shouldn't be killing one another but it's fine for them to do so by proxy as cannon fodder in the fed/kdf war*
I would like to see a future romulan star empire faction (though not likely to happen) not tal shiar with donatra being rescued from the borg and leading a coup against sela to reclaim the empire cause donatra was a crafty romulan but at least she had a sense of fairplay when it came to the scimitar and shinzon's plans for it.
(no rant intended but just my own thoughts and opinions. Yes I do love lor a lot but it could have been different and better imo.)
I would like to see a future romulan star empire faction (though not likely to happen) not tal shiar with donatra being rescued from the borg and leading a coup against sela to reclaim the empire cause donatra was a crafty romulan but at least she had a sense of fairplay when it came to the scimitar and shinzon's plans for it.
that how kit should have played out at least for fed captains but cryptic is all about kill kill kill
that how kit should have played out at least for fed captains but cryptic is all about kill kill kill
Yeah I would have set the faction arc as trying as a romulan empire soldier who didn't support sela's coup. and to (a) rescue Donatra from the borg, (b) Marshal what forces you can and (c) try to topple sela and bring donatra back into power. meanwhile having icy relationships with the kdf and feds and keeping them as far away as possible.
Well at least I kicked a hornet's nest and provoked a killer conversation here... Seems most of us agree that the romulan plot is good but not what it should have been.
Actually I think, since this certainly isn't the first thread to complain about LoR and certainly won't be the last, most of the people who do not agree simply don't consider it worth discussing anymore, as nothing that can be said will ever satisfy those who create such threads. Silence doesn't necessarily mean agreement; it could just as easily mean nobody cares to continue a pointless 'debate.'
Actually I think, since this certainly isn't the first thread to complain about LoR and certainly won't be the last, most of the people who do not agree simply don't consider it worth discussing anymore, as nothing that can be said will ever satisfy those who create such threads. Silence doesn't necessarily mean agreement; it could just as easily mean nobody cares to continue a pointless 'debate.'
For instance, I'm bowing out after pointing out once again that few people who have reached adulthood get a thrill out of being self-consciously eeee-vvviiillll!!, and once again being roundly ignored. Life is too short, and I still have a couple of Risian birds to finish turning into top-end Pokemon before my Romulan can get back to defending the Republic.
The Tal'Shiar is NOT like Starfleet Intelligence nor Klingon Intelligence (although they do share some characteristics with Section 31). The Tal'Shiar is like the Stasi, the Gestapo, or the NKVD. They are the Imperial Secret Police, not an Intelligence service.
Funny... I thought they are both, many websites (even official) and TV series refer to them as an ''Intelligence Organization'' more like the Soviet KGB which does matters of internal security, intelligence, and secret policing.
if u think they only do Secret Police duties then u already got brainwashed by Cryptic Romulan Republic story line.
D'tan makes that claim, and then send ships out to fight the Tal Shiar. His message always came across to me as reflecting his desire to make peace and reunify the Romulans.
Ah good I thought it was him but I didn't want to commit to saying it was him without being 100% sure.
To put this in perspective, WW2, the bloodiest human conflict, impacted a small percentage of the world's population. So while any politician afterwords could certainly talk like to many lives had been lost and that we should stop killing each other, it would not actually be the case.
Well we have no real numbers to say either way as far as I know but D'tan is the first real insight I've seen that gives us any indication of Romulan numbers.
Given how the government seems to have collapsed so easily and the Tal shiar a generally small group has managed to take such considerable control over the populous I think it's reasonable to assume that he wasn't too far off the mark. Though I'll admit anything taken from D'tan has to be taken with a grain of salt.
War is complex calculus. Yes, the RR would lose in a throwdown fight with either power, but the cost would be high. Let's assume, for a moment, the Klingons decide to break the treaty and invade. They most certainly would win, but the ships from the Republic that was working with them would be able to extract a bloody cost from the Klingons for doing so, as what can the Klingons do against a dozen warbirds within their space that decide to go hunting? Not much, but those warbirds are in a target rich enviroment with nothing to lose. Same for the ones in the Federation. By spreading ships into both sides, D'tan raises the cost of an attack on the Republic by having forces pre-deployed within their space to cause maximum harm.
That's what I mean by it brings little risk to the Republic to do so. It's not like having those ships within Republic territory would change the likelihood of victory.
Further, there is a level of plausible deniability to the actions of those vessels who are officially working for one side or another. Given the distance they might be from Republic space, if they "go rogue" what can D'tan and the Republic do? What can they be diplomatically expected to do beyond condemn the attacks and demand the ships return to Republic space to face trial?
Well I did get what you were saying but I'm saying it's a great risk should either side track down the Republic as being responsible.
There's also another problem with your assumption , to give the threat of Romulan Republic raids credibility a threat/s must be made. If such threats are made then suspicion will already be placed on the Republic when they are carried out. If they make no threats then it's pointless because then the other groups will just shrug it off as you say a rogue group so there was nothing either faction could have done politically to prevent this anyways.
So either you're making threats that will come back to bite you in the rear or you're of no threat and therefore lack any political pull.
Besides lets be honest do really think D'tan would attempt something as treacherous as this? D'tan even said lies and deception are against his beliefs , I doubt he would be up to the task if such a situation presented itself.
Unless...everything D'tan has said up to this point is facade and he's been lying to everyone including us about his goals and personality.
Canonotically, the destruction of Praxis was expected to cause the fall of the Klingon Empire due to the damage it caused to Quo'nos. This is due to the fact that the Klingon Empire is heavily built around their capitol world with little given to the outter colonies. The capitol is the heart of their Empire, its where the majority of shipbuilding, economic activity and government is located.
Even with a more decentralized government like the Federation, an attack on Earth was a big deal. Earth is the capitol of the Federation government, and headquarters of Starfleet and also one of their primary shipyards. The destruction of Earth has always been considered to be a near decapitating strike by even those within the Fed.
I see no reason why Romulus would be different for the Romulans. The Romulan's Empire is arguably even more centralized than the Klingons (who have their noble house system to help decentralize their government). This means that all administrative, all military and all governmental bodies were destroyed by the Hobbes Incident. This is not the equivalent of Japan losing in WW2, this is the equavalent of if Japan lost WW2 by the US dropping Fat Man and Little Boy on Tokyo and Kyoto rather than on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
I could use other real life examples, but I don't want to to treat on any forum policies.
Regardless, in a highly centralized society, the fall of a capitol is not just a psycological blow to them, but a huge economic, military and cultural blow. What is England without London? France without Paris? China without Beijing? It's a little harder for Americans and Canadians to get with our highly decentralized governments that also end up with our national capitols as down on the list of economic and size. They aren't really the "heart" of the country in the same way as they are in most other countries (really, it's a weird Canada/US thing, just about ever other country in the world the capitol is the largest and most important city).
An economic blow is a bit different than the point I was making that they seem to have made a dramatic mentality shift.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that the loss of Romulus would invaribly utterly scar the psyche of the Romulan people. It would also take decades or more to recover from that. It's only been 20 years, and it's not been 20 years of attempting to rebuild, but rather 20 years of in-fighting between political factions who are attempting to claim the entire pie for themselves. Sela and her faction nearly grabbed it all, but in the end they failed and disappeared, leaving the Republic as the last successor state standing.
I admit it would be a blow to the Romulan psyche but not to the extent you're implying. The entire Romulan senate was murdered did the the Romulans just curl up into a ball and die? No , I would wager they barely batted an eye lid at it. With all the back stabbing in the Romulan Senate I would expect the government would actually be somewhat flexible to compensate for the constant changes in government.
The evidence is that the majority of common-folk Romulans don't need either. The evidence is in the TOS portrayal of Romulans are fundimentally like the rest of us, not as some facistic regime that requires a top-down approach to maintain control of the population.
Ah unless I'm mistaken TOS didn't show us what the common people think like either. TOS just showed us another branch of the military. The closest we have to the civilians was in the TNG episode Unification. Granted they were rather peaceful air heads but I would argue that these people wouldn't represent the majority of the populous but were odd ball dissidents.
Further, I repeat yet again, that STO's portrayal is not simply based on the portrayal of Romulans in the serieses, but also on the Rihannsu series of novels and the Vulcan's Soul series of novels. I would suggest taking the time to read them, but I can understand if you don't have it (it's a lot of reading, five Rihannsu novels, Vulcan's Heart and the Vulcan's Soul trilogy is a total of nine novels to read...). If you don't like that, that's fine, but it is what it is. For STO you can't JUST look at the series for information on the Romulans, but need to look at the other sources they used.
Admittedly Romulan information is vague and I'm sure the books are good like you say but let us not forget that the TV series is the Romulans most of us expected and wanted , not Romulans from obscure books.;)
Further, Surak has always been portrayed as a radical reformer in a radical time, was it nessesary to save Vulcan? We don't know, the Vulcans seem to believe so, but the Romulans disagreed (which is why they left). This is like asking a question of "was Christianity good for human civilization?" You can't really know the answer because while you can points to the changes a philosophy or religion bring about to a people, you cannot know what those civilizations would do without them. Heck, you could make an argument that Surak's philosophy stunted Vulcan's growth and development. After all, the Vulcans ended up being a minor player overall, while the Romulans developed one of the big three powers in Star Trek (and had done so BEFORE they were portrayed as a fascist state in TNG).
Another matter of evidence that supports the idea that Surakian philosophy might, in fact, not be as good as we know it to be is the matter of Ponn Farr. We have no dialogue or evidence to suggest that Romulans suffer from Ponn Farr, while only Vulcans do. There's a lot of fanon interpretations of this, some choose to interpret this as a result of the Romulans not supressing their emotions like the Vulcans do. Though it could be genetic drift, a result of removal of something that was in the Vulcan biome or any number of other things.
There's a lot of unknowns here which really bugs me but I'll try to make what I can of it.
We do know Vulcans were violent and still are. In the TOS episode All our yesterdays we get a glimpse of what Vulcan were like before Surak. This is the closest to what I believe Romulans came from a Vulcan untainted by Surak's beliefs. Even in the Ponn Farr Spock was willing to kill his closest friend showing that Vulcans still have said violent traits bottled up inside.
Now when we watch Romulans from the series they seem to be calm and reserved I don't know if something changed between Romulans from then and now but originally I think it's safe to say Romulans were violent.
Why are they cool and reserved when they should be violent that is the million dollar question. Do they have some sort of mental control to keep them in line? Is it Biological? Have they mutated? Is it environmental?...So many questions so few answers *sigh*.
Though I will say this much the Romulans in STO seem way to friendly for Romulans in my mind.
Romulans are a violent people even STO acknowledges this to some extent. Look what D'tan uses as a symbol to unite the Romulans not a book or an ancient farm tool but a sword. A symbol , of violence , of conquest , of past glories and I believe that's the Romulans people want to see not a group of pacifist librarians.
Man that took a long time to write hope it was at least semi legible.:P
All I can say is when it comes to profits if they think maximum profit could be made into making Klingons chase rabbits and romulans be trusting neighbors to invite over for dinner then you got your answer
I would like to note at the outset that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading posts by peregry, who took it much further and developed the structure of the case more than I have done on a few previous occasions in these fora.
If you have some cannon evidence to prove Surak was wrong then I'm all ears but if it's considered non cannon then your point is moot. Just saying well because this story was great it should be fact doesn't make it fact. The fact is TNG Romulans did happen in the official story line and to ignore them would be like a person covering their eyes and pretending it never happened just because it wasn't the reality they wanted.
:eek: Are you serious? Of course Surak was wrong. It's almost a tautology. What happens when a person suppress his/her emotions? What are the results of an emotionally repressive society? Vulcans go batcrap crazy every seven years. This is not a genetic trait, but a result of peer pressure from a society excessively intolerant of emotion.
Romulans have pride? Of course. So do Vulcans, in spite of the emotional implications of having pride. But do not mistake pride for conceit, nor vice-versa. Pride is a noble virtue; conceit is an excess of pride that blinds one to one's own faults.
Romulans are xenophobic and "arrogant" (a much-overused term; "arrogance" means 'unwarranted pride" much like "conceit")? Maybe so. Vulcans are pompous, supercilious, and condescending towards other peoples; while they have the high ideal of IDIC, their snobbery is often all too obvious to ignore.
And I don't think anyone is ignoring the Tal'Shiar of TNG. Most of us are busy laying waste to them on every available opportunity. These are the sick (paranoid at the very least) individuals who made an unholy pact with the Iconians, and brought the Iconian servitor people, the Elachi, to peaceful, non-threatening agricultural communities like Virinat. The Elachi, as you may recall, were torturing and killing Romulans, Remans, Sulibans, and who knows who else, in bizarre experiments whose goal was the mutation of these people into Elachi. The illegitimate "Empress" Sela gave the Hirogen license to hunt Romulan citizens. I disintegrated Colonel Hakeev and was doing my best to do likewise to Sela in her ship. I was so close to attaining that goal when the Iconian ship appeared and made off with her in her ship. Should the opportunity again present itself to dispense justice to her, I will not hesitate.
:eek: Are you serious? Of course Surak was wrong. It's almost a tautology. What happens when a person suppress his/her emotions? What are the results of an emotionally repressive society? Vulcans go batcrap crazy every seven years. This is not a genetic trait, but a result of peer pressure from a society excessively intolerant of emotion.
Vulcans are not humans with pointy ears...well not in the fiction anyways:P Vulcans are A..L..I..E..N..S , what drives an alien species is certainly open to debate to say they're just socially repressed humans with pointy ears is a very poor conclusion at best.:rolleyes:
Actually I think, since this certainly isn't the first thread to complain about LoR and certainly won't be the last, most of the people who do not agree simply don't consider it worth discussing anymore, as nothing that can be said will ever satisfy those who create such threads. Silence doesn't necessarily mean agreement; it could just as easily mean nobody cares to continue a pointless 'debate.'
And yet here we are on page 6 of a constructive discussion w/o flaming or trolling :P Thats almost a miracle in any forum on any topic in and of itself :P
For instance, I'm bowing out after pointing out once again that few people who have reached adulthood get a thrill out of being self-consciously eeee-vvviiillll!!, and once again being roundly ignored. Life is too short, and I still have a couple of Risian birds to finish turning into top-end Pokemon before my Romulan can get back to defending the Republic.
In your opinion, most people dont want to play evil, which is cool, but in my opinion dead wrong. I think its pretty normal, fun, and healthy to wander off and do villainy and/or be the ******* everyone hates via in game plots. Sometimes ya just wanna blow **** up/conquer/enslave etc. Brotherhood of Nod from C&C franchise does a great job allowing you to be villains and paint yourself the patriotic hero. There are other games, past and present, mmo and single player that allow you to be evil and/or mix good/evil. SWTOR's Empire side is pretty unquestionably evil and its far more popular than Republic. DCUO allows you to be the ultimate 2d cookie cutter 'destroy the world' villain in addition to more sane styles and a great many players play that side.
Just a few quick examples but imo this portion of the convo is way off topic.
@vonhellsting even Spock comes to the realization that Logic is just the beginning of true understanding... it only took a mind meld with a god-like machine of purest logic to bring him to that, but he did realize it.
Brotherhood of Nod from C&C franchise does a great job allowing you to be villains and paint yourself the patriotic hero. There are other games, past and present, mmo and single player that allow you to be evil and/or mix good/evil. SWTOR's Empire side is pretty unquestionably evil and its far more popular than Republic. DCUO allows you to be the ultimate 2d cookie cutter 'destroy the world' villain in addition to more sane styles and a great many players play that side.
Just a few quick examples but imo this portion of the convo is way off topic.
KDF is one of the best examples
But ... I dont think Romulans should be an evil faction, they should just be a-holes. Rude, arrogant, miltaristic, jingoistic--kind of a successful verison of NoKo or Iran, who built an empire due to the absence of a countering force. What would that look like if they had a bunch of resources. Statues everywhere, dismissive of everyone else, that kind of culture. Ancient Rome.
@vonhellsting even Spock comes to the realization that Logic is just the beginning of true understanding... it only took a mind meld with a god-like machine of purest logic to bring him to that, but he did realize it.
I'm not saying logic is the only way that would be a subjective statement which would destroy itself in paradoxical logic.:P
I'm saying that something similar to the system put in place by Surak maybe required to keep Vulcans emotions in check to prevent them from becoming a danger to those around them.
Comments
Perhaps you didn't read my post, but let me do a TL:DR:
The Republic IS made up of the Romulans we've been seeing for fifty year. It's just not made up of the Romulans that people remember from the TNG.
It's the TNG Romulans who were the oddidity.
Or rather, from the time Romulans were introduced in "Balance of Terror" to the episode "The Defector" Romulans were generally portrayed as honrable, dutiful and as a group who were more alike to the Federation members (especially humans) than not.
This is a 26 year timespan. After "The Defector" (and arguably durring) is where the Romulans went from the duitful, honorable and proud-to-xenophobic race to the card carrying villians. But that image ONLY lasted through TNG. DS9 moved Romulans away from being card carrying villians and into the realm of being almost purely real-politck, though they had lost the honor that had previously marked them. Most of their involvement in DS9 was, in fact, not as enemies, but as patsies to be manipulated by the Federation to fight in the Dominion War, not as plotting, scheming backstabbers. In fact, they never once tried to betray the Alpha Quadrant Alliance in the Dominion War for their own gain, instead they spent blood and gold to fight a war that was happening CLEAR ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE FEDERATION. Seriously people, look at the Star Maps, the Dominon incursion, Cardassian space and DS9 are as far away from the Romulans as you can get in the Federation, yet the Roms threw everything they had into the war effort. Yes, their long-hated enemy the Breen was involved, and they could have just tangled with them on that shared border, but instead they threw down as far from their own supply lines and home turf as they could, with many souls given to the void to defend two ancient enemies and to liberate a people whom they had no real stake in.
That's not the act of a card-carrying, self interested villian who's out only for themselves. It was certainly in their self interest, but there's clearly more at play than simple real politck there, but rather a concept of a soldier's honor and the duty to protect one's enemy and one's ally from a greater foe... IE the concept of mnhei'sahe.
There are very few actual outright villians in Star Trek. The Borg Collective, the Domion, a few one shot species. The Romulans ain't really one of them, not if you base it on their actions. They have their fair share of villians, but if you're going to base which faction is the most villianous by the actions of their leaders, well, the Federation Admiralty gives the Romulans a run for their money. Rather, the Romulans are a people outside the Federation with their own morals and objectives that often conflict with the Federation, and they are willing to go outside of what the Federation considers moral to get their own ends, but that alone does not a villian make.
Anyway, back to my point, this idea that the Romulans can't be good guys flies in the face of evidence as seen in Star Trek time and again. They are proud. They are self-interested. They are arrogant (as all Vulcaniod species seem to be). They are willing to go to length that others are not, yes, but there have morals, they have honor (though not a warrior's honor like the Klingons, but rather the soldier's honor of a.. well.. Roman as befits their name).
Further, as I said, Cryptic did not restrict itself to ONLY the shows and movies when looking at how to make the Romulans, but instead drew on the Rihannsu and Vulcan's Soul series to flesh out Romulans society. We don't play as the high ranked senators and commanders in the Romulans Star Empire, who's plays at politics and shifting alliances were the stuff people were used to from the show. Rather, we play as a Romulan colonist, proud of their heratage and people, but far removed from the inner circle of the Empire. It's a different perspective than what many players expected, but it is a legitimate one.
That said, there is a case that this is a betrayal of expectations in a way. People expected to be a part of the RSE and to be playing and involved with those games. That is a fair critism, but it's not the story Cryptic felt they wanted to tell, or that would be popular among their players (the right or wrong of this position is up to individual opinion, I like the opportunity to play a Romulan untainted by the sins of the RSE and more in line with their portrayal in TOS and the Rihannsu series, but others wanted to be a part of that).
But to say that it is somehow bad storytelling, or that it's not the "Romulans we've seen on screen" is simply incorrect. Romulan commanders and officier constantly showed honor and compassion, cunning and savagery, duty and betrayal. Instead of fixating on the ONE aspect that is missing from the Romulans in STO (one which, as I have explained, is a TNG creation that became overly large in that series and did not fit with other portrayals), instead look and see how much work Cryptic actually did to tell the story and tie it into the Romulan lore of Star Trek. You're blinded by the TNG Romulans, and are missing the much better and more rounded Romulans.
You know, there was a game that let you play a Bad Guy; that game has been dead for quite some time now, and even before it died we're told that not enough people went villain to make it worth anyone's while. It's just that the kids (and in my experience they tend to be in their early to mid teens) who want to be Teh Ebil Villyuns are often extremely vocal about it. (Then when they get their way, they have no idea how Evil acts, which is why when I run D&D games I don't even let anyone try to take Chaotic Evil as an alignment. Either someone took it because they thought it would be kewl, or they become a greater threat to the party than any of my monsters.)
And Trek's never been good at Bad Guys anyway; the opfor has always been more complex than that. The closest they've gotten have been the Borg and the Dominion - and the Borg do what they do because those still capable of thought believe it actually is in the victims' best interests, and the Founders of the Dominion were conditioned by their past to fear any intelligent life they didn't control.
So yeah, if you're waiting for your chance to play the moustache-twirling cardboard villain, I suggest you try something else until the urge passes, because Cryptic isn't going to make that game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqEnkEN4u7c
Roll a new Fed toon and watch the tutorial
You can quit making excuses for them now
you bastich! lol it took me a good 2 min to stop laughing enough to read on!! lmfao
^what he said, tho I disagree on a couple points you largely are bang on. There is one bit tho I want to answer:
Both would be my answer after all they are both bits of the whole that made Romulans the race I most wanted to play and get involved in.
truth or not, it really does feel like that.
And that, I think, is where they screwed the pooch rather hard
I think you're looking at this the wrong way Romulans do not need to be a dichotomy , where either you're in the Old Trek camp or the New Generation camp.
The STO lore should try to bridge the gaps between the differences not divide them. Are some Romulans honorable? yes. Do they have admiral qualities? sure but lets not try to look at them through rose coloured glasses. To say all acts of deception or guile are Tal Shiar while every honorable Romulan is an ordinary citizen trying to be free of an oppressive regime is a mistake in my opinion. Then we're just trivializing Romulan society into the guys with white cowboy hats and the guys in black cow boy hats.
Neither Romulan view of doing things is wrong they're just different views of solving the same problem.
To say either group is evil does the Romulans an injustice since evil is subjective and we should not be trying to measure our belief system against theirs.
The problem with STO is they seem out of character with both groups and are closer to Vulcans than Romulans.
Let us not forget that in the balance of Terror the little engagement was to test the federation if it was ready to be invaded. Or at least I think that was the plan it's been awhile since I saw the episode.:P The old trek Romulans may have been honorable and proud but that pride turned into a desire for conquest and prejudice against the other races not a desire to fight by their side in some glorious apocalypse mission.
I believe even proud noble Romulans tend to look down on the other races , look at Law even when he was trying to be helpful he called them lessor races.
I think we can agree that both versions of the Romulans are a proud people dedicated to duty.
There should be a focus on rebuilding Romulan dominance not building the Romulan Federation of alpha quadrant allies. With a symbosis of both ideals of sneaky and honourable not a polarization of them.
They abandoned their home world once before and we got a race that became xenophobic and reclusive if anything I think it would push them further down that path than them becoming warm and welcoming.;)
Anyways that's my two cents.
Would I like to see more politicking within the Romulan storyline? Yes, absolutely, as noted in my signature is part of being a Romulan is politics. The problem comes in then that because STO's story is on rails, how can Cryptic portray politics while making players feel like they have agency?
It takes either very, very skillful writing, and while I'm not as anti-Cryptic's writing as some, I will admit I don't think they can pull it off, or a branching storyline, which just doesn't work in STO or games like it due to limitations of resources and time.
But, yet, we do see some classic Romulan politicking for their own benefit. It's just because they're making peace rather than looking to start a war people don't recognize it. How D'tan plays the Federation and Klingons off against each other is CLASSIC real-politick diplomacy. Yes, D'tan is a Reunificationist more interested in peace than war, but he's not a fool or an idiot. He knows what he has, what he needs, and he GOT IT with little to no trouble for the Republic. He played two warring powers off each other, and got them BOTH to supply him, not just give him promises of peace, but to outright fund the establishment and expansion of the Repubic and thereby allowing it to grow without outside threats so that it eventually can reclaim all the territory of the old Empire.
But because he does it with honeyed words and truth people don't recognize it for what it is, the most brilliant political move a Romulan ruler has done in the last CENTURY or more. In one swoop he secured the Republic's borders, convinced the two great powers in the Beta Quadrant that the Romulans were not threat, and then got them BOTH to bankroll him and his Republic as they move to consoldate power. AND he managed to divorce himself from the baggage of the old Empire, giving them a clean slate that's unmarred by the many missteps of the Empire in dealing with the Federation and Klingons.
It's brilliant, effective, and very Romulan. But because it's D'tan and it doesn't lead to war, somehow it's not? I don't get it. Romulans are not stupid, they don't pick fights they don't think they can win. They are rational players of Realpolitick, not warmongering mustache twirling villians!
Perhaps people are in denial that the Romulans are not longer a Great Power. This is understandable, after all the status quo for Star Trek for 50 years was that there were three Great Powers in the Beta Quadrant: The Federation, The Klingons and the Romulans. The Romulans lost that status starting with the events in Nemesis and culminating in the Hobbes incident. And before someone says "they could of rebuilt in 20 years", that may be true, if they had a unifed government. But they didn't. All that politicking and backstabbing people love the Romulans for... well, it bit them in the TRIBBLE. Without a strong central government, the Empire basically fell into feuding successor states. As it happens, the players are members of one of those successor States, the Republic. We know of at least one other, Sela's Empire, which had consolodated most of the Empire under her until THAT new government was gutted (as seen in the game with the Iconians and Elachi), which, likely, resulted in further fracturing, leaving the Republic as the single large successor to the Empire, and the most powerful one with Sela's Empire gutted. Rational Romulans who value their people's freedom (in the sense of Romulan self-determination outside of another power) will naturally gravitate towards the faction with the highest likelihood of maintaing that. Right now Cyptic has set that up to be the Republic, who are presenting themselves as white hats so that they can get the outside aid they need.
Yet, they field Scimitars equipped with Tharalon Weapons and have fulled adopted the Reman seperatists who made it a point to collect said tharalon weapons. They viciously hunt down the Tal Shiar and Sela's Imperials and gut their operations in no-quarter-given combat. Claim game mechanics all you want, but STO has missions where you give quarter to enemies when it is thematically appropriate (perhaps a little to little in the Fed's case, but that's a different discussion), and the Romulans don't do it.
Is the Republic the Romulans of TNG, who deal from a position of power and strength? No. And they cannot be given the started story of Trek. Are they Romulans? I agrue they are. Are they Rihannsu? Yes, that we are most definately.
However, I, too, have felt a bit "wishy washy" with the whole campaign. Solid writing, but the overall background - we're too busy building a new homeworld and trying to get set as the "legitimate" Romulan government - buried one small fact that nagged me throughout:
D'Tan is a unificationist.
Yes, all this work I'm doing - as some guys sig says - starting out as a simple farmer to climb the ranks of the Republic Star Navy to become a level-capped dilithium and mark farmer - is more truth than we think, not just on the gameplay level (what do we do after the storyline and 50 again?
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Actually it wouldn't be all that hard , all they would need is a cut scene of the senate to give a broader sense of the Republic's feelings. Something like this..
D'tan "We are no longer capable of surviving on our own so I've come to harsh decision that we will seek out an alliance with the major powers of the Alpha quadrant. "
Senator one"This is outrageous you would have us throw away more than 300 years of tradition and culture for hand outs! Are we to be beggars at the doors of infidels?
Senator two"I for one will not vote in favor of an alliance with our enemies this will be the ruin of us!"
Senator three" Hear D'tan out! My people are starving my brother was hunted down by the Tal shiar and murdered we can not do this alone , at the very least we must try for peace!
Senator three I do not trust these Veruul but I care for my people who are suffering gravely. While I do not condone an alliance with the Alpha powers I will abide by the Senates vote.
D'tan"Very well let us vote on it. All in favor? All opposed? The vote for a temporary Alliance with the Alpha powers passes.
{cheers and jeers from the crowd}
{Senator one storms out while two just shakes his head in dismay}
Something like that at least give us some context to the republics feeling. Not the solitary voice of D'tan telling us what to do. One could even throw in intrigue like later possibly senator one in a misguided attempt to save his people plots an assassination of D'tan. There's just so much more they could have done with this to make it feel legitimate rather than some crazy unifcationist giving out commands.
Some might argue the price for D'tans getting what he wants is too high. In exchange for hand outs and offers of protection the Romulans are sacrificing their most valuable resource the Romulan people themselves. How many food credits is a Romulan body worth hmm?
That's why people tend to think of him as a sell out he trades Romulans for supplies and promises of protection. Promises I might add that can be withdrawn at a moments notice , what then hmm?
Maybe I'm alone in this but it's not just that he doesn't want war. He gives off an odd aura like as if he has no direction...like if he's trying to imitate Spock than trying to be his own person or that of a Romulan.
Perhaps but if fans are in denial would you not think the same of the Romulans too. Why are they so accepting of this? Have all the grudges of the past just magically wiped away? Do they no longer have any pride?
Even Vulcans are violent naturally it takes years of mental training to control such behavior. How then are Romulans managing such a control without strict levels of social conformity? It just comes off as awkward to me at best.
And for the love of the Great Bird, people, the Romulans and Klingonon are in the Beta not Alpha Quadrant. I know it sounds nitpicky (and that DS9 always seemed to refer to everything as the "Alpha" quadrant), but it drives me up the wall to see it misused
If there is one thing that the Republic has in excess right now it's people. It is very... Romulan... to trade the one thing they have for the things they do not have. Further, let's look at what those people get to do as they work with the other Great Powers. They get integrated and have the run of much of their space. They can make use of second-line ships of their allies, giving the Romulans a chance to analyze that technology. Certainly it's not the high end tech for those groups, but, interestingly, it is divergent technology from the Romulans, so any information on it is advantageous.
Further, if you're the Federation and Klingons and know you have X number of warbirds spread throughout your territory, are you going to back out of your obligations to the Republic? Those warbirds, with the most advanced cloaking technology in the two Quadrants are a knife poised at those powers throats, if they back out, all they can cause widespread havok on shipping and to the interests of the Federation and Empire, with little to no risk to the Republic.
Well, the fans don't have to live in fear of Hiirogen and Tal Shiar raids to drive home that they are not members of a Great Power. ;p
In seriousness though, because we're dealing with a fictional universe that we come to for entertainment and fun, rather than actually living there, it's easy for fans to not think through the consiquences and put themselves in the mindset of the NOW of the timeline. This isn't a bad thing, just the way human's approach fiction. Me, being a role-player and such tend to get more "in the moment" than the average joe player.
Anyway, yeah, I do think that the would be less in denial than the fans simply due to the fact that they have actually had to live with the consiquences of that loss of power. They shouldn't be happy about it, they would likely wish to reclaim that position, but they know it, the evidence of it is constantly beating them in the face.
I will admit I would like to have seen more of that pure Romulan pride shining through. An attitude of "this to shall pass, we will deal with the problems of the now, and return stronger for them" I think is how they should be acting. After all, this is not the worst it has been for the Declared. But also bear in mind the majority of NPCs and even the PC are not from the old power blocs of the Empire. They never had any real power to begind with, they were colony farmers thrust into a bad situation and trying to make it work out for them. This bleeds through into the portrayal.
Could they have done a different or better intro rathedr than farmer? Probably. I can think of a few ways to have done the almost exact same storyline in a more Romulan way. But I'm not a writer for Cryptic, I'm just a player. I feel they gave the Romulans a fair story, one I enjoyed and found sufficiently Romulan, though it could have been better.
As to the grudges of the past, no, of course not. However, politically they have been. Neither the Klingons or Federation can hold the Republic responsible for the crimes of the Empire. That does not mean a Klingon, a Bolian or a Human will not hold a Romulan responsible for them. Or that a Romulan will not hold the Klingons in contempt for their actions against the Empire. But that is in the realm of RP and isn't something Cryptic needs to be showing people when they are concerned with the broad strokes of the story. They could toss a few NPCs being malcontent about dealing with the Federation and Klingons here and there, and in fact, they have. Go stand on the step to the capitol city on Mol'Rihan sometime, the NPCs there talk politics and some will occasionally say things about not liking dealing with the Feds and Klingons.
There is no other way to say this:
Surak was wrong.
The Vulcan people do not need strict regime (either of emotions or society) to survive. That is the ENTIRE point of being a Romulan. That is what S'task discovered and taught, that the emotional passion of their people is not something to be feared and protected against, but to be embraced. That is what Romulan society proves. The only portrayal of the Romulans as some sort of hyper-strict society was in TNG (DS9 and later did not show common folks, merely politicians and military). STO is not built strictly on the TNG interpretation of Romulans (which, as I noted in my first post is more like them being "evil Vulcans" rather than what they are as "anti-Vulcans"), but draws heavily on the Rihannsu and Vulcan's Soul series, where we saw a lot of life outside the politicians and military ("The Romulan Way" showing the most of this).
Now, you can make a case that this makes STO as being outside the strict canon of the shows. That I will grant you. However, if you ignore those book series when it comes to Romulans, you're doing yourself a disservice. They are excellent series and change a otherwise one-dimensional race into a proper society with a multifaceted and complex history and philosophy rather than a simple foil for the Federation.
Romulans are seeking revenge for Hobus. Remember who blew up Hobus and Romulus & Remus with it? Tal'Shiar. Seems to me that we're kicking some serious Tal'Shiar butt during the Republic storyline.
I wasn't sure about that myself but Memory Alpha said it was part of the Alpha quadrant so I assumed it was correct I guess not?
I seem to recall someone saying how there's too few of us left to be fighting amongst ourselves or something like that.. Which would make that statement incorrect. Though I'm not one hundred percent sure on that the mind tends to play tricks on me at times.
Little or no risk to the Republic? I think it would be of great risk given should either side actually feel the need to confront new Romulus they wouldn't stand much of a chance in a conflict. That was kind of the whole point of them making the Alliance in the first place.
I think you're missing the point I'm making here this is a group that has been heavily indoctrinated. Do we have any real life examples of this sure just look at Germany and Japan they suffered horrifically in ww2 and any normal person could see the writing on the wall but even then for a lot of them defeat was unfathomable.
Sure you could say they were traumatized by the destruction of their home world but the problem with that is they didn't experience it most if not all were off world. It's not even like it's the only planet they have just one of sentimental significance. So I find it hard to buy into the whole sudden change in mentality because of the loss of a single world that many may not have even visited.
If you have some cannon evidence to prove Surak was wrong then I'm all ears but if it's considered non cannon then your point is moot. Just saying well because this story was great it should be fact doesn't make it fact. The fact is TNG Romulans did happen in the official story line and to ignore them would be like a person covering their eyes and pretending it never happened just because it wasn't the reality they wanted.
Actually, color me confused now too. You're right that Memory Alpha lists the RSE in the Alpha Quadrant. STO's map has it in the Beta Quadrant (and STO's map is actually based on a older map of the Star Trek galaxy that was published in the 90s that I rmember studying... so...). The first edition of the "Star Trek Encyclopedia" lists the Romulans in the Beta Quadrant (along with the Klingons), while the Federation is in both.
I blame DS9 and it's Alpha-Quadric centric dialogue.
I will not longer harp on this at all since canon is clearly confused on the issue, and varying sources give varying information. However, I do maintain that while we're dealing with STO, the Romulans are in the Beta Quadrant, as the STO galaxy map clearly portrays this. But now I am annoyed at the old writers who moved things around...
D'tan makes that claim, and then send ships out to fight the Tal Shiar. His message always came across to me as reflecting his desire to make peace and reunify the Romulans.
To put this in perspective, WW2, the bloodiest human conflict, impacted a small percentage of the world's population. So while any politician afterwords could certainly talk like to many lives had been lost and that we should stop killing each other, it would not actually be the case.
War is complex calculus. Yes, the RR would lose in a throwdown fight with either power, but the cost would be high. Let's assume, for a moment, the Klingons decide to break the treaty and invade. They most certainly would win, but the ships from the Republic that was working with them would be able to extract a bloody cost from the Klingons for doing so, as what can the Klingons do against a dozen warbirds within their space that decide to go hunting? Not much, but those warbirds are in a target rich enviroment with nothing to lose. Same for the ones in the Federation. By spreading ships into both sides, D'tan raises the cost of an attack on the Republic by having forces pre-deployed within their space to cause maximum harm.
That's what I mean by it brings little risk to the Republic to do so. It's not like having those ships within Republic territory would change the likelihood of victory.
Further, there is a level of plausible deniability to the actions of those vessels who are officially working for one side or another. Given the distance they might be from Republic space, if they "go rogue" what can D'tan and the Republic do? What can they be diplomatically expected to do beyond condemn the attacks and demand the ships return to Republic space to face trial?
Canonotically, the destruction of Praxis was expected to cause the fall of the Klingon Empire due to the damage it caused to Quo'nos. This is due to the fact that the Klingon Empire is heavily built around their capitol world with little given to the outter colonies. The capitol is the heart of their Empire, its where the majority of shipbuilding, economic activity and government is located.
Even with a more decentralized government like the Federation, an attack on Earth was a big deal. Earth is the capitol of the Federation government, and headquarters of Starfleet and also one of their primary shipyards. The destruction of Earth has always been considered to be a near decapitating strike by even those within the Fed.
I see no reason why Romulus would be different for the Romulans. The Romulan's Empire is arguably even more centralized than the Klingons (who have their noble house system to help decentralize their government). This means that all administrative, all military and all governmental bodies were destroyed by the Hobbes Incident. This is not the equivalent of Japan losing in WW2, this is the equavalent of if Japan lost WW2 by the US dropping Fat Man and Little Boy on Tokyo and Kyoto rather than on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
I could use other real life examples, but I don't want to to treat on any forum policies.
Regardless, in a highly centralized society, the fall of a capitol is not just a psycological blow to them, but a huge economic, military and cultural blow. What is England without London? France without Paris? China without Beijing? It's a little harder for Americans and Canadians to get with our highly decentralized governments that also end up with our national capitols as down on the list of economic and size. They aren't really the "heart" of the country in the same way as they are in most other countries (really, it's a weird Canada/US thing, just about ever other country in the world the capitol is the largest and most important city).
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that the loss of Romulus would invaribly utterly scar the psyche of the Romulan people. It would also take decades or more to recover from that. It's only been 20 years, and it's not been 20 years of attempting to rebuild, but rather 20 years of in-fighting between political factions who are attempting to claim the entire pie for themselves. Sela and her faction nearly grabbed it all, but in the end they failed and disappeared, leaving the Republic as the last successor state standing.
The evidence is that the majority of common-folk Romulans don't need either. The evidence is in the TOS portrayal of Romulans are fundimentally like the rest of us, not as some facistic regime that requires a top-down approach to maintain control of the population.
Further, I repeat yet again, that STO's portrayal is not simply based on the portrayal of Romulans in the serieses, but also on the Rihannsu series of novels and the Vulcan's Soul series of novels. I would suggest taking the time to read them, but I can understand if you don't have it (it's a lot of reading, five Rihannsu novels, Vulcan's Heart and the Vulcan's Soul trilogy is a total of nine novels to read...). If you don't like that, that's fine, but it is what it is. For STO you can't JUST look at the series for information on the Romulans, but need to look at the other sources they used.
Further, Surak has always been portrayed as a radical reformer in a radical time, was it nessesary to save Vulcan? We don't know, the Vulcans seem to believe so, but the Romulans disagreed (which is why they left). This is like asking a question of "was Christianity good for human civilization?" You can't really know the answer because while you can points to the changes a philosophy or religion bring about to a people, you cannot know what those civilizations would do without them. Heck, you could make an argument that Surak's philosophy stunted Vulcan's growth and development. After all, the Vulcans ended up being a minor player overall, while the Romulans developed one of the big three powers in Star Trek (and had done so BEFORE they were portrayed as a fascist state in TNG).
Another matter of evidence that supports the idea that Surakian philosophy might, in fact, not be as good as we know it to be is the matter of Ponn Farr. We have no dialogue or evidence to suggest that Romulans suffer from Ponn Farr, while only Vulcans do. There's a lot of fanon interpretations of this, some choose to interpret this as a result of the Romulans not supressing their emotions like the Vulcans do. Though it could be genetic drift, a result of removal of something that was in the Vulcan biome or any number of other things.
Spock
"The moon's decimation means the deadly pollution of their ozone. They will have depleted their supply of oxygen in approximately 50 Earth years. Due to their enormous military budget, the Klingon economy does not have the resources with which to combat this catastrophe."
system Lord Baal is dead
However, the nature of the Klingon Empire requires that they be highly centralized, lest one of the subject worlds decide it should be the seat of a new Empire.
It's actually a touch ironic that the Romulan player experience starts on Virinat. According to the game's lore, Virinat was once the "breadbasket" of the RSE, supplying food for dozens of worlds. However, with the rise of replicator technology, Virinat was no longer a major player in the Romulan economy; thus, in order to keep any imperial ambitions in check, it was thoroughly marginalized. Had the RSE not kept the provinces down in the same manner as the Klingons (and as most historical empires, for that matter), they could have survived the loss of the homeworlds to the Hobus supernova. It was the centralization of the Empire that proved their downfall. Moving the flag to Rator III was potentially useful, but in the event proved to be too little, too late, particularly given Sela's use of Hirogen troops to keep order (something I imagine the Rihannsu would have bitterly resented, just as the American colonists resented the British use of Prussian mercenaries to keep the peace in Earth's history).
When you boil it down the major reason is not wanting to anger the pvp crowd.
I say that with no disrespect cause I love to pvp but it's still a dumb reason imo.
now most of the content in legacy of Romulus is rightly awesome, but still could have been done without having to enslave *cough* "ally" yourself to the federation or Klingon empire. The romulans shouldn't be puppets they should stand on their own two feet. But from start to implementation there are contradictions in the romulan story overall.
The Tal shiar was really devastated during the start of the dominion war. and even though time elapsed they still couldn't take over the military, and even after the hobus incident they still more then likely couldn't stop even the remnants of the military much less control it. and even with sela forming a alliance with the hirogen and the elachi, I don't think the military would follow a mad "halfbreed" like that I think some if not most of the military would break off and fight as the romulan empire in exile.
I feel like we're sorta shoehorned to playing young luke skywalker who lives on the farm till the empire takes his family away. But then we get mixed messages from this minifaction that claims to be peaceful.
you get chided Tovan aka 'jiminy cricket' for building a tiny thalaron weapon and killing epohhs behind glass in the mission "mindgames" but then to use them on freakishly huge capital ships with planet killing thalaron weapons which violate treaties against the use of them, (due to the cruel nature of these weapons and there being wmds) thats perfectly ok................:rolleyes: Most of the major alpha quadrent powers have banned them e,g the feds and kdf. Either D'tan has been replaced with a imposter by species 8472.
or the federation and Klingon empire just don't care having eleventy buhmillion doomsday devices floating in space.
*edited to include this fact that d'tan says romulans shouldn't be killing one another but it's fine for them to do so by proxy as cannon fodder in the fed/kdf war*
I would like to see a future romulan star empire faction (though not likely to happen) not tal shiar with donatra being rescued from the borg and leading a coup against sela to reclaim the empire cause donatra was a crafty romulan but at least she had a sense of fairplay when it came to the scimitar and shinzon's plans for it.
(no rant intended but just my own thoughts and opinions. Yes I do love lor a lot but it could have been different and better imo.)
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that how kit should have played out at least for fed captains but cryptic is all about kill kill kill
system Lord Baal is dead
Yeah I would have set the faction arc as trying as a romulan empire soldier who didn't support sela's coup. and to (a) rescue Donatra from the borg, (b) Marshal what forces you can and (c) try to topple sela and bring donatra back into power. meanwhile having icy relationships with the kdf and feds and keeping them as far away as possible.
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Actually I think, since this certainly isn't the first thread to complain about LoR and certainly won't be the last, most of the people who do not agree simply don't consider it worth discussing anymore, as nothing that can be said will ever satisfy those who create such threads. Silence doesn't necessarily mean agreement; it could just as easily mean nobody cares to continue a pointless 'debate.'
Funny... I thought they are both, many websites (even official) and TV series refer to them as an ''Intelligence Organization'' more like the Soviet KGB which does matters of internal security, intelligence, and secret policing.
if u think they only do Secret Police duties then u already got brainwashed by Cryptic Romulan Republic story line.
Ah good I thought it was him but I didn't want to commit to saying it was him without being 100% sure.
Well we have no real numbers to say either way as far as I know but D'tan is the first real insight I've seen that gives us any indication of Romulan numbers.
Given how the government seems to have collapsed so easily and the Tal shiar a generally small group has managed to take such considerable control over the populous I think it's reasonable to assume that he wasn't too far off the mark. Though I'll admit anything taken from D'tan has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Well I did get what you were saying but I'm saying it's a great risk should either side track down the Republic as being responsible.
There's also another problem with your assumption , to give the threat of Romulan Republic raids credibility a threat/s must be made. If such threats are made then suspicion will already be placed on the Republic when they are carried out. If they make no threats then it's pointless because then the other groups will just shrug it off as you say a rogue group so there was nothing either faction could have done politically to prevent this anyways.
So either you're making threats that will come back to bite you in the rear or you're of no threat and therefore lack any political pull.
Besides lets be honest do really think D'tan would attempt something as treacherous as this? D'tan even said lies and deception are against his beliefs , I doubt he would be up to the task if such a situation presented itself.
Unless...everything D'tan has said up to this point is facade and he's been lying to everyone including us about his goals and personality.
An economic blow is a bit different than the point I was making that they seem to have made a dramatic mentality shift.
I admit it would be a blow to the Romulan psyche but not to the extent you're implying. The entire Romulan senate was murdered did the the Romulans just curl up into a ball and die? No , I would wager they barely batted an eye lid at it. With all the back stabbing in the Romulan Senate I would expect the government would actually be somewhat flexible to compensate for the constant changes in government.
Ah unless I'm mistaken TOS didn't show us what the common people think like either. TOS just showed us another branch of the military. The closest we have to the civilians was in the TNG episode Unification. Granted they were rather peaceful air heads but I would argue that these people wouldn't represent the majority of the populous but were odd ball dissidents.
Admittedly Romulan information is vague and I'm sure the books are good like you say but let us not forget that the TV series is the Romulans most of us expected and wanted , not Romulans from obscure books.;)
There's a lot of unknowns here which really bugs me but I'll try to make what I can of it.
We do know Vulcans were violent and still are. In the TOS episode All our yesterdays we get a glimpse of what Vulcan were like before Surak. This is the closest to what I believe Romulans came from a Vulcan untainted by Surak's beliefs. Even in the Ponn Farr Spock was willing to kill his closest friend showing that Vulcans still have said violent traits bottled up inside.
Now when we watch Romulans from the series they seem to be calm and reserved I don't know if something changed between Romulans from then and now but originally I think it's safe to say Romulans were violent.
Why are they cool and reserved when they should be violent that is the million dollar question. Do they have some sort of mental control to keep them in line? Is it Biological? Have they mutated? Is it environmental?...So many questions so few answers *sigh*.
Though I will say this much the Romulans in STO seem way to friendly for Romulans in my mind.
Romulans are a violent people even STO acknowledges this to some extent. Look what D'tan uses as a symbol to unite the Romulans not a book or an ancient farm tool but a sword. A symbol , of violence , of conquest , of past glories and I believe that's the Romulans people want to see not a group of pacifist librarians.
Man that took a long time to write hope it was at least semi legible.:P
:eek: Are you serious? Of course Surak was wrong. It's almost a tautology. What happens when a person suppress his/her emotions? What are the results of an emotionally repressive society? Vulcans go batcrap crazy every seven years. This is not a genetic trait, but a result of peer pressure from a society excessively intolerant of emotion.
Romulans have pride? Of course. So do Vulcans, in spite of the emotional implications of having pride. But do not mistake pride for conceit, nor vice-versa. Pride is a noble virtue; conceit is an excess of pride that blinds one to one's own faults.
Romulans are xenophobic and "arrogant" (a much-overused term; "arrogance" means 'unwarranted pride" much like "conceit")? Maybe so. Vulcans are pompous, supercilious, and condescending towards other peoples; while they have the high ideal of IDIC, their snobbery is often all too obvious to ignore.
And I don't think anyone is ignoring the Tal'Shiar of TNG. Most of us are busy laying waste to them on every available opportunity. These are the sick (paranoid at the very least) individuals who made an unholy pact with the Iconians, and brought the Iconian servitor people, the Elachi, to peaceful, non-threatening agricultural communities like Virinat. The Elachi, as you may recall, were torturing and killing Romulans, Remans, Sulibans, and who knows who else, in bizarre experiments whose goal was the mutation of these people into Elachi. The illegitimate "Empress" Sela gave the Hirogen license to hunt Romulan citizens. I disintegrated Colonel Hakeev and was doing my best to do likewise to Sela in her ship. I was so close to attaining that goal when the Iconian ship appeared and made off with her in her ship. Should the opportunity again present itself to dispense justice to her, I will not hesitate.
And yet here we are on page 6 of a constructive discussion w/o flaming or trolling :P Thats almost a miracle in any forum on any topic in and of itself :P
In your opinion, most people dont want to play evil, which is cool, but in my opinion dead wrong. I think its pretty normal, fun, and healthy to wander off and do villainy and/or be the ******* everyone hates via in game plots. Sometimes ya just wanna blow **** up/conquer/enslave etc. Brotherhood of Nod from C&C franchise does a great job allowing you to be villains and paint yourself the patriotic hero. There are other games, past and present, mmo and single player that allow you to be evil and/or mix good/evil. SWTOR's Empire side is pretty unquestionably evil and its far more popular than Republic. DCUO allows you to be the ultimate 2d cookie cutter 'destroy the world' villain in addition to more sane styles and a great many players play that side.
Just a few quick examples but imo this portion of the convo is way off topic.
@vonhellsting even Spock comes to the realization that Logic is just the beginning of true understanding... it only took a mind meld with a god-like machine of purest logic to bring him to that, but he did realize it.
But ... I dont think Romulans should be an evil faction, they should just be a-holes. Rude, arrogant, miltaristic, jingoistic--kind of a successful verison of NoKo or Iran, who built an empire due to the absence of a countering force. What would that look like if they had a bunch of resources. Statues everywhere, dismissive of everyone else, that kind of culture. Ancient Rome.
I'm not saying logic is the only way that would be a subjective statement which would destroy itself in paradoxical logic.:P
I'm saying that something similar to the system put in place by Surak maybe required to keep Vulcans emotions in check to prevent them from becoming a danger to those around them.
looks at you with evil romulan face :P
system Lord Baal is dead