*pats you on the head* Cute, but still a phail. Go back and replay that mission, and pay closer attention.
We all know you've got a crush on D'tan and the gang no point hiding it. :P
But all kidding aside the Tal shiar were mentioned once in Tng. The "favored depictions" of Romulans was the Military not the Tal shiar in Tng and Tos. The episode (The Enemy) showed that killing infants with birth defects was common and normal to the vast population (not everyone). the Romulan society by and large was shown to be a secretive and xenophobic culture on tv. Now whether that was meant or not, is a point to be debated at another time. What we do have to go on is two different lines of thought. There was a underground movement that wanted reunification and a more open government but again that was never shown to be the majority of the Romulan population on tv. The Books and novels are pretty good in my opinion but they don't supercede or rewrite the canon established on the show.
The main mistake Cryptic has made with the Romulan storyline is trying to pigeonhole almost all Romulan civilians into a mold of Republic or bust, that fits no better then the idea that all Romulans whether their in the Empire or not are mustache twirling baddies. Also the Crazy notion that the Tal shiar could take over the Empire disaster or no, is no more believable then the Intelligence agencies of Britain or the United States Being able to take over their countries armies and take control of the respective countries.
(So the main problem is some want to go of the books others want to stick with the tv series and the movies, and what we get left with is pure conjecture and personal opinions. So I say be whoever you want. If you want to be a republic guy or gal do so. If you want to be a Romulan empire guy or gal do so. There are some great tools in the foundry since theres no real option for non allied, non beholden Romulans in game. *cough* Typhon Pact *cough*)
We all know you've got a crush on D'tan and the gang no point hiding it. :P
But all kidding aside the Tal shiar were mentioned once in Tng. The "favored depictions" of Romulans was the Military not the Tal shiar in Tng and Tos. The episode (The Enemy) showed that killing infants with birth defects was common and normal to the vast population (not everyone). the Romulan society by and large was shown to be a secretive and xenophobic culture on tv. Now whether that was meant or not, is a point to be debated at another time. What we do have to go on is two different lines of thought. There was a underground movement that wanted reunification and a more open government but again that was never shown to be the majority of the Romulan population on tv. The Books and novels are pretty good in my opinion but they don't supercede or rewrite the canon established on the show.
The main mistake Cryptic has made with the Romulan storyline is trying to pigeonhole almost all Romulan civilians into a mold of Republic or bust, that fits no better then the idea that all Romulans whether their in the Empire or not are mustache twirling baddies. Also the Crazy notion that the Tal shiar could take over the Empire disaster or no, is no more believable then the Intelligence agencies of Britain or the United States Being able to take over their countries armies and take control of the respective countries.
(So the main problem is some want to go of the books others want to stick with the tv series and the movies, and what we get left with is pure conjecture and personal opinions. So I say be whoever you want. If you want to be a republic guy or gal do so. If you want to be a Romulan empire guy or gal do so. There are some great tools in the foundry since theres no real option for non allied, non beholden Romulans in game. *cough* Typhon Pact *cough*)
The tal'shiar was mentioned more often.
I'm quiet sure that it was clearly stated that it was the Tal'Shiar building the invasion force with the Obsidian Order that tried to erase the founders homeworld (although I think it was also stated that this failure ultimatly destroyed the Tal'Shiar as much as the Order).
Also I think it was mentioned in "inter arms silent leges"
My beef with the Romulans is not even that the current development is unrealistic. Societies change. Even the Roman Empire on earth DID after all end.
And the destruction of Romulus having a major impact on what is left of the Romulan people is a quiet natural conclusion. Methods like... well killling children with birth defects, assumed that would have made sense in the first place, would simply end in a society of survivors where you are lucky if you get up your population numbers SOMEHOW.
But again its a video game that should immerse us into what we have seen, and the romulans we have seen are not at all like the Romulans in the game.
Given, Klingons are a comic caricatures of Klingons in the series, but at least there are similarities.
What we get isn't bad. But it feels to me like its not what is advertised when I buy "playable romulans". That would be, pretty much what you described...
As for what I want to play.... From a role playing point I end up just like my KDF as a "Mercanary working for D'tan ... as long as he pays"^^
Its even for a major part the same crew^^
The tal'shiar was mentioned more often.
I'm quiet sure that it was clearly stated that it was the Tal'Shiar building the invasion force with the Obsidian Order that tried to erase the founders homeworld (although I think it was also stated that this failure ultimatly destroyed the Tal'Shiar as much as the Order).
Also I think it was mentioned in "inter arms silent leges"
My beef with the Romulans is not even that the current development is unrealistic. Societies change. Even the Roman Empire on earth DID after all end.
And the destruction of Romulus having a major impact on what is left of the Romulan people is a quiet natural conclusion. Methods like... well killling children with birth defects, assumed that would have made sense in the first place, would simply end in a society of survivors where you are lucky if you get up your population numbers SOMEHOW.
But again its a video game that should immerse us into what we have seen, and the romulans we have seen are not at all like the Romulans in the game.
Given, Klingons are a comic caricatures of Klingons in the series, but at least there are similarities.
What we get isn't bad. But it feels to me like its not what is advertised when I buy "playable romulans". That would be, pretty much what you described...
As for what I want to play.... From a role playing point I end up just like my KDF as a "Mercanary working for D'tan ... as long as he pays"^^
Its even for a major part the same crew^^
With all due respect I have to disagree with the one point on the Tal shiar. They were mentioned in one episode of Tng (face of the enemy) it wasn't till Ds9 that the Tal shiar was featured more and in one episode (message in a bottle) of Voy. Other then that I agree.
But yeah the Tal shiar was largly crippled after the failed joint mission with the Obsidian order.
I wouldn't have minded a joint Romulan Cardassian Faction in game if it meant having a real third faction.
With all due respect I have to disagree with the one point on the Tal shiar. They were mentioned in one episode of Tng (face of the enemy) it wasn't till Ds9 that the Tal shiar was featured more and in one episode (message in a bottle) of Voy. Other then that I agree.
But yeah the Tal shiar was largly crippled after the failed joint mission with the Obsidian order.
I wouldn't have minded a joint Romulan Cardassian Faction in game if it meant having a real third faction.
With all due respect, According to this I am right, the Tal'Shiar was responsible for the Romulan contribution the joint operation and played a major role in "inter arma".
And I'm pretty sure Tain clearly tells Garak that...
You guys may not realize this, but we have had this discussion several times before.
"STO Roms aren't like TV Roms." Proven incorrect repeatedly.
"STO Roms should be backstabbing, paranoid, scheming, deceitful, and xenophobic." Proven incorrect repeatedly.
"Tal'Shiar on TV are nowhere near the exaggerated Tal'Shiar in STO." Proven incorrect repeatedly.
"D'Tan wants us all to be soulless robots without feelings." Laughable failure to understand what Cthia means in the first place, let alone what Reunification means (and pure ignorance of the history of Reunification, which was first attempted by the Romulans in ENT). Again, proven incorrect repeatedly.
And on
and on
and on
and on
and on.
I would prefer not to have to repeat myself every few months; the debate has already happened more than once, and the ones favoring Tal'Shiar and/or RSE lost every time. Read the archives in this subforum and stop rehashing tired nonsense.
We are the New Romulan Republic. If you want to be Tal'Shiar and/or Imperialist Romulans, fine, but any interference in the affairs of the Republic will result in our hunting you down and eradicating you. Freedom is our watchword, not slavery.
My understanding is that CBS has said that the Tal Shiar are the villains end of discussion, and no I do not have any proof as this is my opinion. Cryptic, to my knowledge, has stated that in STO players will not be allowed to play the empires that have been labeled as evil. Do I agree with that, no, can I live with that, yes, IMHO they are depriving themselves of a good story hook.
*pats you on the head* Cute, but still a phail. Go back and replay that mission, and pay closer attention.
I played it 6 times, I remember it fine... apparently you need to go back and re-play it and not skip all the text. Ignoring Worf's ******** to keep the gate offline, the chief engineer that ends up being killed also had misgivings based on the data right before powering on. Its also mentioned several times in npc text that they're on a time table and have to make it, so they cannot take more time to research things... because Elements forbid we not put on the great show D'Tan promised the Klingons and Federation. Apparently D'Tan and the Republic cannot survive a little embarrassment for having to say something like, 'Due to serious safety and security concerns we will have to hold off on activating the gateway.'
The lead scientist was exhausted from all the work to make the timetable(not to mention that she was modified to sabotage the whole operation). And apparently there was not even any standard double checking of data by multiple persons, since according to the plot in subspace they only needed her to unconsciously rig the whole thing.
Kererek and D'Tan were glory hounding and risked everyone for a moment of prestige. Had we not risked going through that gate they would have succeeded in killing off millions(billions?) more Romulans and the Hobus Incident would have a wonderful companion on the Romulan race's posthumous history file.
I played it 6 times, I remember it fine... apparently you need to go back and re-play it and not skip all the text. Ignoring Worf's ******** to keep the gate offline, the chief engineer that ends up being killed also had misgivings based on the data right before powering on. Its also mentioned several times in npc text that they're on a time table and have to make it, so they cannot take more time to research things... because Elements forbid we not put on the great show D'Tan promised the Klingons and Federation. Apparently D'Tan and the Republic cannot survive a little embarrassment for having to say something like, 'Due to serious safety and security concerns we will have to hold off on activating the gateway.'
The lead scientist was exhausted from all the work to make the timetable(not to mention that she was modified to sabotage the whole operation). And apparently there was not even any standard double checking of data by multiple persons, since according to the plot in subspace they only needed her to unconsciously rig the whole thing.
Kererek and D'Tan were glory hounding and risked everyone for a moment of prestige. Had we not risked going through that gate they would have succeeded in killing off millions(billions?) more Romulans and the Hobus Incident would have a wonderful companion on the Romulan race's posthumous history file.
The question isn't whether they though something COULD go wrong, but whether they though THAT could happen. They didn't anticipate the possibility that the gate had been intentionally sabotaged.
and I provide a concrete example of an S which is not P, ...
Go back and review the rules of inference.
Lets not use split hairs over hyperbole here. When folks say 'all', such as in 'all romulans are manipulative and untrustworthy' it doesn't mean it literally. Finding a few scattered instances of Romulans acting against the grain does not mean that the culturally natural way for romulans to act is like the Romulan Republic does in STO. It just means that (like the Federation and Klingons) the RSE wasn't a homogenous hivemind. We have numerous examples of federation officers, acting treacherously, even traitorously-perhaps even more examples than we do of good-hearted romulans. Ditto for the Klingons. It doesn't indicate a general trend.
Lets not use split hairs over hyperbole here. When folks say 'all', such as in 'all romulans are manipulative and untrustworthy' it doesn't mean it literally. Finding a few scattered instances of Romulans acting against the grain does not mean that the culturally natural way for romulans to act is like the Romulan Republic does in STO. It just means that (like the Federation and Klingons) the RSE wasn't a homogenous hivemind. We have numerous examples of federation officers, acting treacherously, even traitorously-perhaps even more examples than we do of good-hearted romulans. Ditto for the Klingons. It doesn't indicate a general trend.
Conflation of the Tal'Shiar with the Rihanh is your mistake. Please, seriously, watch the two TOS episodes which featured Rihanh. Take that depiction as the norm, not the distortion of later series which focused primarily on Tal'Shiar agents, not Romulan Star Navy personnel, not Romulan scientists, not Romulan civilians (sure, some were featured, and I urge you to pay attention to them, rather than the Tal'Shiar, when it comes to the later series). And please, seriously, learn: What We Are.
In the entirety of TNG, there was only one mention of the Tal Shiar, and she wasn't even on screen (being dead), so everything Romulans do in TNG-that's the Navy. Sela(probably), Tomalak, Taris, Toreth(explicitly) etc-all Navy. DS9 had plenty of Romulan government officials in it as well. There really wasn't a consistant difference in demeanor between the lot of them. Heck, in some cases it was the Tal Shiar that were nicer than the Military-just compare Tomalak and his crew to the Tal Shiar in the Dominion prison camp. Fact of the matter is, the purple pajama-wearing romans of TOS only appeared in two episodes, and were quickly and rather drastically retconned into being something completely different.
I think that all this is pretty well established in the shows at least, perhaps this is different in the Star Trek EU (which I suspect you have no small fondness of), but I haven't seen anything in the Trek EU I have dipped my toes into that really contradicts it.
In the entirety of TNG, there was only one mention of the Tal Shiar, and she wasn't even on screen (being dead), so everything Romulans do in TNG-that's the Navy. Sela(probably), Tomalak, Taris, Toreth(explicitly) etc-all Navy. DS9 had plenty of Romulan government officials in it as well. There really wasn't a consistant difference in demeanor between the lot of them. Heck, in some cases it was the Tal Shiar that were nicer than the Military-just compare Tomalak and his crew to the Tal Shiar in the Dominion prison camp. Fact of the matter is, the purple pajama-wearing romans of TOS only appeared in two episodes, and were quickly and rather drastically retconned into being something completely different.
I think that all this is pretty well established in the shows at least, perhaps this is different in the Star Trek EU (which I suspect you have no small fondness of), but I haven't seen anything in the Trek EU I have dipped my toes into that really contradicts it.
Purple pajama? I think your dysfunction has grown to the point that it has you hallucinating.
I think what proto is trying to say is that just because what you think of as "evul romulans" isnt ALL romulans nor is what you see on screen an example of romulan's behavior. it should be noted that the romulan on screen where what the PLOT needed them to be. Sela, tomalok, and the others NEEDED to be villians for the plot. that DOES NOT mean ALL romulans are that way nor does it mean ALL of the navy in that way either. remember the Romulan captain troi was forced to work with? she didnt seem like the others. she was a good captain. a good navy romulan officer. Also admiral Jurok was willing to help starfleet if it meant keeping his people out of a bloody war and give his daughter a peaceful future.....
there are good romulans and in an effort prove your point, youre ignoring them....
Purple pajama? I think your dysfunction has grown to the point that it has you hallucinating.
And the blue pajamas. Can't forget the hideous blue pajamas either. The bright purple/dark pink ones definitely have the edge in eye-meltingly hideous though.
I think what proto is trying to say is that just because what you think of as "evul romulans" isnt ALL romulans nor is what you see on screen an example of romulan's behavior. it should be noted that the romulan on screen where what the PLOT needed them to be. Sela, tomalok, and the others NEEDED to be villians for the plot. that DOES NOT mean ALL romulans are that way nor does it mean ALL of the navy in that way either. remember the Romulan captain troi was forced to work with? she didnt seem like the others. she was a good captain. a good navy romulan officer. Also admiral Jurok was willing to help starfleet if it meant keeping his people out of a bloody war and give his daughter a peaceful future.....
there are good romulans and in an effort prove your point, youre ignoring them....
Toreth? She had some rather personal issues with the Tal Shiar that can't be expected of every Romulan captain. They killed her father (so she has a personal vendetta) and her fleet was almost destroyed in another instance by the incompetence of another Tal Shiar agent. She still had no problem having her first officer gunned down the moment he was revealed as a traitor, and seemed to relish the thought of having the 'major' tortured and executed. Not exactly the best example.
As for admiral jarok, he did lie to picard, and blew his ship up to avoid it being captured and beign a technological advantage to the enemy. He was willing to sacrifice everything for the empire but he wasn't doing it because he necessarily wanted to be a federation citizen, or because he wanted to become a federation citizen. Definitely one of the nicest Romulans out there.
What you and proto can't seem to get is that I'm not arguing that all Romulans are 'evul' but rather that most Romulans are bad guys, and that it's no use lumping all the Romulans you didn't like into the 'Tal Shiar' pile and saying that the good ones are the 'true' representatives. of romulan behavior', because that has been proven to be false. The truth of the matter is more complex. Most Romulans have their good spots-even Tomalak, one of the worst-was willing to go through hell and high water to rescue two Romulan spies, so he definitely cared about his crew. But several traits, cultural or not, seem to be rather prevalent in Romulans-arrogance, willingness to do extremely reprehensible things to their enemies to get the job done, and a distrust of outsiders.
When watching the Klingons on the shows, we see all sorts as well, even peaceful types like Gorkon, or treacherous-almost 'Romulan' types like the Duras. They certainly don't run Klingon culture, but they are still Klingons, for all the world to see them. Their presence doesn't invalidate the honorable warrior types we see that make up the majority.
What Cryptic has done has taken the few examples like Jarok and extrapolated it to cover ever Romulan that isn't Tal Shiar. This is just TRIBBLE shallow as making the Romulan faction as mustache twirlingly evil like the Tal Shiar now is. The Romulan Empire has never been as wholly evil as the Tal Shiar is in-game, but the Romulan Republic is by no means representative either.
There just weren't any good narrative reasons for what they did. And we know why they did it-in an interview when asked why we weren't playing tal shiar 'evil' romulans, the answer was essentially that evil factions don't sell as well. It's not even consistant with STO. Look at the Romulans before New Romulus was released, or even before LOR was released. The Tal Shiar wasn't the military wing of the empire, The Tal Shiar was in on the Hobus incident, but wasn't feeding its citizens to shroom people. The Empress wasn't in on Hakeev's schemes (in fact her backstory for STO seems to indicate she hates the Tal Shiar) You had the occasionally sympathetic moment like in 'The Return' where you can get called out by the Romulan captain (not sure if she's been retconned into being RR or not yet). In general Cryptic has pretty much hammered out the Romulan situation into a simplistic white hate vs black hat affair that doesn't do Romulans justice, whether you want to be a 'good' Romulan like Jarok or a more typical 'bad' Romulan like Tomalak.
I think we should paint the tal shiar npc's skin black, dye their hair white and have them start worshipping a demonic spider goddess. Why? Because frankly they've hit that level of trope. D'Tan and his group are equally laughable imo but Craptic has made its opinion known and theres plenty of proof out there that people do indeed enjoy playing villains... but they want to ignore that and keep everyone laughably white hat wearing paladins :P
Comments
We all know you've got a crush on D'tan and the gang no point hiding it. :P
But all kidding aside the Tal shiar were mentioned once in Tng. The "favored depictions" of Romulans was the Military not the Tal shiar in Tng and Tos. The episode (The Enemy) showed that killing infants with birth defects was common and normal to the vast population (not everyone). the Romulan society by and large was shown to be a secretive and xenophobic culture on tv. Now whether that was meant or not, is a point to be debated at another time. What we do have to go on is two different lines of thought. There was a underground movement that wanted reunification and a more open government but again that was never shown to be the majority of the Romulan population on tv. The Books and novels are pretty good in my opinion but they don't supercede or rewrite the canon established on the show.
The main mistake Cryptic has made with the Romulan storyline is trying to pigeonhole almost all Romulan civilians into a mold of Republic or bust, that fits no better then the idea that all Romulans whether their in the Empire or not are mustache twirling baddies. Also the Crazy notion that the Tal shiar could take over the Empire disaster or no, is no more believable then the Intelligence agencies of Britain or the United States Being able to take over their countries armies and take control of the respective countries.
(So the main problem is some want to go of the books others want to stick with the tv series and the movies, and what we get left with is pure conjecture and personal opinions. So I say be whoever you want. If you want to be a republic guy or gal do so. If you want to be a Romulan empire guy or gal do so. There are some great tools in the foundry since theres no real option for non allied, non beholden Romulans in game. *cough* Typhon Pact *cough*)
[/SIGPIC]
The tal'shiar was mentioned more often.
I'm quiet sure that it was clearly stated that it was the Tal'Shiar building the invasion force with the Obsidian Order that tried to erase the founders homeworld (although I think it was also stated that this failure ultimatly destroyed the Tal'Shiar as much as the Order).
Also I think it was mentioned in "inter arms silent leges"
My beef with the Romulans is not even that the current development is unrealistic. Societies change. Even the Roman Empire on earth DID after all end.
And the destruction of Romulus having a major impact on what is left of the Romulan people is a quiet natural conclusion. Methods like... well killling children with birth defects, assumed that would have made sense in the first place, would simply end in a society of survivors where you are lucky if you get up your population numbers SOMEHOW.
But again its a video game that should immerse us into what we have seen, and the romulans we have seen are not at all like the Romulans in the game.
Given, Klingons are a comic caricatures of Klingons in the series, but at least there are similarities.
What we get isn't bad. But it feels to me like its not what is advertised when I buy "playable romulans". That would be, pretty much what you described...
As for what I want to play.... From a role playing point I end up just like my KDF as a "Mercanary working for D'tan ... as long as he pays"^^
Its even for a major part the same crew^^
With all due respect I have to disagree with the one point on the Tal shiar. They were mentioned in one episode of Tng (face of the enemy) it wasn't till Ds9 that the Tal shiar was featured more and in one episode (message in a bottle) of Voy. Other then that I agree.
But yeah the Tal shiar was largly crippled after the failed joint mission with the Obsidian order.
I wouldn't have minded a joint Romulan Cardassian Faction in game if it meant having a real third faction.
[/SIGPIC]
With all due respect, According to this I am right, the Tal'Shiar was responsible for the Romulan contribution the joint operation and played a major role in "inter arma".
And I'm pretty sure Tain clearly tells Garak that...
"STO Roms aren't like TV Roms." Proven incorrect repeatedly.
"STO Roms should be backstabbing, paranoid, scheming, deceitful, and xenophobic." Proven incorrect repeatedly.
"Tal'Shiar on TV are nowhere near the exaggerated Tal'Shiar in STO." Proven incorrect repeatedly.
"D'Tan wants us all to be soulless robots without feelings." Laughable failure to understand what Cthia means in the first place, let alone what Reunification means (and pure ignorance of the history of Reunification, which was first attempted by the Romulans in ENT). Again, proven incorrect repeatedly.
And on
and on
and on
and on
and on.
I would prefer not to have to repeat myself every few months; the debate has already happened more than once, and the ones favoring Tal'Shiar and/or RSE lost every time. Read the archives in this subforum and stop rehashing tired nonsense.
We are the New Romulan Republic. If you want to be Tal'Shiar and/or Imperialist Romulans, fine, but any interference in the affairs of the Republic will result in our hunting you down and eradicating you. Freedom is our watchword, not slavery.
Your opinion is not proof.
The lead scientist was exhausted from all the work to make the timetable(not to mention that she was modified to sabotage the whole operation). And apparently there was not even any standard double checking of data by multiple persons, since according to the plot in subspace they only needed her to unconsciously rig the whole thing.
Kererek and D'Tan were glory hounding and risked everyone for a moment of prestige. Had we not risked going through that gate they would have succeeded in killing off millions(billions?) more Romulans and the Hobus Incident would have a wonderful companion on the Romulan race's posthumous history file.
My character Tsin'xing
Well, of course it's not.
But
When you say "All S are P"
and I provide a concrete example of an S which is not P, ...
Go back and review the rules of inference.
Conflation of the Tal'Shiar with the Rihanh is your mistake. Please, seriously, watch the two TOS episodes which featured Rihanh. Take that depiction as the norm, not the distortion of later series which focused primarily on Tal'Shiar agents, not Romulan Star Navy personnel, not Romulan scientists, not Romulan civilians (sure, some were featured, and I urge you to pay attention to them, rather than the Tal'Shiar, when it comes to the later series). And please, seriously, learn:
What We Are.
I think that all this is pretty well established in the shows at least, perhaps this is different in the Star Trek EU (which I suspect you have no small fondness of), but I haven't seen anything in the Trek EU I have dipped my toes into that really contradicts it.
Purple pajama? I think your dysfunction has grown to the point that it has you hallucinating.
there are good romulans and in an effort prove your point, youre ignoring them....
And the blue pajamas. Can't forget the hideous blue pajamas either. The bright purple/dark pink ones definitely have the edge in eye-meltingly hideous though.
Toreth? She had some rather personal issues with the Tal Shiar that can't be expected of every Romulan captain. They killed her father (so she has a personal vendetta) and her fleet was almost destroyed in another instance by the incompetence of another Tal Shiar agent. She still had no problem having her first officer gunned down the moment he was revealed as a traitor, and seemed to relish the thought of having the 'major' tortured and executed. Not exactly the best example.
As for admiral jarok, he did lie to picard, and blew his ship up to avoid it being captured and beign a technological advantage to the enemy. He was willing to sacrifice everything for the empire but he wasn't doing it because he necessarily wanted to be a federation citizen, or because he wanted to become a federation citizen. Definitely one of the nicest Romulans out there.
What you and proto can't seem to get is that I'm not arguing that all Romulans are 'evul' but rather that most Romulans are bad guys, and that it's no use lumping all the Romulans you didn't like into the 'Tal Shiar' pile and saying that the good ones are the 'true' representatives. of romulan behavior', because that has been proven to be false. The truth of the matter is more complex. Most Romulans have their good spots-even Tomalak, one of the worst-was willing to go through hell and high water to rescue two Romulan spies, so he definitely cared about his crew. But several traits, cultural or not, seem to be rather prevalent in Romulans-arrogance, willingness to do extremely reprehensible things to their enemies to get the job done, and a distrust of outsiders.
When watching the Klingons on the shows, we see all sorts as well, even peaceful types like Gorkon, or treacherous-almost 'Romulan' types like the Duras. They certainly don't run Klingon culture, but they are still Klingons, for all the world to see them. Their presence doesn't invalidate the honorable warrior types we see that make up the majority.
What Cryptic has done has taken the few examples like Jarok and extrapolated it to cover ever Romulan that isn't Tal Shiar. This is just TRIBBLE shallow as making the Romulan faction as mustache twirlingly evil like the Tal Shiar now is. The Romulan Empire has never been as wholly evil as the Tal Shiar is in-game, but the Romulan Republic is by no means representative either.
There just weren't any good narrative reasons for what they did. And we know why they did it-in an interview when asked why we weren't playing tal shiar 'evil' romulans, the answer was essentially that evil factions don't sell as well. It's not even consistant with STO. Look at the Romulans before New Romulus was released, or even before LOR was released. The Tal Shiar wasn't the military wing of the empire, The Tal Shiar was in on the Hobus incident, but wasn't feeding its citizens to shroom people. The Empress wasn't in on Hakeev's schemes (in fact her backstory for STO seems to indicate she hates the Tal Shiar) You had the occasionally sympathetic moment like in 'The Return' where you can get called out by the Romulan captain (not sure if she's been retconned into being RR or not yet). In general Cryptic has pretty much hammered out the Romulan situation into a simplistic white hate vs black hat affair that doesn't do Romulans justice, whether you want to be a 'good' Romulan like Jarok or a more typical 'bad' Romulan like Tomalak.