Thanks for that starswordc, sometimes when the people on this forum argue we forget that there are other people who are tired of hearing all this negativity and all the dealing in absolutes.
Thank you. Some people speaking sense. I sometimes reference to the Republic being much larger in size and population in game, but we shouldnt presume to speak for the majority of players barring clear proof that we are such. (Though that one poll that appeared a while back did show that we have a majority over the jackbooted Michelin Men.....:D )
Speaking as one that would have preferred the Empire not some half baked hippie republic, I cannot say I agree with you. The RSE, as portrayed in STO, is a terrible joke on what was. The Tal Shiar are, as an organization, unrecoverable. The Imperial Remnants are corrupt to the point of absurdity, and the ones that have their noses so far up Sela's posterior are quite possibly worse than the Tal Shiar for they show not only complete disregard for the betterment of the Romulan people and the empire but they are also so brain dead they'll blindly follow an incompetent megalomaniac regardless of what she does, while kissing her flat TRIBBLE.
The old Empire has failed in STOverse, its beyond salvage, we're way past time to admit it. The Republic is a bad joke, led by incompetent TRIBBLE and naivete. If there is to be an empire in the STOverse, it will need to be the Raptor Empire, a fusion of old and new. The Republic has/had a few good ideas, the Old Empire had others. Take the best of both, drop the Romulan naming bias and march together as true children of the raptor. (I am fully well aware cryptic/craptic will never do this so dont bother with that argument) In the mean time we're stuck railroaded into what the Devs want, but keep in mind... at least we're not riding T-Rex into battle.... yet
Speaking as one that would have preferred the Empire not some half baked hippie republic, I cannot say I agree with you. The RSE, as portrayed in STO, is a terrible joke on what was. The Tal Shiar are, as an organization, unrecoverable. The Imperial Remnants are corrupt to the point of absurdity, and the ones that have their noses so far up Sela's posterior are quite possibly worse than the Tal Shiar for they show not only complete disregard for the betterment of the Romulan people and the empire but they are also so brain dead they'll blindly follow an incompetent megalomaniac regardless of what she does, while kissing her flat TRIBBLE.
The old Empire has failed in STOverse, its beyond salvage, we're way past time to admit it. The Republic is a bad joke, led by incompetent TRIBBLE and naivete. If there is to be an empire in the STOverse, it will need to be the Raptor Empire, a fusion of old and new. The Republic has/had a few good ideas, the Old Empire had others. Take the best of both, drop the Romulan naming bias and march together as true children of the raptor. (I am fully well aware cryptic/craptic will never do this so dont bother with that argument) In the mean time we're stuck railroaded into what the Devs want, but keep in mind... at least we're not riding T-Rex into battle.... yet
Well, at least one Imperialist is actually willing to admit that the corpse-empire is beyond resurrection. However, your characterization of the Rpeublic as nothing but hippies and incompetants is so far off target you may as well be trying to commit suicide. I can hardly see a group of imcompetant hippies accomplishing what the Republic has. Against the odds they successfully established a new home, defended it from the RSE and their (likely former) Iconian allies, forced their states's recognition by the Federation and Klingons, expanded their territory to include most of the old RSE, annexed a Dyson sphere in all but name, gained equal access to another, and regained superpower status for the Romulans, as well as independence for them, and all that in about 2 years (If you follow some RP groups calendar).
The maneuvering that enabled the founding of the Republic is hardly the work of an incompetent boob. D'Tan not only got both superpowers to acknowledge the Republic's legitimacy, but he also played off their fear of the Republic allying with the other to get then to both fund the establishment of the Republic, but also acquired military aid to help in it's defense while it built up its forces and expanded its borders over old Imperial territory, and at the same time convinced them of the Republics good intentions and threw off the weight of the RSE's moral baggage. Then he went on to gather the xenophobic and paranoid Remans into the fold by making an increbible leap of insight..he treated them as equals, something the Imperials had signally failed to ever think of. D'Tan is quite possibly one of the canniest politicians ever. In the space of a dew years he has managed to turn the shattered remnants of an empire into a new superpower, ;argely untainted by the misdeeds of it's predecessor state.
tolmarius
Well, I think I (and of course many others who did play much longer than I and have posted in this forum much onger and more) could say how kodachikuno describe the Empire is as wrong as you think his opinion about the Republic is, and that could go one, and on, and on...;)
Although he is or course right the way the TS is shown is very bad... And OF COURSE right that we all hope that this with the T-Rex will never happen *g*
On the other hand about the RSE the sources differ, I would claim, and the RSE in The Path to 2409 (and key players like Sela) act very different several times than we see them in Legacy...
tolmarius
Well, I think I (and of course many others who did play much longer than I and have posted in this forum much onger and more) could say how kodachikuno describe the Empire is as wrong as you think his opinion about the Republic is, and that could go one, and on, and on...;)
Although he is or course right the way the TS is shown is very bad... And OF COURSE right that we all hope that this with the T-Rex will never happen *g*
On the other hand about the RSE the sources differ, I would claim, and the RSE in The Path to 2409 (and key players like Sela) act very different several times than we see them in Legacy...
Yes. I've seen that many think his view of the empire is as wrong as his view of the Republic. And it does go on, and on, and on....
As for the TS, perhaps they weren't as psychotic in TNG, but they were still as evil as any secret police. They simply shifted on the alignment scale, from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Evil. (And before you say anything, about them being an intelligence agency, canon describes them as performing internal security and secret police duties too, just like the KGB)
For your next point, I've found something we agree on. Please Cryptic, no matter how childishly cool you found dinosaurs with laser beams to be, please don't have us riding them. At least not before giving us some real ground vehicles.
And Sela and the RSE act no different in the lore. Sela is not and never was the emperess. She usurped power with the aid of foreign mercenaries and abolished traditional Romulan institutions, such as the Senate, that she saw as threatening her power. You should abhor her as much as I.
Well, it depends very much who return to the RSE and under which circumstances. I do not think it would be easy in any case (by the way, I am also not sure that it would be easy for many RSE-people to join the Republic, what is with those who fight in the first line against the Republic, it allies and the Remans? Do you believe Obisek and his people say "all is forgiven and forgotten"? And I do not speak about such comic-like BAD MAN like Hakeev, but more about ordinary officers etc.), but it depends very much who has at the moment the control about this part of the RSE. By the way - did not at least a part of the TS/RSE MADE a offer to D'Tan? And a offer which sound not like torture until death etc.?
Well, in alliance with the Klingons people could surely not learn a lot about democracy and freedom (if you explain that not in the way "follow your orders or you might be stabbed do death by your commanding officer" ), I would say. And I am not sure if democracy and freedom really mean so much for many ordinary Romulans. That are things which are over centuries very little valued in their code of values (at least in the way D'Tan understand them). Honour (even honour by sacrifice your life, if necessary), Service for the Empire, Family, Tradition - I would say THAT were the core values which were central much more. And people are (in great parts) what they are teached to be. So I think a stable and united Empire will mean a lot for Romulans, while peace with Klingons and Feds, coming closer to the Vulcans (anyway how far) and making peace with the Remans is much less important, and in many cases even an insult (prejudice against old enemies like Klingons and Feds and "inferior" cousins like the Remans surely will live on for long time, and there are good reasons for hate towards many Klingons, Feds and Remans after all that years of war).
And I disagree about the TS-subcommander. It seems obvious for me that she indeed believed what she said, that open negotiations would never work because of all the bad blood (and I must say, I share her opinion, although we could not be sure to 100 percent - but Obisek and the Klingons and also some Feds have surely no interest in a lasting peace with the TS or at least the patience to forget their old hate). And D'Tans arguments were also foolish in my eyes, since even his beloved hero Spock did (as far as I know) EXACTLY the same type of secret diplomacy to create the circumstances of negotiations with the Klingon Empire. Or at least as far as I know he did not walk openly into the Great Hall on the Homeworld of the Klingons at visiting hour...
My apologies for leaving my reply so long. I'd completely forgotten about this thread. I also perhaps didn't quite phrase my meaning well enough.
What I meant to say is that there might be appeal for the average Romulan to experience a democracy along with the personal freedoms that come along with it. No paranoia or fear about there being a secret police that could and would snatch one and make him/her disappear without a trace if one did or said the wrong thing or had a 'wrong' opinion. Such as the reunificationists. In the Republic, one is allowed a contrary opinion to D'Tan or the government.
This is with the added bonus of being allied with the two biggest powers in the alpha and beta quadrants. Its true many Romulans may not like or want to assosiate with either Starfleet or the KDF but they can take comfort in the knowledge that these two groups are no longer hostile to them and indeed are protecting the people of New Romulus. That's why my Romulan wholeheartedly supports the Republic and its allies-for the average people on New Romulus who have a chance to begin a new free from the fear and oppression of the RSE.
That being said you do make some valid points. Integration of Obisek and the Remans is a good idea and it definately strengthens both races to join forces to shape a better future. However I'm not so naive to think that the centuries of racism and predjudice will vanish overnight. No, the Romulan/Reman integration will need to be kept an eye on and handled in a fair manner when conflicts do arise. It has its problems but its far superior to the RSE way of trying to exterminate or re-enslave the Remans.
Finally as for that Tal Shiar woman who spoke to D'Tan, even the Klingon Empire has shown its capable of at least some diplomacy at times. I remain fairly confident that D'Tan could guarantee her safety during open negotiations. Whether those negotiations would go anywhere or not is something I can say. It depends on how much the Tal Shiar would have been able to compromise.
However yeah D'Tan was a fool to decline her offer outright and quoting Spock of all people given his own history. I did feel her offer was at least worth some cautious investigation and further talk to determine exactly how the arrangement would go down and what compromises the Tal Shiar/RSE would have been willing to make.
Join the New and re-assimilated Romulan slave empire!! You get either borg tech shoved up your A$$ or elachi brainwashing turning you into some kind of fungus!!! No free will allowed. Kill a fed or 2 kilinks and die for some odd Iconian scheme.. The Iconians couldnt even defend them selves thousands of years ago, but their back and we lick their boots!!
Well, at least one Imperialist is actually willing to admit that the corpse-empire is beyond resurrection. However, your characterization of the Rpeublic as nothing but hippies and incompetants is so far off target you may as well be trying to commit suicide. I can hardly see a group of imcompetant hippies accomplishing what the Republic has. Against the odds they successfully established a new home, defended it from the RSE and their (likely former) Iconian allies, forced their states's recognition by the Federation and Klingons, expanded their territory to include most of the old RSE, annexed a Dyson sphere in all but name, gained equal access to another, and regained superpower status for the Romulans, as well as independence for them, and all that in about 2 years (If you follow some RP groups calendar).
Actually the Republic didn't do most of those things YOUR CHARACTER is responsible for almost every accomplishment the Republic has. Yes Temer blew himself up but after you got the other bombs and fought off the ambush in space. No one, not Republic nor any other faction, has directly fought off the Iconians, we've slapped down their henchmen but we not stopped a single near Q power leveled being.
The maneuvering that enabled the founding of the Republic is hardly the work of an incompetent boob. D'Tan not only got both superpowers to acknowledge the Republic's legitimacy, but he also played off their fear of the Republic allying with the other to get then to both fund the establishment of the Republic, but also acquired military aid to help in it's defense while it built up its forces and expanded its borders over old Imperial territory, and at the same time convinced them of the Republics good intentions and threw off the weight of the RSE's moral baggage. Then he went on to gather the xenophobic and paranoid Remans into the fold by making an increbible leap of insight..he treated them as equals, something the Imperials had signally failed to ever think of. D'Tan is quite possibly one of the canniest politicians ever. In the space of a dew years he has managed to turn the shattered remnants of an empire into a new superpower, ;argely untainted by the misdeeds of it's predecessor state.
Again, almost all of these accomplishments you credit D'Tan with are direct results of the actions of Tovan's sidekick, aka your character. You also ignore that even in the lore, prior to Sela's Undine backed ascension, at least one Imperial did recognize the Remans and gave them a world. You also merrily ignore the entire incident with the Iconian gateway on Dewa III where, at D'Tan's command, Kererek rushed to activate an ancient piece of technology with a history of global destruction over the protests of his allies, his expert, and his chief engineer. Why? Because they were on a schedule.... lolwtf?! He couldn't handle the slight embarrassment of saying, "Sorry guys there are too many unanswered questions and concerns right now. We'll try again later." Nope we're gonna ignore all of that and plow ahead for glory hounding. Now how much D'Tan himself was in the loop on that is questionable, but he was SUPER eager to jump on the idea of reactivating that gate as soon as you find it.
Has D'Tan been totally incompetent? Nah. Has he proven he's some kinda badass political genius? NOPE. Has he freely admitted that the Republic wouldn't be there without your character's actions? Yep.
All "Sphere of Influence" proves is that D'tan is a politician and a Diane Duane Romulan, and that Kererek is a good soldier.
The Romulans as written by Duane, from whom Cryptic borrowed a lot of worldbuilding, care deeply about maintaining face, and you're supposed to be thinking of yourself first. Sure, he could've delayed things and probably should've, but he'd have lost face with his allies (in his mind). This is the inherent downside of civilian control of the military: sometimes the commander-in-chief makes decisions that make no military sense for political reasons. But compared to the alternative it's a net positive.
As for Kererek? Plot-armored Starfleet officers notwithstanding, when you serve in the military you are not allowed to disobey orders you merely DISAGREE with. That is actually a criminal act. The order has to be ILLEGAL before you can ignore it. If you are given an unwise but legal order, you voice your concerns to the superior giving the order, and if they won't change their minds you swallow your misgivings and follow the order as best as you possibly can.
And as for Khiana's safety concerns? Bull. The Klingons let the RSE send a delegation to the conference on Khitomer, a planet they've been fighting over for centuries. I find it hard to believe that the Federationcould possibly be less charitable. No, the reason that peace with the Tal Shiar won't happen is because they know there's no place for the Gestapo in the Federal Republic of Germany, which means they lose power. The Tal Shiar are trying to maintain a status quo that the Rihanh has abandoned because they don't want the glories of empire. They want decent treatment and enough to eat.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Why are we even discussing this? These Empire scum abducted our families and neighbors, then tortured and experimented on them!
But if the RSE asks nicely enough, they can have their captured Empress Sela back. We'd be willing to mail them a hundred small pieces of her one at a time.
Why are we even discussing this? These Empire scum abducted our families and neighbors, then tortured and experimented on them!
But if the RSE asks nicely enough, they can have their captured Empress Sela back. We'd be willing to mail them a hundred small pieces of her one at a time.
Green Empire blood makes the red grass grow!
Who's talking about torture now:rolleyes:
In all seriousness, I doubt most people want to join the STO RSE as it is now.
Most people who want to join the RSE have been expressing their desire to have something more akin to the Romulans of TNG and DS9 fame, as opposed to the frothing lunatics they turned into in STO (particularly post LoR)
STO's Tal Shiar (they rarely even bother to call them the RSE in game post LoR) are godawful as antagnoists, and would be worse as protagonists, because at the end of the day they are fighting to be slaves to the folks who blew up their homeworld.
But the Republic autocorrects way too far in the opposite direction-they have almost nothing in common with the Romulans from the shows. The Bajoran resistance they are supposedly based off of was more morally grey and nuanced than the Republic has ever been. That says a lot, I think.
We don't need to become those nutters over in Hakeev's Tal Shiar Empire, and the Republic doesn't really suit Romulan sensibilities fro mwhat we have seen of them in the shows. What we need is a NEW Romulan Star Empire, that better reflects the attributes the possessed in their on-screen depictions.
Starswordc is utterly correct in all her statements. The Romulans of the Republic are the kind of Romulans who appeared in Diane Duane's Rihannsu novels, which are in turn based on the Romulans who appeared in TOS, aka Romulans as they existed before the Tal Shiar and the later 24th century climate of paranoia, repression, and fear. These Romulans never really went away, but have simply reasserted their traditional cultural mindset after the post-Shinzon and post-Hobus chaos loosened the grip of the RSE and Tal Shiar. The reason the RSE are now "frothing lunatics" is because they see the writing on the wall. They tried to tighten their grip, and the more they tightened their grip, the more systems slipped through their fingers. . Their empire is reduced to the old (devastated) core in Iota Pavonis, their enemies are closing in around them, and their Iconian backers have moved on to greener pastures. The TRIBBLE's went just as nuts in March and April of '45, ordering last stands, scorched earth, and wanton destruction of their own country to deny it to anyone.
The Republic is also not based on the Bajorans. The Remans are closer to that. Nevertheless, the Republic has its fair share of morally grey people. For example, Obisek, one of its top military commanders, and the de facto leader of the Reman people, was in all likelihood quite willing to run amuck with thalaron weapons to ensure that no one would enslave his people again. Were it not for D'Tan's efforts, there would be quite a few more planets like Delta Corvi. Then there is Khimek, from the Tal Shiar infiltration missions, who takes part in their operations in order to pass along information, and Subcommander Rai Sahen, whose reputation and unspecified activities put Tiaru Jarok's nose out of joint in the same way Starfleet officers act around Section 31.
The Romulan Republic is a perfectly acceptable Romulan state, run by Romulans, not Federation toadies, shrill denuciations from the peanut gallery aside. It's only problem (aside from not being an independant faction, which is a problem that's been talked to death elsewhere) is that it singularly fails to please the small subset of Romulan players whose desire is to play as "teh evul viluns" that they see in TNG, presumably out of a desire to feel naughty as they twirl an imaginary Snidley Whiplash mustache and slaughter the "rebel scum", dupe the hapless Feddies, and giggle in their kheh'irho about those stupid Klingons and their laughable concept of honor. Likely the same people who were thrilled when they played " No Russian"
Starswordc is utterly correct in all her statements. The Romulans of the Republic are the kind of Romulans who appeared in Diane Duane's Rihannsu novels, which are in turn based on the Romulans who appeared in TOS, aka Romulans as they existed before the Tal Shiar and the later 24th century climate of paranoia, repression, and fear. These Romulans never really went away, but have simply reasserted their traditional cultural mindset after the post-Shinzon and post-Hobus chaos loosened the grip of the RSE and Tal Shiar. The reason the RSE are now "frothing lunatics" is because they see the writing on the wall. They tried to tighten their grip, and the more they tightened their grip, the more systems slipped through their fingers. . Their empire is reduced to the old (devastated) core in Iota Pavonis, their enemies are closing in around them, and their Iconian backers have moved on to greener pastures. The TRIBBLE's went just as nuts in March and April of '45, ordering last stands, scorched earth, and wanton destruction of their own country to deny it to anyone.
The Republic is also not based on the Bajorans. The Remans are closer to that. Nevertheless, the Republic has its fair share of morally grey people. For example, Obisek, one of its top military commanders, and the de facto leader of the Reman people, was in all likelihood quite willing to run amuck with thalaron weapons to ensure that no one would enslave his people again. Were it not for D'Tan's efforts, there would be quite a few more planets like Delta Corvi. Then there is Khimek, from the Tal Shiar infiltration missions, who takes part in their operations in order to pass along information, and Subcommander Rai Sahen, whose reputation and unspecified activities put Tiaru Jarok's nose out of joint in the same way Starfleet officers act around Section 31.
The Romulan Republic is a perfectly acceptable Romulan state, run by Romulans, not Federation toadies, shrill denuciations from the peanut gallery aside. It's only problem (aside from not being an independant faction, which is a problem that's been talked to death elsewhere) is that it singularly fails to please the small subset of Romulan players whose desire is to play as "teh evul viluns" that they see in TNG, presumably out of a desire to feel naughty as they twirl an imaginary Snidley Whiplash mustache and slaughter the "rebel scum", dupe the hapless Feddies, and giggle in their kheh'irho about those stupid Klingons and their laughable concept of honor. Likely the same people who were thrilled when they played " No Russian"
Well, 'Enterprise' Romulans were very much like the later TNG/DS9 Romulans, so that puts the TOS Romulans (all two appearances of them) into an outlier position if anything-making them the anomalies.
As for novels...later novels retconned the Tal Shiar into existing far before TOS, again, that leaves the TOS Romulans as outliers.
And yes, From the mouth of Cryptic themselves The Republic was based off of the Bajoran resistance.
Romulans have some pretty heavy connotations when it comes to what players generally expect from them. When folks voted in that poll way back one and Romulans were the most-requested species, folks knew what they were voting for. Those folks (as far as they knew) were voting for TNG/DS9-style Romulans because those were the only kind in the game at that time. Pretending that only a small subset of players wanted to paly those sorts of Romulans is hilariously erroneous.
This could be taken as a good look at the playerbase's stand on the Romulan factions.
92 votes in a game of hundreds of thousands of players is hardly a representative sample. If it had a few thousand like in the Delta Quadrant Species poll it'd be usable.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
In all seriousness, I doubt most people want to join the STO RSE as it is now.
Most people who want to join the RSE have been expressing their desire to have something more akin to the Romulans of TNG and DS9 fame, as opposed to the frothing lunatics they turned into in STO (particularly post LoR)
STO's Tal Shiar (they rarely even bother to call them the RSE in game post LoR) are godawful as antagnoists, and would be worse as protagonists, because at the end of the day they are fighting to be slaves to the folks who blew up their homeworld.
But the Republic autocorrects way too far in the opposite direction-they have almost nothing in common with the Romulans from the shows. The Bajoran resistance they are supposedly based off of was more morally grey and nuanced than the Republic has ever been. That says a lot, I think.
We don't need to become those nutters over in Hakeev's Tal Shiar Empire, and the Republic doesn't really suit Romulan sensibilities fro mwhat we have seen of them in the shows. What we need is a NEW Romulan Star Empire, that better reflects the attributes the possessed in their on-screen depictions.
Well, 'Enterprise' Romulans were very much like the later TNG/DS9 Romulans, so that puts the TOS Romulans (all two appearances of them) into an outlier position if anything-making them the anomalies.
As for novels...later novels retconned the Tal Shiar into existing far before TOS, again, that leaves the TOS Romulans as outliers.
And yes, From the mouth of Cryptic themselves The Republic was based off of the Bajoran resistance.
Romulans have some pretty heavy connotations when it comes to what players generally expect from them. When folks voted in that poll way back one and Romulans were the most-requested species, folks knew what they were voting for. Those folks (as far as they knew) were voting for TNG/DS9-style Romulans because those were the only kind in the game at that time. Pretending that only a small subset of players wanted to paly those sorts of Romulans is hilariously erroneous.
I wonder if Jeckle has ever heard of "Textual Criticism." For those who might care to learn something, Textual Criticism considers variant texts of old works, in the various forms of manuscript, be they printed books, scribbles on papyrus or parchment, imprints in clay tablets, painted hieroglyphs, carvings, or something else. One theory now discredited was the idea that one could simply count the number of texts with variation A and the number of those with variation B, and the number of those with variation C (etc), and then the variation found in the most texts would be considered correct. As I said, this tally theory is now discredited, in favor of a weight theory. The weight theory maintains that some texts "weigh" more than others (not in the literal sense of physical weight, but rather, in a figurative sense), due to their greater age or having been cited by authors who predate the texts with a different variant, etc. Essentially, some texts are considered weightier, or more authoritative, than others, for a number of possible reasons.
TOS is the first and original presentation of Romulans. There may be only two (3 if you count the one that features a Romulan ship but no actual Romulans) episodes in all of TOS which feature Romulans as Honorable Warriors, versus umpteen or somety TNG episodes which feature Romulans as goose-stepping police statists and/or saber-rattling milites gloriosi, but those TOS episodes are weightier by virtue of their being the presentation of the original ideal of Romulans. I suppose we could toss a couple of TAS episodes in there as well, since Roddenberry and/or CBS has declared them canonical, but four or five episodes would still not outnumber the total of episodes of TNG and later series which feature Romulans. Nevertheless, quality is of more importance than quantity, and weight matters more than a tally. The first two or three seasons of TNG were absolute dreck (for myriad reasons I won't go into here) with but few shining moments. Oh, sure, they had better special effects, but this is Star Trek, and not Star Wars. The STORY is what matters in Star Trek, not the flashing lights and explosions and prosthetics and makeup and CGI.
All this TRIBBLE about retconning is irrelevant, because the retconning does not explain why the Romulans in TOS were so different from the majority of presentations in later series, and, as many of us have demonstrated on more than one occasion across multiple threads since LoR went live, even the later series do not paint an entirely one-dimensional picture of Romulans. The ending of "The Chase," for example, hearkens back to the ending of "Balance of Terror." Both of those, as well as TEI, demonstrate rather clearly that claims that Romulans are war-mongering, paranoid, and xenophobic racists are nonsense. Only one particular example is necessary to disprove a universal assertion, and here we have three (and can add more to that as we have done in the past in this forum). To deny that some Romulans are warmongers and/or paranoid and/or xenophobic and/or racists would be no better, of course, but the point is that the Romulans of the New Republic do in fact represent Romulans as we have seen them presented in the shows -- just not the villains some of you Sith-lovers prefer.
And again, as for the small subset, Rose Tyler's poll is late and demonstrates only results from those who bother to frequent this forum anymore. Had it been taken around the time of the "Call to my Romulans brethren" thread, the results would have been even more overwhelming in demonstrating that the majority of people who read this forum at the time were most definitely supporters of the Republic, and not of the police state RSE of TNG and the later series. That thread itself ought to be instructive. I've asked the imperialists in several threads since then to go back and take a count of the numbers on each side, but they have steadfastly refused to do so, or pretended they had no idea what thread I was talking about, or simply continued to spew the Petitio Principii, Straw Man, abusive ad Hominem, incorrigible, and intransigent vomit they have spewed all over this forum to the point that most Romulan players don't care to bother with this forum any more. But even at this date, the pro-fascist RSE gang remain solidly in the minority when compared with those who support the Republic.
The RSE is dying. It has been since before STO went into Closed Beta, and so efforts of the disgruntled malcontents who plainly despise most everything Cryptic does to lay the blame at the feet of Cryptic are, frankly, absurd. The RSE is dying. Most of us do not want to play as RSE sycophantic toadies or unhinged sociopaths or cowed slaves. Perhaps those of you who do would find more pleasure in continuing your adventures in Sith territory and stop trying to ruin STO for those of us who are actually fans of Star Trek and Romulans, and not simply fans of sadistic halfwits who believe they have some maniacal imperative to compensate for their pusilla membra virilia by means of behaving like unthinking brutes who constantly try to kill the good guy and make off with the virtuous maiden, and are constantly foiled by virtue of their own incompetence. As someone said here recently, Sela is full of fail. But Sela is not the only one in the Star Empire who is so mind-numbingly inept; au contraire, this schlemiel routine has become the modus operandi of the RSE since long before STO (indeed, it can be seen quite clearly in the likes of Tomalak, bested over and over again by Jean-Luc Picard, and perhaps even once or twice by Glenn Quagmire ... err, I mean Will Riker).
before talkin **** about the sith side of the game, you might want to go play it. In many instances the Imperial characters are(or have the options to be in the case of dialogue decisions) far more moral and "good guy" than the Republic side plots. On the flip side the "good and happy" republic is corrupt and often your character is(or have the options to be in the case of dialogue decisions) completely bankrupt in that department. "Evil" is subjective and just because someone wants to play what is considered, by some, to be the "villain" side doesn't meant they want to be caricatures of ebil-ness one catches in campy movies or children's cartoons.
In regards to the poll, one has to consider that the RSE of STO isn't terribly popular even among fans of the Romulans from the shows. I didn't expect them to win then for this reason. This is old news.
Again, the RR wasn't designed to appeal to Romulan fans, Cryptic has said so much themselves. Show Romulans don't have a wide enough appeal apparently-so Cryptic decided to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Were the people who voted for the Republic voting for it because they liked the faction, or because they were Romulan fans and were pleased how they were depicted in the Republic? Because those are two different things. And of course, there's the issue of sample size, and the fact one could vote more than once What I'm saying is that the poll is essentially useless.
And of course, this doesn't change the fact that folks who voted in far greater numbers in the earlier poll for a new faction turned out in droves to vote for what they could only have expected to be a RSE faction.
As to Protogoth, RSE supporters aren't talking about absolutes, but trends in Romulan behavior. I myself have given many examples for more nuanced behavior for Romulans, such as Toreth etc. However, there are some pretty darn obvious trends across the numerous series. Despite your repeated insistence on painting all RSE supporters as folk who support the supernova and want to be Iconian slaves under Hakeev...nobody here is actually arguing for that generally people want something more nuanced...like what was on TNG/DS9...
Discounting all of those episodes because they don't meet your criteria for 'quality' (Romulans that meet your narrow view of proper Romulan behavior) is absurd. TNG kept Romulans alive in regards to Star Trek, instead of becoming some background species like the First Federation. Those 'Evil' Romulans kept them relevant, and popular. The TNG Romulan episodes are immensely important in regards to what I'd wager most fans think of when they think Romulans.
As for the thread that supposedly 'proves' that Pro-Republic posters are in the majority....as much as Protogoth loves to bring it up as proof and demands others to count the supposed overwhelming numbers of Republic supporters, she herself refuses to do so. No Protogoth, I'm not going to tally the number of supporters for both sides across 18 pages just so you can make some flippant remark on how it doesn't count or something.
starswordc: Well, I believe your example is perhaps not the best one in many aspect. At first the TS is not and was never the Gestapo (it has a complete different heritage and a much different tradition than the secret police of the "Third Reich" - or as the secret police of the Soviet Union, not that I want to claim this two are all the same or that the two dictatorships were the same). The TS was never created to ensure the power of a political movement which came to power by revolution (the agencies which later become the KGB - first Tscheka, than OGPU/NKVD/NKGB etc.) or by some kind of intrigue and deal with other gropus which they soon want to remove from the rest of their power (the NSDAP at the start - although the TRIBBLE sadly enough had a lot of support even from the majority of the people in the mid 1930's). The TS had never a agenda of exterminate whole "races" to the last living man, woman or child (what more or less a job of the "Judenreferat" of the Gestapo was), or to "remove" artifical created "classes" out of society like the "Kulaken" as the soviet agencies in the 20s and 30s (as I said before, i do not want to claim Soviet Russia and Third Reich were the same, this is a question about which scientists clash still today, I want only to show how wrong this "beloved" TS=Gestapo=KGB is). The Romulan society and state was never (although he crushed it enemies without mercy) a state or a movement with such a total approach or agenda.
And your caim "no place for the Gestapo in the Federal Republic of Germany" is also a tricky one, because at first the Federal Republic was (and I think that was GOOD that it was so, honestly) influenced in some aspects by the western allies which were at least in the start strong enemies of the leftover of the Thrid Reich (I do not want to know how a German state would have developed if the allied forces would left Germany right after 1945 - by the way even the allied operatives changed their attitude towards the criminals of the Third Reich soon enough, as they "needed" new allies against new enemies). But even THAN several members of the Gestapo, the SD and other similar branches with blood on their hands (men from inside the Third Reichs justice, members of the armed froces and so on) very well found a good place in the Federal Republic (and some also in the Democratic Republic) of Germany.
A former KGB-officer had today the support from much more than 50 percent of the Russian people (I guess) - that is also a fact you should think about.
tolmarius
I though Rhiannsu was never seen as canon? And I think about the Roms in TOS/original Enterpise films you could argue (as I had in the past). I would say they are mixed in their behavior. Sometimes "noble" but often as sneaky and brutal as later Roms (what not mean I think this should call "bad" - they do what they think serve the interests of the RSE).
I would not compare the RSE with the TRIBBLE. Why not with the Romans after the lost battles against Hannibal, ending with Cannae? They armed even slaves, punished deserters and traitors brutally, burried people alive to calm the gods - and fight on. They lost great parts of Italy, but in the end crushed their foe...;)
And I think you should think twice about your definition of the reasons why several people have not much love towards the Republic (I guess many players could lived with the Empire OR the Republic) and some even dislike it (I think it seems obvious that most people are neither strongly suporters of the Republic nor the Empire, they want to play, not think much about background - and that is ok). To discuss such things here is only the desire and plesure of a tiny minority, people from all three "factions" (pro Republic, pro Empire and pro everything - and of course the individual attitude differs also). But "we" all are only very few compared to the total numbers of Rom-player, I would say. And of course you could hardly look into the minds of people.
starswordc: Well, I believe your example is perhaps not the best one in many aspect. At first the TS is not and was never the Gestapo (it has a complete different heritage and a much different tradition than the secret police of the "Third Reich" - or as the secret police of the Soviet Union, not that I want to claim this two are all the same or that the two dictatorships were the same). The TS was never created to ensure the power of a political movement which came to power by revolution (the agencies which later become the KGB - first Tscheka, than OGPU/NKVD/NKGB etc.) or by some kind of intrigue and deal with other gropus which they soon want to remove from the rest of their power (the NSDAP at the start - although the TRIBBLE sadly enough had a lot of support even from the majority of the people in the mid 1930's). The TS had never a agenda of exterminate whole "races" to the last living man, woman or child (what more or less a job of the "Judenreferat" of the Gestapo was), or to "remove" artifical created "classes" out of society like the "Kulaken" as the soviet agencies in the 20s and 30s (as I said before, i do not want to claim Soviet Russia and Third Reich were the same, this is a question about which scientists clash still today, I want only to show how wrong this "beloved" TS=Gestapo=KGB is). The Romulan society and state was never (although he crushed it enemies without mercy) a state or a movement with such a total approach or agenda.
And your caim "no place for the Gestapo in the Federal Republic of Germany" is also a tricky one, because at first the Federal Republic was (and I think that was GOOD that it was so, honestly) influenced in some aspects by the western allies which were at least in the start strong enemies of the leftover of the Thrid Reich (I do not want to know how a German state would have developed if the allied forces would left Germany right after 1945 - by the way even the allied operatives changed their attitude towards the criminals of the Third Reich soon enough, as they "needed" new allies against new enemies). But even THAN several members of the Gestapo, the SD and other similar branches with blood on their hands (men from inside the Third Reichs justice, members of the armed froces and so on) very well found a good place in the Federal Republic (and some also in the Democratic Republic) of Germany.
A former KGB-officer had today the support from much more than 50 percent of the Russian people (I guess) - that is also a fact you should think about.
You're missing the point, which is that a democratic government has no need of secret police, a role which the Tal Shiar did canonically serve in addition to their work as a legitimate foreign intelligence service. Now, I'll happily accede to using individual persons of the Tal Shiar (hell, one of my Fed Rom's boffs is a Tal Shiar defector according to the backstory I wrote for her), but to quote a line from Burn Notice, it's the organization, not one guy.
And the Tal Shiar most certainly did not enjoy the support of ordinary Romulans. The fear, absolutely -- recall the Romulan store clerk who thought the undercover Ent-D crew were Tal Shiar and was terrified of them. And the regular Romulan military hated them the way the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine hated the SS. Not the derision the CIA gets from US military personnel, underline, murderous hatred. In terms of actions the KGB/Gestapo comparisons are justified. (I'll admit there's little evidence of concentration camps, but the ENT Relaunch speaks of the RSE commiting genocide against the Haakonans with bioweapons.)
And oh, by the way? Vladimir Putin is an @sshole with good PR and a lousy human rights record. He enjoys a good popularity rating because he can work a crowd.
tolmarius
I though Rhiannsu was never seen as canon?
The Path to 2409 mentions Ael i'Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu and concepts such as mnhei'sahe and honor blades by name, and the LOR background material uses a lot of the background material from the series. So for STO's purposes they are partially canon.
I say partially because some parts of the books, such as the nature of the Remans/Havrannsu, were directly contradicted by later TV and film material. In the novels Remus is Class M and the Remans are Romulans of a different ethnicity, not a different species on a tidally locked barely habitable rock. And ENT and the ENT Relaunch completely jossed The Romulan Way's account of first contact with humanity and the Earth-Romulan War. On the other hand, the friendliness of Romulan Ambassador Caithlin Dar in Star Trek V could be interpreted as support for a more moderate Romulan government under Empress Ael.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Well, my character is a deep cover Tal Shiar agent who has been assigned the privilege of putting a well-deserved end to the traitorous, weak, despicable Romulan Republic (pretenders to the throne spreading LIES about democracy and freedom). So I would welcome the ability to kill D'Tan in the future (since I'm pretty sure he is an Undine, but that's another story entirely).
That being said, my character is a member of the true Tal Shiar, not the organization Hakeev has turned our agency into. He will take great pleasure in killing this menace to the organization he once was proud to serve under (then he'll take over as head of the Tal Shiar himself).
Kodanikuno: Evil is not subjective. Evil is evil. Those who believe that evil is just a point of view are either themselves morally bankrupt, or in this case, simply trying to justify their desires.
I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. - Edward Teller.
Caedicius: To be brutally honest. the RSE supporters here like to claim that those of us who like the Republic are trying to ignore everything about TNG Romulans. While I would agree that I rate ENT above TNG, I must disagree. What the Romulan government became is canon. We can no more wish away the corruption and fall to darkness of the RSE than the German people can simply wish away Hitler and the TRIBBLE, or the Russians can wish away Stalin and the Communists, or Americans can wish away slavery.
The Romulan Star Empire used to be more than just a fascist, militarist, police state. As Starsword pointed out, the Rihannsu series must be acknowledge as canon to some degree in STo, because they have had such an impacts, as evidenced by all the references to them in STO lore. They used to have honor. It was pointed out that the TOS ROmulans were sneaky. So what? Stealth is not a dishonorable tactic, unless you are the type who equates honor with strutting around in the open in bright colors so everyone can shoot at you. And I saw no behavior that could be described as brutal. And your assertation that those voting for Romulans as a faction clearly desired the TNG RSE is also inaccurate. Catoblepasbeta refuses protogoths invitations to tally her thread, but at the same timewe are expected to take you word for it that the overwhelming majority of people in the various polls and vote take your side?
P.S.: Caedicius, I would like to inform you, since you seem to have no clue, that when Rome fought Hannibal, and struggled back from the brink to ultimate victory, it was a REPUBLIC. Rome wasn't an empire until 189 years later, in 27 BC. Publius Cornelius Scipio, Fabius Maximus, and Gaius Claudius Nero served the Roman REPUBLIC, not the Roman Empire.
I should also point out that Rihannsu also doesn't really conflict with the canon on its general portrayal of Romulans. They can be just as sneaky and underhanded (from a human perspective) in those books. Diane Duane took the Rome analogy to its logical conclusion, and her Romulans, or at least the nobility, are often casually racist and have little problem with slavery or murder, and ch'Rihan (Romulus) is basically a police state. But the ordinary Romulan off the street doesn't think most of the above is a good thing, and the **** they get up to such as mass-kidnapping and dissection of Vulcans (in order to develop psi ability among Romulans) and the attempted use of sunkiller bombs against Artaleirh and Earth are solely the province of the villains.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
You're missing the point, which is that a democratic government has no need of secret police, a role which the Tal Shiar did canonically serve in addition to their work as a legitimate foreign intelligence service. Now, I'll happily accede to using individual persons of the Tal Shiar (hell, one of my Fed Rom's boffs is a Tal Shiar defector according to the backstory I wrote for her), but to quote a line from Burn Notice, it's the organization, not one guy.
And the Tal Shiar most certainly did not enjoy the support of ordinary Romulans. The fear, absolutely -- recall the Romulan store clerk who thought the undercover Ent-D crew were Tal Shiar and was terrified of them. And the regular Romulan military hated them the way the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine hated the SS. Not the derision the CIA gets from US military personnel, underline, murderous hatred. In terms of actions the KGB/Gestapo comparisons are justified. (I'll admit there's little evidence of concentration camps, but the ENT Relaunch speaks of the RSE commiting genocide against the Haakonans with bioweapons.)
And oh, by the way? Vladimir Putin is an @sshole with good PR and a lousy human rights record. He enjoys a good popularity rating because he can work a crowd.
The Path to 2409 mentions Ael i'Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu and concepts such as mnhei'sahe and honor blades by name, and the LOR background material uses a lot of the background material from the series. So for STO's purposes they are partially canon.
I say partially because some parts of the books, such as the nature of the Remans/Havrannsu, were directly contradicted by later TV and film material. In the novels Remus is Class M and the Remans are Romulans of a different ethnicity, not a different species on a tidally locked barely habitable rock. And ENT and the ENT Relaunch completely jossed The Romulan Way's account of first contact with humanity and the Earth-Romulan War. On the other hand, the friendliness of Romulan Ambassador Caithlin Dar in Star Trek V could be interpreted as support for a more moderate Romulan government under Empress Ael.
furthermore, one of the worlds in the romulan sector is named after her
so the house is there, even if the history is different.
(ps.. most of my toons names come from those books, so lol)
that said, and not to get into politics, plenty of democracies, while feeling under threat, have had secret police forces.
MI5, CIA, etc...
and most of them have gone renegade at one time or the other.
before talkin **** about the sith side of the game, you might want to go play it. In many instances the Imperial characters are(or have the options to be in the case of dialogue decisions) far more moral and "good guy" than the Republic side plots. On the flip side the "good and happy" republic is corrupt and often your character is(or have the options to be in the case of dialogue decisions) completely bankrupt in that department. "Evil" is subjective and just because someone wants to play what is considered, by some, to be the "villain" side doesn't meant they want to be caricatures of ebil-ness one catches in campy movies or children's cartoons.
Oh, I'm familiar. Point being, it sounds far more suitable for certain advocates of the Star Empire and/or the Tal'Shiar than STO is likely to ever be. Then again, sometimes I almost agree with the idea of a Dominion faction in STO (without playable Changelings) so that one type of Star Empire/Tal'Shiar supporter can go be a drug-addicted stormtrooper and another type can go be a simpering sycophant, and stop trashing up the Romulan Gameplay forum with Mein Kampf nonsense.
In regards to the poll, one has to consider that the RSE of STO isn't terribly popular even among fans of the Romulans from the shows. I didn't expect them to win then for this reason. This is old news.
Again, the RR wasn't designed to appeal to Romulan fans, Cryptic has said so much themselves. Show Romulans don't have a wide enough appeal apparently-so Cryptic decided to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Were the people who voted for the Republic voting for it because they liked the faction, or because they were Romulan fans and were pleased how they were depicted in the Republic? Because those are two different things. And of course, there's the issue of sample size, and the fact one could vote more than once What I'm saying is that the poll is essentially useless.
And of course, this doesn't change the fact that folks who voted in far greater numbers in the earlier poll for a new faction turned out in droves to vote for what they could only have expected to be a RSE faction.
As to Protogoth, RSE supporters aren't talking about absolutes, but trends in Romulan behavior. I myself have given many examples for more nuanced behavior for Romulans, such as Toreth etc. However, there are some pretty darn obvious trends across the numerous series. Despite your repeated insistence on painting all RSE supporters as folk who support the supernova and want to be Iconian slaves under Hakeev...nobody here is actually arguing for that generally people want something more nuanced...like what was on TNG/DS9...
Discounting all of those episodes because they don't meet your criteria for 'quality' (Romulans that meet your narrow view of proper Romulan behavior) is absurd. TNG kept Romulans alive in regards to Star Trek, instead of becoming some background species like the First Federation. Those 'Evil' Romulans kept them relevant, and popular. The TNG Romulan episodes are immensely important in regards to what I'd wager most fans think of when they think Romulans.
As for the thread that supposedly 'proves' that Pro-Republic posters are in the majority....as much as Protogoth loves to bring it up as proof and demands others to count the supposed overwhelming numbers of Republic supporters, she herself refuses to do so. No Protogoth, I'm not going to tally the number of supporters for both sides across 18 pages just so you can make some flippant remark on how it doesn't count or something.
Although Jeckle doesn't seem to realize it, the Republic DOES appeal to Romulan fans. Maybe not the goose-stepping kind, but those of us who got our ideas of Romulans from TOS/TAS and the novels published between the end of TOS and the beginning of TNG (and some published during the life of TNG). We are hardly "the lowest common denominator." We hold true to the original presentation of Romulans as honorable warriors, of a kind with Humans, often savage, but also many other pleasant things.
And as for the thread I have repeatedly held up to Jeckle and asked him to take a count in, why should I be the one to count? He was the one who first made claims of superior numbers; the burden of proof is on him, not me. This tally is not a matter of textual criticism, but rather of numbers of persons on one side or another of this seemingly endless forum war. One side first trotted out the "there are more of us than there are of you" claim in a fallacious effort (Argumentum ad Populum) to justify their incessant whine about not being able to play sociopaths, sycophants, and/or unthinking brutes, even though they have been, since the inception of this forum, in a very clear minority in this forum, and even though Romulan ships in-game with an I.R.W. registry prefix have always been outnumbered by ships with an R.R.W. registry prefix (and are even more so now than they once were). When confronted with the bleak (bleak to them, anyway) reality of the situation, that side has simply pulled Petitio Principii again and again, until after the thread to which I have pointed repeatedly as demonstrating the falsehood of this claim. Thereafter, when that thread was pointed to, on multiple occasions, as evidence against their claim, they have stubbornly refused to even count the number of people posting on the two sides of the battle, seemingly fearful of having to face that "bleak" reality, rather like the brainwashed Charva engaging in doublethink when confronted by evidence she herself pulled from the database of her own faction. I should do the counting? Why? I was not the one who first claimed superior numbers. The burden of proof is on those who did, and not on me.
Well, my character is a deep cover Tal Shiar agent who has been assigned the privilege of putting a well-deserved end to the traitorous, weak, despicable Romulan Republic (pretenders to the throne spreading LIES about democracy and freedom). So I would welcome the ability to kill D'Tan in the future (since I'm pretty sure he is an Undine, but that's another story entirely).
That being said, my character is a member of the true Tal Shiar, not the organization Hakeev has turned our agency into. He will take great pleasure in killing this menace to the organization he once was proud to serve under (then he'll take over as head of the Tal Shiar himself).
Weak? You should review the achievements of the New Republic, and the failures of the RSE/Tal'Shiar. Pretenders to what throne? The Republic has no throne. Before you can even aim your pistol at D'Tan, the Tal'Diann will have you in restraints. And oh, look: "No True Scotsman." How quaint. Oh, but it doesn't stop there, no! Ambition from the incompetent, so characteristic of the RSE in the years since Hiren made himself Praetor of the RSE through assassination.
furthermore, one of the worlds in the romulan sector is named after her
so the house is there, even if the history is different.
(ps.. most of my toons names come from those books, so lol)
that said, and not to get into politics, plenty of democracies, while feeling under threat, have had secret police forces.
MI5, CIA, etc...
and most of them have gone renegade at one time or the other.
MI5 and the CIA are not "secret police forces." They are international intelligence agencies. The Tal'Shiar has been an interstellar intelligence agency as well as a secret police force. While some historical and current secret police forces also function as intelligence agencies, the distinction is one of methodology and goals. In short, an intelligence agency gathers information, analyzes that information in order to glean intelligence, directs that intelligence to the appropriate target audience, and packages that intelligence for its directed audience. They may also engage in sabotage as well as other clandestine operations (sometimes these clandestine operations go too far towards secret police methods and/or intentions, but they are nevertheless restrained by legal authorities). A secret police force, on the other hand, will act to protect the political power of an individual dictator and/or an authoritarian (autocracy) political regime, and suppress political dissent through clandestine acts of terror and intimidation (such as kidnapping, coercive interrogation, torture, internal exile, forced disappearance, and assassination) targeted against political enemies of the ruling authority, and often go beyond the law in these practices, with little or no official oversight.
You'll note that neither MI5 (nor MI6, which is closer to what the CIA is) nor the CIA is listed in either of these, because their primary role is concerned with Intelligence, and not with maintaining the power of a particular leader or regime. Now, the Department of Homeland Security might deserve a place on the list of current secret police organizations, and the CIA and NSA have apparently engaged in some of these heinous practices under the previous administration, and MI5 certainly has been shown to have colluded with certain ... groups in Northern Ireland in an effort to suppress dissent and shore up Loyalism and Unionism, but going into contemporary political discussions in this forum should be (if it be not already) disallowed by the Terms of Service, so I'm going to let these go with only what I've just said and will refuse to discuss them further. Ignoring these things I will not do, nor engage in the fallacy of Provincialism, but I'm also not going to argue or debate these matters here. Other fora exist elsewhere for such discussions.
Kodanikuno: Evil is not subjective. Evil is evil. Those who believe that evil is just a point of view are either themselves morally bankrupt, or in this case, simply trying to justify their desires.
I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. - Edward Teller.
And you've just proved you are not worth listening too ever. Evil is indeed subjective and is a product of society and religion, when talking about an entirely different species this is even more true. They do not think the same way about a given event or action. But keep living in that tiny little bubble and believing childish concepts
Oh, I'm familiar. Point being, it sounds far more suitable for certain advocates of the Star Empire and/or the Tal'Shiar than STO is likely to ever be. Then again, sometimes I almost agree with the idea of a Dominion faction in STO (without playable Changelings) so that one type of Star Empire/Tal'Shiar supporter can go be a drug-addicted stormtrooper and another type can go be a simpering sycophant, and stop trashing up the Romulan Gameplay forum with Mein Kampf nonsense.
Frankly it IS more suitable than STO is atm, and that is just sad. Unfortunately the only way that will ever change is for people to yell about it and loudly. Since I've not read more than 20 or so pages of mein kampf I can't really comment on your joke there but it did cause me to loose even more respect for ya.
And you've just proved you are not worth listening too ever. Evil is indeed subjective and is a product of society and religion, when talking about an entirely different species this is even more true. They do not think the same way about a given event or action. But keep living in that tiny little bubble and believing childish concepts
Frankly it IS more suitable than STO is atm, and that is just sad. Unfortunately the only way that will ever change is for people to yell about it and loudly. Since I've not read more than 20 or so pages of mein kampf I can't really comment on your joke there but it did cause me to loose even more respect for ya.
Not everything is opinion, and not everything is a social construct.
My use of modifiers like "one type of" and "certain" there, and my several references to your own person as distinct from others advocating for the RSE and/ore Tal'Shiar ought to be sufficient to indicate that I was excluding you from the Mein Kampf crowd. But if you wish to take that label upon yourself, feel free. It will at least allow you to hop in the clown car with those I actually intended and play the "victim" game.
As for yelling loudly about the situation in an effort to encourage change, that is the primary reason I continue to stand against those doing so. The loudest voices in this forum, redundant and fighting a rereward battle, are clearly the minority of active people in this forum; they should not be permitted to agitate without opposition in their efforts to ruin the Romulan faction for the rest of us.
On the other hand, the friendliness of Romulan Ambassador Caithlin Dar in Star Trek V could be interpreted as support for a more moderate Romulan government under Empress Ael.
Please do not mention that abomination...
But I agree with pretty much all of what you said.
I think that a very important thing that needs to be mentioned here is that Romulans are still technically the same species as Vulcans. Different subspecies, sure, but fertile hybrids (T'pol, for example) are commonplace and the two species are almost indistinguishable save for Vulcan touch telepathy and culture. This means that Rihannsu, on average, are MUCH more emotional than Humans; part of the reason Vulcans are so absurdly focused on reason and logic is that if they ever let themselves go their society would tear itself apart in days. Romulan experiences and implied genetic fiddling during the Vulcan diaspora probably mitigated at least some of this, but...the average Romulan is a fiery, passionate person by Human standards.
This leaves massive psychological weaknesses, at least from a Human POV; to blatantly reference my own work, D'trel is only slightly more emotional than the Rihan average, and she's held a grudge for decades that hasn't faltered one bit; in fact, during the stories that I've written it actually got worse before it got better.
Like the Vulcan emphasis on logic, mnhei'sahe is there as a social failsafe so that one accidental insult doesn't result in riots destroying a city, a very real possibility given Vulcanoid neurobiology.
It's important to remember that these people are not human. They are not Space Elves. They are a culture that was founded in massive emotional pain and rage, tempered by a harsh journey, and left to stew for centuries in a pit of revenge.
And that's just the Romulans. No wonder Obisek's so badass, he's got even more reason than the Romulans to be angry.
In fact, given the neurobiology of Vulcanoids and the experiences of Romulan and Reman culture, I can completely understand why Obisek is using doomsday weapons, although I can't condone it.
I take my inspiration for my RSE character from the events following the death of Palpatine at Endor. While Palpatine was by far not a good man (just as the RSE was not a good government) their manipulations did keep those who were true crazies in check because of their fealty to the Empire. Once the source of that devotion was destroyed, there was no one to hold their reigns, and people like Hakeev take over (if not in name, in fact) the remnants of the Empire (much like Isard did), while other leading Imperial officers strike it out on their own to form their own "Warlord Kingdoms" (much as Blitzer Harrsk, Sander Delvardus, and Treuten Teradoc). Meanwhile, the opposing government (the Rebellion/Romulan Republic) slowly gains ground, chipping away at the now splintered and divided Empire.
In the midst of all this, you have people like my character: a career Imperial along the lines of Gilad Pellaeon. While he does not agree with many of the old Empire's methods, he feels that it was the best hope for order and peace. It was brutal, at times excessively so, but no one ever went without the necessities of life. The people were kept safe and secure from threats. While the Tal Shiar was hated (like Imperial Intelligence) by the military, he has been personally involved in exposing those who abuse their power. He does not agree with the ideals of the Republic: too often he has seen the fall of democracies and republics from within (due to corruption) and without (the military is not able to be mobilized quickly enough to fight against the threat, and it overwhelms them). The ideals, and thus the battlefield for him, between the Republic and Empire is an ideological one.
While he is against the Republic, he also sees that the Empire he knew is gone. The people who were once secure under the government are now abducted and experimented on. The very threats that would have been crushed by the old Empire are now its allies. He sees his world, everything that he has fought so long and hard for, crumbling around him, and he is helpless to stop it. He now opposes the current Tal Shiar regime because of the organization they have become since the loss of his homeworld.And yet, despite all of that he is STILL loyal the Empire, because it is all he has left. Even now, he clings to belief in the Empire, though he is starting to see the writing on the wall.
Comments
Thank you. Some people speaking sense. I sometimes reference to the Republic being much larger in size and population in game, but we shouldnt presume to speak for the majority of players barring clear proof that we are such. (Though that one poll that appeared a while back did show that we have a majority over the jackbooted Michelin Men.....:D )
Speaking as one that would have preferred the Empire not some half baked hippie republic, I cannot say I agree with you. The RSE, as portrayed in STO, is a terrible joke on what was. The Tal Shiar are, as an organization, unrecoverable. The Imperial Remnants are corrupt to the point of absurdity, and the ones that have their noses so far up Sela's posterior are quite possibly worse than the Tal Shiar for they show not only complete disregard for the betterment of the Romulan people and the empire but they are also so brain dead they'll blindly follow an incompetent megalomaniac regardless of what she does, while kissing her flat TRIBBLE.
The old Empire has failed in STOverse, its beyond salvage, we're way past time to admit it. The Republic is a bad joke, led by incompetent TRIBBLE and naivete. If there is to be an empire in the STOverse, it will need to be the Raptor Empire, a fusion of old and new. The Republic has/had a few good ideas, the Old Empire had others. Take the best of both, drop the Romulan naming bias and march together as true children of the raptor. (I am fully well aware cryptic/craptic will never do this so dont bother with that argument) In the mean time we're stuck railroaded into what the Devs want, but keep in mind... at least we're not riding T-Rex into battle.... yet
Well, at least one Imperialist is actually willing to admit that the corpse-empire is beyond resurrection. However, your characterization of the Rpeublic as nothing but hippies and incompetants is so far off target you may as well be trying to commit suicide. I can hardly see a group of imcompetant hippies accomplishing what the Republic has. Against the odds they successfully established a new home, defended it from the RSE and their (likely former) Iconian allies, forced their states's recognition by the Federation and Klingons, expanded their territory to include most of the old RSE, annexed a Dyson sphere in all but name, gained equal access to another, and regained superpower status for the Romulans, as well as independence for them, and all that in about 2 years (If you follow some RP groups calendar).
The maneuvering that enabled the founding of the Republic is hardly the work of an incompetent boob. D'Tan not only got both superpowers to acknowledge the Republic's legitimacy, but he also played off their fear of the Republic allying with the other to get then to both fund the establishment of the Republic, but also acquired military aid to help in it's defense while it built up its forces and expanded its borders over old Imperial territory, and at the same time convinced them of the Republics good intentions and threw off the weight of the RSE's moral baggage. Then he went on to gather the xenophobic and paranoid Remans into the fold by making an increbible leap of insight..he treated them as equals, something the Imperials had signally failed to ever think of. D'Tan is quite possibly one of the canniest politicians ever. In the space of a dew years he has managed to turn the shattered remnants of an empire into a new superpower, ;argely untainted by the misdeeds of it's predecessor state.
Well, I think I (and of course many others who did play much longer than I and have posted in this forum much onger and more) could say how kodachikuno describe the Empire is as wrong as you think his opinion about the Republic is, and that could go one, and on, and on...;)
Although he is or course right the way the TS is shown is very bad... And OF COURSE right that we all hope that this with the T-Rex will never happen *g*
On the other hand about the RSE the sources differ, I would claim, and the RSE in The Path to 2409 (and key players like Sela) act very different several times than we see them in Legacy...
Yes. I've seen that many think his view of the empire is as wrong as his view of the Republic. And it does go on, and on, and on....
As for the TS, perhaps they weren't as psychotic in TNG, but they were still as evil as any secret police. They simply shifted on the alignment scale, from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Evil. (And before you say anything, about them being an intelligence agency, canon describes them as performing internal security and secret police duties too, just like the KGB)
For your next point, I've found something we agree on. Please Cryptic, no matter how childishly cool you found dinosaurs with laser beams to be, please don't have us riding them. At least not before giving us some real ground vehicles.
And Sela and the RSE act no different in the lore. Sela is not and never was the emperess. She usurped power with the aid of foreign mercenaries and abolished traditional Romulan institutions, such as the Senate, that she saw as threatening her power. You should abhor her as much as I.
My apologies for leaving my reply so long. I'd completely forgotten about this thread. I also perhaps didn't quite phrase my meaning well enough.
What I meant to say is that there might be appeal for the average Romulan to experience a democracy along with the personal freedoms that come along with it. No paranoia or fear about there being a secret police that could and would snatch one and make him/her disappear without a trace if one did or said the wrong thing or had a 'wrong' opinion. Such as the reunificationists. In the Republic, one is allowed a contrary opinion to D'Tan or the government.
This is with the added bonus of being allied with the two biggest powers in the alpha and beta quadrants. Its true many Romulans may not like or want to assosiate with either Starfleet or the KDF but they can take comfort in the knowledge that these two groups are no longer hostile to them and indeed are protecting the people of New Romulus. That's why my Romulan wholeheartedly supports the Republic and its allies-for the average people on New Romulus who have a chance to begin a new free from the fear and oppression of the RSE.
That being said you do make some valid points. Integration of Obisek and the Remans is a good idea and it definately strengthens both races to join forces to shape a better future. However I'm not so naive to think that the centuries of racism and predjudice will vanish overnight. No, the Romulan/Reman integration will need to be kept an eye on and handled in a fair manner when conflicts do arise. It has its problems but its far superior to the RSE way of trying to exterminate or re-enslave the Remans.
Finally as for that Tal Shiar woman who spoke to D'Tan, even the Klingon Empire has shown its capable of at least some diplomacy at times. I remain fairly confident that D'Tan could guarantee her safety during open negotiations. Whether those negotiations would go anywhere or not is something I can say. It depends on how much the Tal Shiar would have been able to compromise.
However yeah D'Tan was a fool to decline her offer outright and quoting Spock of all people given his own history. I did feel her offer was at least worth some cautious investigation and further talk to determine exactly how the arrangement would go down and what compromises the Tal Shiar/RSE would have been willing to make.
Again, almost all of these accomplishments you credit D'Tan with are direct results of the actions of Tovan's sidekick, aka your character. You also ignore that even in the lore, prior to Sela's Undine backed ascension, at least one Imperial did recognize the Remans and gave them a world. You also merrily ignore the entire incident with the Iconian gateway on Dewa III where, at D'Tan's command, Kererek rushed to activate an ancient piece of technology with a history of global destruction over the protests of his allies, his expert, and his chief engineer. Why? Because they were on a schedule.... lolwtf?! He couldn't handle the slight embarrassment of saying, "Sorry guys there are too many unanswered questions and concerns right now. We'll try again later." Nope we're gonna ignore all of that and plow ahead for glory hounding. Now how much D'Tan himself was in the loop on that is questionable, but he was SUPER eager to jump on the idea of reactivating that gate as soon as you find it.
Has D'Tan been totally incompetent? Nah. Has he proven he's some kinda badass political genius? NOPE. Has he freely admitted that the Republic wouldn't be there without your character's actions? Yep.
The Romulans as written by Duane, from whom Cryptic borrowed a lot of worldbuilding, care deeply about maintaining face, and you're supposed to be thinking of yourself first. Sure, he could've delayed things and probably should've, but he'd have lost face with his allies (in his mind). This is the inherent downside of civilian control of the military: sometimes the commander-in-chief makes decisions that make no military sense for political reasons. But compared to the alternative it's a net positive.
As for Kererek? Plot-armored Starfleet officers notwithstanding, when you serve in the military you are not allowed to disobey orders you merely DISAGREE with. That is actually a criminal act. The order has to be ILLEGAL before you can ignore it. If you are given an unwise but legal order, you voice your concerns to the superior giving the order, and if they won't change their minds you swallow your misgivings and follow the order as best as you possibly can.
And as for Khiana's safety concerns? Bull. The Klingons let the RSE send a delegation to the conference on Khitomer, a planet they've been fighting over for centuries. I find it hard to believe that the Federationcould possibly be less charitable. No, the reason that peace with the Tal Shiar won't happen is because they know there's no place for the Gestapo in the Federal Republic of Germany, which means they lose power. The Tal Shiar are trying to maintain a status quo that the Rihanh has abandoned because they don't want the glories of empire. They want decent treatment and enough to eat.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
But if the RSE asks nicely enough, they can have their captured Empress Sela back. We'd be willing to mail them a hundred small pieces of her one at a time.
Green Empire blood makes the red grass grow!
Who's talking about torture now:rolleyes:
In all seriousness, I doubt most people want to join the STO RSE as it is now.
Most people who want to join the RSE have been expressing their desire to have something more akin to the Romulans of TNG and DS9 fame, as opposed to the frothing lunatics they turned into in STO (particularly post LoR)
STO's Tal Shiar (they rarely even bother to call them the RSE in game post LoR) are godawful as antagnoists, and would be worse as protagonists, because at the end of the day they are fighting to be slaves to the folks who blew up their homeworld.
But the Republic autocorrects way too far in the opposite direction-they have almost nothing in common with the Romulans from the shows. The Bajoran resistance they are supposedly based off of was more morally grey and nuanced than the Republic has ever been. That says a lot, I think.
We don't need to become those nutters over in Hakeev's Tal Shiar Empire, and the Republic doesn't really suit Romulan sensibilities fro mwhat we have seen of them in the shows. What we need is a NEW Romulan Star Empire, that better reflects the attributes the possessed in their on-screen depictions.
The Republic is also not based on the Bajorans. The Remans are closer to that. Nevertheless, the Republic has its fair share of morally grey people. For example, Obisek, one of its top military commanders, and the de facto leader of the Reman people, was in all likelihood quite willing to run amuck with thalaron weapons to ensure that no one would enslave his people again. Were it not for D'Tan's efforts, there would be quite a few more planets like Delta Corvi. Then there is Khimek, from the Tal Shiar infiltration missions, who takes part in their operations in order to pass along information, and Subcommander Rai Sahen, whose reputation and unspecified activities put Tiaru Jarok's nose out of joint in the same way Starfleet officers act around Section 31.
The Romulan Republic is a perfectly acceptable Romulan state, run by Romulans, not Federation toadies, shrill denuciations from the peanut gallery aside. It's only problem (aside from not being an independant faction, which is a problem that's been talked to death elsewhere) is that it singularly fails to please the small subset of Romulan players whose desire is to play as "teh evul viluns" that they see in TNG, presumably out of a desire to feel naughty as they twirl an imaginary Snidley Whiplash mustache and slaughter the "rebel scum", dupe the hapless Feddies, and giggle in their kheh'irho about those stupid Klingons and their laughable concept of honor. Likely the same people who were thrilled when they played " No Russian"
As for novels...later novels retconned the Tal Shiar into existing far before TOS, again, that leaves the TOS Romulans as outliers.
And yes, From the mouth of Cryptic themselves The Republic was based off of the Bajoran resistance.
Romulans have some pretty heavy connotations when it comes to what players generally expect from them. When folks voted in that poll way back one and Romulans were the most-requested species, folks knew what they were voting for. Those folks (as far as they knew) were voting for TNG/DS9-style Romulans because those were the only kind in the game at that time. Pretending that only a small subset of players wanted to paly those sorts of Romulans is hilariously erroneous.
This could be taken as a good look at the playerbase's stand on the Romulan factions.
92 votes in a game of hundreds of thousands of players is hardly a representative sample. If it had a few thousand like in the Delta Quadrant Species poll it'd be usable.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
I wonder if Jeckle has ever heard of "Textual Criticism." For those who might care to learn something, Textual Criticism considers variant texts of old works, in the various forms of manuscript, be they printed books, scribbles on papyrus or parchment, imprints in clay tablets, painted hieroglyphs, carvings, or something else. One theory now discredited was the idea that one could simply count the number of texts with variation A and the number of those with variation B, and the number of those with variation C (etc), and then the variation found in the most texts would be considered correct. As I said, this tally theory is now discredited, in favor of a weight theory. The weight theory maintains that some texts "weigh" more than others (not in the literal sense of physical weight, but rather, in a figurative sense), due to their greater age or having been cited by authors who predate the texts with a different variant, etc. Essentially, some texts are considered weightier, or more authoritative, than others, for a number of possible reasons.
TOS is the first and original presentation of Romulans. There may be only two (3 if you count the one that features a Romulan ship but no actual Romulans) episodes in all of TOS which feature Romulans as Honorable Warriors, versus umpteen or somety TNG episodes which feature Romulans as goose-stepping police statists and/or saber-rattling milites gloriosi, but those TOS episodes are weightier by virtue of their being the presentation of the original ideal of Romulans. I suppose we could toss a couple of TAS episodes in there as well, since Roddenberry and/or CBS has declared them canonical, but four or five episodes would still not outnumber the total of episodes of TNG and later series which feature Romulans. Nevertheless, quality is of more importance than quantity, and weight matters more than a tally. The first two or three seasons of TNG were absolute dreck (for myriad reasons I won't go into here) with but few shining moments. Oh, sure, they had better special effects, but this is Star Trek, and not Star Wars. The STORY is what matters in Star Trek, not the flashing lights and explosions and prosthetics and makeup and CGI.
All this TRIBBLE about retconning is irrelevant, because the retconning does not explain why the Romulans in TOS were so different from the majority of presentations in later series, and, as many of us have demonstrated on more than one occasion across multiple threads since LoR went live, even the later series do not paint an entirely one-dimensional picture of Romulans. The ending of "The Chase," for example, hearkens back to the ending of "Balance of Terror." Both of those, as well as TEI, demonstrate rather clearly that claims that Romulans are war-mongering, paranoid, and xenophobic racists are nonsense. Only one particular example is necessary to disprove a universal assertion, and here we have three (and can add more to that as we have done in the past in this forum). To deny that some Romulans are warmongers and/or paranoid and/or xenophobic and/or racists would be no better, of course, but the point is that the Romulans of the New Republic do in fact represent Romulans as we have seen them presented in the shows -- just not the villains some of you Sith-lovers prefer.
And again, as for the small subset, Rose Tyler's poll is late and demonstrates only results from those who bother to frequent this forum anymore. Had it been taken around the time of the "Call to my Romulans brethren" thread, the results would have been even more overwhelming in demonstrating that the majority of people who read this forum at the time were most definitely supporters of the Republic, and not of the police state RSE of TNG and the later series. That thread itself ought to be instructive. I've asked the imperialists in several threads since then to go back and take a count of the numbers on each side, but they have steadfastly refused to do so, or pretended they had no idea what thread I was talking about, or simply continued to spew the Petitio Principii, Straw Man, abusive ad Hominem, incorrigible, and intransigent vomit they have spewed all over this forum to the point that most Romulan players don't care to bother with this forum any more. But even at this date, the pro-fascist RSE gang remain solidly in the minority when compared with those who support the Republic.
The RSE is dying. It has been since before STO went into Closed Beta, and so efforts of the disgruntled malcontents who plainly despise most everything Cryptic does to lay the blame at the feet of Cryptic are, frankly, absurd. The RSE is dying. Most of us do not want to play as RSE sycophantic toadies or unhinged sociopaths or cowed slaves. Perhaps those of you who do would find more pleasure in continuing your adventures in Sith territory and stop trying to ruin STO for those of us who are actually fans of Star Trek and Romulans, and not simply fans of sadistic halfwits who believe they have some maniacal imperative to compensate for their pusilla membra virilia by means of behaving like unthinking brutes who constantly try to kill the good guy and make off with the virtuous maiden, and are constantly foiled by virtue of their own incompetence. As someone said here recently, Sela is full of fail. But Sela is not the only one in the Star Empire who is so mind-numbingly inept; au contraire, this schlemiel routine has become the modus operandi of the RSE since long before STO (indeed, it can be seen quite clearly in the likes of Tomalak, bested over and over again by Jean-Luc Picard, and perhaps even once or twice by Glenn Quagmire ... err, I mean Will Riker).
Imperium mortuum est! Respublica vixerit!
Again, the RR wasn't designed to appeal to Romulan fans, Cryptic has said so much themselves. Show Romulans don't have a wide enough appeal apparently-so Cryptic decided to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Were the people who voted for the Republic voting for it because they liked the faction, or because they were Romulan fans and were pleased how they were depicted in the Republic? Because those are two different things. And of course, there's the issue of sample size, and the fact one could vote more than once What I'm saying is that the poll is essentially useless.
And of course, this doesn't change the fact that folks who voted in far greater numbers in the earlier poll for a new faction turned out in droves to vote for what they could only have expected to be a RSE faction.
As to Protogoth, RSE supporters aren't talking about absolutes, but trends in Romulan behavior. I myself have given many examples for more nuanced behavior for Romulans, such as Toreth etc. However, there are some pretty darn obvious trends across the numerous series. Despite your repeated insistence on painting all RSE supporters as folk who support the supernova and want to be Iconian slaves under Hakeev...nobody here is actually arguing for that generally people want something more nuanced...like what was on TNG/DS9...
Discounting all of those episodes because they don't meet your criteria for 'quality' (Romulans that meet your narrow view of proper Romulan behavior) is absurd. TNG kept Romulans alive in regards to Star Trek, instead of becoming some background species like the First Federation. Those 'Evil' Romulans kept them relevant, and popular. The TNG Romulan episodes are immensely important in regards to what I'd wager most fans think of when they think Romulans.
As for the thread that supposedly 'proves' that Pro-Republic posters are in the majority....as much as Protogoth loves to bring it up as proof and demands others to count the supposed overwhelming numbers of Republic supporters, she herself refuses to do so. No Protogoth, I'm not going to tally the number of supporters for both sides across 18 pages just so you can make some flippant remark on how it doesn't count or something.
And your caim "no place for the Gestapo in the Federal Republic of Germany" is also a tricky one, because at first the Federal Republic was (and I think that was GOOD that it was so, honestly) influenced in some aspects by the western allies which were at least in the start strong enemies of the leftover of the Thrid Reich (I do not want to know how a German state would have developed if the allied forces would left Germany right after 1945 - by the way even the allied operatives changed their attitude towards the criminals of the Third Reich soon enough, as they "needed" new allies against new enemies). But even THAN several members of the Gestapo, the SD and other similar branches with blood on their hands (men from inside the Third Reichs justice, members of the armed froces and so on) very well found a good place in the Federal Republic (and some also in the Democratic Republic) of Germany.
A former KGB-officer had today the support from much more than 50 percent of the Russian people (I guess) - that is also a fact you should think about.
tolmarius
I though Rhiannsu was never seen as canon? And I think about the Roms in TOS/original Enterpise films you could argue (as I had in the past). I would say they are mixed in their behavior. Sometimes "noble" but often as sneaky and brutal as later Roms (what not mean I think this should call "bad" - they do what they think serve the interests of the RSE).
I would not compare the RSE with the TRIBBLE. Why not with the Romans after the lost battles against Hannibal, ending with Cannae? They armed even slaves, punished deserters and traitors brutally, burried people alive to calm the gods - and fight on. They lost great parts of Italy, but in the end crushed their foe...;)
And I think you should think twice about your definition of the reasons why several people have not much love towards the Republic (I guess many players could lived with the Empire OR the Republic) and some even dislike it (I think it seems obvious that most people are neither strongly suporters of the Republic nor the Empire, they want to play, not think much about background - and that is ok). To discuss such things here is only the desire and plesure of a tiny minority, people from all three "factions" (pro Republic, pro Empire and pro everything - and of course the individual attitude differs also). But "we" all are only very few compared to the total numbers of Rom-player, I would say. And of course you could hardly look into the minds of people.
And the Tal Shiar most certainly did not enjoy the support of ordinary Romulans. The fear, absolutely -- recall the Romulan store clerk who thought the undercover Ent-D crew were Tal Shiar and was terrified of them. And the regular Romulan military hated them the way the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine hated the SS. Not the derision the CIA gets from US military personnel, underline, murderous hatred. In terms of actions the KGB/Gestapo comparisons are justified. (I'll admit there's little evidence of concentration camps, but the ENT Relaunch speaks of the RSE commiting genocide against the Haakonans with bioweapons.)
And oh, by the way? Vladimir Putin is an @sshole with good PR and a lousy human rights record. He enjoys a good popularity rating because he can work a crowd.
The Path to 2409 mentions Ael i'Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu and concepts such as mnhei'sahe and honor blades by name, and the LOR background material uses a lot of the background material from the series. So for STO's purposes they are partially canon.
I say partially because some parts of the books, such as the nature of the Remans/Havrannsu, were directly contradicted by later TV and film material. In the novels Remus is Class M and the Remans are Romulans of a different ethnicity, not a different species on a tidally locked barely habitable rock. And ENT and the ENT Relaunch completely jossed The Romulan Way's account of first contact with humanity and the Earth-Romulan War. On the other hand, the friendliness of Romulan Ambassador Caithlin Dar in Star Trek V could be interpreted as support for a more moderate Romulan government under Empress Ael.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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That being said, my character is a member of the true Tal Shiar, not the organization Hakeev has turned our agency into. He will take great pleasure in killing this menace to the organization he once was proud to serve under (then he'll take over as head of the Tal Shiar himself).
I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. - Edward Teller.
Caedicius: To be brutally honest. the RSE supporters here like to claim that those of us who like the Republic are trying to ignore everything about TNG Romulans. While I would agree that I rate ENT above TNG, I must disagree. What the Romulan government became is canon. We can no more wish away the corruption and fall to darkness of the RSE than the German people can simply wish away Hitler and the TRIBBLE, or the Russians can wish away Stalin and the Communists, or Americans can wish away slavery.
The Romulan Star Empire used to be more than just a fascist, militarist, police state. As Starsword pointed out, the Rihannsu series must be acknowledge as canon to some degree in STo, because they have had such an impacts, as evidenced by all the references to them in STO lore. They used to have honor. It was pointed out that the TOS ROmulans were sneaky. So what? Stealth is not a dishonorable tactic, unless you are the type who equates honor with strutting around in the open in bright colors so everyone can shoot at you. And I saw no behavior that could be described as brutal. And your assertation that those voting for Romulans as a faction clearly desired the TNG RSE is also inaccurate. Catoblepasbeta refuses protogoths invitations to tally her thread, but at the same timewe are expected to take you word for it that the overwhelming majority of people in the various polls and vote take your side?
P.S.: Caedicius, I would like to inform you, since you seem to have no clue, that when Rome fought Hannibal, and struggled back from the brink to ultimate victory, it was a REPUBLIC. Rome wasn't an empire until 189 years later, in 27 BC. Publius Cornelius Scipio, Fabius Maximus, and Gaius Claudius Nero served the Roman REPUBLIC, not the Roman Empire.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
furthermore, one of the worlds in the romulan sector is named after her
so the house is there, even if the history is different.
(ps.. most of my toons names come from those books, so lol)
that said, and not to get into politics, plenty of democracies, while feeling under threat, have had secret police forces.
MI5, CIA, etc...
and most of them have gone renegade at one time or the other.
Oh, I'm familiar. Point being, it sounds far more suitable for certain advocates of the Star Empire and/or the Tal'Shiar than STO is likely to ever be. Then again, sometimes I almost agree with the idea of a Dominion faction in STO (without playable Changelings) so that one type of Star Empire/Tal'Shiar supporter can go be a drug-addicted stormtrooper and another type can go be a simpering sycophant, and stop trashing up the Romulan Gameplay forum with Mein Kampf nonsense.
Although Jeckle doesn't seem to realize it, the Republic DOES appeal to Romulan fans. Maybe not the goose-stepping kind, but those of us who got our ideas of Romulans from TOS/TAS and the novels published between the end of TOS and the beginning of TNG (and some published during the life of TNG). We are hardly "the lowest common denominator." We hold true to the original presentation of Romulans as honorable warriors, of a kind with Humans, often savage, but also many other pleasant things.
And as for the thread I have repeatedly held up to Jeckle and asked him to take a count in, why should I be the one to count? He was the one who first made claims of superior numbers; the burden of proof is on him, not me. This tally is not a matter of textual criticism, but rather of numbers of persons on one side or another of this seemingly endless forum war. One side first trotted out the "there are more of us than there are of you" claim in a fallacious effort (Argumentum ad Populum) to justify their incessant whine about not being able to play sociopaths, sycophants, and/or unthinking brutes, even though they have been, since the inception of this forum, in a very clear minority in this forum, and even though Romulan ships in-game with an I.R.W. registry prefix have always been outnumbered by ships with an R.R.W. registry prefix (and are even more so now than they once were). When confronted with the bleak (bleak to them, anyway) reality of the situation, that side has simply pulled Petitio Principii again and again, until after the thread to which I have pointed repeatedly as demonstrating the falsehood of this claim. Thereafter, when that thread was pointed to, on multiple occasions, as evidence against their claim, they have stubbornly refused to even count the number of people posting on the two sides of the battle, seemingly fearful of having to face that "bleak" reality, rather like the brainwashed Charva engaging in doublethink when confronted by evidence she herself pulled from the database of her own faction. I should do the counting? Why? I was not the one who first claimed superior numbers. The burden of proof is on those who did, and not on me.
Weak? You should review the achievements of the New Republic, and the failures of the RSE/Tal'Shiar. Pretenders to what throne? The Republic has no throne. Before you can even aim your pistol at D'Tan, the Tal'Diann will have you in restraints. And oh, look: "No True Scotsman." How quaint. Oh, but it doesn't stop there, no! Ambition from the incompetent, so characteristic of the RSE in the years since Hiren made himself Praetor of the RSE through assassination.
MI5 and the CIA are not "secret police forces." They are international intelligence agencies. The Tal'Shiar has been an interstellar intelligence agency as well as a secret police force. While some historical and current secret police forces also function as intelligence agencies, the distinction is one of methodology and goals. In short, an intelligence agency gathers information, analyzes that information in order to glean intelligence, directs that intelligence to the appropriate target audience, and packages that intelligence for its directed audience. They may also engage in sabotage as well as other clandestine operations (sometimes these clandestine operations go too far towards secret police methods and/or intentions, but they are nevertheless restrained by legal authorities). A secret police force, on the other hand, will act to protect the political power of an individual dictator and/or an authoritarian (autocracy) political regime, and suppress political dissent through clandestine acts of terror and intimidation (such as kidnapping, coercive interrogation, torture, internal exile, forced disappearance, and assassination) targeted against political enemies of the ruling authority, and often go beyond the law in these practices, with little or no official oversight.
Current Secret Police Organizations
Historical Secret Police Organizations
You'll note that neither MI5 (nor MI6, which is closer to what the CIA is) nor the CIA is listed in either of these, because their primary role is concerned with Intelligence, and not with maintaining the power of a particular leader or regime. Now, the Department of Homeland Security might deserve a place on the list of current secret police organizations, and the CIA and NSA have apparently engaged in some of these heinous practices under the previous administration, and MI5 certainly has been shown to have colluded with certain ... groups in Northern Ireland in an effort to suppress dissent and shore up Loyalism and Unionism, but going into contemporary political discussions in this forum should be (if it be not already) disallowed by the Terms of Service, so I'm going to let these go with only what I've just said and will refuse to discuss them further. Ignoring these things I will not do, nor engage in the fallacy of Provincialism, but I'm also not going to argue or debate these matters here. Other fora exist elsewhere for such discussions.
And you've just proved you are not worth listening too ever. Evil is indeed subjective and is a product of society and religion, when talking about an entirely different species this is even more true. They do not think the same way about a given event or action. But keep living in that tiny little bubble and believing childish concepts
Frankly it IS more suitable than STO is atm, and that is just sad. Unfortunately the only way that will ever change is for people to yell about it and loudly. Since I've not read more than 20 or so pages of mein kampf I can't really comment on your joke there but it did cause me to loose even more respect for ya.
Not everything is opinion, and not everything is a social construct.
My use of modifiers like "one type of" and "certain" there, and my several references to your own person as distinct from others advocating for the RSE and/ore Tal'Shiar ought to be sufficient to indicate that I was excluding you from the Mein Kampf crowd. But if you wish to take that label upon yourself, feel free. It will at least allow you to hop in the clown car with those I actually intended and play the "victim" game.
As for yelling loudly about the situation in an effort to encourage change, that is the primary reason I continue to stand against those doing so. The loudest voices in this forum, redundant and fighting a rereward battle, are clearly the minority of active people in this forum; they should not be permitted to agitate without opposition in their efforts to ruin the Romulan faction for the rest of us.
Please do not mention that abomination...
But I agree with pretty much all of what you said.
I think that a very important thing that needs to be mentioned here is that Romulans are still technically the same species as Vulcans. Different subspecies, sure, but fertile hybrids (T'pol, for example) are commonplace and the two species are almost indistinguishable save for Vulcan touch telepathy and culture. This means that Rihannsu, on average, are MUCH more emotional than Humans; part of the reason Vulcans are so absurdly focused on reason and logic is that if they ever let themselves go their society would tear itself apart in days. Romulan experiences and implied genetic fiddling during the Vulcan diaspora probably mitigated at least some of this, but...the average Romulan is a fiery, passionate person by Human standards.
This leaves massive psychological weaknesses, at least from a Human POV; to blatantly reference my own work, D'trel is only slightly more emotional than the Rihan average, and she's held a grudge for decades that hasn't faltered one bit; in fact, during the stories that I've written it actually got worse before it got better.
Like the Vulcan emphasis on logic, mnhei'sahe is there as a social failsafe so that one accidental insult doesn't result in riots destroying a city, a very real possibility given Vulcanoid neurobiology.
It's important to remember that these people are not human. They are not Space Elves. They are a culture that was founded in massive emotional pain and rage, tempered by a harsh journey, and left to stew for centuries in a pit of revenge.
And that's just the Romulans. No wonder Obisek's so badass, he's got even more reason than the Romulans to be angry.
In fact, given the neurobiology of Vulcanoids and the experiences of Romulan and Reman culture, I can completely understand why Obisek is using doomsday weapons, although I can't condone it.
In the midst of all this, you have people like my character: a career Imperial along the lines of Gilad Pellaeon. While he does not agree with many of the old Empire's methods, he feels that it was the best hope for order and peace. It was brutal, at times excessively so, but no one ever went without the necessities of life. The people were kept safe and secure from threats. While the Tal Shiar was hated (like Imperial Intelligence) by the military, he has been personally involved in exposing those who abuse their power. He does not agree with the ideals of the Republic: too often he has seen the fall of democracies and republics from within (due to corruption) and without (the military is not able to be mobilized quickly enough to fight against the threat, and it overwhelms them). The ideals, and thus the battlefield for him, between the Republic and Empire is an ideological one.
While he is against the Republic, he also sees that the Empire he knew is gone. The people who were once secure under the government are now abducted and experimented on. The very threats that would have been crushed by the old Empire are now its allies. He sees his world, everything that he has fought so long and hard for, crumbling around him, and he is helpless to stop it. He now opposes the current Tal Shiar regime because of the organization they have become since the loss of his homeworld.And yet, despite all of that he is STILL loyal the Empire, because it is all he has left. Even now, he clings to belief in the Empire, though he is starting to see the writing on the wall.