Romulan Question

renata666

So, are Tovan and the MC military trained characters or what? I've been trying to figure that out. Since the Hobus incident happens 22 years before the attack on Virinat, and the characters (Tovan and the "Virinat survivor") are likely in their early to mid 20's, there's no way they could have gained a military education at a Romulan academy. So, were they taught by D'Vex before the attack, or what?

Anyone have an opinion?

spiritborn

Assuming romulans age the same rate as Vulcans they could both easily be in their 80s or 90s and look like humans in their 20s or 30s, T'Pol was in her 90s during ENT but actress was in her late 20s and early 30s.

Edit:Thus they would have gotten their education pre-Hobus

leemwatson

The Hobus Incident didn't kill off the 'military' either. Even if Tovan was born on Virinat, he would still have had training, especially as the settlement was plagued by bugs, possible mercinaries etc. This is also evident on the fact his uncle had an out-dated ship in orbit that Tovan had operational knowledge of.

renata666

I also just remembered that Tovan makes a comment that D'vex had showed him how to fly it. While I know the Romulan military was not destroyed, I'm just saying their education center likely was. How much of it was rebuilt during the ensuing 22 years is another question. I have no doubt that the characters would have some training. I'm just uncertain as to how formal it was.

Also, I feel like we're not given enough background info on the characters and the state of their civilization. Certain assumptions have to be made, I suppose.

leemwatson

renata666 wrote: »

I also just remembered that Tovan makes a comment that D'vex had showed him how to fly it. While I know the Romulan military was not destroyed, I'm just saying their education center likely was. How much of it was rebuilt during the ensuing 22 years is another question. I have no doubt that the characters would have some training. I'm just uncertain as to how formal it was.

Also, I feel like we're not given enough background info on the characters and the state of their civilization. Certain assumptions have to be made, I suppose.

Considering the lack of outside (canon) knowledge of Romulans, it would be impractical to assume alot background information. We know the Elite and Military are highly suspicious of outsiders and it's intel-service is extremely xenophobic. There is so little knowledge of the general public and their attitudes outside of the couple or so episodes where Romulas was actually on-screen. Cryptc could write in one direction only for CBS to say 'that's wrong'. ALL secondary characters that are attached to us in our respective tutorials have little in a way of a backstory, so it's not like it's 'out of character' for this to happen.

As of ST:Picard, you can easily assume that their education and military programs continued to exist and were not destroyed. You could easily assume that, prior to Picard, considering the Tal-Shiar continued almost as is, and the remaining Romulan ships and Colonies that survived, that it was highly unlikely that their training and education facilities to exised solely on Romulus and Remus.

As for Tovan, you can only assume his backstory from the information he gives. Basically, his Uncle trained him.

mez83

If you talk to the storyteller she'll ask you how you came to Virinat. At that point you have multiple options to choose from, one of which is that you served under the colony's leader.

Your player character's background and "training" are up to you and your imagination IMO. As for Tovan, I got the impression that he served on some merchant vessel(s) before settling on Virinat.

paradox

Maybe Romulans trains child soldiers, I know my virinat survivor Colius was trained at an early age by his Tal Shiar parents on Romulus who mysteriously disappeared one day when they went off to investegate reports of borg activity, he later joined the Malem's crew while being an orphaned teenager, Virinat was attacked the same day Colius was trying to enlist with the Tal Shiar however things didn't work as planned and he ended up joining the republic instead, he still hasn't found his missing parents who may already be assimilated.

foxrockssocks

Given the exceptional nature of our characters in the story, I'd say we are just geniuses and can learn easily on our own. You don't need military training to build up skills to function in one. Of course its also reasonable to assume Romulans live a particularly long life and could be well experienced before the disaster.

Always remember, the body of knowledge we have was first learned by one or a few people learning on their own. Some of that knowledge also went directly against what was being taught/popular/official at the time and received censorship, punishment, or other pushback, and that continues to this day.

jonsills

You're given a minimal amount of background on Tovan, mostly that he works in the shipyard and that D'vex showed him how to fly the ship and work with the weapon systems. Hiven is a scientist living on Gasko Station with his brother, the Reman girl whose name escapes me has experience with both modern ship engineering and Obisek's separatist movement, and I don't recall who if anyone you pick up like that along the way to level 10.

As for your character, both age and background are completely up to you; Nniol tr'Keiniadh, for example, had once been a sublieutenant serving on the same ship where Commander Hakeev was the political officer. He stumbled upon some strange transmissions coming from Hakeev's quarters that weren't directed into Romulan space at all, turned his information over to the captain like a good junior officer, and started watching his command die one at a time due to odd "accidents". It wasn't until he made contact with a senator during leave, saw the senator assassinated, then narrowly avoided being killed by a falling transport (a mysteriously failed antigrav lift) that he put all the clues together and fled Romulan space. He started taking jobs where he could find them, then started seriously drinking after Hobus. It was about twenty years later that D'vex ran across him at Drozana, broke, between jobs, and down to swilling bloodwine. D'vex cleaned him up and convinced him to come to Virinat, where his talents as a jack-of-all-trades would come in handy. Needless to say, when Colonel Hakeev showed up during the attack, Nniol took it rather personally...

paradox

jonsills wrote: »

You're given a minimal amount of background on Tovan, mostly that he works in the shipyard and that D'vex showed him how to fly the ship and work with the weapon systems. Hiven is a scientist living on Gasko Station with his brother, the Reman girl whose name escapes me has experience with both modern ship engineering and Obisek's separatist movement, and I don't recall who if anyone you pick up like that along the way to level 10.

As for your character, both age and background are completely up to you; Nniol tr'Keiniadh, for example, had once been a sublieutenant serving on the same ship where Commander Hakeev was the political officer. He stumbled upon some strange transmissions coming from Hakeev's quarters that weren't directed into Romulan space at all, turned his information over to the captain like a good junior officer, and started watching his command die one at a time due to odd "accidents". It wasn't until he made contact with a senator during leave, saw the senator assassinated, then narrowly avoided being killed by a falling transport (a mysteriously failed antigrav lift) that he put all the clues together and fled Romulan space. He started taking jobs where he could find them, then started seriously drinking after Hobus. It was about twenty years later that D'vex ran across him at Drozana, broke, between jobs, and down to swilling bloodwine. D'vex cleaned him up and convinced him to come to Virinat, where his talents as a jack-of-all-trades would come in handy. Needless to say, when Colonel Hakeev showed up during the attack, Nniol took it rather personally...

that's a good backstory.

mez83

Saria Lova doesn't have any formal training. She was the child of unificationists who managed to get her on an evacuation ship off Romulus before it was destroyed. Being left orphaned and alone Saria learned how to be resourceful getting by with petty theft and odd jobs before she was recruited by D'Vex.

garaffe

I like the fact that there is not much canon knowledge of what was going on in Romulan space after the destruction of the homeworlds. It gives the player the liberty to make up pretty much any back story for their character that they can imagine. My main character is a Reman former slave who led a Reman rebellion at a top secret Tal Shiar shipyard and stole an experimental ship and left in search of Obisek's rebellion. He ends up on Virinat when he is caught and his ship recaptured by Tal Shiar forces, barely escaping in a cloaked shuttle to Virinat.

phoenixc

Despite being settled for a while Virinat is still largely wild with huge, often hostile bugs and almost certainly other dangerous things so the people would be hardy frontier types for the most part. Notice there is a weapons training area right in town and early on, before the festival most people go armed. And notice how the attack was timed to happen during that festival were people would likely be in party clothes instead of everyday wear complete with holstered weapons.

Also there are hints of an informal academy of sorts at the spaceport training people with skills needed for servicing and crewing ships, and it seems the frontier attitude extends even there since that training apparently includes how to fight with those ships (probably with the intention of self-defense against pirates or whatever, but fighting is fighting either way).

Frontier areas, like for instance the colonial US back in the 1700s, often do not have standing professional armed forces or large police forces and rely on militias and posses made up of hunters, trappers, explorers and others who are handy with a weapon and other frontier skills, and with the RSE collapsing Virinat was in the same situation as an independent colony.

Tovan is one of the better generalists with both good ground and space skills (the only VR quality boff you start out with), his friendship with some of the warbird's crew and (considering his sister went to work on a tramp freighter) probable involvement with the informal academy making him well suited to be the player character's first officer. Notice he comes with the skill to goose a torpedo to its highest yield right from the start so he has some military style ship training even if it is all simulated before the invasion (though it might even be a bit more than just simulated).

One of my newer Romulan science characters is Llaiir ir-Aihai t'Llweii, a Virinat native who's ship is an Elachi walker she and a few friends captured by transporting into it from the old decrepit starport transporter with farm chemical anti-mold canisters while it had its shields down to transport victims to collection cells.

She got the idea from analyzing the drones found in the cave and realizing the spores must be thick in the atmosphere it was assembled in and probably important to the makers of the drones. Luckily the vapor did not reach into the sealed engine components of the ship because by the time they defeated the last of the Elachi crew and freed the prisoners the colony was lost, the evacuation ships gone, and they had to fly the Qulash out and follow the other survivors to the flotilla.