All these issues are why Cryptic went to the Star Trek novels to work on the Romulans, as the series presented contradictory views, the entire "where did the Remans come from" issue that Nemesis added, and the derth of information on the Romulan culture outside of some brief words by the Romulan Commander in "The Enterprise Incident" and some scenes in "Unification".
The two book series they settled on were Diana Duane's Rihannsu series, the Sherman and Shwartz's Vulcan's Soul series. The reasons for this are miriad. The Rihannsu series was historically very popular among Trekkies though dated due to Nemesis, and the Vulcan's Soul series actually built off the Rihannsu series to bring it into line with modern Trek canon (including the Remans). Both explore the good and bad of Romulan culture, its origins and motivations, and neither shy away from the good or ill.
Moreover, Vulcan's Soul proposes a legitimate reason for why Remans, though a Vulcan offshoot just like the Romulans, are so different. In this case it was a combination of radiation from the elements on the planet Remus, AND an encounter with a mutagenic lifeform on Remus that resulted in rapidly changing the Remans from their original stock to something more... adapted... to living on Remus.
The novels don't really offer an explanation for the ridges though. In fact, both series treat Vulcans and Romulans are visually difficult to tell apart (a major character in Vulcan's Soul is a Romulan expatriate who lives on Vulcan and unless told or his fa
Yeah, I always thought it would have been funny if Dorn was ridgeless in that episode. Don't get me wrong, the 'We do not discuss it with outsiders' line was funny, but it opened up the door to the rather unfortunate Enterprise explanation.
I think the problem here is although Cryptic does a good job of placating fans of TOS and Rihannsu Romulans, it really doesn't do much at all to please fans of the TNG-era Romulans, which proportionately got a lot more exposure. The whiplash is made worse by the fact that until Legacy of Romulus, all the Romulans seemed to be heavily influenced by the TNG-era Romulans. I hate to sound like a Defari, but there just isn't any balance in how they are treated right now.
For an in-universe explanation of the forehead ridges, I think I would prefer the idea that they are the result of ritual scarification (one of several possible explanations found at Memory Alpha). This would allow both "ridged" and "ridgeless" Rihannsu to both be acceptable -- and it doesn't turn the idea of evolution on its head. From the end of TOS (2269) to the beginning of TNG (2364) is only 95 years. Yeah, I know ENT had ridged Romulans and was set earlier than TOS, but I also know that ENT played havoc with continuity in a way that was astoundingly careless, and the only way I can make any sense of these continuity issues between ENT and ... EVERY OTHER TREK SERIES ... is to resort to TCW over and over again. Point being, 95 years or even 2000 years, is insufficient time for a species to change so much without major exposure to mutagens (sorry, but diet and environment alone aren't going to do this in 2000 years, especially not with a species which lives as long as Vulcans, Romulans, and Remans -- average Vulcan lifespan being ~200 years, and average Romulan lifespan being ~250 years [no information on average Reman lifespan]).
Yes, I know the Mintakans had ridges, too -- which, frankly, would mean that they would have had to be exposed to an identical (or very nearly identical) diet, environment, and/or mutagen, and that seems rather unlikely, OR that all Vulcanoids species have members who have ridges (and while that's certainly not impossible or illogical, we have never seen an actual Vulcan with such ridges). Appealing to the ridges of the Mintakans is a red herring. The Mintakans were from Mintaka-III, the third planet in the Mintaka star system. Mintaka is one of the three stars in "Orion's Belt." They are not likely to be descendants of the proto-Romulan/Reman people, and are themselves referred to as "proto-Vulcan humanoids." Now this prefix proto- is an interesting one, because it means "first" (etymologically), and is used in Linguistics and both Cultural and Physical Anthropology to refer to what is best described as an ancestor or forerunner. If the Mintakans are "proto-Vulcan humanoids," then in this context it is almost certainly intended to suggest that their physiology is less "evolved" than that of Vulcans, that they are more closely related to the ancestors of both Vulcans and Romulans/Remans than they are to either of those people as they were in the 2300s. The implication is that whoever referred to ridged Romulans looking like some kind of "cavemen" would not be entirely out of line. But ...
The challenges here are not simple ones, and in this case, William of Ockham is willing to give a hand with the shaving away of elaborate speculation which is not supported by any canonical information. In other words, the less convoluted explanation is likely to be the closest to correct. Ritual scarification has been practiced by many cultures in Earth's history at one point in time or another. It doesn't require diet, physical environment, or any type of mutagen. It does not require an absurd misunderstanding of evolution. Furthermore, ritual scarification has, in Earth history, been most common among "primitive" cultures, so forehead ridges being common if not universal among the Mintakans would not be inconsistent with the theory that the ridges on Romulan foreheads are the result of such a practice. The practice could quite easily be considered to be one which was once more common on Vulcan, before S'Task and Tellus and their people left, and while the Vulcans eventually stopped practicing ritual scarification, it would not be inconsistent to think that it continued among those who left Vulcan and eventually became the Romulans and Remans, all the more so since Tellus and S'Task and their followers left Vulcan in order to remain true to the Old Ways ... And finally, such a practice may wax and wane in popularity, it might be more popular in certain socio-economic classes than others, it might be more popular among certain sects (Rihannsu have more than one religion, some following "the Elements," some following a Mother Goddess [these being known as "the Mother's Weavers"], and some following the old pre-Surakian deities of Vulcan -- and there could be more than these three religions among the Rihannsu), it might even be a political statement. In any case, it is something which must be done in order to have the effect of producing forehead ridges, and therefore those who do not have the ridges would not be anomalous any more than those who do.
I don't know why people make such a fuss with Romulan ridges, when Klingons went through a similar process. And it wasn't until Enterprise we had an explanation. An explanation we had to wait until STO (which is not technically speaking canon, if CBS make a show, they may retcon everything STO have done) to complete.
At least there is a more or less official explanation for the Romulan : not all of them have ridges. It's luck if we didn't saw any Romulan with ridges before TNG
I don't know why people make such a fuss with Romulan ridges, when Klingons went through a similar process. And it wasn't until Enterprise we had an explanation. An explanation we had to wait until STO (which is not technically speaking canon, if CBS make a show, they may retcon everything STO have done) to complete.
At least there is a more or less official explanation for the Romulan : not all of them have ridges. It's luck if we didn't saw any Romulan with ridges before TNG
I'll give you my reasons for making a fuss about the forehead ridges on Romulans:
1. Romulans and Vulcans are the same species; we have never see a Vulcan with ridges, nor has there ever been any mention of Vulcans with ridges.
2. The ancestors of the Romulans left Vulcan about 2000 years before 2409; this is insufficient time for diet or environment to cause a change so dramatic, speaking from an evolutionary perspective.
3. Forehead ridges make Romulans look like they have either devolved, been subjected to some sort of trauma, or have brain damage. They look ... mentally stunted with forehead ridges. This is not the case with the Klingon forehead ridges; they do not convey this sense of something being wrong with the Klingons the way Romulan forehead ridges convey a sense that something is wrong with the Romulans who have them.
4. I find Romulan forehead ridges extremely aesthetically displeasing, with rare exceptions (Donatra is the only example I can think of off the top of my head). If that's not plain enough, then I'll put it this way: Most Romulans with forehead ridges are frikkin ugly (and might not be ugly without the forehead ridges).
5. Even the people who were involved in making TNG and promoted the ridges at first later decided they were a mistake and should never have been added. You may want a source for this. It's on Memory Alpha somewhere (probably in the article on Romulans).
I think most of the differences can be explained away by one or more of the following:
Genetic Engineering
Mutations of unknown cause (augment virus?)
Hybridization: (Vulcan/Romulan hybrids seem to take after the Vulcan parent)
Helmets: (most TOS Romulans wear helmets that obscure their foreheads-they could have ridges)
Phenotype: Humans come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Some have fair skin, others dark skin. Among many groups epicanthic folds are common, but many lack this. Forehead ridges could just be the expression of a recessive gene.
Retcon: The 'real' reason-Romulans always had ridges, you just have to imagine them on the TOS romulans.
I for one do not mind the ridges. I don't think they are particularly ugly, and I think they are rather iconic to the species by this point. And I don't think they look like brain damaged or cavemen-esque at all.
In other words, the less convoluted explanation is likely to be the closest to correct. Ritual scarification has been practiced by many cultures in Earth's history at one point in time or another. It doesn't require diet, physical environment, or any type of mutagen. It does not require an absurd misunderstanding of evolution.
I don't like the 'feel' of this answer but I will concede it is the most *cough*logical
I for one do not mind the ridges. I don't think they are particularly ugly, and I think they are rather iconic to the species by this point. And I don't think they look like brain damaged or cavemen-esque at all.
^this
Of course we're all guilty of trying to apply reason and sense to a franchise that has a history of changing its own 'canon' every other week.
2. The ancestors of the Romulans left Vulcan about 2000 years before 2409; this is insufficient time for diet or environment to cause a change so dramatic, speaking from an evolutionary perspective.
And yet it's enough for human to show distinctive traits. Black people, Inuits with very small eyes (because of the sun reverberating on the snow)... Yet we are all the same species, but the differences between an Inuit and a Masai are really important. And that's only the visible changes. Some Mexican Indian tribes have a lot of obesity problems because their ancestors used to eat a lot less and suffer from malnutrition. Now that they are exposed to rich food, their organism "stockpile".
So yeah, ridges are not far. Also, differences between 2 planets are a lot more than between countries in our world. Different sun, gravity, atmosphere,...
Why can't we just live with the fact back in the 60s, they didn't have the budget for ridges that the movies and later TNG got. Plus technology had come a long way from 1960s to 1990s in makeup.
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Why can't we just live with the fact back in the 60s, they didn't have the budget for ridges that the movies and later TNG got. Plus technology had come a long way from 1960s to 1990s in makeup.
Because, as I pointed out, that's not the real explanation. Ridgeless Romulans appeared throughout the TMP movies, the last one appearing two years after the ridges debuted on TNG.
And again: they are supposed to look exactly like Vulcans. That was the entire point. They didn't give Vulcans ridges, so they shouldn't have given them to Romulans.
Yeah, the TOS Romulan actors so often wore helmets because they didn't have the budget to have prosthetic ears for all of them I think that says a lot about what they were capable of monetarily back in TOS. As soon as a budget appeared, we started more complicated and better quality uniforms, makeup, ships etc.
Why can't we just live with the fact back in the 60s, they didn't have the budget for ridges that the movies and later TNG got. Plus technology had come a long way from 1960s to 1990s in makeup.
Why can't we just live with the fact back in the 60's the Klingons were supposed to have ridges? Ask Behr, Beimler and Wolfe.
"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"
Nero came from the Prime universe and none of his crew has ridges, and that is the last canon so I guess they've been retconned out of existence. Deal with it. :P
JJ verse Gorn are extradimensional veloceraptors, so I'd take anything from JJ verse with a grain of salt in regards to TOS or TNG canon.
Nero came from the TNG universe, so that part is TNG canon.
I copy/pasted a bunch of stuff from the wiki page, but it was too much to analyze in one post. Let's just say that Romulans have always been popular with the fans, and unpopular with the writers, and I with the lack of ridges in ST10 was entirely intentional.
After seeing a few players around here I'm willing to toss a yes towards playable Romulan Star Navy. While I still look at them as the fossils that they are, they do wish to save Romulan lives and that is a noble cause no matter what you call yourself or what you call the Republic.
As for playable Tal'Shiar, yes too. As long as we get to fight them every step they take ingame, get to board their ships so they can't hide from justice there, and drag them out of sector space to make them pay.
While some people may have helped show the RSE in a better light the Tal'Shiar are evil.
Not Federation evil. the more classic version
Not Klingon evil. Being a dishonorable peta'Q
The Tal'Shiar are both of these evils and more. I understand those who wish to stay true to their own ideals of what it means to be Romulan but the Tal'Shiar do not share those same ideals. The name Tal'Shiar is a word best forgotten, burned away like the home we lost.
Nero and those Romulans aren't from the JJ Verse, they're from the Prime universe... so... your point?
It's a JJ Abrams movie. It has very little to do with any of the preceding series canon-wise. And I'd include the Romulans in that. In case you didn't notice, TOS Romulans are not Tattooed emo biker skinheads either. So I'd definitely be hesitatnt to say they are the second coming of the TOS Romulans.
Why can't we just live with the fact back in the 60's the Klingons were supposed to have ridges? Ask Behr, Beimler and Wolfe.
sure they were. but budget and tech of the day, just didn't allow for it.
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I do believe that many Tal Shiar members serve the Empire in the best way they could. Yes, the TS often acted repressive etc. - but has the (Klingon) Imperial Secret Service a better agenda? There may be still several of them which could be a part of a new Empire (by the way - I guess I am not the only one who let the Tal Shiar Crew go away with Borg technology in the Undine-story, and fought to protect their retreat). I fully agree with the players who want the Romulans more like the Empire of old days than half-Federation-style goodies or people who need protection from the KDF and Star Fleet. Res Publica in the way of the Roman Republic between the wars against Karthago and during the time until the days of Ceasar would fit much better than a democracy Federation-type the imagination I have from a Romulan Republic. A society in which military service and political power are mixed, in which a Republic is able and willing to protect it's interests by force, and sometimes even in a brutal way. And before reunification with the Vulcans could be discussed, I think the Romulan (and Reman?) people should be re-unified under the Raptor's Wings.:D
It's a JJ Abrams movie. It has very little to do with any of the preceding series canon-wise. And I'd include the Romulans in that. In case you didn't notice, TOS Romulans are not Tattooed emo biker skinheads either. So I'd definitely be hesitatnt to say they are the second coming of the TOS Romulans.
In all honesty - this! And I'm not a J.J. "hater" and I found the movies entertaining, for an action blockbuster flick.
But yeah, ridgeless tatooed Romulans, Blingons, Godzilla Gorn, furless Caitians......you can't take what J.J. did on screen for his movies seriously for the rest of the Star Trek franchise. It sometimes seems like he was hell bent on changing everything previously known so he can leave his mark on it, which to me seems like a petty and spitefull thing to do.
So while makeup techology progression can be attributed to the changes species like the Romulans and Klingons went through from TOS to the rest of the franchise, you can't really attribute J.J.'s personal vision of what is suposed to be Star Trek in his own eyes as something relevant for the rest of the franchise and where STO is at.
misterde3: I do not know that they were SO good in hiding their traces... *g*
But honestly - af fas as I know the Klingon Empire has its own secret service, the Klingon Intelligence. You only had to look after the assignment You could take for them - assassinations, torture, sabotage etc. Do not sound after clean hands, if You ask me. Don't understand me wrong I have no problems with that (when playing a klingon or a romulan klingon), but it is hard to believe that the TS is in any case so much worse...
There's Klingon intelligence? Never noticed that. /oldjokeisold
Yeah TNG pretty much messed over several major species. The Klingons were turned from unpredictable, sneaky, and mysterious villains into one-note green warrior people. The Romulans were turned from honorable and semi-misunderstood cousins to the Vulcans to one-note green spy people. And just to top it off, they added some one-note green Communist people into the mix. Although to TNG's credit, the Borg color scheme wasn't originally all that green. That came later.
...So...why was TNG so infatuated with the color green? It would be one thing if they made the Romulans green, since that fits with Vulcan blood, and the Romulans didn't have much of a consistent color scheme. But making both of the major foreign factions green? Especially when the Klingons already had a rather compelling visual pattern, with their grey ships, gold outfits, and red highlights/weapons signatures? (Granted I don't think we ever really saw Klingon weapons properly used on-screen that were red, but I've gotten the impression that that was the idea.) I don't get it.
Oh and as for the actual topic. ...Nope. We already have a playable RSE faction. Or rather, the current incarnation of the RSE. It's the Romulan faction. It doesn't matter that they call themselves the Republic. They're still Romulans. The fact that there are still a few hundred Tal Shiar puppets tooling around calling themselves the Empire doesn't make the RR any less the proper and legitimate Romulan nation.
Oh and as for a comment a while back, about how this is the "Romulan" forum, not the "Romulan Republic" forum? I'm not even sure how to respond to that. I mean...what? It's the forum for the Romulan faction. Which is the Romulan Republic. There are no Tal Shiar players, because you can't play as the Tal Shiar. Except by RPing, which still doesn't, in official terms, make you anything other than a RR player.
And also: Section 31 is not the Tal Shiar. 31 is pretty shady, but not that shady. They're extremists, not villains.
I understand those who wish to stay true to their own ideals of what it means to be Romulan but the Tal'Shiar do not share those same ideals. The name Tal'Shiar is a word best forgotten, burned away like the home we lost.
Those who forget the past, or erase it, are doomed to repeat it. No the Tal Shiar should NOT be forgotten it should be used as a shining example of what to NOT be for the next thousand years.
I'll admit it, I want my character to be Tal Shiar. I see them as somewhat the equivalent to Starfleet's Section 31 and Id love to see a playable storyline arc focusing on playing the other side of the Romulan resistance. Any other Rommies out there feel the same? Enough to make Cryptic take the idea seriously?
Secondly, my Rom tac has a Scimitar and I have a question can I make the wings extend? Ive seen this in other scims and I am I missing something or ?
My Romulan characters are Tal Shiar. If they work for the Republic, it's in an assistance capacity as a double-agent. If they work for Starfleet, it's because Starfleet is far more gullible and naive to believe I've turned away from the Romulan Star Empire's allegiance -- as opposed to the KDF who are generally always pretty leery.
If I climb the ranks and work with the traitorous D'Tan, it's because it is the means to an end. I take advantage of that naivety for my own personal gain, little else.
Should there be more Tal Shiar type missions? Sure. I'd like to see Cryptic focus away from the truly alien (like the Voth or Elachi) and refocus back onto the 'known' species and factions and the turmoil within.
Other than that, the best you can hope for is a well-written Foundry mission for Tal Shiar-type Romulans.
I wanted an evil romulan when I first started STO. And despite this 'heroic' Romulan Republic, I am making the best of it as I can with a fair compromise. I like villains. They're far more intriguing to me, and give me far more freedom.
Tl;dr: Nothing is stopping you from embracing your inner Tal Shiar, take this motto to heart, just as I did, "I work with you now, to use and destroy you later."
It's already STO canon that the Tal Shiar have infiltrated the Romulan Republic -- so nothing stops you from being one of said infiltrators.
sure they were. but budget and tech of the day, just didn't allow for it.
That noise you just heard was the sound of the point going clear over your head. Behr, Beimler, and Wolfe were the scriptwriters for "Trials and Tribble-ations".
"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"
...So...why was TNG so infatuated with the color green? It would be one thing if they made the Romulans green, since that fits with Vulcan blood, and the Romulans didn't have much of a consistent color scheme. But making both of the major foreign factions green? Especially when the Klingons already had a rather compelling visual pattern, with their grey ships, gold outfits, and red highlights/weapons signatures? (Granted I don't think we ever really saw Klingon weapons properly used on-screen that were red, but I've gotten the impression that that was the idea.) I don't get it.
That was becuase of Star Trek 3, much like the honor thing Klingons started getting green ships becuase the Romulans were supposed to be the villains in Search for Spock.
That noise you just heard was the sound of the point going clear over your head. Behr, Beimler, and Wolfe were the scriptwriters for "Trials and Tribble-ations".
Plus wasn't the whole reason the Klingons exist the fact that their make-up at the time was cheaper then making Spock ears for guest stars?
Comments
The two book series they settled on were Diana Duane's Rihannsu series, the Sherman and Shwartz's Vulcan's Soul series. The reasons for this are miriad. The Rihannsu series was historically very popular among Trekkies though dated due to Nemesis, and the Vulcan's Soul series actually built off the Rihannsu series to bring it into line with modern Trek canon (including the Remans). Both explore the good and bad of Romulan culture, its origins and motivations, and neither shy away from the good or ill.
Moreover, Vulcan's Soul proposes a legitimate reason for why Remans, though a Vulcan offshoot just like the Romulans, are so different. In this case it was a combination of radiation from the elements on the planet Remus, AND an encounter with a mutagenic lifeform on Remus that resulted in rapidly changing the Remans from their original stock to something more... adapted... to living on Remus.
The novels don't really offer an explanation for the ridges though. In fact, both series treat Vulcans and Romulans are visually difficult to tell apart (a major character in Vulcan's Soul is a Romulan expatriate who lives on Vulcan and unless told or his fa
Yeah, I always thought it would have been funny if Dorn was ridgeless in that episode. Don't get me wrong, the 'We do not discuss it with outsiders' line was funny, but it opened up the door to the rather unfortunate Enterprise explanation.
I think the problem here is although Cryptic does a good job of placating fans of TOS and Rihannsu Romulans, it really doesn't do much at all to please fans of the TNG-era Romulans, which proportionately got a lot more exposure. The whiplash is made worse by the fact that until Legacy of Romulus, all the Romulans seemed to be heavily influenced by the TNG-era Romulans. I hate to sound like a Defari, but there just isn't any balance in how they are treated right now.
Yes, I know the Mintakans had ridges, too -- which, frankly, would mean that they would have had to be exposed to an identical (or very nearly identical) diet, environment, and/or mutagen, and that seems rather unlikely, OR that all Vulcanoids species have members who have ridges (and while that's certainly not impossible or illogical, we have never seen an actual Vulcan with such ridges). Appealing to the ridges of the Mintakans is a red herring. The Mintakans were from Mintaka-III, the third planet in the Mintaka star system. Mintaka is one of the three stars in "Orion's Belt." They are not likely to be descendants of the proto-Romulan/Reman people, and are themselves referred to as "proto-Vulcan humanoids." Now this prefix proto- is an interesting one, because it means "first" (etymologically), and is used in Linguistics and both Cultural and Physical Anthropology to refer to what is best described as an ancestor or forerunner. If the Mintakans are "proto-Vulcan humanoids," then in this context it is almost certainly intended to suggest that their physiology is less "evolved" than that of Vulcans, that they are more closely related to the ancestors of both Vulcans and Romulans/Remans than they are to either of those people as they were in the 2300s. The implication is that whoever referred to ridged Romulans looking like some kind of "cavemen" would not be entirely out of line. But ...
The challenges here are not simple ones, and in this case, William of Ockham is willing to give a hand with the shaving away of elaborate speculation which is not supported by any canonical information. In other words, the less convoluted explanation is likely to be the closest to correct. Ritual scarification has been practiced by many cultures in Earth's history at one point in time or another. It doesn't require diet, physical environment, or any type of mutagen. It does not require an absurd misunderstanding of evolution. Furthermore, ritual scarification has, in Earth history, been most common among "primitive" cultures, so forehead ridges being common if not universal among the Mintakans would not be inconsistent with the theory that the ridges on Romulan foreheads are the result of such a practice. The practice could quite easily be considered to be one which was once more common on Vulcan, before S'Task and Tellus and their people left, and while the Vulcans eventually stopped practicing ritual scarification, it would not be inconsistent to think that it continued among those who left Vulcan and eventually became the Romulans and Remans, all the more so since Tellus and S'Task and their followers left Vulcan in order to remain true to the Old Ways ... And finally, such a practice may wax and wane in popularity, it might be more popular in certain socio-economic classes than others, it might be more popular among certain sects (Rihannsu have more than one religion, some following "the Elements," some following a Mother Goddess [these being known as "the Mother's Weavers"], and some following the old pre-Surakian deities of Vulcan -- and there could be more than these three religions among the Rihannsu), it might even be a political statement. In any case, it is something which must be done in order to have the effect of producing forehead ridges, and therefore those who do not have the ridges would not be anomalous any more than those who do.
At least there is a more or less official explanation for the Romulan : not all of them have ridges. It's luck if we didn't saw any Romulan with ridges before TNG
I'll give you my reasons for making a fuss about the forehead ridges on Romulans:
1. Romulans and Vulcans are the same species; we have never see a Vulcan with ridges, nor has there ever been any mention of Vulcans with ridges.
2. The ancestors of the Romulans left Vulcan about 2000 years before 2409; this is insufficient time for diet or environment to cause a change so dramatic, speaking from an evolutionary perspective.
3. Forehead ridges make Romulans look like they have either devolved, been subjected to some sort of trauma, or have brain damage. They look ... mentally stunted with forehead ridges. This is not the case with the Klingon forehead ridges; they do not convey this sense of something being wrong with the Klingons the way Romulan forehead ridges convey a sense that something is wrong with the Romulans who have them.
4. I find Romulan forehead ridges extremely aesthetically displeasing, with rare exceptions (Donatra is the only example I can think of off the top of my head). If that's not plain enough, then I'll put it this way: Most Romulans with forehead ridges are frikkin ugly (and might not be ugly without the forehead ridges).
5. Even the people who were involved in making TNG and promoted the ridges at first later decided they were a mistake and should never have been added. You may want a source for this. It's on Memory Alpha somewhere (probably in the article on Romulans).
Genetic Engineering
Mutations of unknown cause (augment virus?)
Hybridization: (Vulcan/Romulan hybrids seem to take after the Vulcan parent)
Helmets: (most TOS Romulans wear helmets that obscure their foreheads-they could have ridges)
Phenotype: Humans come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Some have fair skin, others dark skin. Among many groups epicanthic folds are common, but many lack this. Forehead ridges could just be the expression of a recessive gene.
Retcon: The 'real' reason-Romulans always had ridges, you just have to imagine them on the TOS romulans.
I for one do not mind the ridges. I don't think they are particularly ugly, and I think they are rather iconic to the species by this point. And I don't think they look like brain damaged or cavemen-esque at all.
I don't like the 'feel' of this answer but I will concede it is the most *cough*logical
^this
Of course we're all guilty of trying to apply reason and sense to a franchise that has a history of changing its own 'canon' every other week.
So yeah, ridges are not far. Also, differences between 2 planets are a lot more than between countries in our world. Different sun, gravity, atmosphere,...
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Because, as I pointed out, that's not the real explanation. Ridgeless Romulans appeared throughout the TMP movies, the last one appearing two years after the ridges debuted on TNG.
And again: they are supposed to look exactly like Vulcans. That was the entire point. They didn't give Vulcans ridges, so they shouldn't have given them to Romulans.
Why can't we just live with the fact back in the 60's the Klingons were supposed to have ridges? Ask Behr, Beimler and Wolfe.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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Nero came from the Prime universe and none of his crew has ridges, and that is the last canon so I guess they've been retconned out of existence. Deal with it. :P
Nero and those Romulans aren't from the JJ Verse, they're from the Prime universe... so... your point?
Nero came from the TNG universe, so that part is TNG canon.
I copy/pasted a bunch of stuff from the wiki page, but it was too much to analyze in one post. Let's just say that Romulans have always been popular with the fans, and unpopular with the writers, and I with the lack of ridges in ST10 was entirely intentional.
After seeing a few players around here I'm willing to toss a yes towards playable Romulan Star Navy. While I still look at them as the fossils that they are, they do wish to save Romulan lives and that is a noble cause no matter what you call yourself or what you call the Republic.
As for playable Tal'Shiar, yes too. As long as we get to fight them every step they take ingame, get to board their ships so they can't hide from justice there, and drag them out of sector space to make them pay.
While some people may have helped show the RSE in a better light the Tal'Shiar are evil.
Not Federation evil. the more classic version
Not Klingon evil. Being a dishonorable peta'Q
The Tal'Shiar are both of these evils and more. I understand those who wish to stay true to their own ideals of what it means to be Romulan but the Tal'Shiar do not share those same ideals. The name Tal'Shiar is a word best forgotten, burned away like the home we lost.
sure they were. but budget and tech of the day, just didn't allow for it.
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Never heard of it.
In all honesty - this! And I'm not a J.J. "hater" and I found the movies entertaining, for an action blockbuster flick.
But yeah, ridgeless tatooed Romulans, Blingons, Godzilla Gorn, furless Caitians......you can't take what J.J. did on screen for his movies seriously for the rest of the Star Trek franchise. It sometimes seems like he was hell bent on changing everything previously known so he can leave his mark on it, which to me seems like a petty and spitefull thing to do.
So while makeup techology progression can be attributed to the changes species like the Romulans and Klingons went through from TOS to the rest of the franchise, you can't really attribute J.J.'s personal vision of what is suposed to be Star Trek in his own eyes as something relevant for the rest of the franchise and where STO is at.
Probably because it doesn't exist.
But honestly - af fas as I know the Klingon Empire has its own secret service, the Klingon Intelligence. You only had to look after the assignment You could take for them - assassinations, torture, sabotage etc. Do not sound after clean hands, if You ask me. Don't understand me wrong I have no problems with that (when playing a klingon or a romulan klingon), but it is hard to believe that the TS is in any case so much worse...
Yeah TNG pretty much messed over several major species. The Klingons were turned from unpredictable, sneaky, and mysterious villains into one-note green warrior people. The Romulans were turned from honorable and semi-misunderstood cousins to the Vulcans to one-note green spy people. And just to top it off, they added some one-note green Communist people into the mix. Although to TNG's credit, the Borg color scheme wasn't originally all that green. That came later.
...So...why was TNG so infatuated with the color green? It would be one thing if they made the Romulans green, since that fits with Vulcan blood, and the Romulans didn't have much of a consistent color scheme. But making both of the major foreign factions green? Especially when the Klingons already had a rather compelling visual pattern, with their grey ships, gold outfits, and red highlights/weapons signatures? (Granted I don't think we ever really saw Klingon weapons properly used on-screen that were red, but I've gotten the impression that that was the idea.) I don't get it.
Oh and as for the actual topic. ...Nope. We already have a playable RSE faction. Or rather, the current incarnation of the RSE. It's the Romulan faction. It doesn't matter that they call themselves the Republic. They're still Romulans. The fact that there are still a few hundred Tal Shiar puppets tooling around calling themselves the Empire doesn't make the RR any less the proper and legitimate Romulan nation.
Oh and as for a comment a while back, about how this is the "Romulan" forum, not the "Romulan Republic" forum? I'm not even sure how to respond to that. I mean...what? It's the forum for the Romulan faction. Which is the Romulan Republic. There are no Tal Shiar players, because you can't play as the Tal Shiar. Except by RPing, which still doesn't, in official terms, make you anything other than a RR player.
And also: Section 31 is not the Tal Shiar. 31 is pretty shady, but not that shady. They're extremists, not villains.
My Romulan characters are Tal Shiar. If they work for the Republic, it's in an assistance capacity as a double-agent. If they work for Starfleet, it's because Starfleet is far more gullible and naive to believe I've turned away from the Romulan Star Empire's allegiance -- as opposed to the KDF who are generally always pretty leery.
If I climb the ranks and work with the traitorous D'Tan, it's because it is the means to an end. I take advantage of that naivety for my own personal gain, little else.
Should there be more Tal Shiar type missions? Sure. I'd like to see Cryptic focus away from the truly alien (like the Voth or Elachi) and refocus back onto the 'known' species and factions and the turmoil within.
Other than that, the best you can hope for is a well-written Foundry mission for Tal Shiar-type Romulans.
I wanted an evil romulan when I first started STO. And despite this 'heroic' Romulan Republic, I am making the best of it as I can with a fair compromise. I like villains. They're far more intriguing to me, and give me far more freedom.
Tl;dr: Nothing is stopping you from embracing your inner Tal Shiar, take this motto to heart, just as I did, "I work with you now, to use and destroy you later."
It's already STO canon that the Tal Shiar have infiltrated the Romulan Republic -- so nothing stops you from being one of said infiltrators.
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That was becuase of Star Trek 3, much like the honor thing Klingons started getting green ships becuase the Romulans were supposed to be the villains in Search for Spock.
Plus wasn't the whole reason the Klingons exist the fact that their make-up at the time was cheaper then making Spock ears for guest stars?
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