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Imperial Romulan Senate
gawainviii
Member Posts: 328 Arc User
In my [RSE] series, I intend to fill out the roster of Senators, to be used for backstory, political intrigue, plots, and backstabbing...
The Senate Chamber map I've designed has seats for 24 senators, 2 Vice-proconsuls, Chairman of the Tal Shiar, Proconsul, and Praetor.
I've already established that the Praetor seat is vacant at the start of the series (that role being performed by the Empress), Gaius Kesar as Proconsul (elevated to Praetor later in the series, after Sela's disappearance), and have borrowed, with permission, Senator Veledrus from StarbaseUGC author NCC-89471 to become Chairman after Hakeev's death.
That leaves 26 slots to be filled... by you, the STO community.
The Senate will be made up primarily of Romulans (1/3-1/2) with a sizable minority of Remans (1/4-1/3). The remainder will be made up of Star Empire member race aliens. At least one is a Zeta Reticulan.
So... who are all the senators? What districts & planets do they represent? What are their political stances, personality traits, ambitions, and fears?
I eagerly await your collective creative genius. Post your submissions.
The Senate Chamber map I've designed has seats for 24 senators, 2 Vice-proconsuls, Chairman of the Tal Shiar, Proconsul, and Praetor.
I've already established that the Praetor seat is vacant at the start of the series (that role being performed by the Empress), Gaius Kesar as Proconsul (elevated to Praetor later in the series, after Sela's disappearance), and have borrowed, with permission, Senator Veledrus from StarbaseUGC author NCC-89471 to become Chairman after Hakeev's death.
That leaves 26 slots to be filled... by you, the STO community.
The Senate will be made up primarily of Romulans (1/3-1/2) with a sizable minority of Remans (1/4-1/3). The remainder will be made up of Star Empire member race aliens. At least one is a Zeta Reticulan.
So... who are all the senators? What districts & planets do they represent? What are their political stances, personality traits, ambitions, and fears?
I eagerly await your collective creative genius. Post your submissions.
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Comments
Remans still exist in the Star Empire. During Sela's brief reign, it may have been at it's worst, but they were still represented. However, during this time, the Senate served at Sela's pleasure, so it's votes would be dependent on the opinion(s) of the Empress. I suspect snap elections were held after the dissapearance of Sela, likely resulting in a Donatrist landslide.
Tal'Shiar/Reman Resistance/Romulan Nemesis uniform, pls.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7403/13262502435_5604548f2c_o.png
Consider historical Rome (which the Romulans are based upon): the Senate at the time of the transition from Republic to Empire in 27 BCE consisted of roughly 900 people with about 200 Senators active in attendance at the Curia Julia in the Roman Forum at any given time. Of those 900, only 300 or so were patrician (noble) class, the rest were equites (rich, land-owning Citizens, analogous to Landed Knight of medieval peerage). By the time of the late Empire, in the 3-4th c. CE, even a number of plebians were admitted to the Senate for 1 year non-renewable terms.
Aside from class diversity, the demographic makeup of the Senate at the beginning of the Empire is on par with Empire-wide population demographics. "Older" territories like Italy, Spain and Greece having proportionally more representation than Gaul, Egypt and Syria. The city of Rome itself had the greatest number of Senators making up a full 30% of the assembly, while the city's 1-million population only counted for an estimated 19% of the total Empire's population.
While there certainly are conquered non-Romulan races in the Empire, many of the populated worlds within the Empire would be Romulan colonies, not worlds with indigenous intelligent populations. Virinat, for an example of the type, or Rator III itself. Remember that not all Romulans lived on Romulus. In the various TV series we saw Federation colony worlds inhabited by humans (especially in TOS and TNG), and the Romulans would certainly be more aggressively territorial and less welcoming than humans. My point being that many worlds other than Romulus would still be inhabited by Romulans, and thus would contribute to Romulan (non-alien) representation quotas in the Senate.
Now having said all that, there certainly would be room for alien representation (using the historical precedent you provide) for the actual non-Romulan worlds which ARE part of the Empire. The Acamarians and the Suliban were certainly within the Empire (at least, according to what we see in STO), and should certainly be represented. In fact, Acamarian and Suliban DOFFs and BOFFs should be available to Romulan captains, but that's a different can of worms).
A Garidian might be possible, if you accept "A Final Unity", and doubtless there are other subject races from other sources available. But I think the main issue is that Romulan space would have more Romulan worlds than alien ones to begin with (colonies rather than conquered worlds), and as such, Romulan representation would be much higher than you postulate: 75-80% minimum (based on a 50/50 split of colonies to aliens, and taking your 1/5pop=1/3rep bias equation into account). Out of 24 Senators, I would suspect that 5 or 6 aliens is generous. And certainly the higher posts would all be occupied by Romulans.
BTW, who made up the Senate we saw in Nemesis? Were there even any Remans there? I honestly don't remember.
It's also doubtful that the non-Romulans would be permitted to have more than one or two worlds each.
To sum up:
18 Romulans
1 Reman
1Acamarian
1Suliban
1Zeta Reticulan
1 Garidian or other alien
1 other alien
might fill your Senate credibly.
This is all just my opinion, of course. And it's entirely possible that I've missed some facts or canon sources that would contradict me and make a hash of my analysis. But I think it's a plausible starting point, anyway.
That we saw on-screen, it was all Romulan. The inclusion of Remans happened post-Hobus in STO's backstory, Path to 2409. I'm choosing to include aliens because... well, I'm generous, they're a selectable PC option, and want to see all kinds of freaky cool aliens. It also fits nicely with the concept of earned, non-birthright, citizenship that was established in my first [RSE] mission.
I miscounted in the OP--there's 33 seats on the map: 24 Senators + 9 "leadership". I'm thinking, as you suggested, all the leaders should be Romulan... maybe a single (well-controlled) Reman, as a show of inclusiveness in order to keep the other subject species in line.
How does this look?:
12 Romulan Senators + 8 Leaders = 60%
6 Reman Senators + 1 Leader = 21%
1 Zeta Reticulan = 3%
5 different aliens (one per race) = 3% each
And I quite understand about wanting cool aliens - Rule of Cool has its place, after all.
I'm really looking forward to your next mission!
Why not both?
Tal'Shiar/Reman Resistance/Romulan Nemesis uniform, pls.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7403/13262502435_5604548f2c_o.png
Aliens native to worlds WITHIN the Star Empire - that makes sense.
Aliens from without, not so much. I doubt they'd even make it as far as being serious candidates, much less elected. Even less so since they were FAILED allies. Yeah, we'll give you shelter...but that's about it.
Slamek for Reman Senatorial Seat....
Why?
Simple... went through Shinzon, Donatra, and Obisek's Rebellion, disillusioned by it all naturally. Hakeev had himself a mole in the resistence, but more useful is a Reman mouthpiece on the Senate. Not only was Slamek already reprogrammed but with a few tweaks he's less morbidly depressed, more pro-stability of the RSE, a showpiece for what a "loyal" Reman can achieve in the Empire, and most importantly, a second vote for whatever Hakeev wants.
Unless he did something to betray Hakeev, and ended up as his prisoner directly BECAUSE of that. And perhaps Hakeev hung the carrot of possible "redemption" to make him become a mole. I could see that happening. Because he WAS actually a prisoner of Hakeev's (Hakeev refers to him as a prisoner even after he has the PC recaptured and about to be executed. And there's no point to maintaining the pretense at that point, the PC knows Slamek betrayed him by then).
If you mean that Slamek would become a Senator AFTER the episode in question, I think Gawain's series begins earlier than that.
remember for the sake of these missions he's writing the Existing Republic storyline NEVER HAPPENED. Slamek is just a mole inside the resistence, just like when we first encounter him with Veril
ah well then disregard. that idea wont work at all then