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May 2, 2008 – Romulan Star Empire

The Romulan Star Empire was founded approximately two thousand years ago by Vulcans who rejected Surak's path of logic and emotional suppression. It expanded slowly but steadily for over a millennium, until coming into contact with the Human race. Dealt a stinging defeat in the Earth-Romulan War, the Empire was held behind the Romulan Neutral Zone but continued to expand away from what is now Federation space. An alliance with the Klingon Empire in Earth's 23rd century gave the Romulans advanced warp power and ensured them a place as one of the great powers of the Beta Quadrant. After the collapse of the Klingon alliance and a narrowly averted war with the Federation, the Empire again isolated itself and expanded outward once more, while fighting intense wars with the Klingons and others. The Borg threat and Federation expansion led to more active engagement, including an attempt to co-opt the Klingon government; but contact with the Dominion soon pre-empted such concerns. The Star Empire was initially neutral in the Dominion War, but its entry turned the tide in favor of the allied powers. After the war, relations with the Federation and Klingons quickly cooled again, but a recent shake-up in the Romulan government has led to more cordial relations across the Neutral Zone.

The Time of Awakening was marked by decades of nuclear warfare on Vulcan.

The history of the Romulan people begins during the Time of Awakening on Vulcan. Prior to the philosophical emergence of Surak, the Vulcan people had fought catastrophic series of wars that may be among the most brutal waged by any prewarp species in the known galaxy. Surak's teachings of total logic appealed broadly to a populace weary of destruction; but a sizable minority rejected the emotional suppression inherent to his philosophy; soon, Surak's teachings had themselves become the subject of another massive nuclear war. In time, Surak's followers were victorious, though he himself had been killed.

What happened next is not clearly known. Many Romulans contest that Surak's followers, following a path of cold logic perhaps more extreme than Surak's own, demanded that all Vulcans either undergo Kohlinar and purge themselves of emotion, or leave the world forever. Other historians believe that the Romulans were self-exiled, although the first theory would better explain the near-uniformity of Surak's teachings in contemporary Vulcan thought. In any case, in the centuries following the Awakening, these Vulcan rejectionistss took what ships they could find and set out by the millions to find a home of their own. (read more...)

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