Romulan
The Romulans are an extraterrestrial race in the American science fiction franchise Star Trek. Their adopted home world is Romulus, and within the same star system they have settled a sister planet Remus. They first appeared in the series Star Trek. They have appeared in most subsequent Star Trek releases, including The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Lower Decks. They appear in the Star Trek feature films Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek. They also appear in various other spin-off media, including books, comics, toys and games.
Writer Paul Schneider created the Romulans for the 1966 Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror". As a basis, he considered what the ancient Roman Empire might have looked like had it developed to the point of spaceflight. Physically, the Romulans were presented as humanoid, but the show's make-up department gave them pointed ears to distinguish them from humans. In the series, which is set in the 23rd century, the Romulans were speculated as having split from another alien species, the Vulcans, in the distant past. In contrast to the Vulcans, who were presented as peaceful and logic-oriented philosopher scientists, the Romulans were depicted as militaristic, having founded an interstellar empire. The Romulans were used as antagonists for the series' protagonists, the starship USS Enterprise, her crew, and their government, the United Federation of Planets.
In 1987, the writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation—set in the 24th century—again used the Romulans as antagonists of the Federation. The show's designers gave the Romulans new costumes and added a V-shaped ridge on the foreheads of most Romulan characters, though with indications that Romulans without the ridges also existed. In the series Star Trek: Enterprise, Romulans without ridges are depicted as passing for Vulcans. The 2009 film Star Trek depicted the Romulan homeworld, Romulus, being destroyed by a supernova in the year 2387. This film featured Romulans without the head ridges. The impact of Romulus's destruction forms a plot-theme in the series Star Trek: Picard.
History
Original development
The Romulans are a fictional extraterrestrial species in the Star Trek universe and were devised for the episode "Balance of Terror". They were reused for the second-season episode "The Deadly Years" and the third-season episode "The Enterprise Incident".They are humanoid beings originating from the planet Romulus and are known for their cunning, secrecy, and often adversarial relations with other civilizations, especially the United Federation of Planets. Physiologically, Romulans are similar to Vulcans, another species in the Star Trek universe. In fact, Romulans share a common ancestry with Vulcans and are considered an offshoot of the same species. They have pointed ears and arched eyebrows, and possess great strength, intelligence, and longevity.
The Romulans diverged from their Vulcan counterparts millennia ago due to ideological differences. While Vulcans embraced logic and the teachings of Surak, advocating emotional control and pacifism, the Romulans rejected these principles. They embraced their emotions and maintained a more militaristic and secretive society. Romulans are known for their cunning strategies, espionage, and manipulation in political affairs. They have a powerful and formidable military, with their signature warbird starships being a symbol of their might.
Throughout various Star Trek series and films, the Romulans have been portrayed as complex adversaries with deep-seated cultural traditions and a sense of superiority over other species. Their interactions with other factions in the Star Trek universe often involve political intrigue, espionage, and attempts to expand their influence in the galaxy.
While based on the Roman Empire, they took on the adversarial role of Cold War era Communist China, with the fictional government the United Federation of Planets playing the role of the United States, and the Klingons, based on the Mongol Empire, acting the role of the Soviet Union. As a result, the Romulans were generally portrayed as mysterious, but also "highly militaristic, aggressive by nature, and ruthless in warfare". The make-up required for an episode including Romulans in the Original Series became too expensive and time-consuming, so the Romulans became largely overshadowed by the Klingons.
Reintroduction in the 1980s and 1990s
After the launch of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, the show's writers introduced the Romulans in the final episode of the first season, "The Neutral Zone", which aired in the U.S. in May 1988. The episode was written by Maurice Hurley, who later acknowledged rushing it, putting together a script in a day and a half. In the episode, which is set in the year 2364, the Starfleet ship USS Enterprise-D—whose crew are the series' main protagonists—responds to the disappearance of Federation colonies along the Neutral Zone, fearing that it reflects growing Romulan activity in the region. Investigating, the Enterprise crew encounter a Romulan spaceship; it is stated that this is the first encounter between the two peoples for 53 years. The Romulans reveal that they have had colonies destroyed on their side of the border too, and the two species agree to share information on the issue in future. In later episodes it is revealed that these colonies were destroyed by a previously unknown species, the Borg, whom the show's writers had devised as a new alien antagonist following dissatisfaction with their previous attempt, the Ferengi. Initial thoughts by the script-writers had proposed a multi-episode storyline in which the Federation and Romulan governments would co-operate to fight the Borg; ultimately only certain elements of this idea entered "The Neutral Zone", and the Borg would be introduced not in the first season, but in the second-season episode "Q Who".New costumes were designed for the actors playing Romulans, created by the show's costume designer William Theiss.
The newly designed Romulan ship that appeared in "The Neutral Zone" was built as a miniature model by Greg Jein. The ship featured a newly designed Romulan crest, featuring a stylised bird of prey clutching two planets, Romulus and Remus, in its claws. Later in the series, this ship type would be explicitly referred to as a "warbird". In 1989, AMT released a plastic kit of the vessel, alongside other kits for a Ferengi ship and a Klingon bird of prey vessel.
The Romulans were re-used for the second-season episode "Contagion", written by Steve Gerber and Beth Woods and first aired in March 1989. In this episode, the Enterprise-D entered the Neutral Zone to answer a distress call and ends up in conflict with a Romulan vessel, with both spaceships being disabled by an alien computer virus. "Contagion" was the first episode in the Star Trek franchise in which the Romulan ship was given a name, in this case the Haakona. In the third-season episode "The Enemy", written by David Kemper and Michael Piller and first screened in November 1989, the Enterprise-D is depicted rescuing a crashed Romulan ship. The episode introduced the Romulan character Tomalak, played by Andreas Katsulas, who would reappear in three further Next Generation episodes. It also further established the idea of a significant enmity between the Romulans and the Klingons, with the Enterprise's Klingon officer, Worf, refusing to donate blood to save the life of an injured Romulan; the scriptwriters had debated whether to include this, with Dorn initially reticent.
Three episodes later, in "The Defector", written by Ronald D. Moore and first screened in January 1990, a Romulan admiral is presented as seeking to defect to the Federation. The episode is the first in the franchise to include images of Romulus itself and introduced the design of a Romulan scout vessel. "The Defector" also includes a reference to the Battle of Cheron, an incident in the 22nd century Earth-Romulan War that was previously mentioned in "Balance of Terror".
''Deep Space Nine'' and ''Voyager''
For "The Search", the opening two-part episode of the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a Romulan link was introduced. The episode, which was written by Ira Steven Behr, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and Ronald D. Moore, featured the introduction of a new Starfleet ship, the USS Defiant; the scriptwriters included the idea that it had been equipped with a cloaking device by the Romulans in return for intelligence that the Federation gathered on another alien power, the Dominion. A Romulan character, T'Rul, was included to oversee the device's use aboard the Defiant. The show's writers had initially planned on including T'Rul as a permanent fixture on the show but decided that she did not offer enough potential for new storylines.The Romulans were reused later that season in "Visionary", where they are presented as attempting to destroy the Deep Space Nine space station as part of their plan to collapse the nearby wormhole and thus prevent a Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant, the region of space where both the Federation and Romulans reside. Three episodes later, the follow-on episodes "Improbable Cause" and "The Die Is Cast" again featured the Romulans, in this case portraying a joint mission by the Romulan Tal Shiar and Cardassian Obsidian Order to fatally cripple the Dominion by eradicating its leaders, the Founders. For these episodes, new Tal Shiar outfits were designed; Moore related that this was partly his decision, for he "hated, underline hated, the Romulan costumes . Big shoulder pads, the quilting, I just loathed it". Costume designer Robert Blackman noted that his team created eight new Romulan uniforms, using the same fabric as the old ones but "dyed it down slightly, and we made them much sleeker and a little more menacing".