The Romulan Star Empire is one of the most powerful enemies to the Federation

The Romulan Star Empire is one of the most powerful enemies to the Federation. It covers an area about a quarter of the size of the Federation, located "east/southeast" of the Federation in the Beta Quadrant.The frontier between the Federation and the Romulan territory, the " Neutral Zone", is about a light-year across and separates the two powers. The Romulan seat of power is centered on Romulus. It is a totalitarian government ruled by an individual called the Praetor, who is advised by an Imperial Senate. The government relies heavily upon its military, an efficient body organized in a fashion similar to that of the ancient Terran Roman military, with ranks such as centurion, decurions, etc.

The Tal Shiar is a secretive and brutal extragovernmental agency with the power to investigate both Romulan civilians and military officials. It can arrest civilians without trial, overrule local military commanders, and make people "disappear". It is not popular, but its rule is not questioned. The Imperial Senate is "elected", and is controlled by a Proconsul. It is not known how much these elections may be secretly controlled by the Romulan govern- ment.

Geography 
Total Area: 27,000,000,000 LY3
Homeworlds: ch'Rihan and ch'Havran ( Romulus & Remus )
System Name: 128 Trianguli 
Disputes: dispute with Klingon Empire over Klach'D'Kel'Bracht. 
Natural Resources: silicon, iron, tungsten, carbon, titanium, dilithium, cobalt. 
Planetary Use: Agricultural 1%;Inhabited 9%;Industrial 17%;Unused 74% 

People 
Population: 625,194,000,000 
Birth Rate: 6 Births/1,000 Population (2372) 
Death Rate: 5 Deaths/1,000 Population (2372) 
Life Expectancy at Birth: 231 years male, 239 years female 
Total Fertility Rate: 1.1 children born/woman (2372) 
Nationality: noun-Romulan(s); adjective-Romulan 
Species Divisions: Romulan 82%; Other-Humanoid 12%, Other-Non-Humanoid 8% 
Religion: Romulan 48%; other 8%; none 44% 
Language: predomitably Imperial Romulan, minorites speaking Vulcan and local Languages. Universal 
Translators virtually eliminate most language barriers. 
Labor Force: 281,588,000,000 

Government 
Long-Form Name: The Romulan Star Empire 
Type: Constiutional Monarchy 
Administrative Divisions: 69 Provinces; divided into 769 Segments. 
Independence: 109 A.D. from Vulcan 
Constitution: unwritten, partly statutes, partly common law. 
Legal System: based on pre-reformation Vulcan, no judicial review of legislative acts. 
National Holiday: Day of Landing (377 A.D.) 
Executive Branch: emperor, praetor, proconsuls 
Legislative Branch: unicameral Imperial Senate 
Judicial Branch: Imperial High Court 
Leaders: 
Chief of State:Empress T'lel the Fourth
Head of Government: Praetor Bachrah 
Suffrage: restricted to Citizens at age 21; out of all residents, only 3% are eligiable to vote. 
Elections: Praetor-every 10 years; Imperial Senate-every 5 years 
Flag: dark green background, with a black Romulan Symbol (stylized warbird clutching twin worlds) 
centered. 

Economy
Overview: A centrally planned economy geared to support of the military. Efficient replicator-based 
economy provides almost all goods. Food and medicine are still agraculturally produced. 
Unemployment Rate: 0% 
Budget: 3.21 Trillion Credits (FY 2372) 
Industrial Production: growth rate +.6% (2372) 
Industries & Agriculture: large-scale replication, starship/space station construction, Pharmaceutical 
and food agriculture, asteroid mining, antimatter production, deuterium refining llicit 
Drugs: producer of Romulan Ale for domestic consumption; (Romulan ale is legal in the Romulan 
Empire) 
Fisical Year: 1 June-31 May 

Communications 
Spaceways: 49,000 LY charted spacelanes 
Spaceports: 97 Major Spaceports, 819 Minor Spaceports, 4210 Space Stations 
Merchant Marine: 769 ships, 3411 unmanned cargo drones. 
Telecommunications: 243,825,660,000 comn terminals; 7156 subspace comn relays 

Defense Forces
Branches: Imperial Guard, Tal Shiar (Intelligence and Secret Police) 
Defense expendatures: 1.12 Billion Credits (FY 2372)

Romulan history begins with Vulcan history, as they were the same species 2000 years ago. The ancient Vulcans were people extremely enotional who used to be violent and warlike. The planet was divided into hundreds of small clans and citystates, each with diverse governmental structures and religions. Because Vulcan was (and is) an extremely dry world, water and resources were scarce. Clans and cities fought violently to acquire the resources to continue to survive. At least 90 percent of the planet was at war at all times. About 80 BC, terran dating, a Vulcan philosipher named Surak, began to practice the control of emotions, and publicly stating that logic was the way to peace. His ideals were very slow to spread and it took many years before people began to take him very seriously. But, he did recieve some followers. One of them was a young man named S' Task and he was Suraks finest pupil. In the year 20 BC, Vulcan received its first contact with aliens from other stars. The signals beamed in from the edge of the Vulcan system by alien vessels so shocked the Vulcans that several wars and declarations of war were put on hold until the matter could be settled one way or another. Officials met, and it was decided that the planet would meet the aliens united. Contact was made via transmissions from Vulcan, and a time and place of meeting agreed upon. On the day of the meeting Surak was detained by vehicle troubles, but his pupil S'Task was there in his stead. Unfortunately, the aliens were not true to their word of peace, for they were Orion pirates, intent on enslaving the unsuspecting world. When the aliens landed, the Vulcan emissaries were greeted with stun rays and blasters, rather than overtures of friendship, and a large proportion on the leadership of Vulcan was taken prisoner and held for ransom, among them S'Task. Thus began the "Ahk", the greatest of all Vulcan's wars, in which they fought with their more primitive space ships, but they were not enough to beat the Orions. They used their mind talents to manipulate the Orions into attacking each other and or to drive their ships into the sun. S'Task himself escaped captivity during the war, organizing an in-ship rebellion, overpowering his captors, and eventually crashing the ship into the Orion mothership, narrowly escaping in a rescue pod. He was found, many weeks later, drifting in space, half-starved, and clinging to life only through the force of his own anger. In this way began the split between Surak and his student S'Task. After his experience with the Orions, S'Task renounced the pacifism of Surak, saying that pacifism was inappropriate in the hostile universe waiting in interstellar space. However, S'Task was not willing to promote his philosophies actively against Surak, for fear of prodding Vulcan back into a state of war and anarchy. Surak had long preached that "The structure of spacetime is more concerned with means than ends: beginnings must be clean to be of profit", and S'Task agreed with his old master. It was with this in mind that S'Task proposed an alternate solution. The world was not working as it was, said S'Task, so a clean beginning was in order. The followers of S'Task would use Vulcan's newly advanced space technology and venture out into interstellar space to find a new world and make a clean beginning. Fifty years later, the first Vulcan far-travel ship, Rhea's Helm, cut in its engines and left orbit, sealing a rift in thes pecies which has not been sealed to this day. In all, there were 16 far-travel ships in the fleet, each carrying approximately five thousand of the "Declared", those who committed to the journey and placed all their property into a trust to build the ships. When the ships left Vulcan, it was with the belief that they would be able to find a suitable planet within 30-50 years of ship time. The ships were designed with a 100 year viability envelope, so this left plenty of time for the Travellers to find an appropriate world, should the first few stops be unfruitful. Unfortunately, the Travellers planned their route using data taken from captured Orion vessels, and used the data in a very negative way. Because the Orions had lied to them before, the Travellers were inclined to distrust the data, and planned their trip so as to avoid any star mentioned in the databanks. In this way, the Travellers hoped to avoid any further contact with hostile aliens. The undesirable concomitant of this strategy was that the Traveller's course led straight through a particularly barren, lifeless, and consequently unexplored section of the quadrant. Rather than taking 30 years, their journey stretched out over 100 years, and they barely arrived at a habitable world before their ships fell apart from old age. In the course of the journey, 11 of the 16 original ships succumbed to various disasters: mind destroying aliens, black holes, and gravity wells. The five remaining craft were rewarded for their perseverance with the discovery of not one, but a binary pair of habitable worlds orbiting the star 128 Trianguli. After some discussion, the worlds were named ch'Rihan and ch'Havran, "of the Declared" and "of the Travellers", in the tongue which the Travellers evolved from the Ancient Vulcan dialect to replace their Vulcan language. In this new tongue, the travellers called themselves "Rihannsu", or "the Declared". The planets that they found were a twin set, like their former homeworld of Vulcan. They named the planets ch'Rihan and ch'Havran. Of the 18 000 people settled on these planets, 6000 had died within 10 years. They did not die of disease, famine or something like that, but of war. The people had started right where they had left off on Vulcan, with violent wars for land and resources. In such an atmosphere it was only a matter of time before a warlord emerged to impose a central structure on th factions and clans by force, and such a warlord was T'Rehu, the Ruling Queen. T'Rehu built up an army in about 67 AS (After Settlement) and within 10 years had more might than any in the Two Worlds.When her power was sufficient, she brought her armies to the Grand Council and there demanded recognition. Only S'Task stood before her, and turned and left when the Council granted her demands. A few years later when famine struck the South Continent she called the Council, including S'Task, together. She derided the Council for incompetence, and when S'Task turned his back on her dishonorable display she had him killed, setting herself up as Ruling Queen. As head of the Grand Council and later as Ruling Queen, T'Rehu dabbled in tyranny and beneficence, taking lives and saving them at her whims for some 18 years. After 20 years T'Rehu's armies were defeated, and and a new ruling party was set up. A Praetorate and Senate was set up which was sufficiently resilient to have survived to this day. The Rihannsu lived like this for many centuries after, enjoying arts, music, painting, and war. ANd unlike their counterparts the Vulcans, they lived with passion. In approximately 1600 AS, the Federation vessel USS Carrizal came out of warp at the far edge of the 128 Trianguli system and began surveying the area. They found, to their surprise, two worlds there with an apparently highly developed agrarian civilization on each. The crew dubbed the worlds "Romulus" and "Remus" in reference to an ancient Terran legend. In standard first contact procedures they beamed in messages of peace and good will. They received no response. After surveying the system for a time, they returned to the Federation with the news of their discovery On the Two Worlds the arrival of the aliens had an extremely disturbing effect. Tales of the Orion pirates had survived through the years, and the settlers still remembered that the Orions had preceded their treachery with offerings of peace. They were determined not to allow history to repeat itself, and set about organizing their defence. Over the past 1600 years, the Rihannsu had developed an extremelyeffective industrial system. They knew they could not match the technology of the ship that had entere their system, but years of war had taught them that sheer numbers could overwhelm any technological advantage .By the time the next Federation ship arrived, the Rihannsu had constructed some 7,000 crude, cylindrical vessels-impulse powered with particle beam weapons. When the USS Balboa coasted into the Trianguli system, it was blown to bits by the massed particle beams of 50 spacecraft. Shortly thereafter, the Rihannsu captured the USS Stone Mountain, took her apart, studied the design, and added warp drive to their primitive craft. Thus began what was known to the Federation as the "First Romulan War". The Federation's StarFleet was stymied and confused by their inability to defeat the Rihannsu, who were flying craft that were little more than tin cans with warp power drives. Time and again, larger and larger task forces were sent into Rihannsu space and were systematically obliterated by the Rihannsu. At about this time, the Federation made first contact with the Vulcans, and asked them if they knew anything about this seemly maniacal race. The Vulcans responded with characteristic caution, that they knew of some who might match the description, but that they had left Vulcan long ago. As StarFleet continued to send task forces into Rihannsu space the Vulcans suggested that, if these were indeed the ones who had left long ago, it would be best to make peace. On Stardate 1709.2 a lone Romulan warship entered the zone and attacked several Federation outposts. Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise believed that this was a test of Federation resolve by the Romulans, and the Enterprise entered the zone to stop and destroy the intruder. During this encounter, it was discovered that the Romulans had the ability to render their ships invisible to opponents, by using a cloaking device. Captain Kirk and his crew were successful in destroying the Romulan ship and in the process discovered that the Romulans were distant relations to the Vulcans, which surprised a few people, including Mr.Spock. Shortly before Stardate 5027.3 reports reached the Federation that the Romulans and Klingons had done a deal. The Klingons were allowed to use Romulan cloaking devices, while the creators of those devices gained Klingons schematics for the Bird-of-Prey warship. During this time, both powers were united against the Federation. Some time later, Captain Kirk and Commander Spock managed to steal an improved Romulan cloaking device during a covert Starfleet mission. The Alliance between the Romulans and Klingons came to an end in the year 2292, just before the explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis. It took StarFleet several more years to realize that they were never going to prevail, and a treaty was eventually negotiated - the only treaty in Federation history to be negotiated entirely by data upload, as the Rihannsu refused to meet the aliens in person. The "treaty of Algeron" stipulated a band of space between the Federation and Rihannsu territories one light year thick, which has since become known as the "Romulan Neutral Zone". And so the situation stands now: the Rihannsu on one side, fiercely developing their defences to avoid being taken advantage of by aliens once again; and the Federation on the other, completely unable to comprehend the reasoning and historical context behind the implacable hostility of their counterparts. For the next 50 years, there was no contact between the Romulans and the Federation, and the Empire retreated into isolation. The reason for this period of isolation is, at the time of typing, unknown. There have been a lot of rumors about this 50 year absence of the Romulans, but unfortunately, no hard facts....