Romulans/Nemesis
Greetings all,
I have been wanting to talk for a while about Romulans in the TV series, movies and RPGs. The following will be long but hopefully food for thought and discussion Sorry for the length-plus I will discuss the Nemesis teaser trailer/site/supposed script-so SPOILER warning.
I have been a Star Trek Fan for many years now, and I became focused on the Romulans from the beginning (A big fan of Vulcans/Roman History.) I did so at a time here in Australia, when we were behind the US in ST:TNG seasons and so I ordered the Romulan episodes ahead of our TV.
It was exciting (And at times disappointing) to see where TNG took the Romulans. If I'm correct 14 episodes featured heavy Romulan content. They were in the early seasons the new bad guys-replacing the Klingons and the abortive attempt to use Ferengi as a serious opponent.
Since all of you know, liking a non-popular race (As opposed to Klingons, Borg ETC) means scant official info and a lot of confusing fan based creations (the varitation in the Warbirds statistics-became ridiclous
So when I heard rumours (Oh a note to the Americans, I used to live in California-so the shock of seeing a U in Rumor, Color and Armor-I understand-but thats the Australian way that Generations would have a serious Romulan showing-excited me.
Well now in the summary of Romulan Involvement in the Star Trek movies we get:
ST5: one female ambassador
ST6: one male ambassador
ST7: one dead guy
..........
Well, then DS9 came along-the Romulans were mentioned then began appearing in larger parts-then the "about time we had a serious story arc" Dominion war appeared. I was overjoyed.
Then Voyager treated us to 2 Rom Episodes-The 2nd one "Message in a Bottle" having the distinction of having the Romulans acturally destroying a federation ship (ARGHH, GASP
on the show! That episode was the last we saw of the Romulans.
Insurrection came and went-barely mentioning even the Dominion war.
So the Rumours that 10 would feature the Romulans as the main protaginists were met by me with skeptisism, but again hope appeared..............
SPOILER WARNING
My View on Nemesis-so far
So I read the script-First the writer John Logan who cites himself as a trek fan and a co writer of Ridley Scotts Gladiator (regardless of your view of the film, a grounding in Roman history/politics is suitable to a story about romulans) gave me hope.
My opinion I liked it-its not great but small steps (Once again my opinion-no offence) after the two steaming piles of cat poo that were insurrection and generations. But his treatment of the Romulans were my main concern-and I think he has done justice to them.
First off the
REMANS,
Well, to say I was surprised-big understatement!
The possible explanation to why we have not seen them before does work. If you accept it allows the feared Romulan intelligence
to get back some respect.
Remus is a key Dilithium mine/weapons production planet-No body gets near it without Senate/Tal Shiar approval-Starfleet intelligence fails for once (Shock! Gasp!)
Remans as stated in script and site are an undesirable caste in the Romulan Star Empire- Why would they rate mention to outsiders like Fed Captains who save the galaxy
They were used as ground troops in the dominion war (I like this as it suits the Roman Auxiliaries concept-plus looking at them and their actions-they would meet Jem-Hadar head on better than your Average Romulan)
Since large scale ground combat in the TV/Movie ST universe is always just spoken about-quite acceptable.
But I'm a bit confused:
Are Remans:
A: Vulcan Sepratists who over 2000 years on that nasty world evolved into that appearnce.
B: A native race enslaved by the Romulans (The Script practically indicates this) but I'm curious.
C: Any funky idea you might have?
ROMULANS
Well nice to see the Romulan Senate building interior, nice to see the Senate for whole couple minutes it lasts. Whats with Praetor
Hiren? What about Neral? Don't tell they have problems choosing a different actor (Unification Neral and and DS9 Neral were different)
Anyway:
Mr Logan credits the Roumlans with some intelligence, buy having the Reman "Coup" working only with the support of most of the fleet and some senators. Even then they quickly turn on the Remans.
Because in the Last DS9 with major Rom content episode "Inta Armes etc
( LATIN:"In times of war laws fall silent") having Tal Shiar Chairman Koval a fed puppet was making the Romulans a joke-the many times the TV series cites the Roms as masters of treachery/spies etc contradicted this.
I mean the Dominion set up the whole Omarion nebula thing to wipe out the two most feared intel organisations in Alpha Quadrant-Tal Shiar and Obsidian order-yet going by the other shows the Fed intelligence runs the Tal Shiar like the KGB and MI6 in the cold war.
My rant is thus:
Nemesis will do well by the Romulans at least for once no bloody Klingons or Borg or ughh worse silly time waves/one off stretchy skin races.
RPG
I loved LUGS ST RPG, and the Way of D'era was awesome-the best non canon TV Romulan supllement I have seen. Being a big ship fan, I knew it would be hard to create new Rom ships-since the show showed us four designs:
Warbird
Scout Ship
Science Ship (a modification of scout ship)
Tal Shiar Shuttle
So I give A for effort to the guys designing the new rom ships
but personally I hate most of the "warbirds with the bottom missing made thin look"
I think FASA did have some nice looking ROM ships (The Winged defender was the best non official rom ship I have seen) their naming and rom background stuff was shocking. SFB stuff was just too way out for me-the just use any Terran Bird species for the name of Rom ships was sad.
Considering the effort to which the Language is given on this thread.
A big kudos to the person making up the Rom language and to all of you on this thread-the thought and effort into deities/calendars is commendable.
The Dominion War Sourcebook was well done and I hope a nemesis sourcebook could be done.
Any of you who own the new coda Narrators book tell me if the Warbirds stats are in it.If so are they like the-LUG one(IMHO were the best so far), plus now the offcial site lists some facts for the D'Deridex Warbird:
1,650 crew
115 Decks
Just a note: Here in Melbourne, our chief gaming store "Mind Games" has lots of copies of Way of D'era! Is it rare in the place, we aussie gamers are so jealous off?
A favour: Does anyone know how to grab pics from Macromedia Flash 5? The nemesis site has a great pic of Rom Commanders Donatra and Suran in the new uniforms. PLease if they have/can send me it Plus some kind sole posted the text on the Remans from that site, could he/she do that with the rom info?
Does the coda players book give stats for Romulan Disruptors?
I know I ramble, but better lots than nothing
Velal
"To be honest, my opinion of starfleet officers is so low. You would have to work very hard indeed, to disappoint me."
Senator Vreenak to Sisko.