When Stiles spoke of the Romulans earlier on as vicious warmongers, in the aftermath of a sneak attack that murdered countless people, we agreed. But the Commander's final words to Kirk — "I regret that we meet in this way. You and I are of a kind. But it's not until the third season of TNG that an episode really got the chance to explore who the Romulans are.
The Enterprise arrives on a barren, uninhabitable rock in Federation space called Galorndon Core in response to a distress signal, and soon discovers debris from a Romulan ship. There's no escape unless he can manipulate a probe just right, but in order to do so he has to convince the Romulan he's stuck with to put down his weapon to help him. While Geordi breaking through his captor's defenses and getting him to open up is always good to see, and Picard's verbal sparring with the Romulan Tomalak is Patrick Stewart at his snappiest, it's Worf's interactions with his Romulan that hit the hardest.
On the ship, the rescued Romulan is dying, and can only be saved if Worf donates tissue to him. Worf, whose parents died in a Romulan attack, has no interest in doing so. As he says to Riker: "I am asked to give up the very lifeblood of my mother and my father to those who murdered them!
His meetings with Riker and Picard in the episode show two conflicting facts: Worf knows that his duty is to go through with the donation. He states that he will do so if ordered, and even implies that he wants to be given that order — but it's an order that Picard cannot bring himself to give, and the Romulan dies. Sure, the Romulan does himself no favors, declaring that he'd rather die than have Klingon tissue within himself.
But it's not really about whether or not the Romulan is a good person, as Picard points out and Worf agrees with. A dead Romulan on a Starfleet ship is a reason for the Romulans to go to war, a war that the Federation might win but doesn't want. It's a story about mutual hatred, trust, suspicion and a war that seems like it's only a single mistake away, averted at the last moment. Both superpowers, both wary of war, both filled with hatred and suspicion towards the other.
It's a message that no doubt resonated quite a bit when it aired, three days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. But it's one that resonates on a universal level, as lingering prejudices continue to haunt the politics of today, Even people as ethically noble as the Enterprise crew have a hard time forgetting what came before.
It may be the powerful Dominion that has put the Federation in a war that they're losing, but the Romulans could change everything if they could be convinced to enter the fray. Captain Sisko decides he has to get the Romulans to join the Federation in fighting the war, which means convincing Romulan Senator Vreenak that the Dominion will go after the Romulans next.
It's a story with a brusque but honest and honorable man on one side, and on the other a deceptive, scheming individual attempting to mislead his counterpart for his own people's benefit. What makes the episode soar is that Vreenak, despite being in favor of staying neutral in the war and being quite rude towards Sisko at points, is the honorable one. The Romulans are suspicious and paranoid and holding firm to their old feelings of supremacy, but it could be argued that they're just doing what the Federation might otherwise do — stay out of a war that does not directly involve them yet.
To get the Romulans involved, Sisko teams up with Garak, the incomparable Cardassian tailor who Sisko knows is willing to fight dirty. For some unknown reason, the Zhat Vash - a secret organization within the Tal Shiar , who are essentially the Romulan secret police - are obsessed with destroying artificial life, in particular Soji and Dahj Asha, Lieutenant Commander Data's offspring created by Bruce Maddox of the Daystrom Institute.
The Romulans' rejection of artificial life is a new wrinkle, and a deeply important one. What would drive such a technologically advanced race to reject artificial life in all its forms? To understand, we have to take a look at the early history of the Romulans. The accepted wisdom is that the Romulans began as a sect of Vulcans who rejected the logic based teachings of Surak in the 4th century and departed Vulcan to begin their own civilization on the twin planets of Romulus and Remus.
In stark contrast to the peaceful, scholarly Vulcans, the Romulans were conniving, untrusting warriors, known throughout the galaxy for their treachery. The Klingons, in particular, despised them, largely for the attack at Camp Khitomer that killed thousands of Klingons, including Lieutenant Commander Worf's parents.
Yet nobody in the Federation even made visual contact with a Romulan until "Balance of Terror," which took place in the midrd century that first Romulan was played by Mark Lenard, who also played Spock's father Sarek. Their origins as a Vulcan offshoot had either been covered up or forgotten, as Spock himself was surprised to see a Vulcan-looking commander staring back at him from across space.
The explanation of their origins was accepted at face value and never really questioned, despite the massive information gap in their history. There is, however, another possibility. The Vulcans were always far more advanced in technology than humanity - Star Trek: First Contact showed they were exploring the galaxy with warp drive while humanity was still reeling from the fallout of World War III.
It's not much of a leap to imagine the Vulcans had dabbled in artificial intelligence long before Noonien Soong cracked the code on Data. What if the Romulans were an artificial race, created by the Vulcans? It may seem far-fetched, but consider this: Star Trek: Picard has made it clear that it's possible to make androids that are, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from humans, as evidenced by Dahj and Soji.
If that's a technology the Vulcans had at one time, it's easy to imagine them developing lifelike androids.
Those androids could credibly reject an ideology that didn't make sense to them and, assuming they were autonomous, could have chosen to depart Vulcan society. The Romulans possess this same intellect but are motivated by more emotional and sometimes sinister aims.
Unlike Starfleet, the Romulan ships are powered by a quantum singularity contained aboard their vessels. This is sort of like having a miniature black hole instead of a warp drive. The Romulans have been a thorn in the side of the Federation through all eras but proved to be anti-technology when it comes to artificial intelligence. While this would be true for some time, the superior ships of Starfleet were not enough to win the Federation-Cardassian War , which was fought to a stalemate.
This does not count the alliance that the Cardassians strike up with the Dominion , which make them a part of an incredibly powerful force.
Perhaps the real reason why ships that are part of Starfleet are not as heavily armed as the Klingons or as high-tech as the Romulans is because the mission of Starfleet is exploration — not battle. If the Federation wanted to produce warships, they certainly could. By Eric Pesola. Updated Jun 27, at pm. Is Star Trek subconsciously undercutting multiculturalism and diversity? Cardassians are coded as fascists emerged from a failed republic, and their expansion is very recent at terrible cost — Trek to the Holodeck TrekToTheDeck June 25,
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