Romulan
“You call those ears?!”
The Romulan Empire is introduced as an enemy of the monolingual United Federation of Planets in the first series of Star Trek. They run a militaristic society that combines elements of the Roman Empire, Prussia and Samurai Japan. The Romulans also have pointy ears like Vulcans, though this is only revealed to humans when communication channels get hacked.
The difference between the Romulans and the other great rival to Earth & Co., the Klingon Empire, is that the latter dress like Fu Manchu and are prone to grotesque overacting.[1] In contrast, the Romulans are more like Vulcans, tending to be logically cool and creative. However, when things go against them, the Romulans lash out and happily commit suicide rather than surrender.
Origins[edit]
Humanoids with pointy ears have been a regular sign of creatures that could pass for normal if they wore a long enough balaclava. Pointy ears are also supposed to be a sign of a higher intelligence. Romulans belong to this club, along with Elves, Fairies, Orcs and Vulcans.
Split with Vulcans[edit]
The planet Vulcan was once the home of the Romulans. However, one branch rejected the teachings of Surak, who wanted Vulcans to be self-righteous, pacifist brain boxes, hewing to the Stoic belief that you hide your emotions and blank out any 'irrational behavior', the way the British Empire was once run. Declaring this heretical hippy shit, these proto-Romulans moved away and founded their own galatic empire on the planets Romulus and Remus. The Remans ended up with the short straw and became the slaves/helots of the Romulan/Spartans.
War with humans[edit]
The Romulan imperial expansion ran into the United Federation of Planets in a time period set before the original Star Trek television series. This had been a bloody war so reliant on remote control that neither side actually saw what the others looked like. As the Vulcans were also unware that the Romulans looked like them, they neither realised they were related. This led to many humans believing the Vulcans were an 'enemy within' and could join the Romulans and destroy Earth.
Cloaking device[edit]
Romulan technology has produced a 'cloaking device' that makes their spaceships disappear. An invisible sheet is dropped on their ship and then it vanishes. It remains an advantage until Captain Kirk steals one whilst Spock keeps his Romulan officer engaged in other pursuits (heavy petting that never involves more than twiddling one another's thumbs). The Klingons also get their hands on the cloaking device, in a later deal whose terms are not clear.
A rhetorical device invented to put the 'fair' back in warfare is that Romulans have to disable the cloaking before they can fire weapons. A subsequent rhetorical device to give rise to another sequel is that the Klingons don't have to.
Real-life analog[edit]
For those who study the original Star Trek universe, the Romulans are effectively the Chinese. The mystery of how China operated politically and militarily is reflected in Romulan society, though the show did not predict China's explosion in exporting technology and toys. The Romulans, after all, never manufactured teddy bears at all.
Ultimate fate[edit]
Since the original TV series and subsequent film timelines, the Romulan planet is destined to be destroyed when their local star goes champagne supernova[2] on them. How many Romulans survived this by becoming 'undocumented aliens' on other planets isn't clear.
