A Tribute to the Romulans

The very first original Star Trek episode I ever saw was "Balance of Terror" from Season One. The biggest reason I paid any attention to it was due to my love of submarine movies and I read (on the back of the box) that the episode had been inspired by the classic World War II submarine film "The Enemy Below". This was also the first Star Trek episode (of many) to feature the Romulans who immediately became my favorite Trek aliens; being a sort of evil version of the more upright Vulcans. I still love that first episode and although I am no Trekkie I can provide some general info, based on the episodes I have seen & a few other sources, about the Romulans. Of course, I wish that more time had been spent on them but Star Trek was always endlessly introducing new alien species at such a pace that you never really get to know too much about any of them with the possible exception of the Klingons and even then the Klingons have always seemed to me to be pretty two-dimensional characters. It might also surprise some to know that the Romulans actually appear quite some time before the Klingons in Star Trek who are not introduced until Earth is at war with them (though it is a very short conflict) in the episode "Errand of Mercy".

In "Balance of Terror" we learn that over a hundred years before the time of Kirk and company there was a war between Earth and the Romulans which was fought in primitive space vehicles armed with nuclear weapons. There was no visual communications and the treaty which ended the war was negotiated via radio and so, as Spock informs us, no human, Romulan or ally had ever seen the other. The treaty established a neutral zone to separate Earth space from that of the twin worlds of Romulus and Remus which are the heart of what is labeled as the Romulan Star Empire. To monitor the neutral zone there are a string of earth outpost stations, buried deep inside asteroids, to keep an eye on the border and when the episode takes up the USS Enterprise is also pulling patrol duty. A hundred years of peace is suddenly shattered when earth outpost four suddenly signals that they are under attack by an unknown vessel. The Enterprise rushes to investigate as contact is lost with other outposts. Finally the Enterprise witnesses the destruction of one outpost by a mysterious vessel that appears out of nowhere, fires a plasma weapon of incredible power and vanishes into thin air again.

The attacking vessel is identified as a Romulan Bird of Prey by the Romulan custom of painting their warships like a predatory bird in flight. Their plasma weapon is incredibly powerful. The outposts were constructed of the hardest substance known to Earth science a mile deep in an asteroid of almost solid iron and yet with one shot the weapon destroyed their deflector shields and left the outpost in a shambles. A second shot destroyed what was left entirely. Mr. Spock also theorizes that the Romulans have developed an invisibility screen or ?cloaking device? by bending light which allows them to avoid visual detection. However, the sensors on the Enterprise can still detect the movement of the vessel. As long as it is moving they can determine in what direction it is going but they cannot see it and are forced to fire their weapons blindly in patterns hoping for a proximity hit. The Romulan Bird of Prey is obviously much smaller than the Enterprise, slower and has a limited range due to fuel capacity. They also discover that the Romulan weapon is so powerful that it takes all available power to use. Since the cloaking device also uses immense amounts of power they cannot use both at the same time and must become visible in order to attack.

By tapping into a message back to their home world the Enterprise is able to get a brief visual image of the Romulan cockpit and observe that the Romulans look just like Mr. Spock. As a side note, the Romulan commander is played by Mark Lenard who would later play the father of Spock, Ambassador Sarek, and who would also play a Klingon commander in ?Star Trek: The Motion Picture?. Mr. Spock theorizes that the Romulans are an offshoot of the Vulcans who never left their warlike stage of development to embrace pure logic as his people did. They decide that these attacks must be a test of strength on the part of the Romulans and if the vessel is allowed to return to their home world the Romulans will think Earth weak and vulnerable to an all-out invasion. Captain Kirk thus decides that he must destroy the Romulan vessel at all cost before it can reach its home space and, because he is Captain Kirk and this is Star Trek, he of course succeeds in the end. The Romulan ship is disabled and the Romulan commander destroys his own ship and crew rather than be taken prisoner as, according to him, it is their custom.

Another little bit of information we get from this introductory episode is that the Romulans obviously have a great deal of cultural similarity to ancient Rome just as the writers intended for their invisible spaceship to be similar to a German U-Boat. The planets of Romulus and Remus are obviously taken from the legendary twins who founded the city of Rome. Likewise the only Romulan to be named in the episode is called Decius, a very Roman name, an old subordinate officer on the ship is called by the rank Centurion (one who commanded a hundred men in the Roman army) and they speak of their higher authority being the Praetor, another Roman title. Unfortunately, the Romulans will never quite be the same sort of mysterious bad-asses that they were in this episode as the inevitable inability of Star Trek writers to keep to their own story lines came into play the following season when the Romulans appeared again.

In the episode "The Deadly Years" Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty are stricken with a terrible disease that causes rapid aging while investigating a planet dangerously near the Romulan neutral zone. Both sides are obviously still hostile as we find out when an aging Captain Kirk orders a message sent back to Earth via Code Two only to be reminded that the Romulans had broken Code Two. We do not see any actual Romulans in this episode but when Captain Kirk becomes too frail and disoriented to command his ship a pencil-pushing commodore takes over and decides to fly right through the neutral zone and into Romulan space. As soon as the Enterprise enters Romulan space they immediately come under attack by what Mr. Sulu describes as up to ten Romulan warships, marking the second and last time that the classic Romulan Bird of Prey is seen.

This time, however, the Enterprise has either gotten extremely tougher or the Romulans have wussed out on their weapons. In "Balance of Terror" we are given the impression that a single hit by the Romulan plasma weapon would probably destroy the Enterprise. The only weakness in the weapon was its limited range as it weakened pursuing the Enterprise at warp speed and did minimal damage when it finally hit. This time, however, the Enterprise is struck by the Romulan weapon again and again without doing any noticeable damage other than shaking things up a bit and making a few people wonder how long their shields will hold out. Of course, Captain Kirk is cured at the last second and brilliantly manages to bluff the Romulans into backing off while the Enterprise escapes. It was a pretty good episode in my opinion but seemed a little off considering that in the original episode one Romulan Bird of Prey was seemingly more than a match for the Enterprise while this time as many as ten are pounding away on her for several minutes with little effect.

In any event, "The Deadly Years" is also the episode in which I must mourn the passing of my favorite Trek ship; the Romulan Bird of Prey which is never seen again. The Romulans themselves do not reappear at all until the third season episode ?The Enterprise Incident?. In this episode Captain Kirk basically goes ape shit and invades Romulan space while patrolling the neutral zone. The Enterprise is quickly surrounded by Romulan ships though they are at first mistaken for Klingon battle cruisers. Spock clears things up by reporting that intelligence reports are that the Romulans are now using ships of Klingon design. The real fact is that the show creators simply had the Klingon ship model on hand while the old model for the Romulan Bird of Prey had been misplaced. This was an extremely odd episode in many ways with Kirk and Spock both acting out of character and with a great many questions left unanswered. Suffice it to say that Spock starts to put the moves of the Romulan commander (a woman this time) while Kirk goes undercover as a Romulan centurion and steals a Romulan cloaking device which allows the Enterprise to escape. Whether or not this was some sort of clandestine operation is never specifically revealed, nor are we told why future Earth ships have no cloaking device after stealing this one. That part always bugged me anyway because the cloaking device was something unique to the Romulans that gave them an edge no one else had. I liked it that way and although I liked seeing the Romulans again I cannot be as kind to this episode for all of the above reasons.

Following ?The Enterprise Incident? the Romulans once again disappear for a while and are not mentioned in any of the Star Trek movies until "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier". However, some ardent Trek fans may have noticed how in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" the Klingons suddenly have a ship called a Bird of Prey that is small, deadly, armed with a cloaking device and has a bird-like appearance with feathers painted on the wings. It looks nothing like the Klingon ships seen in the Star Trek TV series nor those seen in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" yet it does have a similar name and somewhat similar appearance (at least in the paint job) to that old Romulan ship from the early days of the TV show. This ship, called a Klingon Bird of Prey in a great leap of imagination would ultimately become one of the most popular Star Trek space ships as is evidenced by the fact that it was featured in the next five successive Trek movies. Well, I am sorry to break it to you die-hard Klingon fans (an unstable bunch I am sure) but it was all a lie!

The original script for "Star Trek III" said, I have since learned, that the vessel was intended to have been a Romulan ship that a group of Klingon renegades stole and used for their own criminal venture. So, it seems that the most famous Klingon ship in Star Trek was actually supposed to have been Romulan. It does make sense as it follows the Romulan design more than the Klingon and it has a cloaking device which is something I doubt any world (or space) power would be willing to give up to anyone else if they could help it. Of course, once that part of the script was cut they just ran with it being a Klingon ship and so it has remained ever since though I include a picture of a model some enterprising enthusiast made showing the famous vessel with a Romulan paint job in keeping with the original intent of the story.

In any event, no official Romulan vessel is shown in any of the movies featuring the original cast. We do not see a Romulan again until ?Star Trek V: The Final Frontier? in which a renegade Vulcan takes a human envoy, a Klingon general and a Romulan babe prisoner in order to force their governments to send a starship his way. Oddly enough the Klingons send a ship (another so-called Klingon Bird of Prey) and Earth sends the USS Enterprise but there is not a Romulan ship to be seen. Perhaps the Romulans just do not care that much about their officials or maybe she had some enemies in high places; we will never know. A Romulan is next seen briefly in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" in which case it is the Romulan ambassador to Earth who is part of a plot to provoke another Earth-Klingon war. The Romulans are not seen again until the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series in which they are expanded upon a little more but became increasingly less interesting to me, though I will try to cover what I did pick up from that era.

In the original series the Romulans are described as warlike, cruel and treacherous. We know that they do not allow themselves to be taken prisoner and we know from a remark made by Ensign Chekov in "The Deadly Years" that they likewise do not take captives. We also know that the Romulans seem to have a gender equitable society as in the original series there was a female in command of a Romulan fleet, a female Romulan ambassador in ?Star Trek V? and in Star Trek: The Next Generation there are female ship captains, secret police officers and a Romulan fleet commander known as Commander Sela who is the daughter of an Earth woman from another timeline and a Romulan officer (I will not go into the alternate timeline business because frankly I found all that stuff needlessly confusing). In Star Trek: The Next Generation the Romulans make their first appearance in the finale episode of season one "The Neutral Zone".

In this episode there is a useless sub-plot about a group of humans from the past who are frozen in space, discovered, thawed out and do nothing else but get in the way and in one case provide occasional comic relief. When there is time for the main plot it involves the disappearance of more Earth outposts along the Romulan neutral zone and the Enterprise is sent to investigate thinking that the Romulans must be up to their old tricks again. Commander Riker informs us that after some past incident involving the Romulans there has been absolutely no contact with them for decades. The helpful and ever bouncing Councilor Troi also informs us that the Romulans are related to the Vulcans but unlike their logical cousins are creatures of extreme emotions who are peaceful one moment and violent the next. She says they have a fascination with humans and that they will never initiate anything but prefer to manipulate a situation in such a way that their enemy will make the first move and they can react to it. We also find out that the Romulans have improved their cloaking device so that when in use they are now completely undetectable; though rest assured, in typical Trek fashion, pretty much all of that will be forgotten as the series progresses.

When the Enterprise reaches the neutral zone they find that their outposts appear to have been scooped up and carried off in their entirety. Soon they are confronted by a massive Romulan warship (again with a very birdlike appearance) which states that they have also come to investigate the similar loss of their own outposts on the opposite side of the zone. They agree to share their findings and later on we learn that these outpost disappearances were likely the work of the Borg (which does not really make sense but I have not the time or patience to go into that) and the Romulan commander informed the Enterprise captain with the French name and British accent that matters more urgent caused their long absence in space affairs but that they are now back again and a force to be reckoned with. I would shout hurrah at that news but as the series went on it did not turn out to be much to write home about.

Throughout the course of Star Trek: The Next Generation (though I have certainly not seen every episode nor do I particularly care to) we learn that the Romulans have a Senate (again like ancient Rome) and at one point try to provoke yet another war between Earth and the Klingons through a puppet faction on the Klingon home world. Another big moment with the Romulans came when it was learned that Spock (now an ambassador) was working undercover on Romulus to try to bring about a reunification of the Romulans and Vulcans and in the process discovered a plot to invade Earth space or something to that effect which is thwarted thanks to the captain with the French name and British accent and his trusty robot second officer going in disguise to the Romulan home planet and discovering the Romulan plans. They turn up fairly frequently in the course of the series and were even featured in the last movie starring the Next Generation crew but were not the real villains of the movie and from what I have seen basically were relegated to the background and the part of second bananas. To me it seemed they never quite recovered their aura of power and mystery they had at the very beginning. They have also been featured in the last three series of the Star Trek franchise, but frankly all of those are too painful to go into as they make the first two series appear positively Shakespearean in comparison to the new levels of crappiness they sunk to.

As stated, I am no Trekkie, having more of a passing interest in the franchise when certain things strike me as good but I have to say that one thing that always bugged me in a big way which had nothing to do with the actors or anything like that was the aforementioned inability of the Star Trek writers to stick with their own storyline in what was already covered. There are endless examples of this and the treatment of the Romulans is only one category of it. As stated the Romulan ships appear far weaker in their second appearance than in their first. In that same second episode we are told that the Romulans never take prisoners and yet only one season later they take the entire Enterprise crew prisoner. Things only got worse with the advent of new series and there would not be enough hours in the day to list them all. Sticking to the technical side of things I always liked it better when only the Romulans had invisible ships and I liked the way they were smaller, seemingly weaker and yet compensated for this with their invisibility screen and awesome firepower. In Star Trek: The Next Generation I myself never saw an episode in which a Romulan ship (known as a war bird) ever really fought it out with anyone so we are left not really knowing what they were or were not capable of. They seemed to be relegated to the role of plotters and schemers who always backed out before shots were fired. All of which really sucked in my opinion.

I will say nothing of the subsequent series after Star Trek: The Next Generation as they sucked even worse in my opinion and I have never been able to sit through more than a few of them plus the latest series (a prequel -hate that) went back and basically ruined a lot of the stuff already established in the old series which is another reason for me to ignore it. It does not seem to me that sticking to one storyline and one fictional reality would be that difficult but evidently the people behind Star Trek find that impossible. If that offends anyone, I am sorry -for you; you should not be so emotionally attached to a TV show. But, for all my fellow fans of the old, original Romulans, I salute you.

UPDATE: I have since learned that the original series episodes have been "enhanced" in honor of the 40th anniversary of Star Trek, mostly just improving the special effects shots. However, in these remastered episodes "The Enterprise Incident" now also features the original Romulan Bird of Prey (as seen above) as well as the Klingon style ships being given the traditional Romulan paint job of a flying bird underneath. I must say it is a welcome modification in my book. If only they could have done something to make that Romulan commander a little sexier and more worthy of her awesome mini-skirt uniform. One thing you have to give to the 'old school' Trek characters is that the women were proudly feminine.