Exactly right. The idea that Romulans=villains or Romulans=sympathetic good guys is incredibly simplistic in terms of narrative drive. The whole idea of creating complex society, where the viewer needs to determine how they feel, is a powerful in fiction. I love that there is the potential for Romulans to be both sympathetic and still have antagonistic tendencies and factions.
It is worth noting that the Shinzon coup did eliminate the Senate that had overseen the Dominion War alliance, and that the coup plotters rejected the attack on Earth because it went too far.
There's definitely a new generation of leaders in power within the Romulan species. Most of those involved in the Dominion War and the Cold War with the Federation and the rest of the Alpha Quadrant are either retired or dead by now, either in the Shinzon coup or when Romulus was destroyed.
Motivation aside (centuries of mistrust, being duped into joining the Federation in a war against the Dominion, cloning a Starfleet Captain etc), if their homeworld has been destroyed by the Romulan Supernova, how/why are the Romulans stirring up sh*t in the Federation? Don't they have more pressing issues to be dealing with? Like how to recover from the annihilation of their entire civilization? They should, at best, be humble/meek like El-Aurians, refugees floating round space, or at worst the trailer trash of the galaxy. I don't get how they have the mental energy and bandwidth to infiltrate the command structure of another power - which doesn't really pose it any threat - to stir sh*t up.
The infiltration setup no doubt has been in place for centuries in some form. Why not make use of it? If the Romulans can coopt Federation assets, they're much better off than if having to rebuild their own. And the Romulus/Vulcan issue remains unresolved: it's quite possible that humans will find themselves kicked out of the Federation if the two pointy-eared folks really settle their differences or eliminate the competition or whatever. Timo Saloniemi
Now THAT would be interesting. Centuries of homo sapiens only (STVI) policy coming back to bite Terrans in the butt. Unintended consequence from limited wardrobe/costume budget, hence the higher representation of humans in Starfleet. To the rest of your point, yeah maybe. I just think the Romulans would have bigger priorities to be dealing with.
Indepent covert operations far from Romulus might have been some of the few branches of the Romulan Empire to remain functional and a resource easy to exploit even after the supernova. Aka what Timo said.
For a time there the Feds where getting plenty of big cheese Romulans to defect. That Proconsul chap that Troi helped pull out and the head of the Tal Shiar in DS9. The Romulans probably just said to themselves after that - we need to get serious here. Also where's Section 31 in all of this? Presumably with Sloan gone, the Feds are swiss cheese to be infiltrated and so we here we are.
I beg to differ. The fact that Picard said "Romulan Free State" would suggest that the Empire was dissolved.
It was probably akin to the Soviet Union disintegrating after the fall of communism and the failed coup against Gorbachev. More or less similar borders but an entirely new government(or governments) taking the place of the unitary, authoritarian state.
Or could it be that the empire still exists, and the Free State is a 2nd entity, each controlling different territories?
I don't understand how the Romulans could possibly be behind the attack on Mars. Didn't they know the rescue fleet was being constructed there? Why would they wipe out a fleet designed to HELP them? Would they really sacrifice Romulus itself just because synths are employed at Utopia Planitia? And there's also TNG's "The Defector" to consider as well. Admiral Jarok says there are a lot of Romulan cyberneticists who would love to examine Data. Kinda hard to reconcile with the whole Zhat Vash thing.
If the Zhat Vash really hate AI as much as they're reported to, then yeah, I guess they would gladly sacrifice a fleet meant to aid them just to stick it to the Synths. Unless he was actually referring to the Zhat Vash but just referred to them as cyberneticists for Data's sake.
Its one line in one episode, it doesn't change the fact that we never saw the Romulans develop their own AI or androids. I can completely buy the Zhat Vash being willing to sacrifice millions of Romulans for their ideology, just like ISIS is willing to commit massacres against other Muslims or Hilter was willing to enact the ''Nero Order'' to destroy Germany's infrastructure so the Allies would not possess it. History is full of cruel and fanatical organizations that have no problem massacring their countrymen to achieve their goals.
I can't believe how many people are making excuses for bad writing. The level of anti-Romulan sentiment in this show reaches cartoonish levels. We're expected to believe 14 Federation worlds threatened to secede if Starfleet didn't ignore a near extinction level humanitarian crisis because they hate Romulans that much? I think the writers said they wanted it to be commentary on brexit and Trump but apparently didn't care if it made sense in-universe. Let's consider some reasons this doesn't make sense: -The Romulan war didn't turn the Federation into racist xenophobes. -The Klingon war didn't turn the Federation into racist xenophobes. -The Cardassian war didn't turn the Federation into racist xenophobes. -Two Borg invasions didn't turn the Federation into racist xenophobes. -The Dominion war didn't turn the Federation into racist xenophobes. -The Romulans were allies in the Dominion war. -The Federation is an alliance of dozens of different species. That they're not incredibly racist is part of the central premise of the show. The show is even more cartoonishly racist than the reality it's trying to criticize. Can you imagine if 14 states threatened to secede from the US if we offered humanitarian aid or help evacuating North Korea or Iran because a meteor was about to hit them?
Given the politics of some U.S. states I can believe they'd threaten secession for other, far stupider reasons...