Presumably they had something special for their forms of being.
How does the Romulan government work?
- Thread starter Arpy
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Typical BS on Q's part. He was trying to impress Janeway when he said that.
Amongst Romulan weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Praetor, and uniforms with REALLY big shoulder pads...I'll come in again.
What better way than to compare her to Cleopatra instead of a ceremonial functionary?
The shoulder pads were an attempt to marry Roman with Asian culture I think. They were kimono / samurai-wear.
They watched too much Dynasty.
You left out the comfy chair...
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The British Empire also had as it's head a king rather than an emperor.
Often this is also a translation, the Swedish Empire in English was so called, but in Swedish it's official name never insinuated an emperor as head of state.
Japan's head of state is commonly translated as “emperor”, though it is seldom called an empire today — this is merely a convention that grew and the term used in Japanese simply means something along the lines of “heavenly ruler”.
Empire is always a translation, since the only English (British) Emperor wasn't really an Emperor, outside of India for propaganda reasons. It's doubly a translation when applied to the Klingons or the Romulans or the Slavers or the Tkon. The use of the term "Empire" in modern English doesn't imply an Emperor, just an imperial system of government (usually a multinational state that has local rulers beholden to a central figure or authority).
Per Okrand, the Klingons referred to their ancient leader as the ta', and this was translated to Emperor. ta' is also a word that means "accomplishment" or "to achieve something", so we can assume that the ta' is the overall Achiever of Victory in Klingon etymology.
On the fan-derived Vulcan Language Dictionary, the word for Emperor is sa-eik-te'krusu, a compound word comprised of words that might mean something along the lines of male (sa') wide (eik) 100 (teh) part (krus), which implies to me that ancient Emperors were leaders of specifically defined partitions.
In Diane Duane's Rihan language (Romulan), emperor is rhiyrh, a word that shares some similarity to the words for tradition (rhiymn) and sentence (rhirh), which makes one wonder if there's some etymological connection there, perhaps as a Traditional Judge of the People. Curiously, the word for Empire is defined inbetween two types, Empires led by one person (an emperor) - nneikha, and Empires led by a people (a traditional Empire regardless of leader title) - aevumih. Both of which have no apparent connection to each other or the supposed emperor.
He doesn't. He's citing her as an example of a humanoid with high status against whom he is judging Janeway's value in order to manipulate her into consenting to mate with him. And he's bad at that attempt at manipulating, because Q is kind of a dumbass when it comes to understanding Humans.
Absolutely! But the Romulan Star Empire does seem to represent a period in their history when a relatively more regressive government holds sway, what with its brutal Tal Shiar, its citizens who worry about being seen as "disloyal," and the conflicts between the Romulan government and the Qowat Milat.
By contrast, the Romulans on Ni'Var in the 32nd Century seem positively progressive in comparison with at least one major Vulcan faction![/quote]
