Romulans getting the short end of the stick

[Beckerjr]

Many Star Trek alien species get the shaft. The Romulans are just the biggest one now. The Klingons were that until they got a little bit more depth about them mostly through the experiences/stories through Worf. The Romulans to this day are nothing more than a plot device and the go to baddies for Star Trek.

 

[Henoch]

Seeing multiple dots per grid, I took them to be star systems. With the average density of stars being around one per five LY, a square could be ten ly or more across,, though with how slow Warp speed is maybe it is just five LY and they're in crowded space and counting red stars.

There have been many discussions on the scale of the graphic, but the Enterprise was shown to be moving one square per minute. That's ridiculous speeds if the squares are in the LY range. At one lightyear per square, then the Enterprise was moving at 540,000c. Add in that expelling comet which suggests its near a star. Add in big asteroid outposts which also suggest inside a solar system in an asteroid belt or on large asteroids in the outer reaches of a solar system's Oort Cloud. I curse the graphic; it's just confusing.

 

[Imperator-Zor]

That said, they are the North Koreans, no matter how they dress. They come in a package where Vulcan is South Korea, and animosity across a Neutral Zone revolves around blood ties. Their policies are those of North Korea, with insane aggression for aggression's sake to keep th mighty (perceived) enemies on their toes, but with no desire for actual confrontations where the apparently puny realm would be annihilated. They are the party without allies, save occasionally for the #1 adversary of the UFP, whoever that happens to be at the time; Vulcan's South Korea is solidly supported by an alliance.

Inside, Romulans may cosplay Old Rome, of course. But Old Rome also had its North Korean traits: blind aggression for aggression's sake was a shrewd maneuver in inner politics, the assorted private little wars helping lowly Praetors grab personal riches while the Republic at large was indifferent to the meaningless fights.

Yet Rome did rule, and expand, and lead. Romulus never did, and probably never will. So looking from the outside, it would be inconvenient to think of Romulus as the Space Rome...

...Unless, perhaps, they once were. Like, say, 2,000 years ago. Now how cool would that be? Alas, we hear nothing of this glorious past in any context, including time travel adventures. Oh, well. At least we get nice old Romulan ruins across the galaxy.

Timo Saloniemi

The way that I saw it was that the Federation were like the Parthians to Ancient Rome, a civilization on their frontier which they could not eliminate and curbed their expansion in that direction at least. And unlike North Korea power is not in the hands of a single Great Leader and especially not a dynasty. It should be noted that due to the Roman hatred of monarchy the Emperors (at least until Diocletian after the Crisis of the 3rd Century) framed themselves as being simply the most preeminent of politicians.

The Split between the Romulans and the Vulcans was not imposed from without, but came from within. After the Time of Awakening, a number of opponents of Surak left Vulcan to establish their own civilization elsewhere. To take the analogy, imagine that if during the Crisis of the Third Century a Roman Legate in Gaul decided that instead of attempting to become Emperor and die because he could not pay his men he had a lot of ships with a high freeboard built. He gathered his legions as well as their wives and some peasants, scholars and artisans as well as livestock, seed stock tools and similar onto said fleet. Then followed the setting sun across the Atlantic until they land in Nova Scotia where he burns his ships once their unloaded and establishes a Roman Colony in the New World with plans that his his ancestors a few centuries down the line would return to Europe to restore Rome to glory. That, in space is what the Romulans are.

Besides, there is already a totalitarian police state civilization in the Cardassians and that is a more central pillar of their society.

Zor