Idahobeef

Of the many races the United Federation of Planets encounters on a regular basis, few are more mysterious and deadly than the Romulans. Lieutenant Commander Terise Lobrutto, a Federation deep-cover operative went underground in the Romulan Star Empire some 50 years ago (for a duration of 8 years), mostly for sociological background information. She went in at the same time as the USS Enterprise aquired a Romulan cloaking device (Stardate 5027.3). At that time, very little was known about Romulans and the following is a cultural summary of that enigmatic race:

*Vulcan's first contact with an alien race (the Orions) on Vulcan Old Date 139954 (Jan 18,22 BC on Earth). After the Orions took 800 important hostages, a brief but violent war occurred, after which the Orions steadfastly left the warlike Vulcans alone.

*Surak's reforms began spreading rapidly across Vulcan. Vulcan wars had escalated with time and technology to astonishing proportions. Over a 10,000 year period, there was only one period of ten standard years which as much as 10% of Vulcan was not at war. Without Surak, the planet probably would not exist today except as a ragged band of radioactive asteroids in the second orbit out from 40 Eridani. S'Task and the Eighty-thousand, in opposition to Surak and the Reformation, began the task of self-exile from Vulcan, becoming the first Rihanssu. In their absence, under Surak's tutelage, Vulcan became one.

*Possession of more than one's needs was evil became widespread thinking of the Eighty-thousand before leaving Vulcan. This peculiar mindset reinforced Rhihanssu thinking about deprivation. Personal possessions and wealth were amassed in great amounts for starship funding.

*The Vulcan banking community began to worry as the depreciation nearing as much as 10-25% of the total capital wealth of Vulcan might be completely removed from the banking and credit system. The Vulcan financial system could not withstand such a blow: Any withdrawal of funds and labor greater than 18% would cause a depression too deep for the planet to recover from. The major banking cartels conferred over this problem for nearly a year, and then took the only action possible to them: one that cost them the equivalent of billions of credits, but both saved Vulcan from a depression and made them a great deal of money later. They financed the building of the starships themselves, as well as much necessary R&D. The technologies born in the shipbuilding paid for themselves many times over, since all major patents were owned by the banking cartels.

*With psi assisted bootstrap acceleration, the first Rihanssu ship Rea's Helm, left Vulcan on Ahhahr 140005. Behind her, in two's and three's, came the other seventeen ships: Warbird, Starcatcher, T'Hie, Pennon, Bloodwing, Corona, Lance, Gorget, Sunheart, Forge, Lost Road, Blacklight, Firestorm, Vengence, Memory, and Shield. 

*After forty years of searching, seven of the eighteen ships were lost over the event horizon of a newly collapsed black hole in the 198 Eridani system. Pennon, Starcatcher, Bloodwing, Forge, Lance, Lost Road, and Blacklight all came out of boost phase of the psi-based bootstrap acceleration to find themselves falling down a "hole'" in space. Those from the surviving ships unlucky enough to be in mindlink with them succumbed to psychoses and died quickly, possibly in empathy, or slowly, raving to the end of their lives.

*Three and a half years went by while the surviving ships grieved, argued, and continued searching. S'Task had not come so far to turn back. Using boot-strapping again, the ships headed for 4408 A/B Trianguli, a promising "wide" binary with two possible stars. 4408B Tri is, of course, the star around which orbits the planet Iruh, and the travelers could have not have made a worse choice of a world to examine for colonization. The first two ships, T'Hie and Corona, slipped into regular orbit of a habitable world. Not even Vulcans were capable of holding out against the influence of a species rated one of the most mentally powerful in the whole galaxy, with a reconstructed psi rating of nearly 160 (the most highly trained Vulcans rate about 30, most Terrans about 10). When the T'Hie and Corona were in optimum range, the Iruhe proceeded to suck the life force of the entire compliment of both ships, over 12,000 men, women, and children. Then they crashed the ships full of mindless, still-breathing husks into Iruhe's methane seas, and waited eagerly for the rest of the feast. The Sunheart coasted in next, and her crew noticed with instant alarm that the ion trials of the T'Hie and Corona stopped suddenly around Iruhe, and did not head out into space again. The fleet immediately made the wisest decision possible under the circumstances: they ran. Many more ships and several planets were to fall victim to the insatiable mind-predators. Not until some 1,700 years later, when the Organians were asked to intervene, could anything effective be done about the Iruhe. And the irony is that no one knows to this day just what was "done". The planet is empty-and-quite now, and there is a Federation research team there, sifting the ruined landmasses for what artifacts remain.

*As the ships reached their hundred-year envelopes, food was beginning to be scarce in some of the ships, systems were breaking down, and almost all replacement parts were used up. Warbird was lost to a massive drive system malfunction; she had no adept left who could bootstrap her, and she fell into 114 Trianguli trying to pick up more boost. Memory went the same way, trying to use a black dwarf. The remaining ships - Rea's Helm, Gorget, Sunheart, Vengence, and Firestorm - kept going as best they could.

*More than 1,700 years before the first Klingon/Federation contact with the Rihanssu, the last ships coasted into a binary system with two habitable planets rotating around each other. They named them ch'Rihan and ch'Havran, Romulus and Remus to outsiders.