Our civilization began when the Declared split from our Vulcan ancestors and began to travel to begin a new civilization among the stars. The Declared where followers of S'task who had a different view than his friend Surak. Surak was teaching the Vulcan philosophy of logic. While S'Task remained true to the old ways of honor. Soon the two philosophies began to clash & S'Task decided to leave the home world with his disciples to save it from being torn apart between two philosophies.
S'Task left with 80,000 people in seventeen ships and began a journey through the solar system looking for a new home world. While on there quest for a new home world many of the seventeen ships where lost. There voyage otherwise known as the Sundering ended with around 4 ships & 18,000 people made planetfall on ch'Rihan and ch'Havran (In Terran Romulus and Remus) Some of these people called themselves Rihannsu or the Declared
At planetfall, the Travelers found themselves suddenly with two empty worlds to populate. Land was distributed by lottery, and most of the population debarked, leaving only a few small "Ship Clans" who were reluctant to abandon the far-travel ships completely. However, life on the two worlds was not idyllic: of the 18,000 Rihannsu who settled on the two worlds, approximately 6,000 died in the first ten years of their settlement.
Oddly enough, these 6,000 did not die of disease or starvation, but mostly from the violent deaths of war. Upon settling down the Rihannsu promptly picked up where things had left off on Vulcan, warring and feuding for various reasons, primarily territory and resources. In such an atmosphere it was only a matter of time before a warlord emerged to impose a central structure on the factions and clans by force, and such a warlord was T'Rehu, the Ruling Queen.
T'Rehu built up an army in about 67 AS (After Settlement) and within 10 years had more might than any in the Two Worlds. When her power was sufficient, she brought her armies to the Grand Council and there demanded recognition. Only S'Task stood before her, and turned and left when the Council granted her demands. A few years later when famine struck the
However, 20 years is a short time in the history of a world and after smarting under her rule for several years the warlike clans of the Eastern continents of ch'Havran revolted and defeated her armies. In place of the Ruling Queen a Tricameral house of Praetorate and Senate was set up which was sufficiently resilient to have survived to this day.
So in relative stability, with regular localized factional wars, the Rihannsu lived for well over 1000 years. The Rihannsu enjoyed all the arts and developed them over this time: sculpture, music, painting, science and war. All were relished and enjoyed. And then, the Rihannsu suffered a rude awakening.
Around the year 1600 AS a Federation ship called the Carrizal entered the 128 Trianguli system to survey this systems. They found 2 habitable planets with an highly developed agrarian civilization on both planets. he crew dubbed the worlds "Romulus" and "Remus" in reference to an ancient Terran legend. In standard first contact procedures they beamed in messages of peace and good will. They received no response. After surveying the system for a time, they returned to the Federation with the news of their discovery.
On our planets the visitors from the Federation had a disturbing effect on our people. They had not forgotten the Orions on Vulcan who also claimed to be peacefully. In 1600 years our people had developed an extremely effective industrial system. We knew who could not match their technology of the ship from the Federation, but years of war had taught them that sheer numbers could overwhelm any technological advantage.
By the time the next Federation ship arrived, the Rihannsu had constructed some 7,000 crude, cylindrical vessels -- impulse powered with particle beam weapons. When the USS Balboa coasted into the Trianguli system, it was blown to bits by the massed particle beams of 50 spacecraft. Shortly thereafter, the Rihannsu captured the USS Stone Mountain, took her apart, studied the design, and added warp drive to their primitive craft. Thus began what was known to the Federation as the "First Romulan War".
The Federation's StarFleet was stymied and confused by their inability to defeat the Rihannsu , who were flying craft that were little more than tin cans with warp power drives. Time and again, larger and larger task forces were sent into Rihannsu space and were systematically obliterated by our army. At about this time, the Federation made first contact with the Vulcans, and asked them if they knew anything about this seemly maniacal race. The Vulcans responded with characteristic caution, that they knew of some who might match the description, but that they had left Vulcan long ago. As StarFleet continued to send task forces into Rihannsu space the Vulcans suggested that, if these were indeed the ones who had left long ago, it would be best to make peace. It took StarFleet several more years to realize that they were never going to prevail, and a treaty was eventually negotiated .
After this war the Neutral Zone was formed. We had contacts with the Klingon empire but when they became allies with the Federation they are treated as the Federation. Thanks to us they have cloaking technique which we traded for one of their ship designs .Nowadays there are still conflicts with the Federation and the Klingon Empire. On our homeworld are groups formed who support reunification with Vulcan because of our Vulcan background. But in spite of all our problems the Romulan Empire will survive.
With thanks to: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/5288/romulan.htm#history
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