Star Trek Romulans as Rihannsu

The greatest changes to the Star Trek universe occurred in between the original classic "Star Trek" series (TOS) and its relaunch with "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (TNG). The classic races which had appeared on the original series and would recur on "Star Trek: The Next Generation, Romulans and Klingons especially wound undergo dramatic changes. This process had already begun with the remodeled Klingons of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture".

The Klingons, who had been craven and ruthless imperialists in the classic Star Trek-- a cross between Genghis Khan's Mongols and the USSR, reemerged as honorable and courageous if relentless warriors. The Romulans, whose depiction had suggested they were ruthless and cunning but overall honorable-- reemerged as perpetually treacherous and always plotting members of a militaristic police state.

If "Star Trek: The Next Generation" enriched the Klingons, it tended to impoverish the Romulans, reducing them from an honorable if unnerving race that paralleled the Vulcans -- they reemerged in the 24th century as a virtually indistinguishable and entirely forgettable totalitarian race, making the occasional easily repulsed attempt to destroy the Enterprise. While the Klingons came to be depicted as honorable, the Romulans became depicted as treacherous and untrustworthy. Yet this was not always the case.

When author Diane Duane was asked to tackle the Romulans, what she produced came to be known as the Rihannsu series of books. The Romulans or Rihannsu, as they called themselves, gave us a portrait of Romulans as a race and Romulan society on a par with what John Ford had done and what Ron Moore would later do for the Klingons. It gave them character, nobility and a destiny.

With "The Empty Chair", the concluding novel in the Rihannsu series newly released, Diane Duane concludes the tale of the Romulans as Rihannsu, the Dedicated, the descendants of the Vulcan exiles, the Travelers who turned their backs on their home world of Vulcan refusing to suppress their emotion and to trade the passion in their hearts off for peace. In the Rihannsu novels, as well as in her Vulcan novel, "Spock's World", Diane Duane laid out the story of a people that had never been properly told except when they were first introduced in the classic Star Trek episode, "Balance of Terror".

Primarily the story of the Rihannsu in the Rihannsu novels is the story of Commander Ael i-Mhiessan t'Rllaillieu who leads a campaign against the corruption that the praetors have imposed on the Rihannsu people, by attempting to seize Vulcan brain matter to endow themselves with telepathic abilities turning Romulus or ch'Rihan into an absolutely totalitarian state governed by rulers who can read minds and force obedience while detecting illegal and conspiratorial thoughts.

Thus begins Diane Duane's "My Enemy My Ally" which sees Ael t'Rllaillieu first come to Captain Kirk and the Enterprise for help in destroying the station holding kidnapped Vulcans prisoner along with the brain matter extracted from them and used to seize control of the U.S.S. Intrepid. Unsure whether she can be trusted or not, the Federation crews of the U.S.S. NCC-1701 Enterprise (No bloody A, B, C or D) and the Rihannsu crew of the Bloodwing come to know one another and relate to each other, much as Captain Kirk and Ael herself do.

Diane Duane's sequel, "The Romulan Way" is less a story of Ael-- though she does make an appearance during its culmination, than about a Federation agent in the household of a Romulan, who is passing as a Romulan herself-- until she begins to lose sight of which of these she is. Unlike "My Enemy: My Ally", together with "Spock's World", "The Romulan Way" ably defines the Romulans \ Rihannsu and the Vulcan \ Romulan divide itself. Dedicated to their passions, where the Vulcans are dedicated to controlling, suppressing and mediating them--- the gap presents two views of a dangerously passionate race which followed two paths, one path took it into a companionable friendship with humanity and membership in the Federation and the other into xenophobia, paranoia, totalitarian dictatorship and finally a state of war with the Federation. Yet for all that and perhaps because of that, it is the Romulans who seem more familiar to us than the Vulcans, the ones who chose war over peace, freedom over submission and self-reliance over self-control.

Throughout the Rihannsu novels, Ael, an example of the old Romulan, the honorable men and women of the kind Mark Lenard portrayed in "Balance of Terror" or Admiral Jarok as portrayed by James Sloyan in "Star Trek: The Next Generation's" "The Defector". In "The Romulan Way", Ael seizes the Sharien Sword, one of the nine swords by the ancient Vulcan swordmaster Sharien, which had been taken by the Travelers, the Rihhansu exiles from Vulcan, along with them. Taken from the Empty Chair, where the Empress once sat, Ael uses the missing sword placed on her own command chair to begin a quest to liberate her people from the corrupt tyranny of the praetors, the dishonor that has corrupted the people and the fleet and the Federalism emerging from Romulus \ ch'Rihan which has continued to crush the Rihannsu outworld colonies.

The culmination of her campaign ends with a Rihannsu rebellion, the exodus of some and the destruction of the Preators, replaced with rule by Ael, who is appointed as the Empress herself. The sword is restored again and Spock brings with him the Sharien sword he kept in his own quarters, as gift from their Vulcan cousins to the Romulan people.

At the end Diane Duane attempts to reconcile the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" image we have of the Romulans with her own by having Ael warn Captain Kirk that the resulting reforms may not go as planned and that the Romulan people might close their borders and withdraw for some time. As they appear to have done. Indeed in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" we see them reemerging from a long period of isolation. Further supporting evidence is provided by the presence of a Romulan representative in the Federation President's office during "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" who offers an allied attack against the Klingons-- a state of affairs seemingly in line with the conclusion of "The Empty Chair".

The stories of the Rihannsu may not be official canon, but like some of the work in the Star Trek novels, including John Ford's work on the Klingons-- they are better than canon providing a window into the soul of an often maligned race. In doing so she has also created Ael t'Rllaillieu , the only female character who serves as an equal to Captain James T. Kirk and the only woman with whom there was any real spark.