Romulans and their "Roman" names

[wautd]

Whats the deal? Is it just done to make it sound cool or is there some connection with romulans and the history of our planet?

[Rogue 9]

Whats the deal? Is it just done to make it sound cool or is there some connection with romulans and the history of our planet?

The writers were counting on people not knowing the legends of the founding of Rome when they were coming up with names, would be my guess. No, there's no in-universe connection between the Romulans and our Roman Empire.

[Sharp-kun]

The writers were counting on people not knowing the legends of the founding of Rome when they were coming up with names, would be my guess. No, there's no in-universe connection between the Romulans and our Roman Empire.

I'm sure Enterprise will come up with one

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

That and they wanted to piss off history buffs.

[Zor]

Whats the deal? Is it just done to make it sound cool or is there some connection with romulans and the history of our planet?

Many Sci Fi alien Cultures (not just ST) Borrow elements from Historical People and Nations.

[Patrick Degan]

Writer Paul Schneider evidently decided that the Romans were the ideal model for a militaristic, duty-bound culture in which pride and honour were paramount virtues when he penned "Balance Of Terror". The parallels may have been ladeled on a bit thick in spots, but it served the dramatic purposes of the script quite well.

[Vympel]

Writer Paul Schneider evidently decided that the Romans were the ideal model for a militaristic, duty-bound culture in which pride and honour were paramount virtues when he penned "Balance Of Terror". The parallels may have been ladeled on a bit thick in spots, but it served the dramatic purposes of the script quite well.

Too bad no subsequent films or episodes could be bloody bothered fleshing out the Romulans in any great detail or to any great satisfaction. Fucking Nemesis.

[JME2]

Writer Paul Schneider evidently decided that the Romans were the ideal model for a militaristic, duty-bound culture in which pride and honour were paramount virtues when he penned "Balance Of Terror". The parallels may have been ladeled on a bit thick in spots, but it served the dramatic purposes of the script quite well.

Too bad no subsequent films or episodes could be bloody bothered fleshing out the Romulans in any great detail or to any great satisfaction. Fucking Nemesis.

Well, originally the plans called for the Romulans to play a larger role in the original series, but they didn't due to makeup costs. And as time went on, the honor and pride aspects were grafted onto the Klingons. Joseph Sherman and Susan Schwartz's Vulcan novels have attempted to bring someaspects of the honorful Romulan back.

As for ENT, I'm not happy. Minefield contradicts Balance of Terror on many levels, and with Manny Coto planning to bring in both Romulans and Remans into this season, I'm more and more worried about the producer's attempts to portray the Earth-Romulans Wars.

[Bellator]

The Romans were far from honorable. The Romulans being portrait as they are fit the Romans better than what Gene had intended.

Also, we won't see the Earth-Romulan wars in Enterprise. They're saving it for a possible future motion picture.

[Kurgan]

Romulans = Romans
Vulcans = Greeks
Klingons = Mongols & other "barbarians"

Federation = "modern" European & Yanks


W00t!

Gets muddier as the shows go on, but basically that's how I interpreted it.

[Crazedwraith]

As for ENT, I'm not happy. Minefield contradicts Balance of Terror on many levels.

Many? I counted two:
1) Cloaking devices.
2) That BoP looking far to advanced.

What other Am I missing?

[Praxis]

Romulans = Romans
Vulcans = Greeks
Klingons = Mongols & other "barbarians"

Federation = "modern" European & Yanks

I have to disagree. For one thing, how are Greeks emotionless and superlogical?

Secondly, at the time of TOS, Klingons were not barbarians. That was a brain bug that developed in TNG.

I seem to recall that Klingons = USSR and Federation = United States during the Cold War.

[Rogue 9]

The Romans were far from honorable. The Romulans being portrait as they are fit the Romans better than what Gene had intended.

Then why was General Regulus executed for breaking his word as a Roman to the Carthaginians during the Punic Wars? He soiled the honor of Rome, and died for it. If they really didn't care, well, he probably would have been given a medal for spoofing Carthage into letting him escape so easily.

[JME2]

As for ENT, I'm not happy. Minefield contradicts Balance of Terror on many levels.

Many? I counted two:
1) Cloaking devices.
2) That BoP looking far to advanced.

What other Am I missing?

You nailed them all (I should have just used the word several instead) .

[Trogdor]

The overly advanced BoP can possibly be explained away. The Romulans often isolate themselves, because they have to deal with the Remans or for whatever other reason. Isolation usually causes stagnation, so it's possible they leapt ahead but then stopped progressing until Earth caught up. I don't watch ENT much, so it's more than possible I'm just wrong, though.

[Lord Revan]

The overly advanced BoP can possibly be explained away. The Romulans often isolate themselves, because they have to deal with the Remans or for whatever other reason. Isolation usually causes stagnation, so it's possible they leapt ahead but then stopped progressing until Earth caught up. I don't watch ENT much, so it's more than possible I'm just wrong, though.

Well that would explain everything, but the cloking device. I think that could be exlained by the temporal cold war.

[Rihannsu Science Officer]

pp.5-6 of "My Enemy, My Ally" by Diane Duane...

... "And as for peril... it came rarely, but fatally, here in the Outmarches - the deadly peaceful space that the power surrounding most of it called the Romulan Neutral Zone." Names...... The great cordon of space arbitrarily thrown about [the Romulan sun] was hardly neutral. At best it was a vast dark hiding-place into which ships of both sides occasionally dodged, preparing for intelligence-gathering forays on the unfriendly neighbor. As for "Romulan"...... curious to understand the name the [Romulan] Empire's old foes had given her world, and had done some research into it. She had been distastefully fascinated to find the word's meaning rooted in some weird Terran story of twin brothers abandoned in the wild, and there discovered and given suck by a brute beast...... It would take a Terran to think of something so bizarre.

Non-canon, but it suggests the Romulans themselves don't call their world "Romulus." In fact, the book says they call themselves "Rihannsu", hence my s/n here. Non-canon though it may be, it is an explanation of the name.

The names we give to planets today come from the names of Roman gods, with the exception of Earth. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, et alii are named after gods. Even Vulcan was named after a god and keeps to this convention. By the time Romulus was discovered, it is quite possible Earth had run out of god names to append to planets and resorted to other mythic figures, e.g. Romulus and Remus. When Romulus was found to harbor humanoid life, the Earth people took to calling the natives "Romulans."

I don't see why an empire wouldn't use a governing system similar to the Romans' anyway. It seemed to be an effective way of running a huge empire that lasted for centuries.[/i]

[Typhonis 1]

and now Tomolak and Sela can unite the Romulan people since the Semate is dead ....

[Publius]

I don't see why an empire wouldn't use a governing system similar to the Romans' anyway. It seemed to be an effective way of running a huge empire that lasted for centuries.[/i]

The Roman empire was an unnecessarily complex and unstable system of extraconstitutional accumulation of power in the hands of a single man without any reliable system of providing for the orderly succession of power. The entire affair was a game of "let's pretend" between the aristocrats and the "emperors," and led to quite a good deal of futile, senseless in-fighting. It was not a particularly good system, and one that developed from idiosyncratic conditions unique to Rome itself. There's no reason for an ostensibly republican imperial system to be used in a distant world's interstellar empire.

PUBLIUS

[Kurgan]

I have to disagree. For one thing, how are Greeks emotionless and superlogical?

It's not a 100% analogy. But there are parallels. The philosophers who valued logic, the Stoic ideals, etc.

If you want to get technical, Vulcans aren't emotionless either, they have just learned to suppress or hide them (some better than others), and "superlogical" is a matter of opinion. They value logic and reference it a lot, but their actions aren't always so. ; )

Secondly, at the time of TOS, Klingons were not barbarians. That was a brain bug that developed in TNG.

I don't mean barbarians in the sense of brainless idiots. I mean in the sense of barbarism. They had no regard for the lives of hostages, employed torture, felt that only the strong should survive, were conquerers, taunted their enemies to start fights, etc. Their visual appearance lends parallels to (hollywood) mongols. They have the little beards, dark skin and bushy eyebrows. It's like they took a (hollywood) barbarian, dressed him in a futuristic uniform, taught him english and gave him a starship. Sure, they're smart and crafty, but compared to the Federation, they have more in common with the barbarians.

I seem to recall that Klingons = USSR and Federation = United States during the Cold War.

Their relationship, certainly. Star Trek VI plays this card to the hilt.

But where do we get the impression that the Klingons are communist and the Federation is capitalist? That's not a straight 100% analogy either. The analogy is the "Cold War" and the idea that the Klingons are an "evil Empire" of oppression vs. the Federation being an "enlightened" free society opposing them, which is the American view of what the Cold War between the US and USSR was.