The Romulan Star Empire on This Border

The Empire that returned to the Zone in 2364 is watchful, insular, and formidably patient. Romulan strategy on the border is built on cloaking technology, deniability, and the long game: they probe, they test, they gather intelligence, and they wait, forcing the Federation to react while committing to nothing they can be held to. A Romulan provocation is rarely a shot fired; it is a warbird sitting just on its own side of the line for a week, a "malfunctioning" buoy that drifts across, a distress signal that may be a trap. The goal is almost never to win an engagement. It is to learn how the other side thinks, and to be the side that understands the border better when the day finally comes.

Behind the military sits the Tal Shiar, the Empire's intelligence service, whose reach along the border is real and whose operations are never acknowledged. On this stretch of the line, dealing with the Romulans means never trusting that anything is what it appears to be, and never being the one who fires first.