Government of the Empire

1. Overview

The Romulan Star Empire is governed by a Praetor and a Senate, with a small inner council called the Continuing Committee, an intelligence service that answers to almost no one, and a fleet that has more than once decided the fate of the state by what it chose not to do. On paper the system is old and settled. In practice it was broken in 2379, when Shinzon’s coup killed the Senate and its Praetor in a single day, and what governs the Empire in 2393 is a rebuilt version that still bears the marks of that day.

This article describes the offices of the Empire as the Federation understands them, the fall of the old Senate, the three years without one, and the government that replaced it. It also covers the provinces, the place of the Imperial Fleet and the Tal Shiar beside the civil power, and what the Federation knows of Romulan law. A great deal is not known. The Empire does not explain its government to outsiders, and the Federation’s picture is built from what Romulan officials have said in public, what the Empire has announced, and what can be seen from the outside. For the history behind it, see History of the Romulan Star Empire.

2. The Shape of the State

Power in the Empire runs along two lines that meet at the top. The first is formal: the Praetor heads the state, the Proconsul speaks for the Praetor in the Senate, and the Senate debates and decides the business of the Empire. The second is informal and older than any office. It runs through the great noble houses, whose members fill the Senate, the governorships and the senior ranks of the Fleet, and whose alliances and rivalries shape every decision the formal offices make. A Romulan official is never only an official. He or she is also a member of a house, and Federation diplomats who forget that tend to misread what they are told. See Society, Houses and Customs.

Beside both lines stand the two armed institutions: the Imperial Fleet and the Tal Shiar. Neither is supposed to govern. Both have, at one time or another, decided who does.

3. The Praetor

The Praetor is the head of the Empire and the highest office the Federation knows of. The Praetor presides over the Senate and directs the Empire’s policy. How a Praetor is chosen is not fully understood. The office is not hereditary, and the Federation believes the Senate’s support is needed to hold it, but the balance between election, the backing of the great houses and the support of the Fleet has never been explained to outsiders and may vary from one Praetor to the next.

The Praetor at the time of Shinzon’s coup was Hiren, who was killed with the Senate in 2379. Shinzon then declared himself Praetor, and held the title until his death later the same year. The office was then empty through the Silence. Since 2382 there have been two Praetors: Sorrel t’Keleth from 2382 to 2389, and Ardhal tr’Vesuin since 2389.

4. The Proconsul

The Proconsul is the Praetor’s chief voice in the Senate and one of the most powerful figures in the Empire. Federation records name the Proconsul Neral in 2368, who publicly welcomed talk of reunification with Vulcan while taking part in a plan to invade it. There has also been a Vice-Proconsul, an office below the Proconsul whose duties the Federation does not know in detail.

The present Proconsul is Mevrek tr’Annai. He speaks for Praetor tr’Vesuin in the Restored Senate, and Federation analysts treat his public statements as the clearest available guide to the Praetor’s thinking. Little else about him is publicly known.

5. The Senate

The Romulan Senate is the Empire’s assembly. It sat on Romulus, in a chamber that was also the scene of its destruction in 2379. Its members, the senators, are drawn largely from the great houses and from the Empire’s senior officials. How many sat in the old Senate, and how they were chosen, is not known with certainty.

A handful of senators of the old Senate are known to the Federation by name, and each says something about how the Senate worked. Senator Pardek served for many years and was long regarded as a friend of reunification with Vulcan. In 2368 he proved to be working with those who planned the invasion of Vulcan. Senator Vreenak was one of the Empire’s senior senators during the Dominion War, and his death in 2374, on his way home from a meeting with Federation officials, brought the Empire into the war. Senator Cretak represented the Empire at Deep Space Nine in 2375 and hoped for a seat on the Continuing Committee; instead she was removed from office after the Tal Shiar chairman accused her of treason. Taken together, these careers show a Senate where reputation could be a disguise, where a single senator could change the Empire’s course, and where the Tal Shiar could end a senator’s career at will.

6. The Continuing Committee

The Continuing Committee is a small inner body at the top of the Romulan government. It is known to have existed during the Dominion War, when the Tal Shiar chairman, Koval, sat on it and Senator Cretak hoped to join it. Its exact powers are not known, but membership is understood to place a Romulan among the handful of people who decide the Empire’s most important questions.

The Committee still exists in 2393. Who sits on it is not public. Federation analysts assume that the Praetor, the Proconsul, senior figures of the Restored Senate and representatives of the Fleet and the Tal Shiar have places on it in some form, but this is assessment, not knowledge.

7. The Fall of the Old Senate (2379)

In 2379 Shinzon, a human raised among the Remans and a commander of Reman troops in the Dominion War, seized power with Reman forces and the support of part of the Romulan military. His followers killed the Senate in its chamber with a thalaron weapon. Praetor Hiren died with it. In one act the Empire lost its Praetor, most of its senators and a large part of its governing class.

Shinzon made himself Praetor, but his rule lasted only weeks. He was killed in the Bassen Rift, fighting the USS Enterprise-E and two Romulan warbirds under Commander Donatra, who had turned against him. His death left the Empire with no Praetor, no Senate, and no one whose claim to rule was accepted by everyone else.

8. The Silence (2379 to 2382)

Romulans call the three years that followed the Silence. There was no Senate. The surviving noble houses and the provincial governors ran their own provinces, raising their own revenue, keeping their own order and, in several cases, making claims to rule the whole Empire.

The Imperial Fleet held the Empire together by refusing to take sides. It kept its ships at their stations, guarded the borders and the core worlds, and lent its strength to no claimant. Without the Fleet, none of the rival houses could win by force, and none could be sure that any other would not. Federation analysts are divided over whether the Fleet acted from principle, from caution, or from a calculation that it would matter more to whoever won if it had not chosen. Romulans themselves speak of it as the Fleet’s great service to the Empire. Either way, the Silence ended not with a victory but with an agreement.

One law of the Silence is known to the Federation. In 2381 Romulan law declared the Remans “subjects of the Empire under protection”. Federation observers believe the declaration was meant to answer the fear, after Shinzon, of another Reman rising. It changed little on Remus. See The Remans.

9. The Restored Senate

The Restored Senate first sat in 2382. It was rebuilt from the surviving noble houses and from the provincial governors who had ruled their own provinces during the Silence, so that the men and women who had held the Empire in pieces were the ones who put it back together. That origin still shows. The Restored Senate is smaller than the old one, and its members bring their provinces and houses with them in a way the old Senate’s members did not always have to.

It is also more afraid of its own security services. The old Senate was killed by a coup that the Tal Shiar did not prevent and the Fleet did not stop. Its successors have drawn the lesson. Federation analysts believe the Restored Senate keeps the Tal Shiar at a greater distance than its predecessor did, and that its members take care over their own protection to a degree that would have seemed strange before 2379. How this works in practice is not known. What is visible is the result: a Senate that moves slowly, trusts little, and prefers decisions that leave every faction able to claim it was consulted.

10. Praetor Sorrel t’Keleth (2382 to 2389)

Sorrel t’Keleth became Praetor when the Restored Senate first sat in 2382, and she held the office for seven years. Her praetorship presided over the inward years. The Empire’s business under t’Keleth was its own: settling the claims of the houses, binding the provinces back to the centre and rebuilding the machinery of the state. The Empire did not press its borders. Romulan patrols along the Neutral Zone stayed thin, and contact with the Federation was rare.

The inward years were not peaceful within the Empire. The Lyreth Shiar, a sect calling itself “the True Empire”, rose in the 2380s far faster than it should have, with the secret help of the Breen, and was dismantled from within after several years. The details have never been made public. See Dissidents, Splinters and Unification. The first patrols returned to the line in 2387, in the last years of her praetorship. T’Keleth stepped down in 2389. Her reasons have not been made public.

11. Praetor Ardhal tr’Vesuin (since 2389)

Ardhal tr’Vesuin became Praetor in 2389. His praetorship is the one that sent the patrols back to the Zone. The first patrols had already returned in 2387; tr’Vesuin made the return the policy of the state and sent them back in strength, and the Tal Shiar went with them. Under his government the Neutral Zone has become a hard border in all but name.

Tr’Vesuin’s praetorship has also faced the Reman breakaway at T’Met. The Empire tried to talk T’Met back in; in 2391 it is believed to have used biogenic weapons on its people; and in 2392 T’Met joined the Federation, after Starfleet relief in which the USS Ragnarok worked to settle the region (see The USS Ragnarok and the Romulans). The Empire has not acknowledged the events of 2391. To most Romulans the loss of T’Met is an affront still unanswered, and Federation analysts expect the government to be judged at home by how it answers. See T'Met.

What is known of tr’Vesuin personally comes mostly through his Proconsul. His government speaks seldom and plainly, commits to little in public, and gives the impression of a Praetor who believes that time is on the Empire’s side.

12. Provinces and Governors

Outside the core worlds the Empire is divided into provinces, each under a governor. The number of provinces and their borders are not public. A governor is responsible for order, revenue and the administration of the worlds in the province, and in the frontier provinces works closely with the Fleet. Governors are believed to be appointed from the centre, but most come from the great houses, and in practice many provinces have been governed by the same house for generations.

The Silence changed the governors’ place in the state. For three years they ruled with no one above them, and when the Restored Senate was formed many of them took seats in it. A governor in 2393 is therefore often both an administrator answerable to the Praetor and a senator with a voice in choosing the Praetor’s policy. Federation analysts see this double role as one of the main sources of both stability and quarrel in the present government.

Along the Federation border, the Empire’s territory is also divided into military sectors under the Imperial Fleet. Three face the Federation. Sector commands and civil provinces do not match exactly, and the Fleet’s sector commander and the civil governor of the same region are separate officials.

For the Romulan side of the line in more detail, see The Romulan Side of the Zone.

13. The Fleet and the Tal Shiar Beside the Civil Power

The Imperial Fleet

The Imperial Fleet serves the state, not any house or faction, and its conduct during the Silence made that more than a formula. Its officers rise through the ranks from Uhlan to Grand Admiral, and its senior commanders are figures of real weight in the Empire. The Fleet does not govern, but no Praetor can govern without it, and every Praetor since 2382 has known that the Fleet’s refusal to choose a side once mattered more than any choice the houses made. See The Imperial Fleet.

The Tal Shiar

The Tal Shiar is the Empire’s intelligence service, and it has always stood partly outside the ordinary order of the state. Federation reports from the 2360s describe Tal Shiar officers aboard Fleet warbirds with authority to overrule their commanders, and Fleet officers who resented it. In 2375 its chairman sat on the Continuing Committee and could end a senator’s career with an accusation. In 2371 it was nearly destroyed at the Omarion Nebula, and it has been rebuilding ever since: smaller, younger and more technical than the service lost there, and quietly determined to prove itself.

The Tal Shiar’s chair has not been publicly named since 2384. Its operations are never acknowledged. Along the border it is compartmented from the Fleet: Chaltok Sector Command, for instance, does not see Tal Shiar forces in its sector. The relationship between the Restored Senate and the service is the least understood part of the Imperial government, and perhaps the most important. See The Tal Shiar.

14. Law and Loyalty

The Federation knows little of Romulan law in detail. It knows that the Empire has laws, courts and a strong idea of treason, and that in matters touching the security of the state the Tal Shiar has acted with little regard for any court. Accusation has often been enough. Dissent, especially the cause of reunification with Vulcan, has been watched and punished, and the Unification movement has worked underground for decades. See Dissidents, Splinters and Unification.

Loyalty in the Empire runs in layers: to the Empire first, in principle; to one’s house; to one’s patrons and superiors. A Romulan can be loyal to all three and still have to choose among them, and much of Romulan politics is the business of making others choose. The state’s demand above all is loyalty to the Empire itself, and the worst charge a Romulan can face is to have put anything before it.

The Remans sit outside most of this. Romulans see them as lesser, a people meant to serve. Since 2381 the law has called them “subjects of the Empire under protection”, a phrase that grants them the Empire’s protection without granting them a place in its government. T’Met is the only Reman world outside the Empire.

15. Offices at a Glance

16. See Also

The Romulan Star Empire · History of the Romulan Star Empire · Timeline · Romulans and the Federation · The Tal Shiar · The Imperial Fleet · Society, Houses and Customs · The Romulan Side of the Zone