Post by c***@webtv.netHow did the Vulcans move to another planet, name it Romulus and recreate
the Roman Empire? Did they visit earth 2000 years ago and get impressed
by what they saw?
Well, the Roman/Romulan parallels are part of Roddenberry's initial
allegory. He wanted the Romulans to present a fascist, state-controlled
dictatorship (and he already had the Klingons representing Cold War Russia).
Being Vulcanoid, they would have to be much more civil than Klingons anyway;
more erudite and cultured (it was a script point; the female Romulan had to
be Spock's intellectual peer). If you put "dictatorship," "culture," and
"intellect" in a mental search engine, the Roman Empire is the main thing
that comes up.
Also, it's pretty clear that ~someone~ involved with TOS was a fan of the
Romans; what with "Bread and Circuses" (an alternate world where the Roman
Empire never fell), and "Plato's Stepchildren" (more Greco-Roman than
Greek).
FWIW, the analogy isn't perfect; the Romulan Empire doesn't have a
Triumvirate, it has a Praetor. The military is technically called the
Imperial Guard, but the Tal Shiar are a touch of Naziism; a Gestapo-esque
secret police. Also, recent designers (TNG and onward) have worked to add a
"Japanese" influence; with ceremonial weapons resembling katanas, uniforms
based on kimonos, references to a bushido-like code of honour and
discipline, and the use of Japanese instruments in the Romulan theme in
Nemesis.
Originally (as per one of Spock's display screens in TOS), The Romulan
homeworlds were to have been Romulus and Romii, making the analogy less
perfect. It was only later that Remus became canon, and even longer before
somebody decided that Remans would be a separate race (having the same
relation to Romulans as Nietzscheans do to humans in the Andromeverse). (We
can still fit in Romii, since whoever was responsible for drawing that
graphic apparently didn't understand just how tiny planets are; Romulus &
Romii are almost half as far from each other as they are from Earth. 9_9 )
Mark
"Jolan tru."