The Romulans Are Coming

Tomorrow, Star Trek Online's Legacy of Romulus goes live.  It's a pretty huge update, not only bringing the Romulans and Remans in as new player character races along with Romulan-specific content, but also adding to Klingon faction content.  Klingons will now be starting characters that you level from one through fifty, as opposed to them starting at level twenty after you'd already leveled up a Federation character.  There's more, but these are the biggies.

Since The Next Generation, I've been very interested in the Romulans - their culture and their looks.  Romulans took paranoia and guile to a new level, their signature cloaking devices giving these traits form, if you will.  They always seemed to fit into the puzzle of the Star Trek universe somewhere between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.  They were very actively Imperial in nature, through conquest and not negotiation, like the Klingons and unlike the Federation.  They prioritized science and exploration, like the Federation (though for different reasons) and unlike the Klingons.  Stealth was a big part of their combat strategy (like Klingons), but they fought first and foremost for strategic wins and not for glory/honor (like the Federation).  You get the point.

Now, STO follows a different timeline than the J.J. Abrams movies and that point diverges with the destruction of Romulus.  So whereas in the movies Vulcan is destroyed and Spock and Nero travel back in time, in the STO universe Romulus was destroyed and we continue on with a timeline in line with the various series' and disregarding the new Abrams movies (so, basically, the past was not altered).  Regardless, it was very strange to see what were once members of one of the galaxy's largest empires reduced to refugees on a new planet, trying just to get by.  With the coming of this expansion, though, it looks like the Romulans have bridged the gap from "getting by" to "getting back in the game."

Along with the Romulan expansion comes a new lock box, of course.  You'll forgive my naivety when they announced that the present Dominion lock boxes were coming to an end soon and I wondered when the next lockbox would kick in.  Enter the Tal Shiar Lock Box, going live tomorrow along with the expansion.  All kinds of goodies to be had in them, to include a couple of Romulan ships with some serious Borg enhancements.

Also interesting to note about the new Romulan faction - at some point you'll have to choose to ally yourself with either the Federation or the Klingon Empire.  When you do so, you'll be able to use that faction's ships in addition to the standard Romulan vessels.  Romulans will be the only faction that can captain Romulan ships, though.

My plan tomorrow is to do my first live video recording (I add my voice-overs to my videos after the fact) of the character creation process and what it has to offer the Romulans.  Expect a little more background noise than usual, but I'll do my very best to edit that out.  I would do some actual Romulan content, but I'd be doing it at the starting levels and I don't want to spoil it for you.  Besides, many other channels will be covering that if Romulan starter content is what you're craving.

Until then, take care and watch your back.  Romulans are around...somewhere...