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Character: Male 'Garidian' Romulan Republic Engineer
Timeframe: Pre-game

Author's Note: Knowledge of the TNG game "A Final Unity" is helpful, but not necessary. One only needs to know that the Garidians are/were a Vulcanoid race similar in appearance to Romulans, they had a strong class system and ties to the Romulan Star Empire to the point that the Garidians used repainted Romulan warbirds - white with a red star design on the nose. For those familiar with "Final Unity", this Elaboration assumes that Picard and the Enterprise-D found the Fifth Scroll and it was returned to Garid, resulting in a general uprising and former members of the lower class establishing a tyrannical regime that oppressed the former upper class.


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"An Exercise in Elaboration"
'House of Cards'
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

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"And before the Lawgiver left Garid, he spoke to the High Council, saying unto them 'You have taken my words and engraved them backwards'." - "Star Trek: The Next Generation", 'A Final Unity'.

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Galactic politics are like a house of cards, remove one and it can bring others down. Remove too many and the 'can' possibility becomes a certainty, others 'will' fall. After the discovery of the Fifth Scroll and the resulting uprising of the Plebian class, the Garidian Republic had been on the verge of falling apart in internal warfare; too many government and community leaders were dead, too many on both sides of the Plebian/Patrician divide hated the newly self-appointed dictator and were moving to unseat them, but each side hated the other and were also preparing to move against them as well.

It was ironic; Federation interference had brought the Garidians to the point of near-self-destruction, but Romulan intervention saved them. It had been the Federation, in the interests of 'Interstellar Archeology' and 'historical truth', who had aided the Plebian revolutionaries in finding the Fifth Scroll that had effectively destroyed the Garidian culture that had been built over the centuries. He could not begrudge the Plebian class's desire for better rights, it was an innate part of most sentient beings to rise above their beginnings. Despite the Federation's preaching that 'all beings are created equal', there was nothing that said they had to remain that way. That did not, however, mean that he had to forgive the Federation for the parts they, their Starfleet and especially Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise played in the near-destruction of his people. If the Romulans hadn't sent troops and ships to restore order, even a Field Primus to act as a Military Governor neutral between the Patricians and Plebians until the Fifth Scroll could be reconciled with the other four and a new Second House formed in the Garidian Senate when proper government was restored, the whole of Garid might have destroyed itself in civil war.

For the next twenty years, the safety and stability of the Garidian Republic found itself inexorbicably tied to the Romulan Star Empire. Then the star of the Hobus system went supernova, the wave of destruction travelled through subspace and destroyed Romulus and Remus, the twin homeworlds of the Star Empire. As the planets were blasted into pieces scattered across the sky, so too were the Romulan people scattered across the quadrant and those who had once looked to them for protection left to fend for themselves. Garid's fall, it seemed, had only been delayed. Without the Imperial Star Navy to backstop it against the mutual antagonism of Plebian and Patrician, the Garadian Senate collapsed and with the Star Empire's concerns focused on Romulan worlds and Romulan power, there was no one to help Garid rebuild this time.

Those who could took what they could of the Republic's history and culture and made an exodus, seeking to save what made Garid what it was in hope that they could one day restore what was lost. Some took refuge in the Federation, others followed the flow of Romulan power to planets like Rator III... a few settled on out-of-the-way and non-descript worlds like Delta Corvi, Rhi, Cirini Prime and Virinat, many working in secret to regain strength until they could retake their world and reestablish the Senate, others merely trying to survive until it would be seen if Garid could be saved or if a New Garid would need to rise from the ashes. Years passed and turned into decades; by the turn of the century, it became the common belief that Garid itself would never recover, the society that remained on the planet and the world itself were too devastated to return to the glorious days of the Republic. The Garidians who had fled their world found themselves integrated into the communities in which they had sought refuge; they became administrators and teachers, scholars... and some joined colony security forces...


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'Noblesse oblige'. That the rights of the nobility, the Patricians, were balanced by duties and obligations; to themselves, to others, to the Republic, it was a concept that he had been reared upon, even in the darkest of times after Garid had collapsed. That those who have power and privilege also have responsibilities. In his case, the privilege was to be alive, free and Garidian; simple, but on a world like Virinat, simple things seemed to have the most value. Simple things like a nectar harvest that would bring the tapping of a new year's vintage of Romulan Ale that night. Before then, however, he had to balance that privilege with duty; it was time to go to work and begin his shift as part of the colony's security force...


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Author's Note: Happy First Contact Day! Or Republic Day or Day of Honor, depending on your preference...