10 Best Ever Romulan Stories In Star Trek

10. TOS, Balance of Terror

This episode introduced us not only to the Romulan species in Star Trek but also gave us the fantastic Mark Lenard as the Romulan Commander, who would later go on to play Sarek in his defining role.

The episode establishes that the Federation and the Romulans had conducted a war prior that had been carried out entirely by radio and rockets. That war had ended with the setting up of the Neutral Zone - an area of space running between the two superpowers that neither could enter without provoking an armed reaction from the other.

The episode plays like a submarine story. Two heavily armed vessels face off against each other and, crucially, one of them has the ability to render itself invisible. The Romulan cloaking device would set the stage for much of the paranoia and fear of them as a people in the stories to come. They could be anywhere at any time and there was nothing the Federation could do to detect them.

This also gives us our first look at the Romulans and initially, they were identical to the Vulcans. Mark Lenard's face appearing on the viewscreen and the camera's sudden pan to Spock's raised eyebrow was a shock to the crew - was Spock a Romulan spy? What wasn't he telling them about these people? An undercurrent of racism takes over the episode from this point on as crew members who had previously respected and admired Spock immediately began to distrust and suspect him.

While the stand-off ends in victory for the Enterprise and her crew, the Romulans are depicted as honourable and warlike, one of which would be a trait that would become a defining characteristic, the other of which would quickly fall away from their society