Reman

For the Reman Homeworld, see: Remus

Introduction
Remans are humanoid, at least partially telepathic, inhabitants of the planet Remus.

Biology
A nocturnal race, the Remans shun light, and are characterized by their imposing heights, grey skin, large ears, keen eyesight in the dark, and the possession of telepathic abilities.

Telepath
It was known that similar to the Romulans, the Remans possessed the Vulcan-genes for telepathy within their DNA. Unlike their Romulan brothers, however, the Remans have demonstrated telepathic abilities which can dull the sense of pain among those suffering from disease and allows them to invade the minds of others.

It was learned that the Romulan followers of Surak, who possessed the telepathic abilities among their kind, were banished to Remus while the others were killed on the journey across space. It was later seen how the Vulcans who settled on Remus fared: After one Vulcan, Refas, blundered out onto the ice of the planet's surface in what appeared to be a suicide attempt, he encountered a colony of extremophiles who thrived there. They revived Refas, and began to alter him to more effectively live on Remus (he was able to survive more comfortably in the freezing environment). Healer T'Olryn adapted the extremophiles to work on any Vulcan, and soon an entire colony was being slowly mutated. They developed the hairless, pale skin, sunken eyes, and powerful telepathic abilities that later Remans are seen to possess.

Cultural Dogma
Some Remans believed that when they die, their souls would be reincarnated on Romulus where they can live in Paradise itself; however, many others hold the more fatalistic belief that their existence is the only one that is available to them. Reman myths believe that one day a Reman not of their world would arrive that would free them from their bondage to the Romulans and usher in a new age for their kind; one where all Remans are free. They identified this person with the name of Shinzon which can mean liberator among their kind. According to their ancient teachings in the Old Ways, it was stated that He Who Returns would be a Reman not born of Remus that would live the life of freedom. This individual was stated to return to Remus in order to pass this gift to the rest of the inhabitants of that harsh world.

The Remans also share some of the Romulan beliefs as they believe in the afterlife known as the Halls of Erebus. They also developed their own belief in a mythological figure known as Tenakruvek who is believed to have ascended into the Reman afterlife.

Society
The Remans were an oppressed caste within Romulan society, with their world having long ago come under the auspices of the Romulan Star Empire. The Remans were, in fact, little more than slaves to the Romulans; many were forced to work under harsh conditions in Remus' dilithium mines, while other worked as personal servants or bodyguards to rich and powerful Romulans. Still more were drafted into the Romulan Imperial Fleet, forced to work as ground forces -- cannon fodder or shock troops, in other words.

Their fearsome warrior nature meant that the Romulans often employed Remans to serve as bodyguards to senators that were used to intimidate possible opponents.

The life of the Remans has been a long and painful one where they endlessly toiled within the harsh surface of their homeworld. Their spirit had long ago been crushed and the concept of freedom is somewhat alien to them at times. In addition to this, the concept of what is a Reman is somewhat fluid. The race believes that anyone who is banished to Remus is considered a fellow brother and is, thus, a Reman. Their species even lacked doctors as such and Romulan Assessors only allowed basic medical knowledge to be provided to Remans. This training ranged from wounds sustained in the mines to child-birth which were the limits of their medical knowledge.

The Reman language itself is considered quite complex and makes use of pictographs. During their oppression by the Romulans, the Reman language was considered forbidden script though they did manage to retain writing it.

There appears to be very little in the way of culture among the Remans though ancient stories are passed down from one generation to the other through oral means. Mention is made of the Old Ways and the concept of the Clans.

Colonization
The history of the Reman species can be traced to the Vulcans during the time of the Sundering when several starships left the planet in order to continue their way of life elsewhere. These ships discovered the twin worlds of Romulus and Remus; at the time of the Arrival, the First chose their own worlds for their own reasons thus Romulus was settled where homes were built, plants were seeded and the people lived a free life. However, in order to continue their civilization, a lot of resources were required. Thus, it was decided that Remus itself needed to be settled as it possessed a wealth in riches and resources that were needed to fuel the creation of a new society. To set an example, Karatek of the Shavokh decided that his ship-clan would develop a settlement on the hostile world of Remus. Those amongst the First that settled on Remus consisted of miners and engineers who believed that they their labor would be rewarded with a life on Romulus with the rest of their kind. Even before their work began, Karatek and his people were betrayed and left in exile on Remus where they worked essentially as slaves. It was during this time that the Remans were born.

In the first few years, the colonization project of the world was difficult as transport ships moved between Remus and Romulus in small but limited manner. Travel time took weeks and life support requirements also diminished due to the need for ore that returned to Romulus. As a result, the First of Remus found that they could not return to Romulus as frequently as they had hoped and thus began to form families on this world whereupon the Divide began. The genetic father of the Reman species is Refas while T'Orlyn would be their mother. Their DNA had become altered by the extremophiles that lived on Remus which made them perfectly suited to survive on the hostile planet. The first of the 'prototype' Remans was Rovalat who was the genetic son of T'Orlyn and Refas. He would be the protector and the eldest of the new species which developed a fierce hatred of the early Romulans for what they did to their ancestors. At first, this mutated Vulcan species would remain hidden and make covert strikes against their oppressors which would be done so through collapsing caves that were made in order to kill the guards and to ensure that no exiled Vulcan was harmed.

Whilst the ancient records on Romulus had been purged, the oral traditions of the new Remans told of later events. Two or three generations following the Arrival, a war erupted between Romulus and Remus. The two Vulcan splinter races found a savage war but those that became known as Romulans ultimately controlled the spacelanes thus leading to the Remans to starve. This war lasted for little more than a year with the Romulans emerging as the conquerors and the Remans becoming the conquered. Thus, began the relationship of master and slave with the Remans becoming a second class people who had formed an uneasy partnership with their tyrannical rulers. In later years, the government of Romulus began to suppress any mention of these events which were largely forgotten except for a select few in later generations. It was known that there were multiple times where a Reman rose amongst the oppressed classes in an attempt to overthrow their Romulan rulers though all these failed.