Just jotting down something for placement purposes: According to TOS novel: Vulcan's Heart, the Tal Shiar was formed in 2344 following the overthrow of Praetor Dralath by Narviat. It was named in honor of the Emperor (Shiarkiek), and was intended to replace the corrupted Romulan Security. (It isn't hard to envision many of the same personnel moving to the new organization, given their necessary expertise, and thus the switch quickly becoming little more than a name change.) I'm just starting the Vulcan's Soul books, which may also touch on this, since Heart left Charvanek likely to become the new head of security. Anyone who has read them and can shed any more light on this matter?--Emperorkalan 18:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

• I have the Way of D'Era LUG book and the Vulcan's Soul ones. The former has too much information for me to remember what was said on its creation and the latter I don't think touched the Tal Shiar at all. It does talk about Romulan Security though and the Office of Homeland Peace both of which I have added onto the wiki but feel free to add more if you want. -- Darth Batrus 20:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

FASA material[]

I've been going through the FASA rpg books in order to categorise them and noted that the Intelligence Operations Game Master guide notes a body called the Romulan Military Division Intelligence. The article links to the Tal Shiar, anyway just wanting to know if its indeed the Tal Shiar or a separate organization. -- Darth Batrus 14:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Well that would depend on how it's described, is it's function and organisation the same as the Tal Shiar. It's certainly not impossible for there to be more than one intelligence agency in an Empire, the Cardassians have the Obsidian Order as well as the Central Command's own intelligence organisation. --8of5 00:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

CaptMike created that link back in December. Hopefully he will chime in on this and shed some light on his reasoning. In the FASA Romulan manuals RMDI is just an entry in an org chart; Military Division also has separate Security branch, and both have their counterparts in the Colonization, Exploration, and Outpost Divisions. There's a smidgen of additional material in the Star Fleet Intelligence Manual:Game Operations sourcebook, talking about other intel agencies. RMDI is the unit with the most contact with the Federation, it's run by a Commander Decartus (whose title of "Director of Security Operations for the Military Division" is either at odds with the org chart or indicates some overlap with Military Security), and that they tend to play subtle games to gain influence over nonaligned worlds more than directly confront Federation interests. And that's it. I don't think it's an equivalent to the Tal Shiar, since it doesn't appear to have the high-level independence that the Tal Shiar has (i.e., its own frakkn' fleet), nor its apparent political role. (We also have yet another Romulan intel organization, Romulan Security, run by Charvanek since 2344. (Vulcan's Heart and Vulcan's Soul)) So perhaps we should say that the RMDI was the foremost Romulan intelligence division in the FASA continuity, but was superceded in canon by the more-centrally-organized Tal Shiar. --Emperorkalan 09:21, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

An additional note for Darth: With FASA materisals, remember when they were written: in the 80's, when Trek canon was TOS and the TOS movies (and TAS, or at least elements of it). Even by the end, they only had previews of First-season TNG stuff. Anything that was introduced later (such as the Tal) can't be the same thing. FASA might have created something equivalent (its detail of the Klingon homeworld includes both an "alien's graveyard" prison mine and an exploding neighboring planetary body, years before TUC used those same concepts in a different way), but very rarely can you take it to be "the same".--Emperorkalan 09:38, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Well that was my thinking considering how old the FASA material is, I don't have any problem with the stuff and they have some interesting entries. Its just I was wondering whether it should be linked to Romulan Military Division Intelligence though as 8of5 said if there function is similar then I guess it would be ok but then again as he said it wouldnt be odd to have multiple intelligence agencies. Will wait for CaptMike to come in and have his say. -- Darth Batrus 11:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)