History Literature / Rihannsu

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: [[spoiler: Ael to the entire Rihannsu government at the end of Book Two.]]

* OverlyLongName: A number of Rihannsu.

** Arrhae is a Federation deep-cover agent. Other examples are Vaebn tr’Lhoell, now deceased, and [[spoiler: Ffairrl, Arrhae’s steward on ''Gorget'', who's another altered human.]]

* ScottyTime: Subverted in the second book, [[spoiler: during the fight between ''Bloodwing'' and ''Avenger''.]] Ael wants to go into warp; her chief engineer tells her he needs seven minutes, and she replies that she isn’t sure she can give him seven seconds. [[spoiler: The engineer ''doesn’t'' pull off a miracle. Ensign Luks tries to create a diversion, but the cutter he’s in is damaged, so he decides to ram it into the enemy’s ship, taking them out at the cost of his life. ''Then'' they get ''Bloodwing''’s warp drive back online.]]

* ActionGirl: The norm for Rihannsu women in most cultures. It’s mentioned there are actually ''more'' women than men in their military. {{Justified}}: Romulan matriarchalism goes back to the Ruling Queen Vriha t'Rehu.

* MultiethnicName: One of Terise [=Haleakala-LoBrutto's=] surnames is Hawaiian, the other Italian.

** Case in point; during her meeting with the triad, Ael describes the horrific things the Rihan at the Levaeri V installation are doing to captured Vulcans. McCoy is literally trembling with fury and says, "This is monstrous, Commander". Ael agrees but then sets McCoy a bit aback by wondering what honor there can be in torturing helpless prisoners - true enough, but not quite exactly what McCoy had in mind.

* MemeticMutation: InUniverse example in ''The Romulan Way''. The main Romulan religion of the series present (a form of animism focused on the Four ElementsOfNature, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, crossed with a {{karma}}-like concept) began life as a meme on the [[TheAlternet Vulcan version of the Internet]] while the Rihannsu were planning their future society. It reached the point where idioms began to derive from it, such as that a particularly stubborn person "had too much Earth in him", and its origin as a joke was gradually forgotten.

** It's mentioned in ''The Romulan Way'' that Rihannsu are ''supposed'' to be this: no matter what, ''mnhei'sahe'' demands you to be polite and treat even your worst enemy with honor and respect as he was your companion, and when subcommander tr'Annhwi gloats to a captured [=McCoy=] about what will happen to him after the trial his superior commander general (the equivalent of a commodore) t'Radaik promptly disciplines him, with the humiliation made worse by it happening before civilians and an enemy.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: [[spoiler: Ael becomes the Empress at the end, after winning a civil war.]]

* FantasticNamingConvention: Rihannsu names are composed of three parts: a first name (Ael, Tafv, Arrhae), a second name including a prefix (i-Mhiessan, ir-Mnaeha), and a house-name with gendered prefix, t' for a woman and tr' for a man (t'Rllaillieu, tr'Siedhri).[[http://www.rihannsu.org/arch/www.rihan.org/drupal/grammar/names.html One possible explanation here.]] Rihannsu also have a secret fourth name that they find within themselves and only tell to people whom they consider closer than family. This fourth name actually began as the proto-Rihannsu equivalent of an Internet username during the Sundering.

* TheAlternet: The ''Enterprise'' has an internal discussion board for the use of the crew, and the proto-Rihannsu planned out much of their future society on similar boards on Vulcan. (Website/{{Usenet}} was already in use at universities at the time of the first novel.)

* DangerouslyShortSkirt: Defied. Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the first things [[BoldlyComing Kirk]] notices when he meets Ael is that the Romulan female uniform has changed to have "breeches" instead of a "kilt." Ael describes it was a "drafty bit of tailoring."

* FamousLastWords: S'task, to Vriha t'Rehu: "The beginning is contaminated, and force will not avail you, or it."

The first four books were re-released in {{Omnibus}} form as ''The Bloodwing Voyages'', with some minor {{Orwellian Retcon}}s to clean up internal continuity and with books three and four merged back together. While some of the events of this series were {{jossed}} by later developments in the live-action canon[[labelnote:*]]In particular the details given in ''The Romulan Way'' of the Romulans' FirstContact with humanity were overwritten by [[Series/StarTrekEnterprise ENT]]: "Minefield", and thus the subsequent [[Literature/StarTrekEnterpriseRelaunch relaunch]] took the Earth-Romulan War in a completely different direction. Also, per ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'' Remus is a barren, TidallyLockedPlanet and the Remans are a different species, whereas in this series the Remans are Romulans and Remus is mostly an agri-world.[[/labelnote]], much of the background {{worldbuilding}} done in this series was borrowed by the writing team of ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', and the later showrunners on ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' did apparently ''really'' like the novels and wanted to try and bring the show-Roms and novel Rihannsu closer... in the seasons that ended up getting canned.

* ConLang: The Rihannsu language, on both sides of the FourthWall. Out of universe, it’s a partial conlang created by Diane Duane (originally she was going to do a Romulan dictionary to match the old Klingon one, but that project wasn't successful). Fandom has taken it and run with it, with [[http://www.rihan.org/drupal/ Rihan.org]] being the main online source. In universe, it was created by the Declared when they left Vulcan, as they wanted to leave behind as much as they could of their homeworld.\\

* FantasticNamingConvention: Rihannsu names are composed of three parts: a first name (Ael, Tafv, Arrhae), a second name including a prefix (i-Mhiessan, ir-Mnaeha), and a house-name with gendered prefix, t' for a woman and tr' for a man (t'Rllaillieu, tr'Siedhri).[[http://www.rihan.org/drupal/grammar/names One possible explanation here.]] Rihannsu also have a secret fourth name that they find within themselves and only tell to people whom they consider closer than family. This fourth name actually began as the proto-Rihannsu equivalent of an Internet username during the Sundering.

* Arrhae is a Federation deep-cover agent. Other examples are Vaebn tr’Lhoell, now deceased, and [[spoiler: Ffairrl, Arrhae’s steward on ''Gorget'', who's another altered human.]]