These excerpts are from a series of pamphlets, letters and white papers circulated around the rihannsu reunificationist community.
To my allies in the hfihar dhraeu*:
Many of you have been discouraged by the slow progress of reunification, and your spirits turned sour by the blank faces and upturned noses you see coming from Vulcan. You spend hours perusing the ancient texts of Surak, focusing on how logic informs your pursuit of the ajoi. You apply the strictures of Vulcan science to your own good work, marrying Romulan patience with Vulcan calm to an effect our Imperial predecessors only dreamed of. And you wait for the time when you can finally be truly whole -- your souls twinned like the twin worlds, mol'Rihan and Thhaei, together at last, the consolations of passion married to the advancements of logic.
And then you see the hnaev Vulcans.
And then you see the Vulcans, carrying on like the sun in our sky never burst and died. Like passion is lesser than the dirt on the bottom of your heel. Like joy is death and fear is death and love is death, and you think: Why are we doing all the work? Why should we pursue logic when they treat us like we are nothing? And you are tempted to put aside your Surak and live life like the rabble that fall into the old traps of hedonism and paranoia, because that is an easier thing to do.
And yes, your instincts are correct -- reunification works both ways. Reunification doesn't mean that we must renounce emotion and embrace pure logic. That would make us not rihannsu, but Vulcan. That is sublimation, not unification. No, true reunification means that Vulcans must find a place for mhnei'sahe in their own hearts, in their souls, in their blood. It is true that until the Vulcans are willing to entertain emotion or even a logical approach to passion that we cannot try to enter into political talks that mean anything. And I know that can feel discouraging!
But that does not matter, daehlen! We are not called to do the easy thing! We are called to greatness! We are rihannsu, called to the greatest journey any species in this galaxy has ever faced! We are not allowed to put aside the struggle! Political reunification is stalled, but our hearts are not! The work of reunification is not in the hands of D'Tan alone, as important as his words have been to our movement -- it is in your hands! Join one of the mission trips to Vulcan, or simply look around and make friends with the Vulcans that have joined us on our planet, our ships, our lives. Surak speaks to you; now speak to them. It is through dialogue that we will truly be unified. Vulcans must see the positive spirit of the reunificationist rihannsu at work.
We are not at liberty to divest ourselves of this work. We must pursue it, even if the work of reunification is only seen by our great-grandchildren. I believe in you -- in every single one of you -- and wish you well.
Imhai,
Au.**
- - -
*Roughly: House of the Workers
** Au. Obviously a nickname of sorts.
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To my allies in the hfihar dhraeu:
We can learn so much from watching children.
I have chosen to live in a place where many species also live. I will not say that it is easy, but I will say that it is fulfilling, and that it gives me much to think about when it comes to my study of reunification and its possibilities.
At this time of the year, the local humans have a tradition called "Halloween," where their youngsters band together to wear costumes, eat sweets and generally look adorable. But that isn't where the holiday ends. They have a tradition called "trick-or-treat," where groups of children band together to venture out to ask the adults for candy. They ring someone's home bell; that someone is supposed to open the door and give them candy. As I observed this ritual, I was stunned: many of the adults dressed as frightening creatures, attempting to scare the children when they opened the door. In a way, "trick-or-treating" is a way that humans introduce their young to the fact that life isn't always expected and that bravery is the best way to live.
Most telling was one group of children I saw marching out of a haunted house. They were scared, yes -- but they were hugging one another, and because they were together, they had made it through. None of them cared that one of them was half-Romulan, that another was a Trill, that a third was an Andorian. They were just children. And they were children that protected one another. That was all that mattered to them.
When things become frightening we have the tendency to move inward, to stay with our own kind, to block out anything that is different. How can we say we are devoted to reunification and then shut our doors to people who are different than us? How is that logical?
May the teachings of Surak bring you peace and the truth of the ajoi ajoi bring you hope.
Imhei,
Au
We can learn so much from watching children.
I have chosen to live in a place where many species also live. I will not say that it is easy, but I will say that it is fulfilling, and that it gives me much to think about when it comes to my study of reunification and its possibilities.
At this time of the year, the local humans have a tradition called "Halloween," where their youngsters band together to wear costumes, eat sweets and generally look adorable. But that isn't where the holiday ends. They have a tradition called "trick-or-treat," where groups of children band together to venture out to ask the adults for candy. They ring someone's home bell; that someone is supposed to open the door and give them candy. As I observed this ritual, I was stunned: many of the adults dressed as frightening creatures, attempting to scare the children when they opened the door. In a way, "trick-or-treating" is a way that humans introduce their young to the fact that life isn't always expected and that bravery is the best way to live.
Most telling was one group of children I saw marching out of a haunted house. They were scared, yes -- but they were hugging one another, and because they were together, they had made it through. None of them cared that one of them was half-Romulan, that another was a Trill, that a third was an Andorian. They were just children. And they were children that protected one another. That was all that mattered to them.
When things become frightening we have the tendency to move inward, to stay with our own kind, to block out anything that is different. How can we say we are devoted to reunification and then shut our doors to people who are different than us? How is that logical?
May the teachings of Surak bring you peace and the truth of the ajoi ajoi bring you hope.
Imhei,
Au
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To my allies in the hfihar dhraeu:
We are approaching the anniversary of the supernova, and I have received many letters from readers who are wondering how to handle it "logically."
Friends: we are always approaching the anniversary of the supernova. It lives in our eyes and our hearts and our minds. It is never far, even after the three hundredth day passes and a new cycle begins. It lives in our fractured society, in our tumultous Republic senate and the desperate, terror-politicking of the Empire. There is nothing more Romulan than to think of the supernova and scream and mourn and turn our eyes towards revenge. But how do we continue to do this and move forward when we are so bound to the past? How does logic even enter into the equation?
But we are reunificationists, are we not? We are searching for a calmer way. And so I remember a friend of mine, a Starfleet captain I shared drinks with once. "Your entire society has PTSD," he said, and I had to look up what he meant, and for a moment I was absolutely offended. To say that our entire society -- a society that looks down upon mental illness -- experiences severe post-traumatic stress? Once I calmed down from trying to punch him, I could not get his words out of my head. We have lost our planet! We are orphans in this universe! How can we not experience incredible stress? He spoke about his own treatment of PTSD from a violent incident in his past with Starfleet. He expects to recover. In fact, it's logical logical to him that recovery is possible.
So maybe this is the logical, reunificationist way: to push against the old strictures that hold us in that constant pattern of desperation. We don't have to forget. We don't have to forgive. We don't have to turn away from our mourning. We don't have to get whiny human "therapy" or pop the pills humans seem to enjoy. But we do need to expect to recover. We must develop our own, specifically Romulan, way of dealing with this together, or we will all continue to burn alone.
May the teachings of Surak continue to bring you peace and the ajoi bring you hope.
Imhei,
Au
We are approaching the anniversary of the supernova, and I have received many letters from readers who are wondering how to handle it "logically."
Friends: we are always approaching the anniversary of the supernova. It lives in our eyes and our hearts and our minds. It is never far, even after the three hundredth day passes and a new cycle begins. It lives in our fractured society, in our tumultous Republic senate and the desperate, terror-politicking of the Empire. There is nothing more Romulan than to think of the supernova and scream and mourn and turn our eyes towards revenge. But how do we continue to do this and move forward when we are so bound to the past? How does logic even enter into the equation?
But we are reunificationists, are we not? We are searching for a calmer way. And so I remember a friend of mine, a Starfleet captain I shared drinks with once. "Your entire society has PTSD," he said, and I had to look up what he meant, and for a moment I was absolutely offended. To say that our entire society -- a society that looks down upon mental illness -- experiences severe post-traumatic stress? Once I calmed down from trying to punch him, I could not get his words out of my head. We have lost our planet! We are orphans in this universe! How can we not experience incredible stress? He spoke about his own treatment of PTSD from a violent incident in his past with Starfleet. He expects to recover. In fact, it's logical logical to him that recovery is possible.
So maybe this is the logical, reunificationist way: to push against the old strictures that hold us in that constant pattern of desperation. We don't have to forget. We don't have to forgive. We don't have to turn away from our mourning. We don't have to get whiny human "therapy" or pop the pills humans seem to enjoy. But we do need to expect to recover. We must develop our own, specifically Romulan, way of dealing with this together, or we will all continue to burn alone.
May the teachings of Surak continue to bring you peace and the ajoi bring you hope.
Imhei,
Au
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[this letter was read aloud at a recent session of several reunificationist meetings, and is attributed to “Au,” or “Au’e Mnekha,” an anonymous author of pamphlets that has been publishing for several years.]
Lately, there have been fissures in the community built by those who find it necessary to push political reunificationism as the paramount concern of the movement.
With the death of Romulus, our movement is driven mostly by rihannsu that fled the labyrinthine fascism of Imperial thought for the relative clarity of Reunificationist cells on the outer colonies. This was a political philosophy driven by a desperate need to breathe, to exist, to survive beyond the mazes and the secrecy of our inner culture. But it was the territory of the exceptional. People that had cachet, or money, or influence, who could afford to detangle themselves from the power structures of the Houses and the military, who had enough money to start a new life hundreds of light years from home, who could talk with other cultures and interface with other places without being assassinated. This kind of reunificationist thought was once necessary. But it was desperate. And should modern rihannsu mold themselves and their culture from a sense of desperation? In a universe where the Republic is now the greater Romulan power, and Sela cowers in her sick little planet? No!
What that kind of political reunification misses are missing the growth culture our great leader D’Tan was raised in, the ordinary men and women who existed under the boot of the Imperial Senate, for whom even considering a separate thought was difficult, whose very survival was caught up in deception and secrecy, who sometimes took their entire lives to understand that having something different was even a remote possibility. It was an internal, spiritual kind of reunificationism, a fire in the soul, a bond made in the heart. It was where D’Tan came from, and where those first brave political pioneers came from, and where we came from. And too many of us ignore that reality, wanting the fruit of the work without plowing the field or planting the seed. Without working on ourselves, without pushing our own mnhei’sahe, we cannot make the connections in the world that we need to make to truly have a political reunification that is a) justified, b) equitable, and c) on our terms.
I will not be desperate. What about you?
Reunification does not mean that Romulans join Vulcans. It does not mean that Vulcans join Romulans. It means that we join together. We have to figure out what together even means in a society that cannot trust.
That starts in the heart. Your heart.
We must fix ourselves before we can fix our society. We must fix our spirits before we can fix our society, or there will be no true foundation upon which to build.
Imhei,
Au
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