cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12779586
With the dwindled population and organization of the Romulan Star Empire near the end of the 24th century, who will step up as the next big player? The Federation generally expands by diplomacy and comradery. The Klingons have had time since their civil war to get their shit together. The Orion Syndicate typically stays on the outskirts, but the opportunity is there. The Dominion had been a non-player since the treaty, but then who actually expects them to ignore the situation? The Borg as we know them in that time period are gone. (Insert new faction/random Delta Quadrant race) appears to mix things up. I'm not familiar with any Beta Canon or STO lore, so if any of this gets addressed, I'm curious to hear of it.
Reposting what I posted in Ten Forward since it was an attempt at a serious answer anyway:
When the Western Roman Empire fell, what remained was the EASTERN Roman Empire, which lasted for another 1000 years. What was left in the east paid lips-service to the Roman empire (sometimes even calling themselves Roman, like the Holy Roman Empire). Rolmulans replacing the Romulan Empire is very realistic. Much the of the population/planets/etc remained. They lost none of their technology.
And I think that opens itself up to a post-Discovery timeline where there is a struggle between the unified Vulans and Romulans on Ni'Var and the Romulans that are the remains of the old empire. Especially since The Burn had probably kept them mostly separated for a long time.
That makes great sense as well. To keep beating the Roman analogy to death, the Eastern Roman Empire did clash with the remains of the Western empire, trying to take it back under the Roman umbrella (Justinian/Belisarius/etc). They sent armies all over Italy/Spain/Africa/etc trying to re-unify the old Empire. It didn't work, since the new kingdoms that emerged didn't want to be under the control of the far-off emperors. Once they split, there was no going back to unification.