Sela

Commander Sela was a female Romulan who was an operative in the Romulan military, and an extremely important figure in the Empire's covert attempts to destabilize both the Federation and the Klingon Empire. She was the product of a union between Starfleet officer Natasha Yar's counterpart from an alternate timeline and a Romulan, General Volskiar.

Events leading to birth
In the year 2344, while in the middle of a battle with four Romulan Warbirds, the USS Enterprise-C traveled through a temporal rift to the year 2366. This had the effect of creating an alternate timeline, wherein the Federation was at war with the Klingon Empire, and Tasha Yar had not died at Vagra II.

Emerging from the rift, the Enterprise-C encountered its successor, the USS Enterprise-D. Through Guinan, the Enterprise-D crew learned that, in order for the timeline to be restored, the Enterprise-C must return through the rift, even though doing so would almost certainly mean their deaths. Learning from Guinan that, in the other timeline, she had died a meaningless death, Tasha requested and was granted a transfer to the Enterprise-C, which returned through the rift and resumed the battle with the Romulans.

Early life
While the Enterprise-C was destroyed, several crewmembers survived and were taken prisoner by the Romulans, Tasha among them. After being interrogated, all of the survivors were to be executed, but Volskiar, a Romulan General who was present at the interrogation became enamored of Tasha, and offered to spare the lives of the prisoners if she became his consort, a condition to which Tasha agreed. One year later, she gave birth to a daughter, Sela. When Sela was four years old, Tasha took her and attempted to escape, but sensing that her mother was attempting to take her away from her home and her father, Sela cried out, and Tasha was discovered and subsequently executed.

Military career
Over the next fifteen years, Sela rose through the ranks of the Romulan military, just like her father, eventually acheiving the rank of commander. In that capacity, she was a major player in plots to disrupt the alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, one of which involved kidnapping Starfleet officer Geordi La Forge, and brainwashing him to kill Klingon governor Vagh. She was also involved in lending support to the Duras sisters in their attempt to gain control of the Klingon Empire, ferrying them materials and supplies in cloaked Romulan vessels. Sela was foiled, however, when Captain Jean-Luc Picard instituted a tachyon detection grid at the Klingon-Romulan border, making it impossible for any cloaked ship to cross the border undetected.

Sela was encountered again in 2368, when she masterminded a plot to invade Vulcan, exploiting Ambassador Spock's underground reunification movement on Romulus. Using three stolen Vulcan ships carrying a Romulan invasion force, she attempted to use Spock to convince the Federation that a peace envoy was en route to Vulcan. Spock refused, however, and, working together with Captain Picard and Lieutenant Commander Data, he was able to foil Sela's plan and warn the Federation.

Fall from Grace
The failure to sway the events of the Klingon civil war to an outcome favorable to the Star Empire and the ill-fated attempt to conquer Vulcan resulted in Sela falling out of favor with the Senate, and a corresponding loss of influence among her fellow officers. Matters were made worse when she was reassigned as commander of the IRW N'ventnar, an old, B-Type warbird that she regarded as something of an embarrassment.

Offered a chance to redeem herself in the eyes of her people, a few years later Sela accepted a mission to recruit the Elohsians into the Empire. Seeing that the Elohsians' homeworld was located on the border of the Neutral Zone, she felt that the planet would make an ideal staging area for spying on Federation territory. The assignment went even better than she could have hoped for. With the Elohsians formally becoming part of the Empire, she humiliated Picard in public and exposed the ineptness of the Tal Shiar, leading to the agency's many enemies to rally around Sela and pledge their allegiance to her. Upon her return to Romulus, Sela found herself in a far better position than ever before, with far more influence and power than she had wielded prior to her initial encounter with Picard and his crew.

In 2371, Sela commanded a task force of warbirds into Cardassian space to recover a sample of a lethal virus created by the Redeemers, which was held by her old ally Saket (now imprisoned by the Cardassians in a labor camp on Lazon II), and use it to launch a secret biological attack on the Klingon homeworld of Qo'noS. Leading the assault personally, she destroyed much of the camp's defenses in a stolen Federation Peregrine-class fighter before abandoning it and beaming down to the surface. Finding Saket with a new friend, ex-Maquis member Thomas Riker, she took them both with her in the escape, although for most of the time Sela believed that Thomas was in fact, Will Riker. Saket, however, had been injured by one of the camp guards in the escape and died in sickbay, however the mission was a success as the sample was found hidden in an eyeball which Saket had replaced with a false one.

Later, Sela and Riker became lovers, with Sela recruiting him in her plans by tasking him to release the virus. Hiding it in a bottle of Romulan ale, the plan was to release the the virus into the atmosphere when the bottle was opened, and to also assassinate Chancellor Gowron. To ensure his cooperation, Sela double-crossed Riker, kidnapping Deanna Troi and Alexander Rozhenko from Betazed and holding them hostage on Lintar IV. Unable to bear the thought of anything happening to Troi, he agreed to her demands. However, the attack was foiled when Deep Space 9's security chief, Odo, replaced the bottle with the virus, tipping off Commander Elizabeth Shelby on the USS Excalibur about the hostages' location. With the hostages rescued safely, Riker fled from Starfleet yet again as Sela and her forces retreated.

After yet another failed attempt to destabilize the Klingon Empire, by 2373 Sela had become an outcast, fleeing underground. While piloting a one-man shuttlecraft over a remote planet, Sela was shot down by its ninja-like inhabitants, the Bodai Shin. Her old nemesis, Picard, was also stranded and they were forced to work together to escape alive. They soon parted ways after this.

Somehow regaining her command by late 2375, she led several warbirds to Sector 221-G and attacked the USS Independence. The ship was quickly destroyed by the warbirds, but many of the crew escaped via escape pods. Sela ordered the escape pods destroyed, and many were, before the USS Excalibur arrived and drove her ships away.

In 2376, Sela's new allies arranged to have her promoted to admiral, which led to high-profile projects and command of newer, more capable vessels. At the request of Jal Par, an agent of the Tal Shiar, she was sent with a fleet to capture a recently discovered Omega molecule from the Ferengi and Cardassians and deliver it to a secret research facility. The raid was a success, (through a combination of Ferengi greed for dilithium and the Cardassians' weakened military) and Sela's fleet destroyed countless Klingon patrol ships and invading Borg cubes before escaping through a wormhole to the facility, ensuring the safe delivery of the cargo. Contacting the Borg, she manipulated their belief in the molecule being "perfection itself", further manipulating the Borg into eliminating another threat to the Romulan Empire by destroying Toral's faction in the new Klingon Civil War in exchange for the molecule. After the Borg finished destroying his bases and ships (killing Toral as well), the weakened Borg were then double-crossed and destroyed by Sela, temporarily ending the Borg threat to the Romulan Empire (unfortunately the molecule was later captured by the Borg after they learned where it was being kept by the now-assimilated Jal Par). Sela then served as the Romulan Empire's representative during the negotiations to form the Alliance against the Borg invasion.

Shinzon Incident
In 2378, Sela was amongst a group, including Commander Suran, Commander Donatra, and Senator Tal'Aura, which allied with Shinzon of Remus in a coup. Sela initially promised her allegiance to Shinzon, however, shortly after, she learned of Shinzon's illness. Increasingly convinced Shinzon was unstable, and planning a genocidal attack on Earth Sela was convinced by Donatra they should no longer support Shinzon. While Donatra and Suran took the IRW Valdore and the IRW Soterus to assist the USS Enterprise in battling Shinzon's ship, the Scimitar, in the Bassen Rift, while Sela and her fleet of D'deridex class warbirds waited, somewhat reluctantly, alongside the Romulan Neutral Zone. Once the Enterprise crew successfully defeated Shinzon, Sela offered medical assistance to the severely damaged Starfleet vessel, despite her hatred towards Captain Picard.

Later, during the power vacuum created by the demise of Praetor Shinzon (whose coup d'état served to cripple the Empire and resulted in the deaths of the entire Romulan Senate), Sela became a personal agent of the new Praetor; Tal'Aura, though she had to accept a demotion back to Commander.

In the days following Shinzon's coup, the Romulan Empire faced a myriad of challenges, the most unexpected of which originated from their farthest outer subject worlds. These worlds were critical components of the Empire's economy, and their native populations had long been dissatisfied with their treatment under Romulan rule, making minor attempts at rebellion and secession over the years. After the coup, the natives began taking their objections to the streets and openly challenging Imperial authority. Soon, their continued submission to Romulus was in jeopardy, and Tal'Aura had a growing list of rebellions to deal with.

As a result, Sela (whom Tal'Aura referred to as "the half-blood"), her best operative, was sent to the frozen planet of Kevratas, which was located on the fringe of Romulan territory and possessing the strongest area of rebellion activity. Due to her own experiences, however, Tal'Aura also sent a second operative and veteran spy, Manathas, to Kevratas without Sela's knowledge. Nevertheless, Tal'Aura was confident that Sela would succeed in her mission against the "crude" rebels, since Sela had performed many such errands in the name of the Praetor's predecessors, gaining a reputation for her cold and ruthless efficency.

Somehow, Sela received word that a Federation scientist, Doctor Beverly Crusher, was meeting with the rebels on Kevratas. Knowing of Crusher's longtime affiliation with Picard and seeing an opportunity to avenge her past defeats at the hands of Picard and his crew, she personally led a squad of soldiers that successfully trapped and captured Crusher, faking her death in the process. However, Picard did not accept this, and mounted a rescue with the aid of his old shipmates Pug Joseph and Doctor Carter Greyhorse. Following the incident, Tal'Aura ordered Sela to remain on Kevratas for the time being, monitoring the tenuous situation along the empire's border worlds.

In 2383, she served as Chairman of the Tal Shiar under the administration of Praetor Kamemor. In 2384 after word got out about Sela's involvement in the plot to obtain slipstream technology from the Federation - a plot which led to the destruction of Deep Space 9- she was placed under arrest by Praetor Kamemor. Sela then committed suicide in her cell.

Online timeline
Accused of attempting to assassinate the head of the Tal Shiar in 2386, Sela was found guilty of treason by the Senate, although no evidence was brought forward at her subsequent trial. As Sela faced execution, Donatra, her main political rival, intervened in the matter on Sela's behalf. Despite being unsuccessful at dropping the charges, Donatra convinced the Senate to reduce Sela's sentence from that of execution to one of exile. Quietly accepting her last-minute reprieve, Sela took a small fleet of ships and set a course for the Delta Quadrant. During the Hobus supernova event a year later, Klingon long-range sensors detected her fleet passing the Beta Stromgrem supernova remnant, continuing into unexplored space.

In 2391, a Federation operative within Sela's fleet reported they had settled on a planet within the Beta Quadrant and had begun mining resources.

Five years later in 2396, operatives reported trading with ships similar to those seen by the USS Voyager when they were lost in the Delta Quadrant.

25th century
The Empire was devastated for many years, however by 2408, the Romulans had established a new homeworld on Nova Roma and had reinstated the Romulan monarchy with Sela as the new Romulan Empress.