Donatra

Donatra was a female Romulan in the 24th century who served in the Imperial Fleet of the Romulan Star Empire. By 2378 she had ascended to command of the Romulan Third Fleet, and was captain of the IRW Valdore. In the wake of Shinzon's coup of the Empire, Donatra rose in political prominence, and in 2380 declared herself the first Empress of the newly splintered Imperial Romulan State.

Early Life
Donatra was born in 2327, and was raised by her mother and father, both commanders in the Romulan military. She was taught by them to think freely, but to keep such thoughts to herself. Donatra considered the city of Vela'Setora on Romulus to be her home. When Donatra was nine her farther dared break that rule himself when he suggested to the praetor that the Empire's usual policy of enslaving subject races was not working on the Xanarans (who valued a meaningful existence more than any existence at all); hoping to prevent a mass suicide, and further the Xanarans' productivity to the Empire, he suggested a more liberal approach. That night Donatra's father disappeared. Aware they would be closely scrutinised, Donatra and her mother never spoke of the incident, and her mother immediately passed her guardianship of Donatra to Suran; a family friend at the military academy who was regarded favourably by the praetor. Under Suran's fostership Donatra was able to escape the political stigma of her father and progress rapidly through the military. As Donatra matured she and her mother had some concern Suran might wish to take more than the strong loyalty Donatra had developed for him. But as she came of age he kept his honor and maintained his position purely as a mentor.

Imperial Service
Under Suran's tutelage Donatra became one of the youngest commanders in the Romulan fleet, before this she served on several warbirds, including the IRW Vel'reger. By 2367 Donatra was serving as Centurion and transferred to the IRW T'sarok, under command of Suran. He counseled the eager young officer that she should slow down, for there would be no shortage of enemies for her to destroy. Donatra rose to be Suran's first officer, and while in that position first encountered Admiral Braeg on a mission in the D'nossos system. Suran was leading a task force against the Tellati, and during in the battle they came across a warbird whose command staff had been killed; Donatra and two of her subordinates beamed aboard and brought the warbird back into the battle. Braeg immediately offered her command of one of his warbirds, but Donatra turned him down, too loyal to Suran to transfer. Braeg made it his mission to pursue Donatra and orchestrated a meeting in the Reggiana system where Donatra had been invited to give a lecture. The two began to talk about military philosophy, but the discussions soon became more impassioned and the pair became secret lovers. During the Dominion War Donatra was present on Romii when the A.C. Walden Medicine Show performed following the alliance between the Star Empire and the Federation. She was particularly impressed by their performance of Tr’owiluhfe Mnei'sahe, and their use of an Elisiar rather than the traditional ka'athyra. Donatra was later awarded her own command, the IRW Valdore and by 2378 Donatra was commander of the Imperial Third Fleet, by then an equal with Commander Suran of the Fifth Fleet.

Politics
In 2378 Donatra was amongst a group, including Commander Suran and Senator Tal'Aura, which allied with Shinzon of Remus in a coup. While Shinzon was in power Donatra and Suran briefly commanded the entire Imperial Defence Force. Donatra initially promised her allegiance to Shinzon, and even made sexual advances towards him, however her efforts were rebuffed, and shortly after she learned of Shinzon's illness. Increasingly convinced Shinzon was unstable, and planning a genocidal attack on Earth Donatra convinced Suran they should no longer support Shinzon and took the Valdore and another warbird to assist the USS Enterprise in battling Shinzon's ship, the Scimitar, in the Bassen Rift. Donatra noted that any attack on Earth made by Shinzon would "drench their hands in blood and mark us and our children for generations." Donatra's arrival was warmly welcomed by Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise, however her assistance was short lived after Shinzon successfully disabled both of the opposing warbirds – Donatra was the only survivor on her bridge, and herself was badly injured in the battle; breaking her wrist and ribs. Once the Enterprise crew successfully defeated Shinzon, Donatra offered medical assistance to the then severely damaged Starfleet vessel and declared that Picard had "made a friend in the Romulan Empire [that day]". In the wake of Shinzon's coup Donatra established her allegiances; The newly appointed Praetor Tal'Aura, not willing to trust her fellow conspirators, appointed Tomalak Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Force. However she underestimated the loyalty of the Romulans serving under Donatra and Suran, which led to a schism in the Romulan military with only half the fleet acknowledging the new Praetor. Donatra and Suran allied themselves with Braeg, who had retired from the Defence Force to stand against Tal'Aura's Praetorship. Braeg orchestrated civil unrest in Victory Square on Romulus to try and force Tal'Aura out of office, while in space Donatra's forces battled Tomalak's. Braeg's rebellion was crushed when Tal'Aura brought in heavy weaponry to quell the crowd, prompting Braeg to surrender rather than allow a massacre. While in space Donatra's forces were outsmarted by Tomalak, taking heavy losses, but retreating to fight another day. For Braeg's treason Tal'Aura had him poisoned. Donatra herself received plasma burns to her side during in the battle, but refused to have the scars healed as a reminder of her love for Braeg and her hatred for Tal'Aura. A few weeks after the coup Donatra and Suran had established a strong hold in the Bassen Rift, at the sight of the Great Bloom, a phenomenon that had developed at the site of the destruction of the Scimitar. Their fleet included numerous ships which were officially written off as seized or destroyed in the Reman uprising of the coup. Around that time Donatra and the Valdore traveled to the Neutral Zone to welcome the USS Titan and its convoy into Romulan space. Donatra provided the Titan, which was on a humanitarian and diplomatic mission to Romulus, with an escort through Romulan space to guard against what Donatra described as "rogue elements". Donatra herself made a quick detour to her fleet in the Great Bloom before taking the Valdore back to Romulus to participate in the talks the Titan was overseeing to try and restabilize the Romulan political system. While at Romulus, another faction in the Romulan political situation, the Remans, threatened to attack Romulus unless they were awarded the continent of Ehrie'fvil for Reman habitation. Donatra took the Valdore in to intercept the Reman fleet but was outnumbered had had to retreat to call in her backup fleet. She got no response until Suran's ship decloaked, and Suran informed her that their fleet in the Great Bloom had vanished. However dealing with the more immediate problem Donatra and Suran returned to Romulus to defend against the Reman attack, in turn prompting Klingon vessel's in Titan's convey to strike out at the two Romulan vessels in defense of the Remans. As the situation escalated the Titan stepped in and negotiated an agreement to let the Remans settle the continent, under the protection of the Klingons. This decision was initially opposed by Tal'Aura, but Donatra supported it and it went ahead.

Lost In Space
Later, after extensively searching the Great Bloom for her missing fleet Donatra approached the Titan to request the use of its state-of-the-art sensors to try and locate the missing vessels. Captain Riker agreed, but while investigating the anomaly was pulled in, along with the Valdore displacing both vessels 210,000 light-years into the Small Magellanic Cloud. Donatra awoke from the rough ride to find the Valdore in a sorry state, and the IKS Dugh which had been tailing the Valdore and the Titan in an even worse condition. Donatra had her crew pull the Dugh and several nearby escape pods out of the most volatile area of the anomaly and then recruited the Klingons to salvage components from their vessel to help restore the Valdore to full operation. Meanwhile the escape pods turned out to be from a native vessel which had been destroyed, containing Neyel and other native races, giving Donatra an insight into the local situation. Once the Valdore was fully operational they located the nearby Titan and the three crews began to pool their resources to find out what had happened, where the rest of Donatra's fleet was and how they might get home. As the Titan crew revealed their findings on the anomaly, which turned out to be an emergent protouniverse, they detected Donatra's fleet, which has been taken over by a rapidly developing sentience from the protouniverse. The Titan and Valdore set off after the Romulan fleet and once close enough Donatra and Riker lead away teams to the IRW Ra'khoi where they found the crew alive but comatosed, the Romulan computer systems having apparently prevented the alien intelligence from killing the crew completely when it took over the ship. Once aboard Donatra's crew were able to reprogram the fleet and return control to the crews. By this time the Romulans and the Titan had become aware of the destructive qualities of the anomaly which was tearing local space apart, threatening nearby worlds. Feeling partly responsible for the turn of events Captain Riker proposed to evacuate as much of the population of the Neyel homeworld, Oghen, as possible. However Commander Suran rejected this idea and ordered the fleet to make preparations to return through the rift. Donatra initially complied with Suran, but her morality, and increasing tensions with Suran, prompted her to relieve him, with the assistance of her chief medical officer, allowing her to bring to fleet to Oghen and assist the Titan. Donatra's fleet spent nearly four days transporting Oghen refugees to the Vanguard colony, the original asteroid home of the Neyel. The fleet then coordinated to tractor the colony to the anomaly and back to the Milky Way. En route a member of the Valdore's crew in the infirmary saw past Donatra and Dr. Venora's deception and revived Suran from his medically induced slumber. Suran went to the bridge to confront Donatra who brought their continually escalating struggle for power to an end by killing him with an ihl-sen. On the way back through the anomaly Donatra convinced Riker to allow her fleet to assist the Dugh on the journey by tractoring it. However she used the opportunity to destroy the Dugh by towing it with an unbalanced arrangement of tractor beams, thus preventing the Dugh reporting back on the state of Donatra's fleet; with Donatra especially wary that half her fleet would be rendered warp incapable when they had to detonate their warp cores to seal the rift on the final leg of their journey home. This final act disappointed Riker who had come to see Donatra as an ally, but she considered it merely what had to be done. After the continual damage dealt to the Valdore Donatra needed her ship repaired, however she no longer trusted the technicians on the Two Worlds, who were too close to Tal'Aura, so instead set course for the ships yards at Artalierh, which she knew were run by people loyal to her. En route the Valdore was attacked by four Birds-of-Prey. Donatra suspected they had been sent by Tal'Aura, and after destroying the lead ship convinced the next most senior commander, Norvid, to come with her to Artalierh where they could contact the Two Worlds and gain confirmation of the orders; if Tal'Aura denied sanctioning an attack on an Imperial warbird, Norvid's former commander, the then deceased Horrhae, would become a scapegoat, pushing Norvid and the other commanders to side with Donatra.

A New State
Towards the end of 2380, Donatra consolidated her powerbase and made a move against the Star Empire under Tal'Aura; on Achernar Prime she declared the existence of the Imperial Romulan State, declaring herself the Empress and using the parts of the military loyal to her to take control of that system and others, including Xanitla, Ralatak, and Virinat. These worlds were the primary agricultural planets in the Star Empire, which effectively meant Donatra held the Empire's food supply hostage.

Destiny timeline
Donatra's new government was almost immediately recognized by the Klingon Empire, though the United Federation of Planets initially refused to intervene in what it considered an internal Romulan affair. By early 2381, the Federation was forced to recognize the sovereignty of the Imperial Romulan State as a result of pressure from the Klingons and the need to show solidarity with its ally. The Federation and Imperial Romulan State established ambassadorships to one-another's states with Donatra appointing former warbird commander Jovis as her Ambassador to the Federation. During the Borg Invasion of that year Jovis commented to Federation President Nanietta Bacco that Donatra wished to open a new era of peace with the Federation. The strength of that desire was demonstrated a short while later when the Imperial State warbird Verithrax sacrificed itself to save the Federation planet Ardana from Borg attack. In the wake of the Borg Invasion the Federation's resources were stretched thin, and aid they had been providing to Romulus since Shinzon's coup was considered a resource they could use elsewhere. However Donatra refused to trade with Tal'Aura and the Romulan Star Empire was still in desperate need of food. The Federation sent a variety of diplomats and Starfleet captains for talks with Donatra and finally recruited Professor Sonek Pran to meet with her in the hope of convincing her to consider trading with Tal'Aura, and provide the Federation some relief. Where other's had failed Pran succeeded in convincing Donatra that she had already won her feud with Tal'Aura, that what he imaged was her ultimate goal of reuniting the Romulan people as Tal'Aura's power crumbled was already underway; with Tal'Aura not having enough military might to engage Donatra in open war, and the Imperial Romulan State having a strangle-hold on Romulan food resources. Pran argued that if Donatra were to trade with the Empire the people would be all too aware of who was responsible for them being fed. However when Donatra tried to open talks with Tal'Aura all she got was rejection. A short while later Tal'Aura's motivations were revealed, she and the Star Empire had become members of a new interstellar alliance, the Typhon Pact, a group of nations united in currency, trade and technology, a new opposition force to the Federation and the Klingons. In response the Pact's competition invited several states, including the Imperial Romulan State, to join in an expansion of the Khitomer Accords, to create a new counter-group to the Pact - Donatra immediately accepted this offer, but delayed formal discussions on the matter for some time. In 2381 Donatra and the Imperial Romulan State became the targets of a propaganda campaign devised by Praetor Tal'Aura to reunify the Romulan Empires. Tal'Aura fabricated evidence that Donatra had hired a Reman assassin to terminate Ambassador Spock on Romulus which was misinterpreted by Spock as being a response to fear by the Empress to protect her own Empire. He theorized that Donatra would order his death to stop the reunification movement as it would lead to efforts to reunify Romulus itself. Donatra was in fact innocent of these crimes; however, the damage had been done. Spock presented his theory to the Praetor and she made the reunification movement legal in Romulan territory and it quickly splintered into an effort to reunify the Romulan Empire. Donatra reached out to Tal'Aura in order to seek out a new relationship beneficial to the Romulan people itself when the campaign started to fracture the perception of the citizens of her Empire and the Federation refused to provide military assistance. Tal'Aura instead invited Donatra to Romulus, an invitation that she accepted. Immediately after she arrived, Tal'Aura had Donatra arrested for her crime against Spock. Donatra was held in a cell at the D'deridex Arc security office. One month later, Tal'Aura announced that the Imperial Romulan State had been reabsorbed into the Romulan Star Empire and was no more. Donatra, who had not been charged formally nor had her trial even been discussed, killed herself in her cell one day following the announcement; cutting herself with a data tablet rent in half, until she bled to death.