Star Trek: The Next Generation gave us many minor characters that always proved to be a thorn in the side for Captain Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise,
one of those characters was the ever dangerous Romulan Commander Tomalak,
but what really happened to him?
Hello everyone, my name is Captain Jack and welcome to Trek Central!
Recently I’ve been rewatching The Next Generation,
and among the episodes where Q is appearing, I’ve found a recent appreciation of how the show handled The Romulans.
From there “return” in the Season One Final, to the reveal of Commander Sela, TNG had it all!
Today we’ll be exploring the character of Tomalak,
played by Andreas Katsulas.
While he only appeared in four episodes, he had a profound effect on the series.
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Introduction time! Commander Tomalak was a very influential Romulan Military Officer during the 24th Century.
Typically found commanding a formidable Romulan D;Deridex-class warbird,
he was tasked with monitoring the Romulan Neutral Zone border
for any incursions from the Federation neighbours.
Of course, this would find him introduced to Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Galaxy-Class USS Enterprise-D
in the year of 2366.
A Romulan Scout ship has crashed on a planet called Galorndon Core.
Tomalak maintained that the scout ship, which had crashed at this point,
did not illegally enter Federation Space, simply claiming that it had a navigational failure.
Given the Enterprise had sent an away team down to rescue, and recovered a survivor,
he also denied the possibility of a second crew member.
The confrontation reached its peak when Commander Tomalak was prepared to fire on the USS Enterprise-D,
this was following the death of the Romulan officer Patahk.
However, he stood down following the recovery of the second crew member Bochra.
In the same year, Tomalak found himself part of an elaborate Romulan deception plan involving Admiral Alidar Jarok.
Jarok defected to the Federation,
as he believed that the Romulan Military were building forces on Nelvana III in preparation for an Invasion.
Tomalak allowed the defection of Jarok, in order to bait the Enterprise-D into illegally entering the Romulan Neutral Zone to investigate jaroks reports.
This was a trap, as Tomalak had a pair of Romulan Warbids lying in wait to intercept them.
He proceeded to hail Picard and boast how he would dissect the Enterprise for every bit of information,
then displaying the broken hull in the capital on Romulus.
Thankfully, in order to resolve the stand-off situation,
Captain Picard has asked the Klingons for a favour,
revealing the Cloaked Klingon Bird of prey reinforcements standing by to engage The Romulan Forces,
noting that they’ll all die together.
Commander Tomalak was forced to stand down and withdraw.
While he did not physically appear, Commander Tomalak’s appearance was used as apart of an elaborate ruse in the episode “Future Imperfect”.
This is where Commander William Riker was subjected to a possible future thanks to an alien lifeform.
Tomalak’s final canon appearance in the Star Trek Universe was in The Next Generation series final episode, All Good Things.
He appeared in a timeline created by Q.
The Romulan Warbird Terix was commanded by Tomalak and deployed along with 29 other ships to the Romulan Neutral Zone,
in response to the Anti-Time eruption in the Devron system.
This led to a confrontation between Picard and Tomalak,
in which the pair discussed their mutual fleet movements,
each agreeing to send a single vessel into the Neutral Zone
to investigate the Anti-Time eruption.
Eventually, the situation was resolved.
Following this, Tomalak was never seen again in the Star Trek Canon,
to explore more of his story, we can dive into the extended Star Trek Canon
which is told through books and short stories, let’s go!
The 2370’s saw Tomalak promoted to High Commander,
and overseeing several missions surrounding Deep space Nine and the Badlands.
He would help defend Deep Space Nine against a Dominion Incursion,
teaming up with the DS9 crew to ensure the station survived it’s assault.
The Destiny Timeline, which takes place in the 2380’s, saw Tomalak attain the rank of Proconsul,
to support the newly risen Praetor Tal'Aura,
following the death of the Imperial Romulan Senate and the downfall of Shinzon.
Tomalak and Praetor Tal’Aura were one of the many factions on Romulus who sought to take control of the fractured Star Empire.
The same year he defended Romulus from an attack by Commander Donatra,
who opposed Tal,Aura’s leadership and sought to take over control of the Romulan Star Empire herself.
By 2381, Tomalak represented the Romulan Star Empire in the drafting of the Typhon Pact.
The Typhon Pact was an alliance of six interstellar states formed in the wake of the Borg Invasion of 2381,
which opposed the United Federation of Planets and its Allies.
Praetor Tal’Aura tasked Tomalak with a plan to eliminate the Imperial Romulan Senate and Spock’s Reunification movement.
The task was a failure, as Spock’s reunification method moved forward,
however their plan did succeed in arranging the death of Director Rehaek for his plot to expose the Praetor's plans.
Tomalak’s advancements were stalled, when Praetor Tal’Aura was shortly found dead,
and he found himself reassigned to the Romulan Fleet by the newly appointed Romulan Praetor, Gell Kamemor.
Fast forward two years in 2383, Tomalak was once again serving as a Romulan Proconsul to the newly appointed Romulan Praetor.
However, feeling dissatisfied with his current position, he resigned to return to his former life in the Imperial Fleet.
Though this was a ruse, as he had become an agent of the Tal Shiar, under Chairwoman Sela.
His life would come crashing down, as he was arrested and left in the Federation to stand trial,
, after his failed attempts to help the newly-formed Typhon Pact acquire their own Quantum Slipstream drive resulted in the destruction of Deep Space 9.
This would also cause the Typhon Pact and the United Federation of Planets being pushed to war.
The future of Commander Tomalak would also be told in Star Trek: Online,
which has it’s own canon storylines.
These adventures, including Commander Donatra can be explored in the short story “The Path to 2409”.
In conclusion, Commander Tomalak’s fate from the Star Trek: Extended canon was that he was arrested for his crimes against the Federation.
This was explored in the novel “Taking Wing”.
While it is a shame he did not appear in anymore of The Next Generation, as he did make a good opponent to Captain Picard,
I’m grateful that his story was concluded in the extended Star Trek canon.
We’ll be able to explore more storylines that included Commander Tomalak in upcoming videos here on the Trek Central channel!
What did you think of our video on Commander Tomalak?
Would you have liked to see more of him in Star Trek The Next Generation. Let us know in the comment section below!
If you want to keep up to date on all the latest Star Trek news, lore and more, then make sure to hit that subscribe button to never miss a video from the team here at Trek Central!
For now, I’ve been Captain Jack, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time! Live Long and prosper my friends!