Only if you want to regard one of the worse NuTrek series as canon.
In TNG Data is known about in both the Klingon and Romulan empire, and throughout TNG the impression that Dr. Soong was a genius who’s work is nearly impossible to replicate was really high. So the Romulan just couldn’t make someone like Data.
You’re confusing active suppression for inability. The Romulans aren’t idiots, nor short on genius, they’re deluded at their core, to the point that their intelligence alone explains the long-term survival of their civilization. The Picard series didn’t invent that about them, and the stable 8-star-star-system believed to have been created by super-tech in Romulan space is old lore as well.
![Signal [Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1738172995-20250129.png){kind=link}
It’s basically how the Tal Shiar duped themselves and their entire civilization.
Only if you want to regard one of the worse NuTrek series as canon.
In TNG Data is known about in both the Klingon and Romulan empire, and throughout TNG the impression that Dr. Soong was a genius who’s work is nearly impossible to replicate was really high. So the Romulan just couldn’t make someone like Data.
You’re confusing active suppression for inability. The Romulans aren’t idiots, nor short on genius, they’re deluded at their core, to the point that their intelligence alone explains the long-term survival of their civilization. The Picard series didn’t invent that about them, and the stable 8-star-star-system believed to have been created by super-tech in Romulan space is old lore as well.