Shinzon's Coup and the Death of Data

In 2379 the Romulan Senate was wiped out by thalaron radiation, a weapon banned for its power to destroy all organic life. The coup was led by Shinzon, a young Reman leader who had seized power with the support of part of the military. Shinzon was in fact a clone of Jean-Luc Picard, created by the Romulans for an abandoned infiltration plan and raised as a slave in the dilithium mines of Remus.

Shinzon invited the USS Enterprise-E to Romulus under the pretext of peace talks. His real aims were to obtain Picard's blood to save his failing body and to use his warship, the Scimitar, to destroy life on Earth. The two ships clashed in the Bassen Rift, where the Enterprise, badly damaged, rammed the Scimitar.

Data beamed aboard the Scimitar, sent Picard back and destroyed the thalaron generator, sacrificing himself. Its crew then began to go their separate ways, while Romulan instability deepened.