Federation Commander

I'm confused about the end of the story First and Future Shock.

The Romulan commander sees something on the bridge of the ISC ship, or recognizes the ISC captain in some way. He knows it's an ISC ship, so that's no surprise.

The line is "[He] looked at the bridge to behold...something all too familiar"

For those who haven't read the story, I know this was published in Nexus #16, but I'm not sure if it was republished elsewhere.

That was never actually explained. Also, remember at that time, I don't think the member races of the ISC had been detailed yet, so who knows what the author was thinking at the time.

I figure there are two post-dated explanations we could use:
1) The Romulan confused the reptilian ISC race for Gorns. (This is the most pedestrian explanation I can think of.)

2) There was a Romulan traitor on the ISC ship. (I don't remember the story exactly, but I think the Romulan ship was "sold down the river". It could be related to that.)

But, again, it was never explained, to the best of my knowledge.

I always interpreted it to mean there was a Romulan turncoat/traitor/spy on the bridge.

There's a scenario in Module C2 based on the story, in which the ISC cripple and capture the Romulan ship.

Given the year of Y180 - which is about eleven years too late to be a 'first' shock for the Romulans, really - I'd guess that option 2 might be more likely.

Remember the "real world" context of the story: This was written before any real history or description of the ISC had been given. There were no "five races" or anything; it was all unknown. So, it was always possible for explanations that "don't make sense" to us, to have actually made sense at the time.