Balance of Terror unbalanced - the Romulans never had any chance

Balance of Terror is considered one of the best TOS episodes.

But the battle seemed a bit one-sided. The Romulans were fleeing and had no decisive defenses of weapons. The mighty plasma weapon proved to be limited. They, their fuel running out and in despair, tried to shake the Enterprise off their tail with old bombs and debris.

Poor Romulan comander seemed so sad thoroughly.

 

To boldly go...where at least one hapless crew has already gone.

Many TOS stories involve the Enterprise winning out over the bad guys because they are forewarned about what they can expect. In "Balance of Terror," the Enterprise might have been blasted to atoms if they'd been among those outposts attacked first. The cloaking device and super-gun seemed very advantageous to me.

The Romulans had an excellent chance—they just pushed it too far.

 

Well, it was a recon mission as well. Neither side had contact with the other for 100 years, so the Romulans being outmatched in battle (especially since the Enterprise had a better idea of what the Romulans could do whereas the Romulans had no idea) makes sense. They had no idea what Earth/Fed ships could do now.

 

Besides...it was Kirk. Come on.

"He's a sorcerer that one."

Also, he won. They had the Enterprise at their mercy but wasted too much time arguing about what to do.

Edit: Also the ep implies the super-torpedoes can be detonated with phasers. Which may be why we never see them again. They're kinda useless if they can be shot down by the simplest of weapons.

 

If the Enterprise had a slower ftl drive and/or Kirk had reacted a few seconds too late the Romulan plasma weapon would've destroyed the Enterprise so in the first half of the episode when they were learning each other's strengths and weaknesses it was anyone's game.

The Enterprise was faster, had longer-ranged weapons, practically unlimited fuel but couldn't take a direct hit from the Romulan weapon.
The Romulan Bird of Prey had a more powerful weapon capable of destroying the Enterprise in one hit (if in range) and a cloaking device that made it difficult for the Enterprise to target her. But she was running low on fuel from attacking the outposts and using the cloaking device.

 

It was a probing mission; to test earth (Federation) defenses and weapons. Very often in battle the margin between victory and defeat is very small. As mentioned previously; any number of small changes in timing of certain events could have resulted in much different results

 

The question to ask is if a U-boat with torpedoes and underwater "stealth" capabilities had a chance against a destroyer with much greater speed, sonar, torpedoes, depth charges and gun batteries. Did U-boats sink destroyers in WW2? Yes, they did on occasion. Did they escape destroyers to fight another day? Yes, many times.

 

Ostensibly, it was the Romulans who had the balance in their favor. They had the double advantage of a cloaking device and a plasma super weapon.

Conversely, the Enterprise had no super weapon or miracle tech at her disposal.

But that doesn't tell the whole story.
It's like comparing WWII battleships, on paper you can look at 15" guns versus 16" versus 18" guns and decide one is superior to another.

It's the other details, quality of fire control radar, range, accuracy, rate of fire... they make the difference.

Same in this eps. The Enterprise greater range, speed, rate of fire, sensors, crew expertise, and so on. Makes the difference.

 

Considering the Romulans destroyed four outposts; I wouldn't consider the mission 'one-sided' or a failure. They gave the Empire valuable information (in episode they were sending reports back) and caused great damage to Federation defense at the cost of one ship.

they also DID have an opportunity to destroy the Enterprise and very nearly succeeded; and, if not for the arrogance of a Centurion (and, as a result, the mistake of the Romulan Commander in doing something he knew was tactically wrong); they could have escaped; or drawn the Enterprise into the Neutral Zone where more ships could have converged to destroy her.

 

...On the other hand, what's wrong with an unbalanced fight? An U-boat being mercilessly hunted down by a destroyer is good material for drama even if, and perhaps especially if, everybody knows from the beginning that the U-boat is toast skagen with extra tragedy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Absolutely, and in this case, it is very much like a classic submarine story of infiltration for intelligence purposes then try to escape and evade. Any number of things could have gone wrong for either side. I think it worked extremely well.

 

Also, the character dynamic is that the Praetor, and the younger Romulans who're eager for war, think the cloak and the plasma weapon are superweapons which will inevitably bring them victory. The Commander knows - or fears/suspects - that while they'll win initial victories, their value lies mainly in shock and surprise - once the enemy work out what they are, they'll work out countermeasures, the Romulan advantage will be gone, and they'll lose badly.
It's his bad luck that it's very nearly the first Federation commander he faces (the first really, given if we assume that the base commanders didn't have the resources to fight back the way a starship could even if they'd had time to analyse the problem) who does just that.
Or his good luck, given the Commander's musings about wishing he not come home, if his return will start a war.

 

The Bird of Prey appeared to be poorly constructed, recall how dust would fall from the ceiling of the bridge whenever the ship took a hit from Enterprise, and how a large piece of the ceiling falls in and crushes the Centurion during one of the attacks.

Perhaps the Romulans used plaster or concrete instead of titanium, or whatever super-metal that Starfleet specs for their ships.

 

Remember what prompted the Romulan commander to say that.

"How, Commander. How?" asked one of the Romulan crewmen. That was exactly what I wanted to know too, as I watched that episode.

How was the Enterprise scoring hit after hit on the bird-of-prey?

Often times, the Enterprise was firing blindly and/or at a great distance. Stiles: "A phaser hit at this distance would be the wildest stroke of luck." Yet, the Enterprise hit the target time and again.

Also, remember at one point the two ships were in silent mode. But Spock accidentally sent out a distress signal. That gave away the Enterprise's position. Despite this advantage, it was the Enterprise that managed to keep hitting the bird-of-prey with its phasers and without the Romulans firing a shot back.

How, Commander. How? indeed.

Nevertheless, Balance of Terror was a very entertaining episode, one of the better ones.

 

If you like The Enemy Below, you like "Balance of Terror."

If you like Operation Petticoat, you like "The Trouble with Tribbles."

I happen to like both movies, but if Star Trek could be only one thing, I'd prefer the serious style.

 

The Centurion was the old guy. The arrogant one that gave them away was Stonn--er, Decius.

 

It seems Kirk wasn't actually scoring hits on the Romulans, but "near misses". Those are relevant in naval warfare, where water carries the explosive energies, and a shell falling close to a ship may in fact be much deadlier than a shell falling onto a ship.

In space warfare, especially in Trek, near misses probably shouldn't have shaken plaster out of the ceiling of the Romulan ship. But they did... Yet this is a bit different from Kirk actually scoring hits.

Now, this makes one wonder if Spock wanted to warn the Romulans so that they could escape - either hoping that this would avert war, or then (considering his aggressive statements earlier) that this would ignite war and the Romulans could be wiped out once and for all.

But by sending that signal, Spock actually made the Romulans come closer, which sealed their fate. It wasn't an advantage for the Romulans, but their undoing!

Timo Saloniemi

 

What I find most interesting about that scene is that Spock makes a potentially catastrophic mistake by sheer clumsiness. And with Nimoy being a good, genuine actor, Spock looks exactly right: he feels acutely terrible and can hardly believe what he's done.

Yeah. The series was still new, and this red herring might have made some viewers wonder if Stiles was right about Spock after all.

If "Balance" had been filmed later in the series, when Nimoy was more powerful, I think he would have refused to play the accidental-button scene altogether. The red herring aspect would no longer work on the audience at that point, and more importantly Nimoy became immensely protective of Spock's dignity.

 

If you're going to start picking apart the episode for technical details, you may wish to read "There Ain't No Stealth In Space" and other articles in the Atomic Rocket section of the Project Rho site.

The episode is THE ENEMY BELOW scenario translated to space. With the above in mind, another TREK analog that doesn't work is the low damage space warfare, as though the combatants were using mere high explosives.

(In THE WRATH OF KHAN, Khan's ship—running without shields—is hit with a photon torpedo. In TOS the photon torpedoes were mere blobs of light, suggesting an energy weapon. Later on TREK lore picked up the detail that photon torpedoes are small ships—torpedoes—carrying an antimatter explosive. One hit, and the opposing ship would be gone utterly.)

I know, you can argue "force fields" all you want—a fictional technology that can be given any capabilities. But space weapons are most likely to be devastating—one shot, you're gone. The dogfighting with one-man fighters, as in STAR WARS and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is also nonsense for a variety of reasons. At least STAR TREK pitted capital ship against capital ship. Just make sure your one and only shot is a good one—if you can manage to deliver it—because they'll see you coming from a long way.

 

The "there ain't no stealth in space" thing is nonsense: you can always cheat thermodynamics to hide your signature long enough to gain a tactical edge. There's no need to worry about absolutes.

Also, the "low damage" thing is purely a matter of a technological rat race. Sure, everybody would want the other guy to die with one shot. But there's no real point why they should be granted their wish. Realistically, "one shot" will always miss - you have to saturate to defeat countermeasures. And it's pretty stupid to saturate with planet-killers when you know 90% of your projectiles will miss anyway. Better fire weak projectiles until the enemy is disabled enough that your odds of hitting improve, then throw the heavier ones to the battle. Which makes shielding eminently plausible even ITRW.

Timo Saloniemi