Some speculation about the Romulans and the Borg invasion

[TerraUnam]

OK, when I look at the map I see the Federation has "jumped" Romulan Space. I know space is 3-D but it must have made for some horrendous political implications, unless there is a book I haven't read.

[SicOne]

rfmcdpei wrote:

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One area of technology where the Romulans are quite good with are metaweapons, doomsday weapons capable of inflicting massive damage and/or subverting other powers' weapons...after using the Sunseed technology, the Romulan Praetorate launched a weapon that would have made Sol hyperflare and destroy our solar system, and would have been happy to do the same to the Qo'Nos system; the Tomed incident saw an "accident" with a single singularity drive-equipped Romulan warship annihilate outposts scattered possibly across light-years...

There's evidence to suggest that the Romulans did well against the Borg. The Verithrax, a single ship, was able to destroy the Borg vessel attacking Ardana.

In what books or stories did these events occur?

And do we know if the Verithrax survived the engagement with the Borg?

[Deranged Nasat]

SicOne wrote:

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In what books or stories did these events occur?

And do we know if the Verithrax survived the engagement with the Borg?

The Sunseed hyperflare business is in the Rihannsu novels. Of course, those don't really fit into the modern continuity, but plenty of people take a "broad strokes" approach and incorporate its basic story into their unofficial Trek timeline, probably because the novels are considered very good. I haven't made my mind up yet, but rfmcdpei obviously "counts" them.

The Tomed disaster was described in "Serpents Among the Ruins"

And the Verithrax was destroyed. We don't know exactly what it did, but it destroyed itself taking out the cube at Ardana.

[flandry84]

And something forgotten by many during the post-Destiny debates(which I'm not trying to rekindle)was that the only power to develop thalaron weaponry and deploy it (first on their own citizens and then attempt to use it against Earth)were the Romulans.

[rfmcdpei]

ProtoAvatar wrote:

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Romulus blowing up is canon - maybe the last canon event to be established about the classic timeline (constructed in Ent, TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY).

There's no chance trek lit will change this. Definitely not by positing that the timeline presented in the trek lit relaunches is not the one from star trek XI.

Martin's The Needs of the Many, which ties into the new movie (Hobus goes supernova, Nero goes on a rampage, Spock goes back in time) is set in an explicitly different timeline, one that includes most elements in common with the novelverse except for the the Borg attacks maybe from Resistance onward. In the MMORPG's 24th century, well after 2381, any number of places and characters destroyed by the Borg--Admiral Paris, Janeway, Pluto and its moons, Deneva, Risa--are perfectly fine. Bacco even tells Sisko in her interview that she didn't know how the Federation would have handled a Borg attack soon after the Dominion War, but she thought the Federation would have survived. "Somehow."

The new movie is set six years after the huge point of divergence introduced by the Borg attacks of 2380-2381. In Needs of the Many, Janeway says that the unusual characteristics of the Hobus supernova (a star light-years away vapourizing a planet so soon after it goes?) makes it a likely candidate for artificial supernova, probably as a side-effect of the subspace weapons tests made by Sela's faction but maybe by Species 8472. In a timeline that's had at least six years to diverge hugely, it's very possible that those weapons tests wouldn't have been made, Hobus would remain intact, and Romulus and Remus would have survived.

This is consistent with their psychology. Also, any weapon tends to be effective against the borg during the first shots - in the case of metaweapons, this would translate into a lot of borg cubes destroyed.
There's something to be said for using superpowered weapons against superpowered opponents.

The debris left over in Romulus space from the side-effects of these metaweapons would complicate things. Probably the Romulans would have thought that, if a particular world was doomed anyway, it would be best to take as many Borg as possible with them, so some planetary systems might be physically destroyed. And who knows what the extensive use of subspace metaweapons would do.

About the romulans having better military tech than the federation/klingons - that's rather unsupportable.
During DS9's dominion war, the romulan performance was nothing to write home about:
During all seen battles, their ships proved to be, at most, at the allies' tech level; no superior anything.
The dominion, even strained as it was by the federation/klingons, managed to keep the 'fresh' romulan military out of cardassian territory, losing only a few recently conquered systems (at most - only one such system is established) before the front line stabilised. During the final battle for Cardassia, the romulan flank broke way before the federation or klingon one.
A highly unimpressive performance, overall.

Point. There's some evidence--speculative evidence--to suggest that some areas of Romulan military technology might have been pulling ahead. Countdown 3 shows that Nero got his weapons suites from a secret Romulan facility, the Vault (not the Forge), which had managed to reverse-engineer Borg technology. Installed on the ]Narada, this technology was able to pose a critical threat to Federation planets and destroyed a small Klingon fleet sent to intercept it in the 24th century. Romulan and Borg technology were probably compatible anyway, as evidenced by their design preferences for glowing green running lights ... ;-)

Agreed that this technology wasn't installed (or at least used) in the 2370s. By the 2380s, even without the ]Narada-class technology deployed in 2387, the Vault's research may have led to some interesting results which, with the metaweapons, cold also have slowed down the Borg. May have.

[rfmcdpei]

Deranged Nasat wrote:

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The Sunseed hyperflare business is in the Rihannsu novels. Of course, those don't really fit into the modern continuity, but plenty of people take a "broad strokes" approach and incorporate its basic story into their unofficial Trek timeline, probably because the novels are considered very good. I haven't made my mind up yet, but rfmcdpei obviously "counts" them.

Well, not to start a debate--;-)--but I'm inclined to count the Rihannsu novels as relevant to the novelverse, since the Sherman/Schwartz novels tried to incorporate as much of Diane Duane's somewhat variant universe as possible, keeping most of the core cultural elements, making Remus a hellhole, and having the Romulans start expanding at a much earlier date. (Duane herself changed this; the earlier novels had Romulan expansion only beginning with First Contact and then from the Eisn system only, producing an empire by the late 23rd century much smaller than the Federation and the Klingon, but The Empty Chair particularly established multiple generations of colony planets and an assorted of conquered planets adding up to an empire more comparable, at least.) Selected bits from the novels, like the existence of Artaleirh, the concept of a reformist regime under Empress Ael, and most noticeably elements of the Rihannsu language including name formation, have also made it into the established novelverse.

I tend to see the Rihannsu novels as canonical except where they can't be, because they've been surpassed by the TV/movie canon, secondarily the new novelverse canon. It gives the Romulans a character that, unlike the Cardassians on DS9, wasn't developed on the show.

Even if we discount completely the Rihannsu novels, with its Sunseed and the mechanically augmented psi power machines and the massively overpowered generation starships and the hyperflare weapons, there's still enough evidence suggesting a certain Romulan fondness for metaweapons.

[Christopher]

rfmcdpei wrote:

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The new movie is set six years after the huge point of divergence introduced by the Borg attacks of 2380-2381. In Needs of the Many, Janeway says that the unusual characteristics of the Hobus supernova (a star light-years away vapourizing a planet so soon after it goes?) makes it a likely candidate for artificial supernova, probably as a side-effect of the subspace weapons tests made by Sela's faction but maybe by Species 8472. In a timeline that's had at least six years to diverge hugely, it's very possible that those weapons tests wouldn't have been made, Hobus would remain intact, and Romulus and Remus would have survived.

You need to think about this more metatextually. The "timeline split" is merely a way to rationalize the fact that Pocket Books and the makers of Star Trek Online have chosen to develop the post-NEM continuity in different ways. But all licensed tie-ins are required to conform to screen canon, even when they don't conform to each other's continuity. The destruction of Romulus is screen canon, and therefore Pocket will be obligated to include it in the novel continuity, even if the specifics of its inclusion differ from what STO established. Real-life contractual obligations trump fictitious continuity rationalizations.

[Hartzilla2007]

Christopher wrote:

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You need to think about this more metatextually. The "timeline split" is merely a way to rationalize the fact that Pocket Books and the makers of Star Trek Online have chosen to develop the post-NEM continuity in different ways. But all licensed tie-ins are required to conform to screen canon, even when they don't conform to each other's continuity. The destruction of Romulus is screen canon, and therefore Pocket will be obligated to include it in the novel continuity, even if the specifics of its inclusion differ from what STO established. Real-life contractual obligations trump fictitious continuity rationalizations.

That, plus STO shoots rather large holes in Janeway's theory anyway.

Though that still doesn't change the fact that no matter what timeline the novels are using in 2387 Romulus goes bye bye, though Star Trek Online did show that this doesn't mean the RSE is gone they just moved to a new capital planet, much like the Klingons did (possible only temporarily) after Destiny.

[kkozoriz1]

But there's this line Spock Prime spoke:

"As I began my return trip I was intercepted.


- He called himself Nero,
- Last of the Romulan Empire."

That seems to indicate that most of the Romulans perished and the Emprire itself is no more.

[Christopher]

kkozoriz1 wrote:

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But there's this line Spock Prime spoke:

"As I began my return trip I was intercepted.


- He called himself Nero,
- Last of the Romulan Empire."

That seems to indicate that most of the Romulans perished and the Emprire itself is no more.

Nero was hardly a detached, rational commentator. His self-applied epithet can easily be interpreted as hyperbole, an expression of his feelings rather than of the objective reality.

After all, the film gave the impression that it was only hours after the destruction of Romulus. Information is always unclear at a time like that, and rumors can propagate out of control. I remember going online on 9/11/01 and seeing hysterical posts from people (well, one person, at least) convinced that the falling of the World Trade Center had killed millions of people. It's possible that Nero had heard exaggerated accounts of exactly how much destruction had been wrought Empire-wide.

[Deranged Nasat]

Kkozoriz1: On Deep Space Nine, when Dukat was told to reign in his war against the Klingons because the Detapa Council wished to sue for peace, Dukat insisted (if I remember correctly) that he was "the only Cardassian" left. Perhaps Nero meant something similar. He's so overcome with rage at the loss of Romulus and his family - and Spock's "betrayal" - that he wants to go on a SMASH! KILL! "revenge" spree. But maybe everyone else is too busy trying to keep the Star Empire together or crying for aid that the last thing they want is to destabilize things any further (Even if that's almost a case of Beyond the Impossible?). So as far as Nero's concerned there is no Star Empire left, just a pathetic group of begger worlds who won't join him in the Grand Smashing. He and his crew are "the last" - the last "true" sons and daughters of the once-great Empire?

[kkozoriz1]

That's centanly one interpitation. However, the information is being provided by Spock during the mind meld. Calling him "Last of the Romulan Empire" wpuld be like referring to Checkov as "Czar of all the Russias". He may have called himself that but it's not relavent to the point Spock was making.

Seeing as the Hobus Star was a fair distance away from Romulus and still managed to utterly destroy the planet it stands to reason that the otherRomulan colonies, particulary those older and more established ones, would be destroyed as well. How many Romulan colonies have been mentioned before anyway? Perhaps the Romulans have captive planets but very few that they've colonized themselves.

[Christopher]

kkozoriz1 wrote:

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That's centanly one interpitation. However, the information is being provided by Spock during the mind meld. Calling him "Last of the Romulan Empire" wpuld be like referring to Checkov as "Czar of all the Russias". He may have called himself that but it's not relavent to the point Spock was making.

Yes, it is. Because Spock wasn't calling him that -- Spock was reporting what Nero called himself. And that is relevant to establishing Nero's state of mind, his motivations. And that is part of what Spock was conveying in the meld -- who Nero was, why he was doing these things.

Seeing as the Hobus Star was a fair distance away from Romulus and still managed to utterly destroy the planet it stands to reason that the otherRomulan colonies, particulary those older and more established ones, would be destroyed as well. How many Romulan colonies have been mentioned before anyway? Perhaps the Romulans have captive planets but very few that they've colonized themselves.

Let's keep in mind that canonically, the star has no name. "Hobus" comes from Countdown, which isn't entirely consistent with the movie, since it shows Spock and Nero establishing a relationship before the supernova, while Spock's lines in the meld -- "He called himself Nero" -- suggest that they'd never met before. Neither do we have any canonical information on the star's position relative to Romulus.

That said, the movie did seem to indicate that it wasn't Romulus's own star that went supernova, because if it had been, there would've been no delay to allow Spock to undertake the red matter plan. Of course, that would raise the question of how the radiation got to Romulus in days or weeks instead of years. Really, the whole sequence of events as presented in the movie is scientifically nonsensical, and Countdown's version adds even more impossibilities and absurdities to the account. (For instance, asserting that Hobus was one of the oldest stars in the galaxy. Stars that old don't go supernova. It's something that only happens to very large, very short-lived stars.) So I'd hesitate to accept anything we've been told about the supernova, canonically or otherwise, at face value. It happened, but the rest is subject to interpretation.

[rfmcdpei]

kkozoriz1 wrote:

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That's centanly one interpitation. However, the information is being provided by Spock during the mind meld. Calling him "Last of the Romulan Empire" wpuld be like referring to Checkov as "Czar of all the Russias". He may have called himself that but it's not relavent to the point Spock was making.

Old Spock was reporting the fact that's what Nero believed himself to be the last of Romulus, but--well, here we come to the ambiguities of telepathic communication as represented in film. What else was he telling Young Kirk? He may have been identifying Nero's belief as a rage-filled delusion as much as an accurate representation of the facts. Don't forget that, despite Vulcan's millennial existence as an interstellar power with multiple holdings, Young Spock said that there were only a few tens of thousands of Vulcans left. I'd prefer not to imagine how people surviving such locally overpowering disasters would be thinking, or what they'd be saying.

And don't forget that, all indications from the language everyone uses aside, the Vulcans and Romulans actually belong to the same species ...

Seeing as the Hobus Star was a fair distance away from Romulus and still managed to utterly destroy the planet it stands to reason that the otherRomulan colonies, particulary those older and more established ones, would be destroyed as well.

I don't think this holds. I've found a high-quality copy of the Star Trek Atlas map. Let's say that Hobus exploded near the centre of the empire, around Beta Reticuli. Assuming the wavefront of Hobus expanded in a circular fashion, by the time Romulus was destroyed a sizable chunk of Federation space would also have been vapourized, including most of the Federation's Neutral Zone outposts, at least a couple of starbases, a few settled border worlds, and not far at all from Federation core worlds like Earth, Vulcan, Alpha Centauri, and Bolarus. It might even have gotten into the Klingon Empire's nearer regions.

If the disaster was that big, a lot of the reaction to the Hobus catastrophe strikes me as ... off. Why would the Federation have been in a position to dispatch medical ships to the space of Romulus? It would seem to make more sense to care to its own wounds, especially, if Romulus had been vapourized.

The threat was described as being specifically one to Romulus, not the RSE. To me, it would make more sense to place Hobus somewhere in the "western" end of the RSE's ellipse, near enough to Romulus to destroy it but not so far away as to destroy significantly large volumes of non-Romulan space?

How many Romulan colonies have been mentioned before anyway? Perhaps the Romulans have captive planets but very few that they've colonized themselves.

In the filmed material, maybe, but the same could be said about Klingons, or Ferengi, or every other non-human species but the Cardassians. Colony worlds, as distinguished from conquered worlds, haven't been distinguished. This lack of distinction doesn't mean that they don't exist, any more than they do exist.

The idea that there wouldn't be large, populous, Romulan colonies, strikes me as unlucky. As much as the humans, the Romulans are an expansionistic culture, and the idea that in a history of starlight several times' longer than humanity's they wouldn't have founded a substantial number of populous colonies strikes me as unlikely. There's plenty of unpopulated worlds suitable for colonization in Federation space. Why wouldn't that also be true in Romulan space? And why wouldn't the racist Romulans preempt the expansion of subject species (well, maybe not as labourers) onto these worlds?

Even if all of the RSE's worlds were conquered worlds with Romulan minorities there would still be huge numbers of Romulans absolutely. Towards the end of its existence, whites maintained Rhodesia despite being outnumbered twenty-to-one by their subjects. The Romulans were able to control them before, and the destruction of their homeworld wouldn't do much to make the colonials less bloody-minded.

[rfmcdpei]

Christopher wrote:

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[T]he whole sequence of events as presented in the movie is scientifically nonsensical, and Countdown's version adds even more impossibilities and absurdities to the account. (For instance, asserting that Hobus was one of the oldest stars in the galaxy. Stars that old don't go supernova. It's something that only happens to very large, very short-lived stars.) So I'd hesitate to accept anything we've been told about the supernova, canonically or otherwise, at face value. It happened, but the rest is subject to interpretation.

It's easiest for me to believe that someone broke Hobus. None of the other supernova described in Trek produced FTL shockwaves of this sort, and even when others agreed with Spock's analysis it seems like they underestimated the shockwave's speed. The second Countdown comic suggests that the experts expected the shockwave to arrive in weeks, not in the shorter time that Countdown may have implied. Someone--or something--may have been experimenting ...