Some speculation about the Romulans and the Borg invasion

[rfmcdpei]

Hartzilla2007 wrote:

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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.

STO does shoot holes in her theory? Tell me more ...

So in the the novelverse timeline, notwithstanding the huge changes in 2380-2381 relative to the STO timeline, Hobus will still explode. The proximate cause might even be different--maybe the Hirogen set it off, say--but the explosion will be the one constant linking the two timelines.

Do I have this right?

[Hartzilla2007]

rfmcdpei wrote:

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STO does shoot holes in her theory? Tell me more ...

Well the explaination is kind of fanwanky but.......

The Iconians, who are still around it seems and evil had Taris an Admiral at the time and later Preator send a device into the star to blow it up and take out Romulus. Though until the truth was found Janeway's theory was considered the most likely thing that happened, but still a theory and they really didn't know how it happened.

And on a slighty unrelated note to anyone else who has played STO and read Needs of the Many, was I the only one going wtf, huh, and when the hell did that happen!? while reading the book becuase it kinf-of seemed like Martin had a vague outline of the game's plot when he wrote the book because it was off by a whole lot from my reckoning.

So in the the novelverse timeline, notwithstanding the huge changes in 2380-2381 relative to the STO timeline, Hobus will still explode. The proximate cause might even be different--maybe the Hirogen set it off, say--but the explosion will be the one constant linking the two timelines.

Do I have this right?

Pretty much.

[kkozoriz1]

According to Memory Alpha we know of 15 Klingon planets, not counting Qo'Nos or Praxis.

The same site lists 3 Romulan planets, not counting Romulus and Remus.

Seeing as XI tells us that there's less than 10,000 Vulcans left out of 6 billion. It would appear that, for whatever reason, Vulcans (and Romulans) don't tend to colonize planets in large numbers.

I wonder how the whole "supernova" will be handled in the novels. If it were me I'd mention Romulus and Remus being destroyed and leave it at that. Why open a can of worms that big?

[Christopher]

rfmcdpei wrote:

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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?

That seems a necessary conclusion, although there aren't any plausible supernova candidates in that part of space. But then, any supernova whose radiation can propagate FTL is weird anyway.

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?

Indeed. Let's keep in mind what the word "empire" actually means. It doesn't mean one monocultural state that's mean to its neighbors. An empire, by definition, is a multicultural political entity in which one central state (the metropolis) governs multiple other states and harnesses their wealth, resources, and labor for the benefit of the metropolis. The Romulan state is called a Star Empire, which explicitly characterizes it as a power that rules over multiple star systems, presumably including ones that are politically and culturally (and, given the context, taxonomically) distinct from the people of Romulus.

rfmcdpei wrote:

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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.

Well, the supernovae in Generations were shown to have gravitational effects propagating superluminally; the courses of several starships and the Nexus were altered almost instantly upon their destruction. (Which doesn't make sense conventionally, not only due to speed-of-light limitations, but because from that distance there'd be no perceived change in the location of the star's center of mass. One must assume some form of subspace ripple washing over those ships and the Nexus and pushing them aside a bit.) Also, the explosion of Praxis in TUC evidently propagated FTL, unless we're expected to believe the Excelsior was casually sailing through the home system of the Klingon Empire at the time and nobody noticed.

I'm compelled to mention that my Distant Shores story "Brief Candle" postulated "subspace tunneling" as a way for radiation to propagate FTL, since I needed it to make the story work. (Sometimes I forget about propagation delays in my plotting and then have to do some fancy footwork to justify it in the actual writing. It was even worse in Over a Torrent Sea when I forgot to take the finite speed of sound in water into account in the outline and needed to rejigger the climax to play out over a longer time than I'd expected.)

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 ...

As I said, I don't consider Countdown an authoritative text. Going strictly by the onscreen dialogue, there's no indication that the radiation front accelerated (another case where Countdown made it even more implausible than the movie version). All it says is that the radiation reached Romulus before Spock could complete his mission. Maybe it went faster than anticipated from the start. Since it had to be propagating through subspace somehow, it could've been hard to calculate its effective rate of expansion.

rfmcdpei wrote:

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So in the the novelverse timeline, notwithstanding the huge changes in 2380-2381 relative to the STO timeline, Hobus will still explode. The proximate cause might even be different--maybe the Hirogen set it off, say--but the explosion will be the one constant linking the two timelines.

Do I have this right?

Essentially. I'm not sure whether Pocket would even address the causes; Bad Robot seems to have an interest in maintaining consistency among the tie-ins that relate to the film's continuity, so it might be that Pocket would just remain neutral on the issue, acknowledging that the supernova happened but not telling an alternative tale about how it happened. On the other hand, I could be wrong and there could be a novel about it. (And of course, being me, I wouldn't mind getting a shot at telling that story and offering some explanations.)

Either way, though, it happened onscreen, so that makes it part of the continuity the books have to honor.

kkozoriz1 wrote:

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Seeing as XI tells us that there's less than 10,000 Vulcans left out of 6 billion. It would appear that, for whatever reason, Vulcans (and Romulans) don't tend to colonize planets in large numbers.

The line in the film can be interpreted to mean that only 10,000 of the inhabitants of Vulcan itself escaped. Despite the implications of Spock's "endangered species" line, it is not explicitly stated that there are only 10,000 Vulcans left in the universe.

And like I said, if the Romulans only lived on one planet, they wouldn't be a Star Empire. The word "empire" has a specific meaning.

[kkozoriz1]

Spock's line is meant to mean that there's 10,000 Vulcans (as opposed to Romulans) left altogether. Why else would he say he's a member of an endangered species? If China were destroyed would a surviving Chinese citizen claim to be a member of an endangered species if there were still 5 billion other humans left? Has there been any mention of Vulcan colonies that weren't in the TNG timeframe? P'Jemm wasn't a colony as much as a listening post. Maybe Vulcan didn't start colonizing planets until V'Ger showed them that one threat almost took out the entire Earth.

Nonsensical or not, the supernova is the way that Romulus will meet it's end. Seeing as Spock created the black hole after Romulus was destroyed I wonder what exactly he was trying to do? Clean up the mess? Create a fire break to protect another inhabited (Federation?) planet?

[Deranged Nasat]

Mu Arae is quite close to Romulus, or looks like it might be (I'm not familiar enough with actual stars' positions to determine if it is). I hope the Koas don't need to pack up the planet and move again...they're fresh out of boxes.

[rfmcdpei]

kkozoriz1 wrote:

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Spock's line is meant to mean that there's 10,000 Vulcans (as opposed to Romulans) left altogether. Why else would he say he's a member of an endangered species? If China were destroyed would a surviving Chinese citizen claim to be a member of an endangered species if there were still 5 billion other humans left?

But we know for a fact that there are plenty of other Vulcans outside of the 40 Eridani system. The Romulans are Vulcans: descended from Vulcan colonists, retaining many pre-Surakian cultural traditions, speaking languages closely similar to standard Vulcan, and interfertile with Vulcans (cf Saavik). Romulan culture has developed quite differently from the post-Surakian Vulcan norms, but that doesn't relate to Vulcan biology--there are still plenty of points the two civilizations have in common besides.

Who knows? Quite possibly, given the relative size of the Vulcan sphere of influence versus the RSE, there are many, many more Vulcans of Romulan background than there are Vulcans of more conservative 40 Eridanite stock. It might well be true that, centuries after the Vulcan Reformation, most Vulcans still don't follow Surak's path. Dominant in one of the traditional superpowers, major players in another, and with all manner of related cultures Preserver-spread or not (Rigellians, Mintakans, et cetera), the Vulcans as a species are demonstrably not endangered. The Borg invasion was probably (possibly?) the first time since the successful colonization of Romulus that the Vulcan species' survival was threatened.

Even with the destruction of Vulcan proper, and assuming no substantial Vulcan settlements within or without the 40 Eridani system, the Vulcan species is doing just fine.

Old Spock knows this. Young Spock, presumably, knows this--the Narada's early "contact" seems to have advanced Federation knowledge of Romulan background somewhat, the Vulcans also have their own inside sources and Spock being well-positioned in Vulcan society. Why, knowing all of these facts which demonstrate that despite the homeworld's loss the species remains, would Young Spock say that his species is endangered? There's no logic in that.

[rfmcdpei]

Me: "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?"

Christopher: "Indeed. Let's keep in mind what the word "empire" actually means. It doesn't mean one monocultural state that's mean to its neighbors. An empire, by definition, is a multicultural political entity in which one central state (the metropolis) governs multiple other states and harnesses their wealth, resources, and labor for the benefit of the metropolis. The Romulan state is called a Star Empire, which explicitly characterizes it as a power that rules over multiple star systems, presumably including ones that are politically and culturally (and, given the context, taxonomically) distinct from the people of Romulus."

Most of the traditional empires of Earth contained colonies of settlement and colonies of natives: Britain had the Thirteen Colonies and Bengal in the 18th century, say. Over time, as empires and populations expanded, these boundaries blurred, their categorizations changed. In the 1860's the territory of Rupert's Land--basically, most of what's now central and much of Arctic Canada--was populated mainly by First Nations people. The demography's much different now. And where do Indian immigrants to the Caribbean and Fiji--colonial subjects heading to another colony--fit in the settlement/native colony continuum?

The only colonizing nation I know of that didn't acquire and produce colonies of settlement alongside colonies of natives was France. That was produced in the first empire (to the Revolution) by a disinterest in overseas interests and a desire to profit from extractive resources like furs and sugar. Combining mass settlement with these extractive resources could have jeopardized the empire--if Canada had been colonized heavily, apart from agriculture wrecking the forests that were home to fur-bearing animals the natives who were the most reliable allies and trading partners of the French would have been upset. In the second empire (after the Revolution) by the lack of any significant interest in emigration and, perhaps, an interest in propagating French influence through popular culture more than through overseas migration, Algeria being the single large exception that proves the rule and even then most of the immigrants came from non-French Mediterranean Europe.

Those motives explain two centuries of French non-colonization. The Romulan Star Empire, according to Memory Beta, dates from the 3rd century CE. The RSE probably did have its periods of static growth, periods of disinterest in the settlement of new worlds to the profit of conquering already-inhabited worlds. I can't see pressures towards non-settlement enduring throughout Romulan history, especially given the apparent Romulan interest in physical footprints and contempt for subject species. How can Romulans have an empire if there aren't enough Romulans to securely rule it?

[kkozoriz1]

Unlike the Federation we don't see many, if any, other species in the RSM or the Klingon Empire. Perhaps once the Romulans conquer an inhabited planet they simply prevent them from leaving. Put a few armed stations in orbit and plasma bomb any attempt to build spacecraft. You beam down the raw materials and beam up the finished products. That way you don't get that "dirty alien" stink all through your nice, Romulan ship.

You can securly rule an insterstellar empire if you're the only ones who can get out of a gravity well.

[Christopher]

kkozoriz1 wrote:

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Spock's line is meant to mean that there's 10,000 Vulcans (as opposed to Romulans) left altogether.

No, it was meant to convey an emotional impression to filmgoers. In a Q&A on TrekMovie.com in May 2009, screenwriters Orci & Kurtzman stated that the "10,000 Vulcans" figure did not include offworlders; it referred only to those who'd escaped the planet itself before its destruction.

That Nutty Fanboy: What happened to off-world Vulcans? The lines in the movie indicate 10.000 survivors overall, which seems rather low for a space-faring species – especially that very likely have off-world colonies.. or was the 10.000-line pointed towards survivors escaping Vulcan itself?

BobOrci: True. Let’s just say then that the 10,000 does not count off worlders!

http://trekmovie.com/2009/05/22/orci...kmovie-fan-qa/

Why else would he say he's a member of an endangered species? If China were destroyed would a surviving Chinese citizen claim to be a member of an endangered species if there were still 5 billion other humans left?

He very well might, if he were as emotionally distraught as Spock was at that point (though he'd more likely say "endangered race," keeping in mind that ST treats species as analogous to ethnic groups). Again, keep in mind the concept of the unreliable narrator. It can justify Nero's "last of the Romulan Empire" line, and it can justify this line.

Has there been any mention of Vulcan colonies that weren't in the TNG timeframe?

Yes. It's called Romulus.

[rfmcdpei]

kkozoriz1 wrote:

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According to Memory Alpha we know of 15 Klingon planets, not counting Qo'Nos or Praxis.

The same site lists 3 Romulan planets, not counting Romulus and Remus.

Seeing as XI tells us that there's less than 10,000 Vulcans left out of 6 billion. It would appear that, for whatever reason, Vulcans (and Romulans) don't tend to colonize planets in large numbers.

Sorry to triple-post; I missed this one in my initial reading of the thread.

The number of mentions of planets doesn't say much, since Romulans have interacted with the Federation to a considerably less extent than the Klingons.

* Three of the five Trek series have had Klingon or half-Klingon protagonists, the Enterprise-D made multiple visits to Qo'Nos, the Federation was deeply involved in Klingon internal affairs and fought a year-long war with the Klingons, and there have been numerous recurring Klingon characters, including Dax's old friends who were present in two series.

* The Romulans didn't interact nearly as much with the Federation. Federation-Romulan conflicts tended to be small and low key--the fight over that medical hologram-equipped ship, or the run-ins along the neutral zone--and the only Romulan characters I can think of who appeared for more than two episodes are Tomalak and the half-human Sela. If they don't feature much in the series, why would their worlds be mentioned?

[rfmcdpei]

kkozoriz1 wrote:

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Unlike the Federation we don't see many, if any, other species in the RSM or the Klingon Empire.

I'm pretty sure that's just sampling effect. If I looked around my neighbourhood and generalized to all of Toronto, I'd say that the Portuguese constitute the city's largest ethnic minority. If I looked around my circle of friends, maybe a bit more than a third of Toronto's population would be queer and a surprisingly high proportion would be American students of medieval studies who converted to Anglicanism. (True story: three converted in the same ceremony.)

People from outside these empires are likely to interact with Romulans and Klingons more often than their subject species, numbers aside, because it's the Romulans and Klingons who are the people who matter most. The Kevratans and Phebens are well-known enough in their areas of space, and in a fairly meaningless way to people concerned with species suffering imperial domination (cf Tibet), but they just don't have anything like the size or the autonomy necessary to be important.

Perhaps once the Romulans conquer an inhabited planet they simply prevent them from leaving. Put a few armed stations in orbit and plasma bomb any attempt to build spacecraft. You beam down the raw materials and beam up the finished products. That way you don't get that "dirty alien" stink all through your nice, Romulan ship.

Heh.

You can securly rule an insterstellar empire if you're the only ones who can get out of a gravity well.

Probably a lot of the Romulan subject species are pre-warp species, maybe most. Civilizations like the Koltaai which are advanced enough to have a sizable industrial base and a workforce capable of extracting basic resources, but which can't pose a threat to Romulan security, might be preferred subject civilizations. Warp civilizations which can be subjugated would be more technologically compatible, but also more risky--at worse, you could have a civilization looking what the Haakona are shaping up to be during the Romulan War, an enemy that fought off its invaders and is now going on the offensive.

As for pre-industrial cultures? I suspect that worlds inhabited by these species are as likely to become colonies of mass Romulan immigration as uninhabited ones. They might be even more likely, since they at least have established, disposable workforces.

[Deranged Nasat]

Well, in addition to the great case both rfmcdpei and Christopher have made for why Romulans should logically and by definition have numerous colonies, the novels have given us quite a few Romulan colony worlds:

Achernar Prime, Virinat, Xanitla, Ralatak (all now IRS, the latter three agricultural giants), Rator III, Terix II (a Romulan character in “Serpents Among the Ruins” is from here), Koruk (mentioned in “Vulcan’s Soul”), Nemor, Artalierh, Assaf Golav (a penal colony), Glintara (Another SAtR character was from here).

"Catalyst of Sorrows" stressed at several points the diversity of the Star Empire, and how some colony worlds were actually more advanced, technologically, socially, culturally, etc, than Romulus.

In addition, Romulans have always been shown as wanting expansion. Not resources. Not control. Not conquest for its own sake. Expansion. For many inhabitants of the Romulan Star Empire, their self-proclaimed “ideal” culture seems to be highly expansionist by default, and theoretically, when the economy isn’t in dire straits (which it has been since around the 2330s, apparently), Romulan national pride hinges in part on expanding the Empire. In TNG, it’s stated that at least some Romulans still believe they are destined to rule the galaxy. Evidently some branch of the government or some central tenet of the culture is promoting expansion. The fact that reality – in the form of economic concerns or powerful neighbours, or alternative ideologies within Romulan government or culture - is getting in the way of that ideal doesn’t change the fact that it’s there. There are definitely recurring expansionist movements within the Romulan government, we know that. Every few decades some coalition of frustrated nobles or officers are insisting the Romulans stop playing nice with the neighbours or hiding quietly behind the neutral zone and prepare to expand. There’s usually a strong dissenting voice, too, of course - but the expansionist movements keep cropping up. Expansion as an end in itself even seems to override hatred for aliens - the Romulan senators and officers in “Nemesis” were all for pushing past the borders and a new boost to the military might of the RSE, but had no desire to exterminate Earth. So it wasn’t a desire to lash out at aliens which was motivating them, but rather the usual recurring frustration at the lack of an expanding border.

If we consider the starchart on the Senate floor, as “Taking Wing” draws attention to - one of the Romulans’ biggest frustrations is always shown to be that in modern centuries they’re constrained by the neutral zone and other superpowers, chiefly the Federation. They clearly don’t appreciate having boundaries and barriers “imposed” on them, and every few decades there seems to arise a new crop of hotheaded leaders who want to try and test those boundaries, if the “static border” or occasional “pro-alliance” senate coalitions can’t stop them. Sure, there are long periods of relative calm and reason in between, when the Romulans typically turn inward and withdraw from galactic society - with the exception of some genuine diplomatic efforts between the 2270s and 2310s, before Vokar’s lot started up. But a significant number of Romulan leaders seem to place value on the pre-2160 days of rapid colonization and conquest. Even the very fact that they had a “Star Empire” to begin with means they looked out at those stars and desired to claim them - to reach out and establish themselves. So, in all, Romulans promote expansion. They colonize. It’s more than just a simple desire for resources (as with Cardassia); it’s an end in itself at times, at least for some Romulans. They don’t justify a conquest with “we’ll create some mines and ship this ore back to Homeworld” (though they might well do it). That’s the Cardassians, because Central Command sets itself up as the saviours of the people, the benevolent but firm guiding hand that provides Cardassia with what it requires. The military in Cardassia provides the people with their basic needs. The Romulan military is always shown as embodying something more abstract – pride, honour, glory. The people who provide Romulans with basic needs are the farmers, etc. The military has a more lofty purpose, it seems- to be the proud Romulan Eagle showing its bloody wings. Romulans glorify in the noble pride and honour of the Empire. They're the higher society and they seek to seed the rest of space with their highness.

[kkozoriz1]

Christopher wrote:

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No, it was meant to convey an emotional impression to filmgoers. In a Q&A on TrekMovie.com in May 2009, screenwriters Orci & Kurtzman stated that the "10,000 Vulcans" figure did not include offworlders; it referred only to those who'd escaped the planet itself before its destruction.

http://trekmovie.com/2009/05/22/orci...kmovie-fan-qa/

He very well might, if he were as emotionally distraught as Spock was at that point (though he'd more likely say "endangered race," keeping in mind that ST treats species as analogous to ethnic groups). Again, keep in mind the concept of the unreliable narrator. It can justify Nero's "last of the Romulan Empire" line, and it can justify this line.

Yes. It's called Romulus.

"Let's just say?"` That sounds like ass covering after the fact.

If we`re going for the unreliable narrartor to explain away the odd lines, does that mean that we have to be prepared to do the same for Spock and Spock Prime through the rest of the movie? Was Spock being truthful with his emotional moment with Uhura? Was Spock Prime telling NuKirk the truth or was he telling him a line of baloney in order to get him motivated to take command from Spock and stop Nero?

Is America a colony of Great Britain?

[rfmcdpei]

Deranged Nasat wrote:

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Every few decades some coalition of frustrated nobles or officers are insisting the Romulans stop playing nice with the neighbours or hiding quietly behind the neutral zone and prepare to expand. There’s usually a strong dissenting voice, too, of course - but the expansionist movements keep cropping up. Expansion as an end in itself even seems to override hatred for aliens - the Romulan senators and officers in “Nemesis” were all for pushing past the borders and a new boost to the military might of the RSE, but had no desire to exterminate Earth.

I'm tempted to say that things have actually been improving vis-a-vis the outside universe. In the 22nd century, Valdore saw nothing wrong with launching a genocidal attack against a Coridan that hadn't done anything to the RSE, and only began to question (question) this after there was talk of doing a repeat attack, all the while not questioning the necessity of massacring the populations of enemy colony worlds. In the 24th century, after some vacillation (and after the decapitation of the previous non-crazy RSE government) Donatra ended up going out with her ships to stop Suran substantially on the grounds that the destruction of Earth would be a horror, that his "sins" (her word) would shame Romulans. Without the coup, there's no reason to believe that the Senate would have authorized military action against the Federation, never mind a decapitation event on Earth. Plus, even before that you had a growing number of top political and military leaders who were defecting to the Federation, and a popular movement in favour of reunification with the Vulcans.

This leaves aside the Rihannsuverse, possibly novelverse character of Ael, who as Empress may have triggered a fairly intimate rapprochement with the Federation. It takes something pretty significant to explain how Nanclus was able to sit in on a classified Federation briefing to the UFP president how Starfleet would raid the Klingon homeworld if the RSE wasn't pretty impressively friendly.

All of which is to say that I think there's a fair possibility towards fairly close and friendly Federation-Romulan relations. Via the Vulcans the two powers have more in common than either does with the Klingons, and there have been multiple efforts from multiple different sources (the military, the colonists, the homeworlders, the politicians) to try to get out of the pointless cold war.

Extrapolating wildly, if the IRS does hold the northeastern half of Romulan space, that ]might indicate that it holds more the colonial frontier. Judging by the Rihannsu novels, which suggest that the colonials are more liberal and humane in the idealized Romulan sense than the homeworld might like, descended from the Ship Clans which were never that invested in the myths brought by the colonists, well. Thoughts?

If we consider the starchart on the Senate floor, as “Taking Wing” draws attention to - one of the Romulans’ biggest frustrations is always shown to be that in modern centuries they’re constrained by the neutral zone and other superpowers, chiefly the Federation.

Romulus' thwarted expansion really is all Earth's fault. DS9's "Past Tense" proves it. With Earth leading the way and keeping interstellar politics peaceful, the Coalition held together; with Earth devastated, the Romulans advanced at least as far as Alpha Centauri, moving past Draylax, Benzar, and Bolarus and coming within close range of Tellar, Andor, and Vulcan itself. I can feel for the Romulans: all their meticulously laid out plans thwarted by an upstart species that within their lifetime had been a compliant Vulcan protectorate.