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USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?

If she does not show at cons, would she commit to a multiday shoot?
Why not reference she was at the launching of the 1701 in 2245?
 
OTOH, the novelization of Balance of Terror basically states that the Romulans were known to be "vulcanoid" even at the start of the episode and the only thing surprising about their appearance is HOW MUCH they look like Vulcans after all. It isn't a shock to the crew as much as it is just really unfortunate timing for Spock, who is in the middle of being harassed by Bailey (the new guy) for being an alien.

We can argue about Discovery's design updates, but the TNG "modernization" of the Romulans to look less Vulcan remains the gold standard of goofy.

I doubt it.

They’ve used BOT several times as an example of something they won’t retcon

That was true of the original Enterprise until recently.
 
They've already done it indirectly, so I'm not sure what difference it would make at this point.
Yeah. I don't want them to retcon BOT, but they they already contradicted it. In that episode the cloak was explicitly a new and theoretical thing. That doesn't work with the events of DIS (or ENT, for that matter.) Meeting Romulans would be an contradiction of pretty much identical scale.
 
We can argue about Discovery's design updates, but the TNG "modernization" of the Romulans to look less Vulcan remains the gold standard of goofy.
I've never given it much thought, to be honest, but that's a really good point. What's wrong with the Romulans just being asshole Vulcans?
 
Actually, they'll probably just retcon the entirety of "Balance of Terror" to begin with, since after all this time it's quite absurd that the Federation fought an entire war against the Romulans -- at a level of technology we now understand from Enterprise as being close to what we're used to -- and never got a chance to examine a Romulan corpse. It's asinine to think that could even be possible, even if they did have standing orders to kill themselves to avoid captures.

OTOH, the novelization of Balance of Terror basically states that the Romulans were known to be "vulcanoid" even at the start of the episode and the only thing surprising about their appearance is HOW MUCH they look like Vulcans after all. It isn't a shock to the crew as much as it is just really unfortunate timing for Spock, who is in the middle of being harassed by Bailey (the new guy) for being an alien.

At this point, Balance of Terror needs a major redo anyway. Change phasers to torpedoes, rework the script so that it's Uhura, and not Spock, who actually tracks the Romulan ship (as in the original script and novelization) and rework the dialog so the only shocking thing about the cloaking device is the fact that the Romulans are using it, despite the fact that their ships historically have never been powerful enough for that.

ENT had a pretty good explanation for it: The Romulans fought with drones.

It's IMO not unreasonable, to think the majority of the Earth-Romulan (note: NOT Federation-Romulan) war was fought on human home-turf: Basically a never ending drone warfare (like the U.S. has in northern Pakistan/parts of Africa). The war might just have ended as soon as humans became strong enough to push back: E.g. The Romulans signing a peace treaty as soon as the possibility arose that humans could attack actual Romulan colonies with their "primitive" nuclear weapons - and not just loose drone equitpment. There might not actually have been a ot of Romulan deaths in human territory.
 
Yeah. I don't want them to retcon BOT, but they they already contradicted it. In that episode the cloak was explicitly a new and theoretical thing. That doesn't work with the events of DIS (or ENT, for that matter.) Meeting Romulans would be an contradiction of pretty much identical scale.
Apart from the fact that it's damn near impossible. Unless we retcon the events of "Unity" and "Babel 1" to actually BE the events Spock is talking about in "Balance of Terror" there is no way in hell they don't know that Romulans are similar to Vulcans. That's not even something the Romulans could feasibly hide even if they wanted to.

ENT had a pretty good explanation for it: The Romulans fought with drones.

It's IMO not unreasonable, to think the majority of the Earth-Romulan (note: NOT Federation-Romulan) war was fought on human home-turf: Basically a never ending drone warfare (like the U.S. has in northern Pakistan/parts of Africa). The war might just have ended as soon as humans became strong enough to push back: E.g. The Romulans signing a peace treaty as soon as the possibility of actual Romulan casualties arose - and not just equitpment.
That's just it, it still wouldn't explain their not even knowing what Romulans looked like. It's one thing to say that the Romulans never attacked Earth in person, but unless their entire fleet consisted of nothing but drones and ALL of their wars in all their history were fought this way (which is pretty unlikely) then someone would have definitely noticed this by now, ESPECIALLY if Earth actually came to counter-attack Romulus to bring the war to an end, in which case their ships and space stations would have been attacked directly.
 
I've never given it much thought, to be honest, but that's a really good point. What's wrong with the Romulans just being asshole Vulcans?

That's what made them cool! There was a Mirror Universe appeal to the concept. And that they look like Vulcans was a major plot point!
 
That's just it, it still wouldn't explain their not even knowing what Romulans looked like. It's one thing to say that the Romulans never attacked Earth in person, but unless their entire fleet consisted of nothing but drones and ALL of their wars in all their history were fought this way (which is pretty unlikely) then someone would have definitely noticed this by now, ESPECIALLY if Earth actually came to counter-attack Romulus to bring the war to an end, in which case their ships and space stations would have been attacked directly.

Let me put it this way:
There's, at best, a handful of humans who, during the Earth-Romulan War, would have had a chance to see firsthand what a Romulan looked like. All were on Earth Starfleet ships. Any civilians caught in the crossfire died before telling anyone what they saw; the Romulans, according to the novelization, 'only got as far as they did by surprise and sheer savagery.'

At this point in time (as ENT controversially showed), relations between humans and Vulcans weren't on the friendliest of terms. The United Earth/Alliance of Planets top leadership realized pretty quickly that, were word to get out then among the intergalactic public that Romulans were basically even nastier Vulcans, the Federation would've died at birth - and war between Earth and Vulcan would have been impossible to avoid.

Yes, the UE Starfleet leadership knew what the Romulans looked like. As did the signing representatives of the Federation charter. Once the Romulans were penned up in their little Neutral Zone, though, there was no need for anyone else to know. And every need to keep them from knowing.

So those who knew the secret were sworn to the strictest secrecy, editing their logs and memoirs to deliberately spread the lie that no one had ever seen a Romulan. It became something for Starfleet C-in-C/Federation President eyes only, passed directly down to their successors, never taught in the Academy. The Federation needed time to grow, and for Earth/Vulcan relations to heal from their rather rocky start. (Even then, the example in Stiles in BoT shows just how delicate it truly was, even a century later.)

It's not out of the question that the Enterprise crew were also sworn to silence after BoT, and the secret kept a while longer - at least until the Klingon/Romulan alliance.
 
Let me put it this way:
There's, at best, a handful of humans who, during the Earth-Romulan War, would have had a chance to see firsthand what a Romulan looked like. All were on Earth Starfleet ships. Any civilians caught in the crossfire died before telling anyone what they saw; the Romulans, according to the novelization, 'only got as far as they did by surprise and sheer savagery.'
Sure, but even the in the novelization they knew pretty much that the Romulans were approximately Vulcanoid, which wouldn't have been surprising because that entire region of space had been colonized by Vulcans in past centuries. There's even a bit of exposition that the Vulcans explicitly denied having any knowledge of whatever offshoot colony group eventually founded Romulus, so the fact that Romulans are basically asshole Vulcans should have surprised exactly no one.

It would be like going to war with North Korea and then being surprised that the north koreans have asian features. It isn't really even a surprise, it's just really inconvenient when you see this particular image two and a half minutes after your racist helmsman just finished accusing the only Asian crewmember on the ship of being a spy.

Yes, the UE Starfleet leadership knew what the Romulans looked like. As did the signing representatives of the Federation charter. Once the Romulans were penned up in their little Neutral Zone, though, there was no need for anyone else to know. And every need to keep them from knowing.
That makes no sense. Why would the racial identities of one of the Federation's sworn enemies make any difference at all? That would be like the United States fighting through all of world war II and then going out of its way to hide the fact that Japanese and Chinese people look kind of similar. I mean, unless Earth was going through some kind of remarkably racist and xenophobic chapter of its own, what difference would that even make?
 
That makes no sense. Why would the racial identities of one of the Federation's sworn enemies make any difference at all? That would be like the United States fighting through all of world war II and then going out of its way to hide the fact that Japanese and Chinese people look kind of similar. I mean, unless Earth was going through some kind of remarkably racist and xenophobic chapter of its own, what difference would that even make?

That parallel would make sense if China had been on America's side during the war, in an uneasy-yet-beneficial relationship that could yet turn hostile given the wrong circumstances, and no American had ever seen or heard of Japan prior to Pearl Harbor - only to then become all too familiar with their kamikaze planes. (And their ships would rather scuttle themselves with incendiary bombs than let the Americans capture so much as a single Japanese soldier.)
 
That parallel would make sense if China had been on America's side during the war, in an uneasy-yet-beneficial relationship that could yet turn hostile given the wrong circumstances, and no American had ever seen or heard of Japan prior to Pearl Harbor - only to then become all too familiar with their kamikaze planes. (And their ships would rather scuttle themselves with incendiary bombs than let the Americans capture so much as a single Japanese soldier.)
Well, China was an ally of the US in WWII.
 
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