Wouldn't recent events lead to full war between Fed and Romulan Free State?

Before the Picard show, the Romulan Free State wasn't at war with the Federation, likely being in no shape to fight a war as their Empire is destroyed. The Romulans aren't happy with the Fed for abandoning them to the supernova, but they're still on civil enough terms to run a joint operation on the Artifact.

Events of Picard have changed all that. The Fed can point out the Romulans can't blame them for abandoning them now because the whole reason they were abandoned was due to the massive loss of life in the Mars attack, which was now revealed to be a Romulan operation. The Romulans inserted a spy into Starfleet who worked her way up to head of Starfleet Intelligence, Oh. Oh was responsible for forcibly mind melding with Jurati, a Fed citizen, and ordering her to kill Maddox, another Federation citizen. Hugh, another Federation citizen, was killed by Narissa Rizzo, another Romulan spy, and despite Rizzo's claims it was justified because Hugh was overhead planning to break the treaty, I highly doubt any intergalactic court will accept that justification especially with Elnor's testimony. At best, Hugh should have just been arrested. And at the end of the day, Oh's attack cost the lives of 92,000 Federation citizens.

Even if Romulan Free State leadership disavow Oh and insist they were unaware of all her actions, there's now the issue that 218 Romulan warbirds joined her with the intent to commit genocide. That's not exactly a few rogue ships we're talking about, and it looks less plausible that Romulan leadership was unaware of Oh's doings in light of that.

I really don't see how all this doesn't lead to war unless the Romulan leadership immediately and unconditionally extradite Oh for her crimes back to the Federation immediately, as well as her associates. And even then, they'd need serious proof they didn't know anything about what she was doing. Which, as I said, seems massively implausible considering Oh was able to grab 218 warbirds on a whim from a Romulan Free State that's already struggling after losing their homeworld.

And if the Romulan leadership refuses to extradite Oh, well, they don't have an Empire anymore and despite their show of 218 warbirds in the recent episode (which Riker felt could be defeated by one Starfleet squadron), I don't think what's left of the Romulans would survive a war with the Federation.

What do all of you think?

 

Did those spies organize an attack to kill 92,000 people? https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Attack_on_Mars

I think if any spy masterminded an operation to kill 92,000 people, the country of those victims would go to war with that spy's country. Period.

 

Last I checked, countries go to war when their agents kill thousands of that country's citizens. That's how the war between the US and Afghanistan started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)

The only possible way to avert this would be for the Romulans to surrender Oh immediately and try to negotiate. They could play up the fact that they never would willingly authorize an operation that would doom their own homeworld, and the Fed might accept that. But only if all Zhat Vash were unconditionally handed over to the Fed for trial immediately.

 

Bad analogy considering no Afghan agent was involved.

 

The Romulans have pushed and prodded at the Federation before. It didn't lead to war. The Federation clearly aren't in the business of war, unless it is self defense or liberation in my opinion. I mean in TNG, they sent a battle fleet to attack a Federatin outpost, they destroyed the Enterprise-C, they lured the Enterprise into a trap in which they were ready to destroy the Enterprise and display its broken hull over Romulus, they tried to invade Vulcan etc etc. None of this led to a war, which is why they're so brazenly antagonistic with Starfleet and the Federation.

 

Fair enough, I was thinking too hastily for real world examples. But Oh is a Romulan agent, so that just makes it more likely the Fed would go to war if she isn't handed over.

As I said, the Romulans can still claim they never would have authorized an operation that would doom Romulus. If Oh is in trial, or on the run from both the Romulans and the Fed next season, then I can accept there being no war since it's clear the Romulans disavowed her.

But if Oh's chilling with the Romulan Free State and the Fed isn't at war with the Romulans, that wouldn't make sense at all.

14 Federation members threatened to secede just over building ships for the Romulans. If the Fed doesn't punish the Romulans somehow for refusing to extradite Oh for her slaughter of 92,000 Fed citizens--Well the Federation may not go to war but I can see them having at least 14 less members.

 

218 ships isn't all that large an armada considering they believed they might be facing the most dangerous enemy they could imagine, suggesting the RFS may not be that large, who knows?


Perhaps the UFP would launch punitive strikes but would that be in character? Did they launch them against the Empire after Reunification?

My guess is they'd more likely distance themselves and show favour to another Romulan faction if they are still the UFP of yore.

 

We're not even getting into the fact that once the Romulan Free State finds out Oh is responsible for the loss of aid to Romulus, they may be eager to punish her themselves. Extraditing Oh to the Federation might actually be merciful.

 

Depends how powerful the zhat vash are in the RFS I suppose. They may kill her as a peace offering to appease the Federation.

 

That would then become an internal matter, much like the Klingon Civil War.

However, even with the fall of the Empire and the formation of the Romulan Free State there is the potential for an ally, or at least a less antagonistic neighbor. Oh isn't representative of the RFS as a whole so going to war is completely illogical without some sort of negotiation.

 

Oh was probably put in place before the fall of the Empire and the formation of the Romulan Free State. She probably has no loyalty or connection to RFS or they to her.

 

I don't for a second believe the Romulan Free State, or even the Tal Shiar, has anything to do with the bad stuff this season. It was the Zhat Vash committing terroristic attacks by use of their embedded agents within the Tal Shiar and Starfleet. Nedar isn't going to New Romulus or whatever. She's going to Secret Base 83.

The Romulan Free State is disavowing the whole lot, and the Tal Shiar will be crying foul at these accusations, and Nedar, Narissa, and Narek will be painted as enemies of the state, and have three parties hunting them down.

 

No doubt the RFS govt will deny knowledge and disavow and condemn the actions the ZV. That does not preclude a conflict though. In the real world, national govts will deny knowledge of terrorists operating in their territory who launch attacks elsewhere, but that is not always the truth. Outside states can say that they will retaliate into their territory if necessary. In this case, telling the Romulans that either they handle this, or we will, even if that means launching strikes into Romulan territory.

Further, in showing what a large force the ZV have, they have made it difficult for any Romulan govt to plausibly claim they had no knowledge of this.

 

I agree. I'm not saying the Fed's going to immediately bombard New Romulus, but if the Romulan Free State doesn't start handing over Oh and the Zhat Vash, the Fed will invade any Romulan planet she's hiding on to arrest her. And if that leads to war, then it does, because the Fed will say that there needs to be justice for Mars and that they gave the Romulans every chance to handle the situation peacefully by extraditing Oh and the Zhat Vash for trial.

It's also a security issue for the Fed. How do we know Oh and her 218 Zhat Vash warbirds aren't going to plan another terror attack now that the Fed has lifted the synth ban?

The fact that even after 14 years she was able to put together a fleet of 218 warbirds on a whim says otherwise. It shows she still very much has connections with the current Romulan government and military.

This would be like Gorbachev suddenly commanding a fleet of hundreds of fighter planes and military ships, and the Russian government afterwards saying he's obviously a rogue agent from the old Soviet Union who has no current power.

 

And? At the time that fleet was launched, the Synth world wasn't yet a Federation member or protectorate. Therefore launching a fleet against that world to commit genocide is not an act of war against the Federation. And once Riker showed up and said the planet was under Federation protection, Oh had her fleet break off and retreat.

Besides, which, the Federation has a far more serious problem in that Admiral Clancy, the head of Starfleet, knew exactly who and what Oh was and allowed her to operate as the head of Starfleet Security for at least however many years Clancy's been running Starfleet. And while they're cleaning house in Starfleet, Starfleet will be in no position to be starting a war with anyone.

 

The burden of proof is on the Romulans to show that those 218 warbird crews weren't also involved with Mars, which was very much Federation territory. And while the Fed won't necessarily want war, if the Romulans don't hand over Oh and the ZV, the Fed will arrest her even if she's on Romulan territory. Happens in the real world all the time.

The fact of the matter is, 218 warbirds isn't easy to hide. So next season will show if she's handed over or not. The Fed's within their rights to go after her and if the Romulans had any sense they won't harbor her.

The show could have resolved this by having a Romulan Free State ship show up with the Starfleet squadron to denounce Oh as a traitor and order her fleet against her. Yet the impression we got was that Oh was heading back to Romulan space and that the Romulans would be perfectly happy to have her even after what she's done.