Timeline: Earth-Romulan War/Early Federation

[Tenacity]

Before that, mankind had their back against the wall.

That's when we're at our best.

We do see in ENT, when the Romulan drone ship is in use that Earth banded together with Andor, Tellar and Vulcan to tackle it

But that was an attack against each of them. Joining together to destroy a single drone in interstellar space is one thing, it is a different matter exposing your entire civilian population to a major war to assist a people you only met several years before.

Now after the Humans had beaten the Romulans back, I could see one or more of the coaliltion being who approached the Romulan with a ceasefire leading to a treaty leading to peace.

 

[mthompson1701]

I've been thinking about how best to proceed. Given that the Earth-Romulan War seems to be a point of contention, I'd like to suggest that maybe we don't portray it. Instead, start in the 2161-2171 period. This way we can protray the Federation, and not have to worry about what a particular species did or did not do. What do you all think?

 

[FederationHistorian]

2155
January 19: Demons
January 22: Terra Prime

February: The Romulans stage a sneak attack on Coridan using a cloaked ship colliding with the planet destroying the largest source of dilithium in eight sectors. Half of Coridan’s poplation is killed. Jonathan Archer believes it was the Romulans that attacked, but the Cordinites and the Coalition are unable to verify it. This results in Coridan withdrawing from the Coalition of Planets.

2156

May 18: Battle of Algeron - Romulans attack Earth Outpost Starbase 1 in the Algeron system. Several starships are lost.

June 1: Nathan Samuels officially declared Earth to be at a state of war with the Romulans.

Note: The dates I've used here come from the novels because there just isn't any canon dates for when most events or battles took place. The only thing I can find is from the novels, FASA, or the book Federation: The First 150 Years. Please feel free to plug in any battle or event you would like to. I'll share a list of battles from the novels, it's the best I can come up with.

Battle of Alpha Centauri
Battle of Calder II
Battle of Tarod IX
First/Second/Third Battle of Deneva
First/Second Battle of Berengaria
First/Second/Third Battle of Altair VI
Battle of Andoria
Battle of Tau Ceti IV
Battle of Gamma Hydra
Battle of Prantares
Battle of Galomdon Core
Battle of Vorkado
Battle of Sol (I'd like to see this as the turning point. The Romulans get all the way to the Sol system, and then Earth goes on the offensive.)

So, these are all of the battles of the war. Yet the Romulans did not have warp drive, according to TOS; just impulse power. Meaning they likely were not using the forced quantum singularity to power their ships that were commonplace in D’deridex ships in the TNG era, since its invention is also when Romulans are seen as capable of higher warp speeds.

So, were the BoPs just not using boridium as a power source, in contrast to their mines and drones? Meaning they were not easy to detect if they went to warp, which would be a big shift in canon, since only the drones were seen of being capable of warp, and the drones themselves were modified Romulan warbirds. And they would definitely be difficult to detect at very high sublight speeds via impulse power.

But if the drones were just modified Romulan warbirds, then that means that warbirds likely were used for hit and run attacks, and easy to follow back to Romulan space because of their use of boridium. Explaining how Earth was able to locate the Romulan homeworld and a number of other significant locations like Algeron, Bassen Rift, Galorndon Core, Romii, Cheron and the Coalsack Nebula.

I also wonder how much of a factor carrying nuclear weapons affected whether a Romulan ship had warp drive.

 

[mthompson1701]

Yet the Romulans did not have warp drive, according to TOS; just impulse power.

Enterprise showed the Romulans had warp drive, and in Insurrection Admiral Doughtery said something about warp drive turning a bunch of Romulan thugs into an empire. in that case, I would apply that line from TOS to mean that specific ship only, not to the every single Romulan shpi, especially one from 100 years prior.

There's just very little information from on screen sources about what happened during the Earth-Romulan War. The dates I got came from the novels because that's all there is, but novels are not canon. It's really a wide open playground for an author. I would not take those dates literally at all.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Enterprise showed the Romulans had warp drive, and in Insurrection Admiral Doughtery said something about warp drive turning a bunch of Romulan thugs into an empire. in that case, I would apply that line from TOS to mean that specific ship only, not to the every single Romulan shpi, especially one from 100 years prior.

There's just very little information from on screen sources about what happened during the Earth-Romulan War. The dates I got came from the novels because that's all there is, but novels are not canon. It's really a wide open playground for an author. I would not take those dates literally at all.

I think the Earth-Romulan War would be more believable and fit into canon if the majority of the conflict took place in the Bassen Rift.

- It would explain the lack of visual communication between ships, since the Bassen Rift does not allow for long range communication due to electromagnetic distortion from the gas clouds present. Since even the Ent-E was unable to request reinforcement when under attack by the Scimitar in NEM, and they had far more advanced tech than in Archer's time.

- Its believable that Romulans would commit raids on Earth colonies and freighter routes with Warbirds, leave a tracable trail for UE forces to follow them through boridium, only for Earth forces to be ambushed by BoPs and other Romulan forces in the Bassen Rift in the style seen in TOS

- It would then give a reason for more primitive Earth ships to be involved. It was established in ENT that freighter ships under the Earth Cargo Authority were not allowed to hold prisoners. So they were likely participants in the conflict, since it fits with the explanation that the conflicts allowed for no quarter or capture.

- Plays it up as a defensive war from the Romulan perspective, and keep the canon from TNG that Romulans rarely initiating conflict first, preferring to test resolve

- The Attack on Earth in spring 2159 while Archer and co. are vacationing on Risa (from ST: the Beginning) is when the Romulans oversteps their bounds

Basically, it would make the Earth-Romulan War be the WWI to the Dominion War’s WW2.

It also would not prevent the following battles from occurring:

Attack of Station Salem One aka Starbase One (preamble to war)
Battle of Algeron (first battle of the war)
Chulak of Romulus being defeated at the Battle of Galorndon Core (referenced in VOY: The Thaw)
Battle of Vorkado in 2159 (referenced in VOY: Workforce, part 2)
Battle of Cheron, Coalsack Nebula (final battle)

It would then be a matter of establishing how the Coalition of Planets fell apart between the end of Terra Prime in January 2155 and before the founding of the Federation in 2161. What the terms of surrender were for the Romulans (UE gives them warp drive to expand their empire in exchange for a Neutral Zone?). Then, whether or not Captain Edisons's resentment of the integration of MACO into Starfleet after the war was widespread after serving in the Romulan War. And why the Vulcan philosophy of a Prime Directive wasn't adopted until 2167.

 

[mthompson1701]

@FederationHistorian While confining the conflict to the Bassen Rift is a good idea, I think it could handicap a fan fic author creatively.

ST: The Beginning, I am aware of this, and it is an unproduced movie. It's not apart of canon. Those events are not in any offical timeline, or in the novels. If you like it in your personal canon, that's fine, but I'm not going to tell an author they have to include it unless all parties agree to it. Certainly an author could be inspired by the videos, and write ups that have been done about it.

What I'd really like to see with this is a small group of authors come together, plan out the war, and then write it. Tell the stories they want to tell within canon, and be free to use the characters, and events how they see fit. There really doesn't seem to be any interest in this anymore. It was started out of a poll thread several months ago for a proposed shared universe. No other authors seemed to want to get on board, so I've moved on. I'm working on writing another project at the moment.

 

[valkyrie013]

One thing that one has to take in to account, and usually trek doesn't, but Enterprise tried better than most, is Distance!
Now, there has never been any cannon distance amount on the distance between Earth and Romulas. Only real distances is 16Ly to Vulcan, and that Enterprise was 100+ Ly away when they encountered the Romulan Minefield.
And the Drive at the time at warp 5 is 1 ly or so a day. So 2 weeks to Vulcan.
Now Andorian and Vulcan, Tellerite, and more than likely are faster drives.
So it may take months to get from A to B for battles. So more than likely it was like WW2 in the pacific, with a handful of locations, and battles taking some time to gather a fleet, Travel, then the actual battle.
The end of it maybe an Earth/coalition fleet going planet to planet taking back and driving the romulans back to there space

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Enterprise showed the Romulans had warp drive, and in Insurrection Admiral Doughtery said something about warp drive turning a bunch of Romulan thugs into an empire.

Two reasons I believe that the Romulan BOP from "Balance of Terror" had warp drive:

- It is clearly moving at FTL speeds throughout the episode.

- Romulan warp drive uses aritificial quantum singularities. Maybe Scotty just didn't know this, and assumed the BOP didn't have warp when it clearly did?

 

[FederationHistorian]

@mthompson1701 Well, I still think it is important to consider, for the purposes of worldbuilding.

I will be writing my own fanfic on the Earth-Romulan War in the near future. I have ideas as to how to make the conflict interesting. There are many different ways to tell the story, depending on the perspective.