The Earth - Romulan War (non-canon)
- Thread starter Rahul
- Start date
I like to think the war took place after the discovery of space lanes laid down by Preservers.
Romulus is thus "closer" to the UFP core worlds... allowing otherwise primitive ships to show up on the doorstep.
The early NX-class ships got by-passed by sneak attacks, with Nuclear Pulse Orions acting as sunlight defense while Daedalus numbers were built up.
Earth's first true warship a pulse Orion with plates fore and aft for propulsion/defense (Bumper WAC II).
Romulus is thus "closer" to the UFP core worlds... allowing otherwise primitive ships to show up on the doorstep.
The early NX-class ships got by-passed by sneak attacks, with Nuclear Pulse Orions acting as sunlight defense while Daedalus numbers were built up.
Earth's first true warship a pulse Orion with plates fore and aft for propulsion/defense (Bumper WAC II).
Yes 100% true, although it DOES appear that Starfleet was transitioned away from being an Earth organization to a Federation organization. It's still human dominated and Earth-centric... but so is the Federation.
I used to think that this transition occurred post-ST6, given that we see both the Federation President and a separate C-in-C of Starfleet... and then by DS9, the Federation President IS the C-in-C.
I've since revised that to be that Starfleet transitions to Federation command upon the formation of the UFP, and "Commander-in-Chief" is something a bit more an salutatory title that can be used by either the Federation President or Commander, Starfleet. (In my own rabbit-hole of a headcanon, I separate it even more that ultimate command of Starfleet can switch, in peacetime the Federation President is not formally in the chain of command, leaving command directly to Commander, Starfleet. When in a formal declaration of war, or otherwise declared emergency status, the Federation President assumes direct command of Starfleet. In this scenario, the ST6 Fed President had not yet declared any emergency. It could have quickly gotten there, but he was trying to keep away from it for political optics.)
The original plan was to outright go into how Leyton wasn't attempting a coup of The Federation, was attempting to coup Earth. Moore thought that it would be a bit too much to go into for the fans and cause alot of confusion to dig into all of that.
It is clear that Federation member worlds enjoy a large amount of sovereignty, with the Federation being probably more akin to the European Union than say, the United States.
I don't think it even needs to be retconned. We DO have at least two names for it, Earth-Romulan Conflict as per TOS, and Romulan Wars as per ENT. If we take those two into account... it could entirely make sense that the "Earth-Romulan War" was a part of the Romulan Wars.
I still maintain the most logical answer is that the four founding Federation members (potentially others?) were involved in wars with the Romulans... they might not even have entirely known they were all connected, given the mysterious nature of the Romulans... with the inclusion of Earth joining the fray being the defining theater of the war.
We do have this....
Granted, it's not considered canon as it wasn't legible on screen, it still contains interesting info and could at least give us an idea of what we would have seen on Enterprise, had the show continued.
Of particular note is that mentioned the war being between Earth forces and the Romulan Star Empire, and thar the war was brought to an end by the eventual Earth/Andoria/Vulcan/Tellerite Alliance.
*They messed up the year of First Contact.
**Interesting that they also connect the Eugenics War and World War III, starting the war in 2026.
Granted, it's not considered canon as it wasn't legible on screen, it still contains interesting info and could at least give us an idea of what we would have seen on Enterprise, had the show continued.
Of particular note is that mentioned the war being between Earth forces and the Romulan Star Empire, and thar the war was brought to an end by the eventual Earth/Andoria/Vulcan/Tellerite Alliance.
*They messed up the year of First Contact.
**Interesting that they also connect the Eugenics War and World War III, starting the war in 2026.
SNW did that fairly definitively now.
"First it was the Second American Civil War, then the Eugenics Wars, and then eventually just World War III"
As far as the Romulan War, I could also go a bit opposite from my general version and turn it backwards... it does start out as a conflict between Earth and the Romulans, but as the war progresses the others join in. In THAT case, I would revise the war to being a largely defensive war for Earth at least at first, as they simply don't have the capability to fight an offensive war. They would have like, 3-4 ships capable of doing so.
I don't hate the narrative side there, mirroring the Vulcans view on Earth. The Romulans end up humiliated because they underestimated Earth, with their pitiful fleet, but then all of a sudden once the giant was awoken, within a year or two the little backwater world is spamming fleets at them.
EDIT -
I always thought that ENT computer entry was kind of funny. Apparently the launch of the Mariposa was a noteworthy event...
Actually the United States would be a good example, in the "Weak" federal system version. You have a collection of of States (Planets/Systems/Species) that have there own sovereignty, but are aligned for mutual defense, trade, etc. with a higher "Federal" power. Each state (Planet) has its own "National Guard" in that they have there own fleet of ships for protection, exploration ( Think Vulcans and there expeditionary fleet, the federations priorities are not necessarily the planets priority) that are separate from the "Federation" but is able to be called up in case of war or emergency.
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The Earth Starfleet and the Federation Starfleet are, legally, separate organizations. They just happen to have the same name.
"Guys, we get to keep the branding! Don't need to spend money on changing the logo!"
"Genius! Slap it on!"
"Genius! Slap it on!"
And they’d have to be, really. Earth Starfleet is explicitly non-military, whereas the Federation Starfleet IS military.
*gets popcorn*
*gets popcorn*
There's never any indication that there are two different Starfleet's.
Starfleet started its life as an Earth organization, and... at some point... became a Federation organization.
Now I think it's entirely possible, likely even, that Federation Earth retains some kind of defense force outside of Starfleet. We know member worlds can and do operate their own fleets and what not. In the 32nd century we know it was called the Earth Defense Force. If an EDF does exist in the 23rd-24th century Federation, it's likely a small organization.
Starfleet is a weird organization. Despite definitely being a Federation service, it is absolutely dominated by humans. Earth doesn't really need a defense force... Starfleet will do the job just fine.
There's a reason why Earth/Federation/Starfleet tend to just get used interchangeably. The Federation is essentially a Human hegemony. Hell, the flag of the Federation is basically the United Earth emblem... with the galaxy inside of it. The "Federation Standard" language is English. The Federation Charter was based on the US Constitution and a Mars colony document. (I can go in-depth with my musings on all of that... i've put decades of thought into it.)
The lines are blurred, but... no, there's not two Starfleet's.
EDIT
One small headcanon I have is that the Federation's flag was something of an accident. It was drawn up to represent Earth playing host to Coalition/Federation talks, and essentially IS a representation of Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar "within" Earth... becuase Earth was hosting the talks... it wasn't actually intended be the flag of this new nation, it was almost a throwaway symbol for the conference.
However, the symbol took off and became synonymous with the meetings. Even the other powers started using it when they hosted talks on their world. By the time it the Federation Charter was being drafted, it was barely even a discussion... they just used the emblem they had been using. The Vulcans felt whatever was on the flag was irrelevant, the Andorians just didn't care. The Tellarites argued about it, but nobody ever took the Tellarites seriously because they argued about everything.
It just kind of... happened.
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I like the idea that the Vulcan's don't care about exploration or combat, the Andorian's are full on homefield defense, the Tellarite's are more interested in the mercantile side of space travel, leaving humans to fill in the roles.
Sure you get more and more aliens joining Starfleet as the Fed grows, but that's a slow and steady rise whereas humans have the drive to explore, expand, exploit, andexterminate extend the phaser of friendship.
Sure you get more and more aliens joining Starfleet as the Fed grows, but that's a slow and steady rise whereas humans have the drive to explore, expand, exploit, and
If the Vulcans aren’t into exploration, then what’s the Vulcan Expeditionary Group for? 
If the Vulcans aren’t into exploration, then what’s the Vulcan Expeditionary Group for?
T'Pol makes it fairly clear that the Vulcans aren't super interested in expansion or exploration.
They ARE still into science, they're just much more directed about it. They don't just go looking at every nebula they see, and they like to take things slow. They try to find something worthy of study, but they won't just fly into an unexplored area of space and start dicking around. They will collect data for decades... centuries... before making a move. Although, "Expeditionary Fleet" to me implies a military role.
To quote a great movie:If the Vulcans aren’t into exploration, then what’s the Vulcan Expeditionary Group for?
".... a crack team of lone wolves, nerds, troublemakers, outcasts, academic heretics and general pains-in-the-bureaucracy."
:P.
And no indication that there aren’t, either.
Right... but... the default state would be x doesn't exist until there is some indication that x exists.
Sure, it's possible, but there's just no indication of it at all.
Now fair enough, if you want to headcanon that... go for it! I could maybe split the difference, and think that perhaps rather than Earth operating a completely separate fleet, there is a dedicated Starfleet group for Earth that is generally under the command of Earth directly...
...although I actually think a prior comment might actually be true, that Earth DOES actually function a bit more like a Washington D.C. Not exactly, but along the lines. I can see the Federation President and the Federation Council having... at the very least some hand in the administration of Earth. It would differ a bit from Washington in that Earth would still be a full "Member" and technically have its own government and all that, but it strikes me that Earth would have voluntarily placed at least a portion of the decision making power for Earth into the Federation Council's hands.
In the 22nd century, Earth seemed to have a Parliamentary system (they had "Ministers" and what not). I think it's entirely possible that in becoming the capital world of the Federation, Earth integrated that into Parliament... like the President of Earth is the Head of Government, but the Federation President is the Head of State.
(That kind of works out giving the Council a voice the way I have it in my headcanon... the way i've worked out the Federation government working is that the citizens of the Federation don't vote for the President directly, the Federation Council does. The Federation Council is made up of delegates from member worlds, elected or appointed via their own system, provided said system is in accordance with Federation law. So if the Federation President holds a position in Earth's government, the Federation Council gets a say in that by default, as they elect the President. My Federation Council works alot like the United Nations.)
Or, perhaps, every Federation member has its own home guard or planetary militia. Similar to how each US state operates a National Guard division yet the National Guard is not the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, or Space Force.
Of course, the Bajoran militia needing to be folded into Starfleet speaks against such an idea.
I like to think that any home guard or planetary militia operates more like the US Coast Guard, and is not under any Federation control to maintain a level of independence from the Federation. By mid-season one, TOS has Starfleet as the Federation's control and command organization for all Federation member space assets (except its pseudo-Coast Guard). If you have interstellar problems, then the Federation steps in which may involve Federation/Starfleet Starship(s) showing up. Better yet, make sure each member lets the Federation/Starfleet establish a Starbase in your system or even on your home planet. That way, the fleet is already there (except if you are Earth when only one, half-completed Starship is in spacedock
.)
Maybe not all of the Militia was absorbed.
I've always liked the TrekLit idea of how that shook out, which was essentially that the bulk of the personnel remained under the control of the Bajoran government as the Militia, but any warp-capable vessels and the personnel to operate them were transferred to Starfleet control.
Similarly, the Starfleet Terrestrial Defense Division would be the operating authority for any remaining United Earth Starfleet personnel and assests like the "Mars Defence Perimeter".
