The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing - Discuss (SPOILERS)

oops, my mistake!

 

^And a perfectly understandable mistake. It is somewhat confusing.

 

Read the book and find out!

Well, let's get very specific here. United Earth is not a "superpower." Really, of the states in local space, only Vulcan and Andor are major regional powers; none of them are what we'd call "superpowers" in the current astrogalactic scene. United Earth isn't even a regional power -- its influence has been almost completely diplomatic in nature up to this point. It would be better to equate Earth with Switzerland (famous for neutrality) or Belgium (home of the European Union) than anything else, really.

Actually, the first parts of TOS Season One do not IMPLY that the Enterprise is a United Earth starship. They explicitly state it as early as "The Corbomite Maneuver." That's because the writers hadn't created the Federation yet. The Federation was first mentioned as "the Federation" in "Arena" (episode 18 of Season One) and first called the "United Federation of Planets" in "A Taste of Armageddon," five episodes later.

Every time we assume that the Enterprise was a Federation starship and that the UFP existed before "Arena" -- which every single later episode of every Trek series has done, including explicitly depicting it as existing in 2161 in ENT -- we're actually engaging in retconning.

The episode "These Are the Voyages..." and the novel Rosetta established that the name of the Vulcan legislature after V'Las was overthrown was "the Vulcan Council." Kobayashi Maru also established the existence of what was either another legislature with another name or another name for the Vulcan Council (I can't find my copy right now).

However, if the Vulcan system resembles the system found in most democracies today, the executive branch is the branch that generally sets foreign policy and the legislature takes a more passive role. Further, T'Pau's supporters probably constitute a majority of the members of the Vulcan legislature, so they probably support her in her decision.

Particularly, in Kobayashi Maru, T'Pau was referred to as the First Minister of the Confederacy of Vulcan rather than Administrator. Well, "First Minister" is another term for "Prime Minister" most of the time, and prime ministers by definition cannot be PM unless they had the majority faction within the legislature. (That's why some people call parliamentary systems "friendly dictatorships," because PMs have so much power over what their parliaments do.)

 

How does Trip deal with that Romulan mine predicament at the end of Kobayashi Maru?

 

^Read the book and find out! Really, what's the point of us even writing the books if you guys just want to be told their contents in BBS threads? Maybe we should just write our stories as BBS posts instead.

 

^ I prefer a series of Twitter updates, if you please.

 

Just finished the book & loved it.

 

Yes, RTFM, people.

 

Finally giving my thoughts on the book. I'm still in the middle of reading it but almost finished. I have really enjoyed this book so far. It's been a interesting storyline and I have to agree with some, its been one of the best post finale Enterprise books so far. I like the use of the different characters involved in this arc.
I was happy to see that Columbia was involved before her disappearence in the Destiny trilogy.
I also liked how Archer was referred to "Commodore" when commanding the fleet.
Also, like Elene Leydon as well. I have something in common with her since my dad also served on the CVN-65. Would be a great storyline for someone to come up with a fanfic when Leydon tells a story to Hoshi or any other crewmemeber shes in the Mess with.

 

Let's recapitulate:
The Vulcans abandoned Earth when the Xindi attacked and nearly obliterated the human species;
And now, the Vulcans abandoned Earth again when the Romulans came shooting!

It seams clear that the vulcans are only "allies" and "friends" when it's in their best interest. When there is a chance the vulcans would suffer from their association with humans, they abandon their "friends" to their faith.
The vulcans are not "allies" and "friends" - they're just business partners; unreliable business partners. Clearly, loyality is an emotion.

Why should humans trust these treacherous bastards ever again? Why should Earth view a "federation" with vulcans with anything but intense suspicion?
Considering what the vulcans did in this book, they could move heaven and earth for humanity and still shouldn't be able to regain Earth's trust.

 

^As retribution, we should destroy their planet. That would teach those pointy-eared bastards a lesson

 

Another thing that troubles me... Throughout the book, the only Vulcan who is firmly against waging a war is T'Pau (with Soval and Kuvak also being pro-war).

So, why didn't they just impeach, or even assassinate the bitch?

 

I assume that last idea is a joke...

Assassinate the hero of the Syrannite pro-Surakist revolution and the leader of the government for refusing to wage an active war?

I thought people disliked Enterprise Vulcans for being "too militiaristic and warlike".

(PS: I love the avatar, Mach 5!)

 

No, for refusing to help the very people who facilitated her rise to power, and for being a non-democratic fanatic (assuming that she indeed went against the will of the people).

Interesting how T'Pau suddenly forgot that her people and the Andorians would have annihilated each other, if it wasn't for humans. Suddenly, its the humans who desperately need help in order to survive, yet she barely lifts a finger.

The question is, would T'Pau remain so blindly devoted to her pacifist ideals if Vulcan was to suddenly face a Romulan invasion?

BTW, I don't suggest that Vulcans should have assassinated their own leader, but what stopped Section 31 from doing it?

Muchos gracias!

 

T'Pau didn't "refuse to help," she just chose to help in ways other than direct military involvement. The Vulcan government developed the warp detection grids used for defense, and they secretly funnelled arms to the Haakonans so that the Romulans would be attacked on another front and thereby weakened. Indeed, sending Vulcan ships to fight the Romulans would've done more harm than good, because the Romulans could've captured those ships and used them to attack other Coalition worlds. So she did Earth more good by keeping the Vulcan fleet out of the war than she would have by sending it in.

Of course, much of that is secret, so a lot of people don't know her full set of reasons for her actions. But it's a gross overreaction to say she should be impeached, let alone assassinated.

 

Didn't Hoshi successfully isolate the Romulan "trojan horse" near the end? Its hard to believe that Tobin Dax and the gang wouldn't be able to develop some kind of firewall that can be used on all coalition ships.

And what about the Romulans? Vulcans, Tellarites and Andorians appear to be pretty helpless against them, so why not conquer them first, instead of wasting resources and manpower against the single coalition member that's actually capable of fighting back?

BTW, isn't Funneling arms while preaching absolute pacifism an act of pure hypocrisy on Vulcans' part?

 

Does anyone know of any Romulan/Vulcan Lovers groups that are in Atlanta..

 

I can't speak to that, since the next book in the series hasn't been written yet. I don't see how a question about events coming after the book can be relevant to the issue of T'Pau's decisions during the book.

The Romulans see Earth as a threat because it's been the leading force in unifying the formerly divided nations of the region into a larger, more powerful alliance. They probably feel, with some justification, that eliminating Earth would cause the rest to fall apart and become less of a threat.

Hypocrisy is a standard component of the repertoire of any government.

 

Perhaps the Section 31 of this era, is somewhat more "restrained" compared to Section 31 of the later centuries.

 

There are other Vulcans described as being against the war. After the 'incident' at the end of the book, their anti-war position is said to have spread to most of Vulcan, IIRC.