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After the Destiny events, The Typhon Pact and future novels

But then again it is always good to evaluate every piece of information at hand when dealing with a potential enemy.

True, but "evaluate" means "to determine the value of." And that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm pointing out that when assessing the policies of the 2381 version of the Romulan Star Empire, the policies of a regime that existed 115 years and seven or eight violent overthrows earlier are unlikely to be of much value to the assessment.
 
But then again it is always good to evaluate every piece of information at hand when dealing with a potential enemy.

True, but "evaluate" means "to determine the value of." And that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm pointing out that when assessing the policies of the 2381 version of the Romulan Star Empire, the policies of a regime that existed 115 years and seven or eight violent overthrows earlier are unlikely to be of much value to the assessment.

But that's really the rub. We're dealing with a totalitarian state that seemingly (from our point of view) works the same way it did 115 years ago (violent overthrows representing changes in government). This is also an empire that forcibly tried to annex Vulcan in 2368.

Of course there is the standard dissident movement, but we really don't know how long it has existed for.

The more things change... the more they stay the same. ;)
 
^Except as I already stated, canon conclusively disproves the assumption that Romulan government policy has "stayed the same" over a historical span. It's gone from expansionism to isolationism and back a couple of times since first contact in the 2150s, and it's had periods of detente and even alliance with the Federation. For that matter, it's gone back and forth in its relations with the Klingons, from a technology-sharing alliance to bitter enmity and attempted conquest to renewed, if grudging, alliance against the Dominion. And both canon and literature demonstrate that Romulan politics is full of conflicting factions; if anything, their rivalry with the Federation is generally more of a sidebar to their domestic conflicts than a consistent linchpin of their governmental policy. The fact that Donatra and the Imperial Romulan State have tended to be on good terms with the Federation should prove that.

True, as long as the IRS is friendly with the UFP, it follows that the RSE will be on the opposite side, since there's no war more vitriolic than a civil war. But to claim there's any kind of uniformity in Romulan politics over the centuries is simply counterfactual.
 
So what you are saying is that there are four or five Romulan factions that consistently vie for power. It seems that whatever faction is in power acts pretty predictably based on historical precedent.
 
So what you are saying is that there are four or five Romulan factions that consistently vie for power. It seems that whatever faction is in power acts pretty predictably based on historical precedent.

That is not even close to what I'm saying.
 
So what you are saying is that there are four or five Romulan factions that consistently vie for power. It seems that whatever faction is in power acts pretty predictably based on historical precedent.

That is not even close to what I'm saying.

So please explain the following:

In the mid to late 22nd century, the Romulan Empire goes to war with Earth/Coalition forces. In the 23rd century the Empire tests Federation defenses in anticipation of a new conflict. In the 24th century the Empire attempts to invade one of the Federation core worlds, which would have set off a conflict if successful.

Seems to me that Romulan aggression towards the Federation has been the rule not the exception. And the 24th century shows showed a Romulan Empire that was aggressive more times than not towards the Federation.
 
^You're cherrypicking the parts that support your preconception and ignoring the evidence that contradicts it. That's dishonest. A valid position has to be based on all the evidence.

Yes, Romulans were aggressive from c. 2155-61, intermittently aggressive from c. 2266-2311, and aggressive from c. 2364-2376, with a minor resurgence in 2379. But between 2161-2266 and between 2311-2364, they were almost completely isolationist. That's maybe 60-some years of on-and-off aggression -- including, it should be noted, only 5-6 years of actual declared warfare -- against 158 years of isolationism. Simple arithmetic proves you're wrong to say that aggression has been the rule rather than the exception.
 
I think it's also worth pointing out that within those conflicts, there have also been periods of cooperation between the RSE and the UFP. They sent an ambassador to Nimbus III, at least some Romulans cooperated with the Khitomer Conspiracy, they joined the Alliance against Dominion, they got help from the UFP after Shinzon was defeated, and I'm pretty sure there have others in the books, and comics. So obviously it's not a complete and total all consuming hatred.
 
It's true that romulan politics from decades ago have only a very limmited aplicability in analysing the current geopolitical situation.
However, Tal'Aura, the current leader, killed the entire Senate, supporting Shinzon and his plans to sterilize Earth, starting a war with the Federation. That's a highly aggressive policy towards the Federation.
 
I think it's also worth pointing out that within those conflicts, there have also been periods of cooperation between the RSE and the UFP. They sent an ambassador to Nimbus III, at least some Romulans cooperated with the Khitomer Conspiracy, they joined the Alliance against Dominion, they got help from the UFP after Shinzon was defeated, and I'm pretty sure there have others in the books, and comics. So obviously it's not a complete and total all consuming hatred.

Quite right. That's what I meant by "intermittent" conflict between 2266 and 2311. In fact, we don't have any canonical evidence for UFP/Romulan conflict after TOS; if anything, the presence of Ambassador Nanclus in high-level Federation meetings in TUC suggests a fairly normalized state of relations, despite Nanclus's participation in the conspiracy. Although I'm sure there's a fair amount of continued UFP/RSE tension in the novels and comics, depending on which ones you choose to count.

So if anything, I was overstating the percentage of time during which the Romulans could be said to be pursuing aggressive policies toward the Federation -- and even so, it still comes out as the minority of the time.
 
I wonder how a Typhon Pact mixed-crew ship would work?
I don't think we've seen any of the member spieces with any other spieces on their crews (with the exception of half-human Sela). The Federation has a big advantage in mixed operations, and I'm sure it'll take the Pact an age to learn to work together properly.
 
I don't think we've seen any of the member spieces with any other spieces on their crews (with the exception of half-human Sela).

And that was something that always bugged me. The Klingons, Romulans, etc. are called "empires." An empire is a state in which one culture rules over multiple other cultures and draws on their wealth, resources, and labor to sustain its needs. That almost invariably involves using them in the military, whether it's the Romans using Gauls and Greeks, the Ottomans using Janissaries, or the British using Indian and African troops in the World Wars. Not only does the metropolis (the ruling society within the empire) need the personnel to maintain a large enough military force, but using the subject peoples as cannon fodder spares the dominant culture from having to throw as many of its lives away.

So it never made sense that these so-called "empires" in ST were monoracial, that we never saw their subject peoples serving on their ships. That's one of the reasons I like Nemesis -- its introduction of the Remans, a subject race used as cannon fodder, made the Romulan Star Empire actually start to feel like an empire for the first time ever.

In the books, we've occasionally seen the Klingons portrayed with subject races aboard their ships -- kuve in John M. Ford's version of the Klingons, jeghpuwi' in the modern book continuity. However, they're treated as mere servants rather than soldiers, which makes it a little less plausible.

Before ENT explained the Klingon forehead issue once and for all, I was leaning toward the idea that maybe the various different-looking groups called Klingons (TOS smooth-headed Klingons, TMP single-spine Klingons, TSFS/TNG bony-plate Klingons, TUC pink-blooded/finer-ridged Klingons) were actually multiple species or subspecies, that "Klingon" was perhaps the name of a nation rather than a race. That would've made them feel more like an actual Empire. Alas, it was not to be.
 
Before ENT explained the Klingon forehead issue once and for all, I was leaning toward the idea that maybe the various different-looking groups called Klingons (TOS smooth-headed Klingons, TMP single-spine Klingons, TSFS/TNG bony-plate Klingons, TUC pink-blooded/finer-ridged Klingons) were actually multiple species or subspecies, that "Klingon" was perhaps the name of a nation rather than a race. That would've made them feel more like an actual Empire. Alas, it was not to be.

Wouldn't "Blood Oath" have killed that idea? Since we see Kang, Kor and Koloth as ridged Klingons after seeing them as smooth-headed one in TOS.
 
Wouldn't "Blood Oath" have killed that idea? Since we see Kang, Kor and Koloth as ridged Klingons after seeing them as smooth-headed one in TOS.

We've seen how easy it is in the Trekverse for cosmetic surgery to alter people's apparent species. Anyway, it was more something I thought would be nice if it were true than something I was really committed to believing -- because I'm just so annoyed by these so-called "empires" that only have one species/culture in them.
 
Before ENT explained the Klingon forehead issue once and for all, I was leaning toward the idea that maybe the various different-looking groups called Klingons (TOS smooth-headed Klingons, TMP single-spine Klingons, TSFS/TNG bony-plate Klingons, TUC pink-blooded/finer-ridged Klingons) were actually multiple species or subspecies, that "Klingon" was perhaps the name of a nation rather than a race. That would've made them feel more like an actual Empire. Alas, it was not to be.

Wouldn't "Blood Oath" have killed that idea? Since we see Kang, Kor and Koloth as ridged Klingons after seeing them as smooth-headed one in TOS.

unless some type of cure had been found for the retrovirus which possibly worked on descendents of the affected klingons..
 
Before ENT explained the Klingon forehead issue once and for all, I was leaning toward the idea that maybe the various different-looking groups called Klingons (TOS smooth-headed Klingons, TMP single-spine Klingons, TSFS/TNG bony-plate Klingons, TUC pink-blooded/finer-ridged Klingons) were actually multiple species or subspecies, that "Klingon" was perhaps the name of a nation rather than a race. That would've made them feel more like an actual Empire. Alas, it was not to be.

Wouldn't "Blood Oath" have killed that idea? Since we see Kang, Kor and Koloth as ridged Klingons after seeing them as smooth-headed one in TOS.

unless some type of cure had been found for the retrovirus which possibly worked on descendents of the affected klingons..

I don't think you're following their chain of logic. Christopher is saying that before ENT introduced the idea of the Klingon Augment virus, he used to theorize that smooth-headed Klingons were a different species from bumpy-headed Klingons. BillJ is pointing out that years before ENT's Klingon Augment virus story was created, smooth-headed Klingons from TOS appeared in DS9 with bumpy heads, which would seem to contradict the idea that smooth-headed Klingons were a separate species.
 
I agree that we don't see enough Klingon and Romulan subject races. Wasn't Captain Archer put on trial for trying to help refugees escaping a Klingon-annexed world? One of the old novels had a mysterious ship from what was believed to be a member world of the Klingon Empire amongst a group of ships assembled to witness something-or-other of import. The Rihannsu books spent time on Romulan subject worlds, mostly farming ones, and mentions that several native races died out under Rihannsu rule.

After reading The Final Reflection, I always wondered how the TNG-era Federation tolerated the Klingon Empire's treatment of subjects, or if things had changed by then. FASA came up with the idea the Empire had collapsed/disbanded/dissolved (the how and why was never explained, except for hints of a devastating war with the Ferengi) and been replaced by the "Free Worlds of Klinzai", which in turn merged with the Federation into the Federation Grand Alliance.
 
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