Balance of Terror continuity

[captain-brad]

Been reading some of the "Is Enterprise canon?" debate stuff, which pretty much means "Does Enterprise violate continuity too much?" Some of the defenders of Enterprise make good points but there are some things that I didn't see addressed. I didn't read every post so I might have missed this but it doesn't seem like anyone posted anything about Spock's description of the Earth-Romulan war in Balance of Terror. I agree that in general, a lot of the criticism leveled at Enterprise about violating continuity isn't ironclad, but in the case of Spock's description in this episode of TOS it seems undeniable, even speaking as a big Enterprise fan.

Spock says that the war was fought in a more primitive time with atomic weapons, ships so limited that they couldn't take prisoners and with no form of visual communication. Enterprise violates all of this. What say you guys?

 

[Michael]

Been reading some of the "Is Enterprise canon?" debate stuff, which pretty much means "Does Enterprise violate continuity too much?" Some of the defenders of Enterprise make good points but there are some things that I didn't see addressed. I didn't read every post so I might have missed this but it doesn't seem like anyone posted anything about Spock's description of the Earth-Romulan war in Balance of Terror. I agree that in general, a lot of the criticism leveled at Enterprise about violating continuity isn't ironclad, but in the case of Spock's description in this episode of TOS it seems undeniable, even speaking as a big Enterprise fan.

Spock says that the war was fought in a more primitive time with atomic weapons, ships so limited that they couldn't take prisoners and with no form of visual communication. Enterprise violates all of this. What say you guys?

I guess there are two ways to look at it:

1. The common counter-argument is, that Spock wasn't really saying, that ship-to-ship communication wasn't possible. He said it just wasn't done. Regarding the atomic weapons: (1.) We didn't see the Earth-Romulan War in Enterprise. So who knows with which weapons they fought? (2.) Who says the warheads on the Enterprise's phtonic torpedoes weren't already atomic?
2. Who cares? (Certainly not me.)

 

[Admiral Shran]

Spock says that the war was fought in a more primitive time with atomic weapons

Spock says that the weapons were primitive "by our standards." That's the same as saying that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan were primitive by today's standards - which is true.

There was nothing on ENT that contradicted the fact that all their weapons were primitive compared to TOS. In a Mirror Darkly, Part II even goes so far as so flat out say so.

Also, who's to say that phase pistols and phase cannons - or for that matter phasers from TOS and beyond - aren't atomic based weapons. Again, they were just less refined and developed as the TOS versions.

ships so limited that they couldn't take prisoners

The NX-01 was a top of the line ship for Starfleet and it was only ever shown to be capable of holding two prisoners. Not much chance of holding multiple Romulan P.O.W.s there. Any other ship would probably have even less room for prisoners.

with no form of visual communication.

ENT never had Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, or Tellarites lay eyes on a Romulan. The one time there was communication, in Minefield, it was only audio communication.

Spock doesn't say that there was no visual ship-to-ship communication whatsoever - just that there was none with the Romulans.

ENT went out of it's way to maintain continuity there.

Enterprise violates all of this. What say you guys?

No, I can't say it does. A lot of the criticisms directed at ENT on this regard seem to be, in my opinion, coming from a misreading of what Spock actually says.

1.) He doesn't say the war was fought with nuclear bombs like we have today - just that the weapons were primitive compared to what he was familiar with. 2.) He doesn't say that the ships didn't have brigs - just that they couldn't take on massive amounts of prisoners. 3.) He doesn't say the viewscreens didn't exist - just that nobody has seen a Romulan.

Now, I'll grant that fanon - not canon - had previously established that he said all these things and that the war was fought with nukes, no brigs, and no viewscreens. But that doesn't matter. There's nothing in canon to back up these criticisms.

That seems to be ENT's main problem - it stepped on the toes of previously established fanon tremendously.

But, IMO, fanon can be violated and it doesn't bother me at all.

 

[captain-brad]

Spock says that the war was fought in a more primitive time with atomic weapons

Spock says that the weapons were primitive "by our standards." That's the same as saying that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan were primitive by today's standards - which is true.

There was nothing on ENT that contradicted the fact that all their weapons were primitive compared to TOS. In a Mirror Darkly, Part II even goes so far as so flat out say so.

Also, who's to say that phase pistols and phase cannons - or for that matter phasers from TOS and beyond - aren't atomic based weapons. Again, they were just less refined and developed as the TOS versions.

ships so limited that they couldn't take prisoners

The NX-01 was a top of the line ship for Starfleet and it was only ever shown to be capable of holding two prisoners. Not much chance of holding multiple Romulan P.O.W.s there. Any other ship would probably have even less room for prisoners.

with no form of visual communication.

ENT never had Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, or Tellarites lay eyes on a Romulan. The one time there was communication, in Minefield, it was only audio communication.

Spock doesn't say that there was no visual ship-to-ship communication whatsoever - just that there was none with the Romulans.

ENT went out of it's way to maintain continuity there.

Enterprise violates all of this. What say you guys?

No, I can't say it does. A lot of the criticisms directed at ENT on this regard seem to be, in my opinion, coming from a misreading of what Spock actually says.

1.) He doesn't say the war was fought with nuclear bombs like we have today - just that the weapons were primitive compared to what he was familiar with. 2.) He doesn't say that the ships didn't have brigs - just that they couldn't take on massive amounts of prisoners. 3.) He doesn't say the viewscreens didn't exist - just that nobody has seen a Romulan.

Now, I'll grant that fanon - not canon - had previously established that he said all these things and that the war was fought with nukes, no brigs, and no viewscreens. But that doesn't matter. There's nothing in canon to back up these criticisms.

That seems to be ENT's main problem - it stepped on the toes of previously established fanon tremendously.

But, IMO, fanon can be violated and it doesn't bother me at all.

I don't think it's fanon to take Spock's description literally. In fact, I think his implications are pretty obvious and he means exactly what it sounds like: ship-to-ship communications simply didn't exist and there was no room in the ships for even ONE captive. You're telling me that Archer wouldn't have found a way to take at least one Romulan captive in order to find out what he was up against or pick their brains? At the very least you can interpret it equally both ways, and at worse it's obvious that fanon is when you stretch Spock's meaning to make it so that Enterprise isn't violating continuity.

Also, we see cloaking tech multiple times in Enterprise. It's obvious in Balance of Terror that it's something they've never come up against. Spock speculates that the Romulans are using some kind of "invisibility shield". He's clearly speculating and it's obvious that there's no technology like that on record.

On the flip side of the argument, because I really do like Enterprise, are the original torpedos they use in the first two seasons of Enterprise based on atomic energy (before they switch to photonic in the "The Expanse")? If so I'll buy that as not breaking continuity.

 

[Timo]

...ship-to-ship communications simply didn't exist and there was no room in the ships for even ONE captive.

Both of these are completely absurd claims, however.

It would go against all sense of drama and technology to think that spacecraft would lack the technological ability to communicate with each other, including exchanging television imagery. Such a capability was built into the extremely primitive spacecraft in operation when the show was being made - and well established in the minds of the audience as being a standard ability of scifi spacecraft ever since the 1930s. It would take EXTREMELY complicated explaining to rationalize why Star Trek's fictional universe would be unique in the respect of not having the technology for visual communications.

The idea of a ship being unable to accommodate a prisoner is even more implausible. If the ship can carry crew, it can automatically carry prisoners, no two ways about it. If the war so far has proceeded without Earth capturing a single prisoner, and Captain Bowman gets his hands on one, then Captain Bowman will be able to accommodate that prisoner - if not otherwise, then by leaving one of his own men or women behind. Accommodations or similar technological limitations can never be a problem with holding captives. Technology is not required for this, as is evident from the ability of even the most primitively equipped humans today to hold others captive.

If we take Spock "literally" on his word (that is, impose the above absurd interpretation of his words), then we immediately establish the entire Trek universe as consisting of clowns and idiots - and/or the writers of that universe being from the same population group. Which Paul Schneider, writer of those particular words, obviously wasn't.

Obvious alternate and far more plausible limitations would apply on the two above issues.

1) It's not that Romulans can't communicate visually - it's that they won't. Why would they? Even speaking with the enemy may reveal too many secrets. Better exchange fire than words!

2) The key issue in having Romulan captives to interrogate is not in holding them - it is in capturing them in the first place. How could one do that, if one only possesses unreliable stun guns, and if one's ships are ill equipped for providing crippling instead of lethal hits?

ENT in no way contradicts the idea that Romulans wouldn't communicate visually. Instead, it fully supports that idea, while simultaneously removing from the equation the ridiculously absurd idea that visual communications wouldn't exist.

However, ENT does demonstrate highly effective and reliable stun guns and the explicit ability of starships to deliver wounding shots, to engage in boarding action, and to indeed take prisoners for interrogation. This part of Spock's statement thus remains unexplained, except through the well-established fact that Romulans are keen to sacrifice themselves for the higher cause, and the ENT-established fact that their cause is one of covert action and hiding of their true identity. We don't know how Romulans would prevent their bodies from being captured and examined, but we certainly know they would strive for such prevention.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

Been reading some of the "Is Enterprise canon?" debate stuff, which pretty much means "Does Enterprise violate continuity too much?" Some of the defenders of Enterprise make good points but there are some things that I didn't see addressed. I didn't read every post so I might have missed this but it doesn't seem like anyone posted anything about Spock's description of the Earth-Romulan war in Balance of Terror. I agree that in general, a lot of the criticism leveled at Enterprise about violating continuity isn't ironclad, but in the case of Spock's description in this episode of TOS it seems undeniable, even speaking as a big Enterprise fan.

Spock says that the war was fought in a more primitive time with atomic weapons, ships so limited that they couldn't take prisoners and with no form of visual communication. Enterprise violates all of this. What say you guys?

They retconned it to suit their new show - nothing more, nothing less. I'm cool with it.

 

[JarodRussell]

Spock's description about the Romulan-Earth war would be so in line with the Ringship Enterprise design. I personally would have found a Star Trek show that featured really "primitive" space travel to be far more interesting.

 

[The Badger]

...We don't know how Romulans would prevent their bodies from being captured and examined, but we certainly know they would strive for such prevention.

ENT did show the Romulans employing drone technology to remotely operate one ship, That was a special design for a specific purpose, but it is possible they had other unmanned vessels during the war.

 

[Timo]

There would certainly be ways of fighting a corpseless war, many of them quite intriguing in the scifi sense - which must be considered a plus when writing a scifi TV show! Having starships that lack visual communication technology is also a scifi concept, but it would take an extremely clever writer to turn that utterly weird concept into a dramatic upside.

No doubt any future incarnation of Trek that wants to tackle the Romulan War while still acknowledging ENT and TOS will come up with some sort of a corpseless war, just because the concept is so intriguing. ENT already came up with an explanation to the lack-of-visual-comms aspect, and it should be trivial to do the "primitive atomic weapons" bit as well.

What's much more difficult to work around is the idea that invisibility would be conceptually new in "Balance of Terror". Even TOS itself was somewhat at odds with the idea, routinely portraying all sorts of alien civilizations that were capable of invisibility or altering of their appearance. ENT "Minefield" doesn't "work around" this conceptual difficulty, but blatantly contradicts the concept - if only after several earlier ENT episodes that had already featured invisibility or radical alteration of visual appearance.

I don't really have a problem with that, as much of the drama that contradicts "Balance of Terror" is also more enjoyable and innovative than that rather cliched original episode. Perhaps Spock was just having an off day in "BoT", thinking out loud about the possible theoretical models for that week's invisibility specifically, without intending to imply that there hadn't been invisibility the week before, or a century before...

Really, the idea that humans could spend several centuries exploring the Trek version of our galaxy and never run into practical invisibility devices is pretty odd for a scifi concept. Not as absurd as the "no visual comm tech" one, merely odd, but still.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

I see the "OMG invisible!" thing in TOS as simply explaining the concept of an invisible ship to the audience. Nowadays cloaked ships are in everything, but that wasn't so much the case in 1966. Admittedly a better way to do it (and the way shows to that sort of thing today) would be to have a "vegetable" in the scene - a clueless person who asks all the stupid questions for the audience's sake, without making the heroes look unknowledgable. McCoy would have been a great choice - he was always wondering onto the bridge, and who expects a doctor to know about Romulan stealth technology?

 

[JiNX-01]

I think Enterprise still fits in Spock's scenario. My theory is this:
Enterprise and Columbia are the only well-armed, warp 5 ships Earth has. They can't be everywhere. Earth's other starships are smaller with a top speed of warp 2 (think of them as the PT-boats of WWII).

Earth needs to build up its space fleet and build it up fast. It doesn't have the luxury of time and resources to build NX-01s... so they opt for simple ships. No visual communications, no photon torpedoes, no way to take and confine POWs, etc. Basically, the ships are tin cans loaded with atomic weapons (which, in the 22nd century I suspect would be cheaper and easier to build and deploy than photon torpedos that need special launch facilities).
And the crews would be cannon fodder, which I think would explain why so many of Stiles' ancestors were lost in the war and why he so vividly remembers "family history," much the way many in the South remember their own family histories of the Civil War.

 

[zar]

It would go against all sense of drama and technology to think that spacecraft would lack the technological ability to communicate with each other, including exchanging television imagery. Such a capability was built into the extremely primitive spacecraft in operation when the show was being made - and well established in the minds of the audience as being a standard ability of scifi spacecraft ever since the 1930s. It would take EXTREMELY complicated explaining to rationalize why Star Trek's fictional universe would be unique in the respect of not having the technology for visual communications.

The idea of a ship being unable to accommodate a prisoner is even more implausible. If the ship can carry crew, it can automatically carry prisoners, no two ways about it. If the war so far has proceeded without Earth capturing a single prisoner, and Captain Bowman gets his hands on one, then Captain Bowman will be able to accommodate that prisoner - if not otherwise, then by leaving one of his own men or women behind. Accommodations or similar technological limitations can never be a problem with holding captives. Technology is not required for this, as is evident from the ability of even the most primitively equipped humans today to hold others captive.

If we take Spock "literally" on his word (that is, impose the above absurd interpretation of his words), then we immediately establish the entire Trek universe as consisting of clowns and idiots - and/or the writers of that universe being from the same population group. Which Paul Schneider, writer of those particular words, obviously wasn't.

I don't agree. Spock's statements are plausible when taken literally, because they simply imply that the Romulan war took place during a time when transporters and universal translators didn't exist.

There's a huge difference between possessing the technological ability to transmit audio and video, and developing that technology to the degree of universal translators where the system can automatically determine how to interface itself with the equivalent alien technology.

And there is a difference between being able to accommodate prisoners and being able to "take" prisoners, which is what Spock said. How would that be done between air-tight spaceships in the middle of a war without something like transporters ... unless the Romulans willingly gave themselves up and took a shuttle over?

 

[T'Girl]

2.) He doesn't say that the ships didn't have brigs - just that they couldn't take on massive amounts of prisoners.

and there was no room in the ships for even ONE captive

no way to take and confine POWs, etc.

I think you have all misunderstood what is meant by the military use of the word "quarter" in the context that Spock was using it during his briefing.

It wasn't that the combatants had no room for captives, they may have possessed abundant room, it's just that during the Romulan War they were making no effort to take any captives in the first place.

No quarter means "Take no prisoners and show no mercy." the term has nothing to do with brigs or "living quarters."

QUARTER: In military affairs, the remission or sparing of the life of a captive or an enemy when in one's power. Mercy granted by a conqueror to his enemy, when no longer able to defend himself. In desperate encounters, men will sometimes neither ask nor give quarter. The practice of giving no quarter to soldiers in a fortress taken by assault, is nearly obsolete.

-------

It would go against all sense of drama and technology to think that spacecraft would lack the technological ability to communicate with each other,

I don't think it was a case of they lacked to technical capacity to do it, it was that it never happen. The Romulans refused to transmit images. The Earth ships of the era obviously could have received.

the original torpedos they use in the first two seasons of Enterprise based on atomic energy (before they switch to photonic in the "The Expanse")

During the first two seasons, the Enterprise NX carried spacial torpedoes, then began to carry both photon(ic) and spacial torpedoes. neither torpedoes warhead seemed to be unusualy powerful. Possibly for the duration of the Romulan war United Earth/Starfleet command decided to stop pussy-footing around and deploy the big boys aboard their ships. Powerful, dirty and completely lacking in finesse and subtly, they mounted hundred megatonne warheads on their existing torpedo platforms.

During the episode Balance of Terror when the Romulan Commander managed to detonate a "old style" nuclear warhead close to the Enterprise Prime, he seriously damaged Kirk's ship.

Second possibly, with the expansion of Earths fleet, there developed a bottle neck in the production of antimatter, it was reserved for propulsion and unavailable for photon weapons production.

Third possibly, long standing (200 years old ) treaties prohibiting nuclear weapons use in space were still in effect, even after the creation of United Earth. As a matter of law, up until the war actually broke out, Earth simply did not deploy them in their ships.

.

 

[Timo]

Let's remember that "Balance of Terror" never mentioned nuclear weapons. It spoke exclusively of atomic ones.

Jargon is subject to change. Today, a nuclear process is well understood to mean one taking place within a nucleus, dependent on intranuclear forces. An atomic process would take place between atoms and involve interatomic forces - in essence, an atomic weapon today would be a chemical one, and anybody using the word "atomic" to refer to fission or fusion bombs today would be guilty of using outdated and technically incorrect jargon.

(Indeed, correct military jargon for H-bombs today is "kinetic weapons", a weird expression intended to separate them from a currently fashionable category of weapons that cause no physical or explosive harm, such as microwave bombs or chemical weapons.)

There's a huge difference between possessing the technological ability to transmit audio and video, and developing that technology to the degree of universal translators where the system can automatically determine how to interface itself with the equivalent alien technology.

Admittedly so. Yet it makes very little sense in the Trek context to think that this development only took place after the discovery of the amazing warp drive. And it's not truly difficult to achieve the transmission of data, including visuals, if both sides are making the effort; any starfaring culture should be fully prepared to do so. Our main argument must always be that one side was refusing to make any effort at all. Which, in wartime, is a perfectly natural and plausible supposition.

And there is a difference between being able to accommodate prisoners and being able to "take" prisoners, which is what Spock said. How would that be done between air-tight spaceships in the middle of a war without something like transporters ... unless the Romulans willingly gave themselves up and took a shuttle over?

No disagreement there. The concept of a starship being incapable of accommodating prisoners is absurd; the concept of prisoner capture being impossible due to starship inadequacies is a completely plausible one.

Generally, I would argue that to read "Balance of Terror" as being at odds with things like ENT "Minefield" in any other respect than the invisibility tech issue would be going against the intentions of the original author Paul Schneider. He intended to convey an image of an Earth fighting force whose ships were less powerful in offense and defense than Kirk's, and of a vicious war where mercy was a luxury one could not afford. He wouldn't have wanted to convey an image of an Earth fighting force that lacked even the most basic of the amenities available to Buck Rogers or Dan Dare. He made a poor call in making invisibility such an exotic thing in the Trek universe, a universe that would expand to involve hundreds of hours of space adventure and all sorts of wonders much greater than invisible starships - but otherwise, he probably envisioned something pretty much like ENT, something the watchers of TOS would immediately recognize.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

Let's remember that "Balance of Terror" never mentioned nuclear weapons. It spoke exclusively of atomic ones.

I believe it was pretty obvious that in using the phrase "primitive atomic weapon," Spock was referring to either a nuclear or (more likely) a multi-stage thermonuclear device.

Spock wasn't giving a technical briefing to the crew and Spock did occasionally use colloquialisms. To most people a atomic weapon and a nuclear weapon are the same thing and the terms are casually interchangeable.

.

 

[Anwar]

Also, could a war like the Romulan war really have been fought solely in space? No land battles on planets at all? What about worlds fortified against starship attacks?

I mean, we can assume they used Remans as soldiers but still...

 

[zar]

There's a huge difference between possessing the technological ability to transmit audio and video, and developing that technology to the degree of universal translators where the system can automatically determine how to interface itself with the equivalent alien technology.

Admittedly so. Yet it makes very little sense in the Trek context to think that this development only took place after the discovery of the amazing warp drive.

Well if warp drive didn't come first, that would mean they were developing that system before they even knew alien life existed let alone how their technology works. I don't think they would have a reason to put any effort into it until after warp drive allowed them to make physical contact with several aliens and they had years to study them. ENT mostly bypassed this whole issue by saying the Vulcans gave humans a technological head start.

 

[Timo]

I'd think there would be massive effort at codebreaking even before interstellar travel - after all, there is such effort today, and Trek never really suggested man would have stopped hating man before interstellar travel was introduced. Communication with aliens would come as a minor spinoff.

Also, during the making of TOS, nobody could foresee the rapid development of automated information processing. From today's vantage point, TOS is implausible in its failure to portray complex artificial intelligences or expert systems; its portrayal of effortless communication with aliens is thankfully at least partial compensation for this failure.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

I mean, we can assume they used Remans as soldiers but still...

It possible that the Romulans fought the war using Remans and other races as proxy soldiers, something like Janissaries, with the only Romulans being the officers. And while a bit hard to believe the Romulans might also have had actual allies during the war, who might not have known what the Romulans looked like, except for the fleet actions the war was fought through middle men.

I've wondered for some time if the Humans and their allies did in fact know what the Romulans looked like, but didn't wish for the distraction and disruption of having it generally be known that they were fighting "Vulcans." Apparently immediately following the war the Federation began to come into being and give the lingering feeling toward the Romulans, the knowledge that the Romulan and the Vulcan were basically the same race continued to be suppressed.

Also, could a war like the Romulan war really have been fought solely in space? No land battles on planets at all? What about worlds fortified against starship attacks?

It would depend on the Allies ultimate objective. If it was only a objective of "leave us alone," then simply pushing the Romulans back and destroying their ships in space might have been enough. Take away their ability to project force over interstellar distances. Given that there never was a surrender on the part of the Romulans, that might never have been a desired goal on the part of the allies.

 

[Timo]

It possible that the Romulans fought the war using Remans and other races as proxy soldiers, something like Janissaries, with the only Romulans being the officers.

...And then interrogation of captured Remans would reveal that they were not "real Romulans", whereas no Romulan officers would ever be captured alive or dead (possibly because their Reman troops had standing orders to destroy all evidence in defeat). So humans would know that the opponents they had seen were all non-Romulans, but they'd also learn that these opponents had secret bosses who lurked somewhere behind the curtains and were the "real Romulans".

That might work, yes. That, or simply a "no defeat" policy by the Romulan Star Empire. For all we know, whenever they lost control of a planet in battle and thus left telltale bodies behind, they triggered a doomsday device that annihilated said planet and perhaps the entire star system. That'd be reason enough to stop pursuing "unconditional victory" over them... We now know that humans in the 2150s were quite familiar with planet-busting weapons already, so it wouldn't be impossible at all that the Romulan War, and the subsequent uneasy peace, hinged on the use (or threat of use) of such strategic weaponry.

Perhaps that's the real dirty secret the 2150s Starfleet was keeping from the 2260s Starfleet. Not that they had seen the Romulan faces, but that they had seen what Romulans would do if one attempted exposing of their faces. Later generations should believe in a war fought with "primitive atomic weapons" so that nobody would come to realize the Romulans had such strategic might at their disposal, and thus wouldn't try and take that might away from them, with disastrous results.

Timo Saloniemi