Question about the Earth-Romulan War

[ColeMercury]

It's been a while since I've seen "Balance of Terror" so I don't know if this is answered in that episode, or in any other episode either. But I'd just like to know one thing: is it ever specified how long the war was? I know it ended up being established that the war ended in 2160 and the Federation was founded the next year, but did they ever indicate when it was supposed to start? Memory Alpha says the war was supposed to start in 2156, but was that ever established on screen? In other words, is it canon or fanon?

I'm asking because I've been pondering how Enterprise would've gone on if it hadn't been cancelled. If the Earth-Romulan War was supposed to start in 2156, that'd make it begin right around the end of season 5 / beginning of season 6. Which'd be awkward if they're aiming for seven seasons, as the show would end right in the middle of the war. There'd be no problem if there was no established duration of the war, though: they could start it right at the end of the series (in the finale, even) and segue directly into movies.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Memory Alpha may have drawn its date from the Enterprise relaunch books, which depict the opening to the Romulan War. The second book in that series is due sometime this year. The only two episodes I imagine the Earth-Romulan war being mentioned in are "Balance of Terror" and "The Neutral Zone", but I don't recall any mention of the starting point. All we're told is that it was a primitive affair, without viewscreens and with the most powerful weapon being crude atomic missiles.

If Enterprise had continued to seven seasons and included the Romulan War, they probably would have just compressed time a bit more than they usually do. Seasons on a show don't have to correspond to in-universe years.

 

[captcalhoun]

i think MA is operating off the Okuda assumptions from the chronology which (for whatever reason) assumes the war lasted four years with no evidence to back it up.

 

[Timo]

Currently, there is no dialog reason to believe the war ended in 2160 - this hinges on obscure graphics barely glimpsed on screen in "In a Mirror, Darkly", or on graphics not even seen in ST:GEN. But we did see 2160 or 2161 in the ENT finale, and war was left unmentioned there, although it may have been ongoing nevertheless.

We're still basically free to speculate that the war only began some time after the founding of the Federation, as this would still meet the "a century ago" requirement from "Balance of Terror".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

assumes the war lasted four years

The American civil war was a century prior to the orginal broadcast date and lasted four years, the second world war ended twenty years prior and lasted (for America) a similar time period. Both were large, devastating wars.

Many fans (including myself) believe that the Earth/Romulan War and American in the second world war, especially in the Pacific, are analogous to each other,.

Memory Alpha may have drawn its date from the Enterprise relaunch books

Correct me please, but didn't the four year figure start way back in the nineteen eighties with FASA games and their books, I'm not referring to their "four years war" with the Klingons, but specifically their created history of the Earth/Romulans war? I believe that the book series Starfleet Year One also refers to the four year figure and those books come out more than a decade prior to any of the (not particular good) relaunch books.

it was a primitive affair, without viewscreens and with the most powerful weapon being crude atomic missile

Primitive by the standard of the 23rd century, incredible more advance than us of course. They likely possessed viewscreen, but for technological reason or simply a matter of policy didn't engage in ship to ship communications that included visual. Earth ship might have simply refused to receive such communications. During the course of the war, Starfleet might have stopped screwing around with obviously lower powered photonic torpedoes and hauled out the big nasty nukes, they stopped trying to "disable" enemy ships..

 

[Forbin]

I take the "no viewscreens" comment literally, meaning no big theatrical movie screen up in front of the captain. Perhaps, ships had big ol' windows for seeing outside, sensor scopes for determining beyond-visual things, and cameras & telescopes linked to smaller screens around the bridge. Think of a current-day ship's bridge, and a submarine's sensor suite.

Communications may or may not have been audio-only. Possibly subspace comm didn't have the bandwidth for visual in those days (I know, Enterprise fucked that idea up). Or perhaps we just couldn't read Romulan visual signals and could only receive audio from them.

 

[sonak]

the "they never saw each other" plot point is just a silly thing to try to rationalize. They never had to fight ground battles during this war? Neither side ever surrendered to the other during a battle at some point? Every confrontation ended with the total destruction of one side or the other's forces?


It led to a cool moment in "BOT" and a good lesson about prejudice. But it was a silly plot point.

 

[BillJ]

the "they never saw each other" plot point is just a silly thing to try to rationalize. They never had to fight ground battles during this war? Neither side ever surrendered to the other during a battle at some point? Every confrontation ended with the total destruction of one side or the other's forces?


It led to a cool moment in "BOT" and a good lesson about prejudice. But it was a silly plot point.

It's only a silly plot point if the writer knew that the series was going to have five spin-offs over a forty year period and that Romulans were going to be fan favorites.

I actually like the idea of never having seen the Romulans during combat.

 

[Anwar]

We can handwave the "Never saw the Romulans" thing away by saying that the Romulans used Remans as soldiers as well as other slave species, or that anyone who DID see them died or the Vulcans kept it hushed up.

But yeah, it was kind of silly that there weren't any planetary battles or anything. Even if they were basing the thing off of the Man-Kzin Wars (the idea of the losers being confined to their home system) even then the humans saw the Kzin in battle.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

the "they never saw each other" plot point is just a silly thing to try to rationalize. They never had to fight ground battles during this war?

Yes they did, but the Federation sent Clones, and the Star Empire sent Droids.

 

[Patrickivan]

assumes the war lasted four years

The American civil war was a century prior to the orginal broadcast date and lasted four years, the second world war ended twenty years prior and lasted (for America) a similar time period. Both were large, devastating wars.

Many fans (including myself) believe that the Earth/Romulan War and American in the second world war, especially in the Pacific, are analogous to each other,.

Oh? So the war was raging with other stellar nations for a couple of years already, and Starfleet didn't jump in until they were personally threatened?

 

[sonak]

We can handwave the "Never saw the Romulans" thing away by saying that the Romulans used Remans as soldiers as well as other slave species, or that anyone who DID see them died or the Vulcans kept it hushed up.

But yeah, it was kind of silly that there weren't any planetary battles or anything. Even if they were basing the thing off of the Man-Kzin Wars (the idea of the losers being confined to their home system) even then the humans saw the Kzin in battle.

the Remans-as-soldiers thing would work as an explanation IF they had not had Romulans fighting battles in the later series.


again, it was just a silly idea not well thought out. I don't see how you have a war without surface battles or surrenders.

 

[Jono]

^ Or that even if there were no ground battles not one Romulan body was retrieved after a space battle where you'd have people getting sucked out of hull breaches left right and centre.

Given how devastating the war was meant to be it might make sense for the allied militaries to keep what the Romulans look like a secret from the general populous as it might have threatened the formation of the Federation or at least forced them to exclude Vulcan from any alliance.

Yes they did, but the Federation sent Droids, and the Star Empire sent Clones.

Nerd fix.

 

[The Badger]

the Remans-as-soldiers thing would work as an explanation IF they had not had Romulans fighting battles in the later series.

Up until BOT the identity of the Romulans as a Vulcan offshoot is unknown, and they seem to take steps to keep it that way. Once the secret is out there would be no reason to attempt to maintain the deception. I have no problem with the idea that, prior to BOT, they used proxies (such as the Remans) and drone ships to do their fighting for them. Afterwards they take a more hands on approach and do things themselves.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Yes they did, but the Federation sent Droids, and the Star Empire sent Clones.

Nerd fix.

Interestingly enough, your nerd fix takes us back to square one: if they've seen Romulan clones, they've seen Romulans!

 

[F. King Daniel]

The aborted movie Star Trek: The Beginning, set in late 2159, was gonna reduce the Earth/Romulan "war" to a week-long battle in Earth orbit between cloaking device-equipped Romulan drone ships and United Earth Space Navy (an organization about to be absorbed into the expanding Starfleet) fighter pilots. Archer's Enterprise is at Risa and misses the whole thing. Kirk's granddad saves the day with a stolen nuke and a(n also stolen, but from different people) prototype starship, the Spartan.

A regieme change at Paramount led to the film's cancellation in favour of JJ's reboot.

 

[T'Girl]

didn't jump in until they were personally threatened?

Didn't jump in until they were personally attacked.

But I was referring to the large naval battles with fleets seperated by hundreds of miles, big streaches of open Pacific ocean, and the island hopping campaign as analogies for big groups of starships separated by thousands (if not millions) of miles from their enemy, the open emptyness between stars and the Human fleets moving from star system to star system in pursuit of the Romulan fleet.

The analogy isn't perfect no.

the Remans-as-soldiers thing would work as an explanation IF they had not had Romulans fighting battles in the later series.

The Romulans used the Remans as ground troops during the Dominion War according to Riker.

^ Or that even if there were no ground battles not one Romulan body was retrieved after a space battle where you'd have people getting sucked out of hull breaches left right and centre.

A body blowen into space through a jagged hole would be how complete? Plus conditions might have rarely given an oppertunity to investigate enemy wreakage. Especially wreakage that had resently been hit with a nuclear warhead.

 

[Anwar]

The idea of initially not knowing what your enemy looks like worked in "Space: Above and Beyond" but even THERE they had them figure out what the enemy looked like after 2 years.

 

[Anwar]

The aborted movie Star Trek: The Beginning, set in late 2159, was gonna reduce the Earth/Romulan "war" to a week-long battle in Earth orbit between cloaking device-equipped Romulan drone ships and United Earth Space Navy (an organization about to be absorbed into the expanding Starfleet) fighter pilots. Archer's Enterprise is at Risa and misses the whole thing. Kirk's granddad saves the day with a stolen nuke and a(n also stolen, but from different people) prototype starship, the Spartan.

A regieme change at Paramount led to the film's cancellation in favour of JJ's reboot.

Thank the stars.

 

[Patrickivan]

didn't jump in until they were personally threatened?

Didn't jump in until they were personally attacked.

But I was referring to the large naval battles with fleets seperated by hundreds of miles, big streaches of open Pacific ocean, and the island hopping campaign as analogies for big groups of starships separated by thousands (if not millions) of miles from their enemy, the open emptyness between stars and the Human fleets moving from star system to star system in pursuit of the Romulan fleet.

The analogy isn't perfect no.

Fair enough. I've just never heard anyone compare the Terran/Romulan war to the 1939-45 war, hence my facetious response about the US being threatened. Call it an attack if you like, the point is the same. I'm familiar with the history of the conflict. I worked at the Canadian War Museum and a local military training base. It certainly wasn't my point to belittle America's entry into it.

But since you explained it like as above, I can see what your point was. The Romulans being akin to the historically xenophobic Japanese- I can see that. Earth not really truly understanding who they are and what they're fighting. The equipment probably being completely unsuited to this kind of conflict. Technology exploding to meet the needs of war.

Like most wars in a way, this would be a very important transitional time for Earth (and the Romulans). And in the end, the allies forming a new body of stellar governance and cooperation, if not perfect, it would be the beginning of what they were striving for.