Federation Klingon war?
- Thread starter GalaxyClass1701
- Start date
WTF
if this is the case why did the Romulans violate it in Balance of Terror. Hell it was even said in the episode that they were testing federation defenses for a possible second war they were planning to launch, Who declares war on a power they beat the last time when said power hasn't even done anything to the winners after the war?
Presumably the NZ isn't uninhabited, imagine if the proto-Federation was able to convince all the space-faring civilizations to join with them, colonised planets up to Romulus and slowly start to encircle them...
Clearly there was an armistace, I just think the case can be made for either side wanting the NZ...
Clearly there was an armistace, I just think the case can be made for either side wanting the NZ...
Which only works if the Neutral Zone surrounds the Romulan Empire. In which case why bother becuase their already contained.
Except the Romulans still seemed a little peeved by it seeing as the whole humiliating defeat thing and have a map of the Neutral Zone on the Senate's floor while the Feds with one exception seemed to write the whole thing of as a long time ago.
So they seem to imply the Federation won the war.
Huh? If anything, it's the other way around. The Federation obviously has no limits on its expansion. And Kirk's log at the start of "Balance of Terror" refers to "the neutral zone between planets Romulus and Remus and the rest of the galaxy." So pretty clearly the intent was that it was the Romulans whose home territory was bottled in by the Zone.
Also, if you'll recall, the viewscreen graphic at the start of The Wrath of Khan portrayed the Neutral Zone as a rather small ovoid that the simulated Enterprise was initially outside. This reinforces the idea that the zone enclosed a fairly small Romulan territory. (They didn't specify in TWOK that it was the Romulan NZ, but they did mention being near Gamma Hydra, which "The Deadly Years" established as near the Romulan NZ.)
Um, considering it was the klingons that were the enemy in that simulation, its kind of a bad example.
Now on the possible Klingon war topic
In the era between ENT and TOS covered in flashbacks in the books I have noticed that it didn't seem unusual for Federation and Klingon ships to fight ech other, which makes me think something was going on.
Like I said, we know Gamma Hydra is near the Romulan Neutral Zone. And per Star Charts, it's clear on the opposite side of Romulan space from the Klingon Empire.
In fact, I seem to recall that the TWOK novelization (or something) added a mention of how the appearance of Klingons near the Romulan Neutral Zone was part of the surprise of the simulation.
Well, yes, and canon suggests that too, with references to things like the Battle of Donatu V. But as I said, it generally seems to suggest an ongoing state of free-floating hostility and isolated border clashes rather than a single major war between nations.
True, it could be the sort of thing where two nations are in an official state of war for decades but it's more about border tensions than ongoing battles and invasions and such; for an extreme example, North and South Korea have nominally been at war with one another for over 60 years but haven't actively fought for decades. However, "Errand of Mercy" treated the onset of war with the Klingons as a change in the status quo. Kirk's line was, "Negotiations with the Klingon Empire are on the verge of breaking down." So we do know that there were diplomatic relations between the UFP and the Klingons for some time prior to 2267.
I was going by the graphic of the zone as a buffer between Romulan and Federation Space, from Nemesis I think?
My thinking was this: The Romulans and the Federation didn't win, but the Romulans were in the stronger position. Now they don't have sufficient numbers in their empire to successfully invade and occupy (to say nothing of conquer) Earth, Vulcan, Tellar etc etc, so instead that agree a compromise...they split themselves off from the Federation and so the Federation explores and expands in the opposite direction to the RSE and the RSE is free to expand into the BQ...
We know from early TNG that the Romulans are quite prepared to take an isolationist stance.
Bit of a leap of logic I admit!
That map on the Romulan Senate floor in NEM was a stylized version of the Neutral Zone graphic from "Balance of Terror." The BoT map was not meant to show the entire Neutral Zone, just the part of it that the Enterprise was patrolling (specifically "Earth Outpost Sector Z-6"). It was actually rather a sloppy decision of the NEM art team to simply duplicate it rather than using a map that would more logically represent the Romulans' own perspective of what should be emphasized.
didn't Jarok say that the Romulans got their asses kicked in "The Defector"?
Yup - but he doesn't specify the war or the date. Might be the defeat at Cheron happened in the early 24th century. Or even mere months before the episode, as the Admiral seems to be saying the defeat is fresh in the minds of the politicians.
Well, an expansionist power, obviously. Hit them, then hit them again when they are weakened by the blow, then keep hitting them until there's nothing left of them.
In the real world, though, neutral zones tend to be imposed by a military impasse - and moreover, by an impasse between minor players when the bigger players decide it is in their interests to call a halt. Romulans always seemed like bit players compared with Klingons; Kirk and pals had all but forgotten about them, after all. Any expansionist hopes the Romulans might harbor could be arrogant folly at best. But their aims might be limited - they always seem the most interested in simply squaring it out with Vulcan.
What better thing to emphasize than the existence of a hated border and the two combatants on the opposite sides? The mosaic need not even represent any real segment of the RNZ, but may be a mere symbol for the principal conflict that fires the Romulan hearts.
For all we know, we are seeing the stretch of RNZ that sits between Romulus and Vulcan - the very heart of the conflict. Any arbitrary section of the RNZ should look more or less alike, after all, if the RNZ really surrounds Romulus and Remus with a chain of outposts.
Timo Saloniemi
Well, an expansionist power, obviously. Hit them, then hit them again when they are weakened by the blow, then keep hitting them until there's nothing left of them.
In the real world, though, neutral zones tend to be imposed by a military impasse - and moreover, by an impasse between minor players when the bigger players decide it is in their interests to call a halt. Romulans always seemed like bit players compared with Klingons; Kirk and pals had all but forgotten about them, after all. Any expansionist hopes the Romulans might harbor could be arrogant folly at best. But their aims might be limited - they always seem the most interested in simply squaring it out with Vulcan.
What better thing to emphasize than the existence of a hated border and the two combatants on the opposite sides? The mosaic need not even represent any real segment of the RNZ, but may be a mere symbol for the principal conflict that fires the Romulan hearts.
For all we know, we are seeing the stretch of RNZ that sits between Romulus and Vulcan - the very heart of the conflict. Any arbitrary section of the RNZ should look more or less alike, after all, if the RNZ really surrounds Romulus and Remus with a chain of outposts.
Timo Saloniemi
Similar threads
