How would the Typhon Pact have handled the Romulan supernova?

As much as I would have loved to see how the Litverse reacted to the Romulan supernova, it's not gonna happen. It's a shame too because I literally waited like 11 years in hopes of the novels catching up to the events of the Kelvin movies. I also was eager to see how the authors planned to deal with their changes to the setting interacting with a natural disaster like the Hobus/Romulus sun disaster.

I admit to really wanting to see the Typhon Pact humbled and the destruction of one of its capitals is a great "What If" scenario.

My Theory

I'm aware the authors made it abundantly clear they never wanted the Typhon Pact to be "bad guys." However, I've always noticed they had a lot of bad guys with them, particularly the Breen who are at their best a collectivist totalitarian dictatorship and at worst...well, a collectivist totalitarian dictatorship.
Tzenkethi are also...well, jerks.

We saw the chances of some members being "better" for both cooperation and learning to respect each other if not the Federation, plus some members either having EXCELLENT reasons to hate the Alliance (The Kinshaya, The Tholians) or being Token Good Teammates (The Gorn).

However, I really wanted to see how the organization would react to a true test like Romulus being destroyed. Because, at the end of the day, you only know who your true friends are by how they react during a crisis. I fully believe if you wanted to destroy the Typhon Pact (and I know many authors would find this a waste) then it would be the perfect excuse.

The Tzenkethi and Breen would be like, "Eh, sorry, Romulans. You're now officially more trouble than you're worth." The Kinshaya might help or they might not depending on their religious beliefs ("We offer our griffondarian aid but we don't want refugees bringing your heathenness to our terirtory"). The Gorn would probably help but like the Federation, pretty much just underscores who their true friends were.

How do you guys imagine the story would have gone?

 

Me too. I figured we'd probably get some epic crossover novels, something like "Destiny". Even as the years crept closer I still continued to hope, even though I knew scientifically a nova wouldn't just 'happen'.

I haven't seen Picard but based on "The Last, Best Hope" it sounds like it was the result of some attack. In the novel verse something like that would probably be in order--though it would have to be something with little warning since we are up to 2387 now--maybe like a trilithium weapon (though to be consistent with Star Trek [2009] it would have to give enough warning for Spock and the Vulcans to create Red Matter and make the movie possible).

First how would the Typhon Pact react to the destruction and what kind of aid would they provide their allies and the refugees?

But it wasn't just the destruction of Romulus I was looking for. It was the after effects on the Typhon Pact. Last we saw Romulus they were taking a much less aggressive approach toward relations with the Khitomer Allies then their Typhon Pact allies were. And the Romulans were obviously a powerful ally so their approach, while undermined at times, was basically tolerated.

With Romulus out of the way, what's left of the Romulan Empire I figure would be crippled. I think other forces within the Pact would take advantage of that, particularly the Breen and the Tzenkethi. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw the two of them jockey for supremacy over the other. The Tholians could make some noise as well, though I find them a bit more insular in a number of ways. I find the Gorn to really be the only ones that might replace the Romulans as advocating for more restraint with respect to the Khitomer allies. But they don't seem to hold much sway overall. And that leaves the Kinshaya, who are probably the least powerful and seem to be more concerned with their hatred of all things Klingon than anything else. If not for the Klingons being a Khitomer ally they might not even bother being in the Pact.

But the Breen and the Tzenkethi would become major players in the Pact and I think that would spell trouble for the Khitomer allies. At least they would become a major pain in the neck without the Romulans to run interference. I suspect you'd see more conflict, perhaps not open warfare but a hotter cold war.

There's also the possibility the Typhon Pact could fracture. I'd fully suspect the Breen and Tzenkethi at least to compete for dominance in the Pact. And perhaps someone like the Gorn might decide to leave the Pact if they become too aggressive and it doesn't serve their interests. And I imagine any alliance with the Tholians would be difficult to maintain.

 

I wouldn't expect the Pact to help romulas at all, maybe the gorn as they have been a bit so so with the alliance, but with the romulans gone, the Breen and Tzenkethi would but heads, and the pact would disintegrate as they both have different objectives. And they would all go back to being antagonistic to the federation, but not together.
Now how they'd handle the supernova? Would it be Hobus? would it be the Romulan star? would it be an attack, or something natural?
Had an anime that showed a cosmic string pass by a star and caused an instability and it went nova, and the premise was to stop the string from blowing up our sun to. So maybe a natural disaster like that, Something like an asteroid heading to Earth, we know its coming and there's nothing we can do to stop it.
Maybe that was what the red mattter was for, to stop the reason for the Nova instead of the nova itself??

 

Folks I’m still confident we’re seeing this. Last quarter of 2021. You just have to pay attention to the many teases by the authors.

 

Yeah, we still don't know exactly what is happening with the books, so this seems a bit premature to me.

 

Not really. The Last Best Hope mentions a few times there's no way the Romulan supernova could be a natural event, though an alternative cause is never provided, neither in the novel or in the show.

 

The Great Bird of the Galaxy ate its core.

 

Hmm. I was hoping that the book was building toward something there. I guess not.

I like your optimism. But I have serious doubts this will come to fruition. The most that I've heard is perhaps a continuation of the Data/Lal story from TNG line. But I suspect other elements of the novelverse at this point, including the Typhon Pact, is DOA. And I don't think we'll see any supernova in that line. They'll probably leave that to Picard.

 

Wouldn’t the Data storyline be supposedly something off limits after Picard, in the same boat as the supernova? David Mack revealed his next novel next fall will be ‘something big’. It’s a Litverse finale. I’d bet money on it.

 

Well, I guess we'll see. I can see a TNG novel centered on Data and Lal that sticks mostly to that storyline and doesn't touch much else.

Of course all this is speculative. David Mack indicated he has a Star Trek project in the works, but he couldn't say anything else because it's in the very early stages.

I think some of us are guessing that's a TNG novel with Data/Lal that at least nominally takes place in the litverse universe based on his previous desire to follow up on the Data/Lal storyline and his 'we have a plan' tweet. But that's just a guess. He could just as easily be working on a Discovery novel that has nothing to do with the litverse.

Or.....maybe he's working on that DS9 finale.... (ok, maybe not....but a guy can dream )

 

Well obviously if it was an attack that people found out about then that would be the focus of it. It actually fits that there's probably something going on there but it becomes obfuscated in the resulting chaos of the Syth Ban and the failure of the evacuation.

It could have been an attack or it could have been some weird natural phenomenon or something else but no one will know because no one wants to hear about it anymore.

My above statement about the Great Bird of the Galaxy wasn't a non-sequtior. There could be some natural phenomenon or cosmozoan that is causing it rather than a deliberate attack but the Romulans are too busy denying the science to investigate. If you want to be especially topical, maybe the Sun exploded because of Romulan singularity drives causing a premature chain reaction.

 

Well, I guess I'll see how it plays out. I pre-ordered my copy of the Blu-Ray which comes out in October so that'll be my first time seeing it. And there is a season 2 coming out so maybe the cause of the nova is still in the cards for the show.

 

Maybe. I really enjoyed Picard. The only problem I had is the same one I have with the 10 episode formula of GOT.

The episodes are very stuffed and wish they were 20 episodes with half the effects and twice the acting.

But I am a huge fan and love the deep serialized storytelling.

 

Probably about the same way the Romulan Government handled it in the Picard prequel novel. Which is to say, the way Trump has been handling COVID-19, only on steroids.

 

As I was reading the thread, it hit me, "Waitaminute! The Romulan government did, in Una's novel, just what Dear Leader and his sycophants have done in the real world! (Well, the world we all inhabit, anyway.)" And then I read hbquikcomjamesl's post. Love it. And then I realized, "Holy crap. Another example of the Trek penchant for seeming prescience."

 

I fully expect a crisis on the scale of the Romulan supernova would lead to the sundering of the Typhon Pact. The Romulan Star Empire would turn to its Pact partners for assistance in evacuating the affected planets -- and the final limits of the Pact would be immediately revealed. The two states with the most capacity to help Romulus, the Breen and the Tzenkethi, would almost certainly refuse to help; why, they would certainly ask, should they compromise their security and bankrupt their treasury to help an ostensible "ally" who refuses to hold their common enemy, the Federation, to the fire? The Kinshaya are themselves still reeling from the Klingons' destruction of their homeworld; "No one helped us. Why should we help you?" The Tholians probably don't even have starships capable of mass-transporting humanoid lifeforms. The state that would be most likely to help, the Gorn Hegemony, almost certainly has little to no logistical capacity to help on the scale necessary.

More than likely the Romulans and Gorn leave the Pact, with the rump Pact then divided between the Breen and Tzenkethi vying for dominance within the alliance.

 

I admit, I really regret we never got to see this. It's a shame because it would make an awesome story.

I admit, I think the authors wanted the Typhon Pact to be a permanent part of the Novelverse, though, but I'm certain that the Typhon Pact would never survive this event.

 

I just hope this thread hasn't ruined whatever chance we had of seeing it.

 

Pfft. Like the authors read the forums around here.

 

I don't think anyone has anything to worry about.

It's already been noted it's probably too late to even do a Romulan destruction story in the current litverse because there's been no build up. I think it was Christopher that noted that novas don't just happen without any warning. So I think the ship has sailed on that possibility regardless.

And I doubt we'll ever seen the Typhon Pact in any significant way again. Hell, I'd be surprised if we ever see a litverse novel at all again.