2166 According to Spock

[Saquist]

"...As you recall from your histories, this conflict was fought, by our standards today, with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives. Nor was there even ship-to-ship, visual communication; therefore, no human, Romulan, or ally has ever seen the other. Earth believes the Romulans to be warlike, cruel, treacherous... and only the Romulans know what they think of Earth. The treaty, sent by subspace radio, established this Neutral Zone, entry into which by either side would constitute an act of war. The treaty has been unbroken since that time..."


Imagine what these ships were like.
According to Spock
-they had atomics they
-had no room for captives
-No room for crew (likely the numbers of 400 individuals was impossible).
-No visual communication

This list implies some other things.
I made this List from inference.

-Limited fuel
-Limited provisions
-Crews of a dozen or less
-No Transporter
-No Shuttlepods
-Primitive lasers
-Delayed FTL (due to charging)
-Fast ships but very small.
-Slow acceleration
-Ships heavy in armor

I wondered what a space battle, one on one would be like.
Perhaps it was very, very sub like. Without shields a direct hit by a nuclear warhead would kill the crew instantly leaving the ship only marginally damaged.

Maybe tactics would involve dropping from warp on top of your objective and striking with a Nuclear bombardment provided your inelligence was accurate because you couldn't see your target without FTL sensors. Maybe then had them but they were extremely short range.

With limited fuel you likely had a limited time to prosecute your objective depending on if you were fast attack ship designed to hold the Frontline for a limited time and return or...if your objective to was to strike at the very heart of the enemy...it's home planet. I think there would have been only a few of these resource hogs. They have to have lots of fuel and stores to stay out on the frontier and wait for an opening and likely they weren't very fast. Yet I bet they would be heavily armored. These ships couldn't be disabled by a crew killing radiation burst. They'd need multiple bombardments and laser strafes to bring down

*Those would terrifying ships compared with the average fast light attack ship.

I imagine the war was fought over certain planets because some sort of self sufficient way station would necessary to keep the front line resupplied with provisions. It may have been a Starbase for either side.

If they were fighting over a planet I doubt they'd take many marines...bombardment would be the only answer with tactical nukes are conventional explosives. Expending the money to get that many people there just to die would be wasteful.

It would have been a long ...and evil conflict with alot of deaths and alot of derlict ships floating around in what would be the Neutral Zone. Of course Enterprise has changed everything but this is only a what if.


Last night I imagine these ships in combat and in tactics.

 

[SFRabid]

... I wondered what a space battle, one on one would be like...

Unrealistic in my opinion. This story was written in the early 60's. The "no visual communications" part alone shows how far off the writers guess was on the advance of technology. The Romulans breath the same air as humans and fight for colonization of the same planets. It is hard to think that during such a war a body was not recovered on a planet or in space. That would have been a top priority. "Know your enemy." To suggest that such a war would take place without those in command securing at least a body of the enemy was a major blunder by the writer of that scene.

 

[Middleman]

... I wondered what a space battle, one on one would be like...

Unrealistic in my opinion. This story was written in the early 60's. The "no visual communications" part alone shows how far off the writers guess was on the advance of technology. The Romulans breath the same air as humans and fight for colonization of the same planets. It is hard to think that during such a war a body was not recovered on a planet or in space. That would have been a top priority. "Know your enemy." To suggest that such a war would take place without those in command securing at least a body of the enemy was a major blunder by the writer of that scene.

And that why you can't take every word of TOS as canon. Fans have to be flexible and adapt with the times or TPTB will just re-boot the franchise and wipe the slate clean.

Oh wait ..... they did that already!

 

[Saul]

The "no visual communications" part alone shows how far off the writers guess was on the advance of technology.

Because the guess that we would have warp ships in the 2160s is more accurate?

How about Romulan Technology.
do ships even need view screens.
Will ships be in space 100 years from now with giant viewscreens talking to other aliens with giant viewscreens?

How far　off can a guess be when we are talking about science fiction.


Saquist I agree with the view of Sub like ships since this would be a primitive (in the world of Star Trek, I might add) time. I wouldn't expect anything as fancy as what we see in enterprise. Ships would have lasers, nukes etc. Sensors would be poor. Ships would be large to some degree due to the early technology but inside would be cramped since most of the tech would take up space.

 

[JiNX-01]

"...As you recall from your histories, this conflict was fought, by our standards today, with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives. Nor was there even ship-to-ship, visual communication; therefore, no human, Romulan, or ally has ever seen the other. Earth believes the Romulans to be warlike, cruel, treacherous... and only the Romulans know what they think of Earth. The treaty, sent by subspace radio, established this Neutral Zone, entry into which by either side would constitute an act of war. The treaty has been unbroken since that time..."

Imagine what these ships were like.
According to Spock
-they had atomics they
-had no room for captives
-No room for crew (likely the numbers of 400 individuals was impossible).
-No visual communication

Earth would probably have a few more high-warp starships by 2166, but not enough to fight a war with a species that has been planning invasion for quite some time. So I imagine when the Romulan war breaks out, Starfleet has to quickly build a fleet of ships that are essentially glorified tin cans heavy on weaponry and armor, and little in the way of technology or crew comforts. Even medical would be minimal. The small crew would essentially be cannon fodder.
As for taking no captives, I would suggest that it is as much a question of practicality as it was a an issue of space availability. How would you get POWs aboard your ship? You'd have to board the enemy ship and fight a battle on their turf to take prisoners.

This list implies some other things.
I made this List from inference.

-Limited fuel
-Limited provisions
-Crews of a dozen or less
-No Transporter
-No Shuttlepods
-Primitive lasers
-Delayed FTL (due to charging)
-Fast ships but very small.
-Slow acceleration
-Ships heavy in armor

I wondered what a space battle, one on one would be like.
Perhaps it was very, very sub like. Without shields a direct hit by a nuclear warhead would kill the crew instantly leaving the ship only marginally damaged.

I would think that considering the damage the Romulan warhead did to the NCC-1701 (without even having come into contact with the hull), that a direct hit on the primitive ships used in the war would blast them to dust.

 

[Marten]

It seems like a nuclar bomb even close to an unprotected ship would blow it into pieces. Or at least, the warp core would breach, and then destroy the ship.

 

[Count Zero]

I'm not so sure a nuclear bomb going off in the vacuum in space would be so impressive. The centre of the explosion would be extremely hot, so I guess, parts of the ship would just melt when hit directly. The radiation would be a problem, too, of course, though a lot of it might not be able to penetrate a thickly armoured ship. It's an interesting option and I think they should have gone that route with ENT.
I also like the idea of nobody knowing how the Romulans really look. So long as you're only fighting in space, you probably won't get to see a body.
It would have been interesting if the tech had been more primitive on ENT, though I'm not worried about disregarding a few lines from TOS and I'm content with what we've got, all in all.

 

[T'Girl]

It is hard to think that during such a war a body was not recovered on a planet or in space

Might simply be that Earth, or the early Federation, did in fact recover bodies, however given the Romulan's are biologically Vulcans they classified the information.

 

[Mytran]

I like the sound of this TOS-derived, "proper" 22nd century. It comes across raw and edgy, and would be great to see on screen.

 

[Anwar]

Not really, it's just a case of HAVING to change things since reality has moved on. They would be using nuclear weapons, not atomic weapons. The "Never saw a Romulan" thing makes zero sense, and the other shows have made it clear that the humans were the weakest and youngest of the Fed Founders. So if the humans alone were equal to the Romulans, then how could this war have led to the Federation? And if they WERE strong enough to fight all the Fed Founders then why was it the "Earth-Romulan War" and no one else is even mentioned?

 

[Mytran]

Perhaps (in this new setup) Earth led an alliance of the other powers against the Romulans? So although it's referred to as the "Earth Romulan War" the full title might be "Earth and her allies / Romulan War".

 

[Anwar]

But the major implication in the episode was that it was solely a war between Humans and Romulans. If the Vulcans had any role in the war then Stiles became and even BIGGER jerk and racist for being so nasty to Spock when BOTH races fought together against the Romulans.

And they keep referring to the outposts as "Earth Outposts" with no one there but humans, and the Enterprise as an "Earth vessel" via Romulan dialog. They never consider the other races.

So much about BoT's plot makes little sense anymore, but people ignore it due to it being a good episode in terms of drama and such.

 

[WHF]

"... in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives."


Imagine what these ships were like.
SNIP -
-No room for crew (likely the numbers of 400 individuals was impossible).
- SNIP

Just a note, and my apoligies if you already know this, that in this instance no quarter means no mercy. So while you are probably correct in saying that these ships had small crews, Spock doesn't actually say that.

 

[SchwEnt]

... I wondered what a space battle, one on one would be like...

Unrealistic in my opinion. This story was written in the early 60's. The "no visual communications" part alone shows how far off the writers guess was on the advance of technology. The Romulans breath the same air as humans and fight for colonization of the same planets. It is hard to think that during such a war a body was not recovered on a planet or in space. That would have been a top priority. "Know your enemy." To suggest that such a war would take place without those in command securing at least a body of the enemy was a major blunder by the writer of that scene.

I always thought the "no visual communications" bit was not expressing primitive technology (or TOS inaccurate predictions of tech advancement).

I always thought it was because the Romulans *refused* visual communications. Sneaky, paranoid secretive, all that.
They WANTED to remain an unknown entity, which we've certainly seen them do before.

 

[JiNX-01]

But the major implication in the episode was that it was solely a war between Humans and Romulans.

Spock said:
"... no human, Romulan or ally has ever seen the other."

 

[shadowedgalaxy]

Another canon violation in Enterprise. Damn you, Rick Berman!!!
(kidding)

 

[Anwar]

Yes, and the fact that it's been shown that the humans were the WEAKEST of the Founder races still makes it senseless. WHY would the Andorians, Tellarites and Vulcans simply be referred to as "Ally"? How did the humans become so prominent in the war when it should've been the Vulcans or Andorians? If the Humans and Romulans were equal in strength, then why did the War lead to the Federation when it couldn't have been such an important conflict (since it was between two weaklings)?

And why, oh WHY, were they still using ATOMIC weapons in the 22nd century when they should've been using NUCLEAR weapons?

 

[muzzleflash]

The "Never saw a Romulan" thing makes zero sense

Why can't it make sense?

Assuming the war was fought primarily in space, which makes sense given Earth's few terrestrial assets, no human would ever fight a Romulan face-to-face. Also assuming that ships were hugely disproportionally fragile compared to the weapons of that era (which is not hard to believe, considering even a random space pebble could inflict serious damage to a ship traveling at interstellar speeds), there might be little remaining of a battle. The distances that battles might potentially be fought at, the probably limited fuel capacity, speed, and range of ships and limited infrastructure to support them means that they might not have had the luxury of hopping around the galaxy to inspect every single blip on their sensors.

But the major implication in the episode was that it was solely a war between Humans and Romulans.

Spock said:
"... no human, Romulan or ally has ever seen the other."

I suppose Earth's allies could have chosen not to or were unable to engage in the conflict for whatever reason. I could easily imagine the Vulcans being opposed to the war (assuming it wasn't started by an unprovoked invasion by the Romulans, which is just silly in my opinion).

 

[muzzleflash]

Yes, and the fact that it's been shown that the humans were the WEAKEST of the Founder races still makes it senseless. WHY would the Andorians, Tellarites and Vulcans simply be referred to as "Ally"? How did the humans become so prominent in the war when it should've been the Vulcans or Andorians? If the Humans and Romulans were equal in strength, then why did the War lead to the Federation when it couldn't have been such an important conflict (since it was between two weaklings)?

And why, oh WHY, were they still using ATOMIC weapons in the 22nd century when they should've been using NUCLEAR weapons?

Perhaps the Romulans decided to call an end to the war out of fear that Earth's allies would become directly involved? Thus the war would come to an inconclusive end and the neutral zone established.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The episode was written with a 1940s mentality. (Not surprising since its based on a WWII film.) The line exists solely to fuel Stile's bigotry and paranoia. It's rather absurd that a civilization with TVs and telecommunication satellites lacked the technology to develop ship to ship visual communications 100 years later. Or that every molecule of Romulan detrius was destroyed in battle. I'd rather chalk it up to the Romulans being sneaky bastards.