2166 According to Spock

[pookha]

atomics especially in that period was almost a catch all phrase.
look at some of the "atomic" weapons that turned up in dune.

heck it may be short hand for not anti matter.
as for other stuff..
it was a treaty..
said so more then once..

Earth outpost stations. Constructed on asteroids, they monitor the Neutral Zone established by treaty after the Earth-Romulan conflict a century ago.

oh yeah this..

Earth believes the Romulans to be warlike, cruel, treacherous, and only the Romulans know what they think of Earth.

probably fits in far better with the romulans were so cruel they took no prisoners of..

Which allowed no quarter, no captives

then the idea there was so room.

heck we have seen in episodes were in emergencies starships easily made room for others.

though i still think an official coverup would have made more sense then no one ever saw a romulan body.
look some ships would have have had rifts were bodies would have gone out even in early parts of a battle.

 

[Anwar]

Well, "Space: Above and Beyond" managed to do the "never see the enemy" thing by having their bodies self-destruct when they're killed even in close-range combat. However it showed that eventually you WOULD see their faces no matter what.

If the Romulan War WAS a limited conflict then yes, it makes more sense they never saw each other.

However, if it was the major war that led to the founding of the Federation than it makes more sense that it was a massive interstellar conflict involving all the Fed Founders in a brutal war (and Sisko implied it reached Earth in DS9) and it couldn't have been some minor conflict between two weaker powers.

And Timo, I think we can safely agree that NEM sucked on many accounts, including the Reman portrayal. Or maybe the Remans simply were held back as slave labor by the Romulans for their failure as effective troopers in the War and Fed knowledge of them was too heavily outdated by the 24th century so they filed them as more mysterious than the Romulans due to the 200 years of non-contact.

 

[Saquist]

I guess Spock's statements were to cover the possibility of prisoners entirely for identifying the enemy.

 

[Anwar]

And again, made no sense when you really think about it.

 

[Mytran]

I guess Spock's statements were to cover the possibility of prisoners entirely for identifying the enemy.

I think so too - there's no doubt that it's a contrivence present largely for the purpose of advancing the Stiles sub-plot, plus to heighten the tension a bit of fighting an "unknown enemy".
In terms of the BOT story however, it works quite well.

 

[Anwar]

And like I said, it CAN make sense if the Romulans used the Remans (and other slave species) as their frontline soldiers. No one would've seen what a Romulan looks like (or mistaken the Remans for the true Romulans) if the slaves did most of the close-up fighting.

After the war, most of the slave species were liberated and the Remans were banished to the mines for their failure and as a result the Romulans had to do all the work themselves from that point on, leading to BoT.

 

[Saquist]

I think so too - there's no doubt that it's a contrivence present largely for the purpose of advancing the Stiles sub-plot, plus to heighten the tension a bit of fighting an "unknown enemy".
In terms of the BOT story however, it works quite well.

I think it works okay, too , even if it's contrivance for the sub-plot (which it definitely is) One doesn't have to restrict volume for ships to limit ships to this degree.

Perhaps this was the best way to summarize, limitation on fuel, food and water.

And like I said, it CAN make sense if the Romulans used the Remans (and other slave species) as their frontline soldiers. No one would've seen what a Romulan looks like (or mistaken the Remans for the true Romulans) if the slaves did most of the close-up fighting.

After the war, most of the slave species were liberated and the Remans were banished to the mines for their failure and as a result the Romulans had to do all the work themselves from that point on, leading to BoT.

I honestly can't say the sub species played such a significant role. If they did they would have believed that the Remans were Romulans. That would have been one of the most immediate conclusions.
The presence of any other species would have just looked like a coalition of races against Earth rather than Romulan.

 

[Anwar]

Spock said that the war led Earth to believe that the Romulans were cruel, warlike and treacherous. Maybe, aside from their tactics in ship combat, this reputation came from what they could get out of the slaves soldiers on what the Romulans were like before they died?

Perhaps the Romulans equipped them with suicide devices to make sure they wouldn't talk about the Romulans to the enemy, sounds cruel and treacherous.

And yes, they could've easily mistaken the Remans for Romulans, but this would've happened so far in the past (and been dis proven somehow) that by BoT it wouldn't have been worth mentioning.

 

[Yug]

The Romulans being seen as treacherous monsters of war could just be the conjecture that manifests itself when you want to villianize the enemy, and why not? Having cloak technology, or any need to hide themselves is enough to make one consider the race treacherous. If they began the conflict, anyone might see that as warlike. But the point of the story is to blame only those few in leadership or higher station that used their power to spread fear, create war, and therefore embolden their stranglehold on an Empire, and not the general population of the race as a whole it's people only a pawn in a game being dictated what to hate and what to fear in order to fight. In WW2, various characatures and stereotypes were widly propagandized as the villianous culture of the axis powers (some quite true, some very false). The same throughout history on other levels for the Jews, the Native Americans, African Americans and many more "foreign" cultures, as a rationalization for slavery or genocide. Out of fear about the unknown and the danger one might assume may come from a misunderstood race presents a threat to ones way of life especially if they look or act different than "us". It's fear of the unknown that allows the mind to conjure up the worst, and breeds contempt and racism. And in the unseen Romulan threat, the mind might reel beyond reason. Where as a different truth could be revealed... on both sides of the war.

 

[Anwar]

Well, they didn't HAVE the cloaking tech at the time...

And anyways, since they never saw the Romulans while battling their slave races that would only add to the xenophobic attitude towards them and the "cruel, treacherous" part. After all, these guys who never show their face enslave entire species for the soldiers and never get their own hands dirty. Plus, whatever nasty things the slaves would have to say about the Rommies (before they died) wouldn't make things better either.

 

[muzzleflash]

But what about planetary battles? If all they had were atomic weapons, but still had warp-based technology then they likely had the tech to protect worlds from atomic bombardment and would have had to have fought for them them with actual land militaries/aerospace forces.

Now, if the Romulans had used the Remans as foot soldiers (and potentially other slac races too) THEN it makes more sense they never saw the Romulans since there wouldn't have been any there to begin with.

Assuming there were planetary battles at all.

@Saquist: Give it up already. Your interpretation of "no quarter" does not make sense within the context of the sentence, and there are much better reasons why it means something else as already stated in this thread.

Just so you aren't confused, since you are so keen on interpreting things literally despite it not making any sense, when I say "give it up", I mean to suggest you to forfeit your current position on the subject in the face of overwhelming arguments to the contrary. I am NOT suggesting you forfeit your possession of some physical entity in the direction opposing the force of gravity.

 

[Yug]

Well, they didn't HAVE the cloaking tech at the time...

Who says they didn't? Enterprise depicts the Romulans having cloak technology in 2152... but if we're not counting that and just going by the Gospel of Spock, where is it stated that the Romulans DIDN'T have cloaking tech during the war?

And anyways, since they never saw the Romulans while battling their slave races that would only add to the xenophobic attitude towards them and the "cruel, treacherous" part. After all, these guys who never show their face enslave entire species for the soldiers and never get their own hands dirty. Plus, whatever nasty things the slaves would have to say about the Rommies (before they died) wouldn't make things better either.

So now we're assuming that they absolutley DID use slave races? Or are you just engaging in playful speculation that you chastise others for?

 

[Anwar]

The ENT thing was a mistake, they admitted it. The Romulan "Cloak" there was supposed to be like real life stealth where the ship can be seen but not radar scanned. The FX crew misinterpreted the script and made it a regular cloak.

Everyone was surprised in BoT when the ship cloaked and said it was theoretical until the Romulans actually did it. So I'm guessing it wasn't successfully done before then.

I think it makes sense they'd use slaves, they already have the Remans and if they fought a major war against ALL the Fed Founders they'd need more numbers to do so. And it adds to the "never saw a Romulan" thing.

Planetary battles, well why WOULDN'T there be? You need stations and outposts to fight a space war and it's easier to have planets and colonies rather than tons of space bases in the middle of space. I doubt they wouldn't be able to defend from planetary bombardment, so the only option would be to take the planet with land/air forces.

 

[Yug]

The ENT thing was a mistake, they admitted it. The Romulan "Cloak" there was supposed to be like real life stealth where the ship can be seen but not radar scanned. The FX crew misinterpreted the script and made it a regular cloak.

Is that true? Interesting. Can you point me to a source?

Everyone was surprised in BoT when the ship cloaked and said it was theoretical until the Romulans actually did it. So I'm guessing it wasn't successfully done before then.

Very good point... But perhaps the Romulans DID have cloaking devices, but the Feds never had intell and hadn't realised this... invisible ships are hard to see if you can't scan for them unless they materialize... and mabye the Rommies never did while utilizing their cloak.

I like you Anwar, yer fun !!

 

[Phily B]

I always envisioned it similar to BSG.

 

[muzzleflash]

Planetary battles, well why WOULDN'T there be? You need stations and outposts to fight a space war and it's easier to have planets and colonies rather than tons of space bases in the middle of space. I doubt they wouldn't be able to defend from planetary bombardment, so the only option would be to take the planet with land/air forces.

The simple answer? If we are trying to justify why Romulans never saw Humans, the easiest and equally reasonable explanation is they didn't fight face-to-face, and thus is preferable to a more complicated one involving Remans and such.

A better answer: I would think that during the time of the war, Earth did not have the infrastructure to support very many planetary colonies. For example, Enterprise was one of few high-warp capable ships. Most likely all other Earth ships, like the cargo ships we saw in the series, were only capable of low warp, where traveling from planet to planet took years. Even Terra Nova, less than twenty light years from Earth (according to Memory Alpha. Not hardcore enough to know these details by heart) was too far to keep in contact with until the Enterprise.

Not only that, but a planet would be incredibly difficult to defend. With such a relatively small population concentrated in a small area, I'd imagine a single nuke warped into orbit could eliminate the entire population.

I'd imagine Earth's deep space assets would have consisted of small outposts, communications arrays, refueling stations and mining stations. All equally vulnerable, but the cost of losing one of these is far less than the cost of losing an entire colony.

 

[Anwar]

But what about the other Empires like the Vulcans or Andorians? If the Romulan War led to the Federation than they would've been attack as well, and their infrastructure was superior to Earth.

Sisko also implied the Romulan War led to an attack on Earth itself.

 

[Yug]

But what about the other Empires like the Vulcans or Andorians? If the Romulan War led to the Federation than they would've been attack as well, and their infrastructure was superior to Earth.

Sisko also implied the Romulan War led to an attack on Earth itself.

It was my understanding that the Federation was already established prior to the Romulan War in ALL continuities. Is that mentioned in TOS?

 

[Anwar]

No, it was never stated when the Federation was formed. But they exclusively refer to "Earth Outposts" and "Earth vessels" in BoT, implying that the war happened before the Federation existed.

 

[muzzleflash]

But what about the other Empires like the Vulcans or Andorians? If the Romulan War led to the Federation than they would've been attack as well, and their infrastructure was superior to Earth.

Why would the Vulcans or Andorians had to have been involved?

Sisko also implied the Romulan War led to an attack on Earth itself.

Clearly the attack failed.