Balance of Terror continuity
- Thread starter captain-brad
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The Romulans talk about conquest and numerous wars/campaigns fought in BoT, the Centurion in "The Enemy" talks about how humans will be extinct and Romulans will rule the Galaxy, they seem to be the closest in mindset to "Conquest of the Galaxy" types just because they think they're worthy of doing so. Even moreso than the Klingons.
No, like I said, he didn't use "a". He said this specific phrase: "Centuries ago, disastrous first contact with the Klingon Empire led to decades of war."
Picard is as multi-cultural as you can get, likely he was referring to one of the Federation races who did in fact experience "decades of war" following their first contact with the Klingons.
Spock: The Neutral Zone established by treaty after the Earth-Romulan conflict a century ago ... The treaty has been unbroken since that time.
Commander: Danger and I are old companions.
Centurion: We've seen a hundred campaigns together, and still I do not understand you.
Commander: Our gift to the homeland, another war.
Centurion: If we are the strong, isn't this the signal for war?
If the RNZ hadn't been violated in a century, just who the hell were the Romulans fighting? A military campaign is a term used for a large scale, long duration, significant military event, but not necessarily a war in of itself. An example would be the Pacific campaign during WWII. If the Commander is strictly a starship commander, then the Romulans were fight people with at least space fight capacity, perhaps even a warp driven culture.
The trick of taking his ship through a comet's tail to lead an opponent into an inferior tactical position might have been one the Commander used repeatedly before with different foes, in multiple wars.
I see two main possibilities.
One, Romulans originally seceded from Vulcan for their inalienable right to fight each other. That is, they kept to their ancient habits and were opposed to a central government as a principle. The hardships of taming all-new planets as their new homes would thus be combined with bitter fighting over the best of such resources. While internal fighting might have diminished towards the 2260s, it would still continue on some level. A military campaign launched by an ambitious Praetor is right down the alley of real Roman history where such officials often competed with each other through outrageous military and economical ventures; there would be clashes, too, and these loyal servants of their Praetor might have fought campaigns against the loyal servants of some other Praetor.
Two, these people were veterans of the original 2150s war. Mark Lenard also played another Vulcanoid character who was a tad over a century old; this Romulan soldier might have been but two or three decades his senior and still a veteran of the Earthling War. The Centurion appeared physically older still.
Timo Saloniemi
Saquist
Commodore
Picard is as multi-cultural as you can get, likely he was referring to one of the Federation races who did in fact experience "decades of war" following their first contact with the Klingons.
Spock: The Neutral Zone established by treaty after the Earth-Romulan conflict a century ago ... The treaty has been unbroken since that time.
Commander: Danger and I are old companions.
Centurion: We've seen a hundred campaigns together, and still I do not understand you.
Commander: Our gift to the homeland, another war.
Centurion: If we are the strong, isn't this the signal for war?
If the RNZ hadn't been violated in a century, just who the hell were the Romulans fighting? A military campaign is a term used for a large scale, long duration, significant military event, but not necessarily a war in of itself. An example would be the Pacific campaign during WWII. If the Commander is strictly a starship commander, then the Romulans were fight people with at least space fight capacity, perhaps even a warp driven culture.
The trick of taking his ship through a comet's tail to lead an opponent into an inferior tactical position might have been one the Commander used repeatedly before with different foes, in multiple wars.
I do think he's refering to the previous war with Earth...which tells us that there were at least a hundred campaigns...OR...their is always the Neighboring Klingon Empire.
I don't see why we can't just accept that a few lines here and there were ignored for the sake of the new series, just like had been done countless times in the past and will be done countless time in the future.
I shudder to think that it's only HopefulRomantic and myself who couldn't give a shit about what Spock said in 1965 or what Picard said in 1993 (or whenever). I love TOS, TNG, Enterprise and the rest of Trek. I notice when mistakes (intentional or otherwise) crop up, even LOL at a few but does it really deserve an "X happened but Y didn't" argument?
I shudder to think that it's only HopefulRomantic and myself who couldn't give a shit about what Spock said in 1965 or what Picard said in 1993 (or whenever). I love TOS, TNG, Enterprise and the rest of Trek. I notice when mistakes (intentional or otherwise) crop up, even LOL at a few but does it really deserve an "X happened but Y didn't" argument?
Or that each new series are different branches telling their own stories. Of course if one is trying to make a cohesive whole out of all those episodes and movies... well you have these kinds of threads trying to rationalize everything together which can be interesting to read about the different viewpoints, IMHO 
Picard is as multi-cultural as you can get, likely he was referring to one of the Federation races who did in fact experience "decades of war" following their first contact with the Klingons.
Spock: The Neutral Zone established by treaty after the Earth-Romulan conflict a century ago ... The treaty has been unbroken since that time.
Commander: Danger and I are old companions.
Centurion: We've seen a hundred campaigns together, and still I do not understand you.
Commander: Our gift to the homeland, another war.
Centurion: If we are the strong, isn't this the signal for war?
If the RNZ hadn't been violated in a century, just who the hell were the Romulans fighting? A military campaign is a term used for a large scale, long duration, significant military event, but not necessarily a war in of itself. An example would be the Pacific campaign during WWII. If the Commander is strictly a starship commander, then the Romulans were fight people with at least space fight capacity, perhaps even a warp driven culture.
The trick of taking his ship through a comet's tail to lead an opponent into an inferior tactical position might have been one the Commander used repeatedly before with different foes, in multiple wars.
I do think he's refering to the previous war with Earth...which tells us that there were at least a hundred campaigns...OR...their is always the Neighboring Klingon Empire.
Well except he DIDN'T mention Earth, for all we know it was the Vulcans or the Andorians, there was also a theory I heard arounf here that says the klingons go TNG version whenever their aren't at a time of expansion hence why they get devious whenever their in cnflict with the Federation, so seeing as they were all about honor and what not during ENT they weren't expanding most likely becuase they got their asses kick, and the Vulcans seemed to be a major power who had previous experience with them so the Vulcans probably did it.
Saquist
Commodore
I'm not going give a pass on ENT. It wasn't even a good series but especially because it had an obligation as a prequel to do it's due diligence to history. Otherwise what was the point in doing a prequel..
I don't understand...this episode wasn't about Romulans.
Fair point. But how do you hold a prequel to every bit of contradictory information given out by The Original Series? And I say this as a huge The Original Series fan.
I don't mind that they tell a story that breaks continuity with other shows... I do mind when it's done in a crappy episode.
Someone had brought up that they thought Romulans wage war simply to gain territory. Earth in this alternate timeline would have been ripe for the taking and yet was left alone deep into the 24th century.
We might argue that Earth had been taken, and that our DS9 heroes were orbiting a Romulan world. If there was no Federation, Romulans would have found Earth such easy pickings that they might not even have left behind an occupation force. Earth would simply have to pay its taxes, and the signals from Alpha Centauri could be from the next Imperial Revenue Service ship...
Of course, a thousand things could have happened differently if there was no Federation, no Earth starflight; other forces, insignificant in the usual timeline, might have triumphed to keep the Romulans at bay.
In the end, though, it's probably best to indeed assume that Romulans don't blindly rush to conquer every world they can. Most of ENT makes better sense then...
Timo Saloniemi
Of course, a thousand things could have happened differently if there was no Federation, no Earth starflight; other forces, insignificant in the usual timeline, might have triumphed to keep the Romulans at bay.
In the end, though, it's probably best to indeed assume that Romulans don't blindly rush to conquer every world they can. Most of ENT makes better sense then...
Timo Saloniemi
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