Balance of Terror

[Timo]

More importantly, given a two dimensional border, "punching through" isn't even necessary since the putative fleet could just as easily go around them (at a larger scale, that is).

But what I do is outline the heretofore undiscussed reasons why the map does not need to suggest two-dimensionality - it just has Outposts from 1 to 7 (and perhaps 8) lined up close to Romulus, because of special bias. The, say, fifty thousand other installations (many of them no doubt automated) would cover the other dimensions; since this stretch of the border is so very special, it has the big and important crewed Outposts clustered right there, with their low numbers.

Indeed, the scattershot attack of the Romulans "out of numerical sequence" might suggest three-dimensionality right there and then, with OP8 actually closer to OP4 than to OP7, say.

The Enterprise's assumption -- and it is a good one -- is that the Romulans are testing the border to see what the Federation will actually do, and if the Enterprise doesn't engage the bird of prey NOW, it will embolden the Romulans to escalate further attacks.

...Which is about as stupid as the Xindi launching a warning attack before their main one.

If this cloakship (and perhaps a couple of sister ships) were engaged in breaching the Federation siege where it's the most convenient, at the Earth-patrolled sector close to Romulus, then it would seem prudent for them to immediately signal the Praetor about the success, even at the risk of exposing themselves. But "immediate" is relative - it would take at least days for another starship to arrive, apparently.

What may instead have held back the "immediate" Romulan attack may be that the attack against the siege was in fact a dismal failure. Neutralizing just four outposts might not suffice: if the ship we saw got two of them, and two other ships each got one, but the other nine ships involved in the attack all failed in their missions, then there could be no war.

That's classic "special forces" or "minisub" warfare: the attackers themselves will not know whether their mission was a success or a failure until their (unlikely) return to home base, regardless of whether they themselves managed to fire their torps or set their charges.

The time of year is just incidental. If the Romulans had tried this stunt two months later, they would have hit outposts 12, 13, 14 and 19.

But statistically that would mean there are only a few dozen of them. By making this region special, there can be millions. And the region is special in the "large" model only.

Maybe I missed something, but how is this obvious?

Because it's the stretch where Romulus lies. If we assume the curving RNZ is a segment of a ring, that is, a local representation of a spherical shell imprisoning the Romulans, then obviously Romulus is very distant from the center and basically brushing up against this specific wall segment. If we assume the RNZ is the shape of a salamander or a swastika for some reason, the map still shows Romulus at least equidistant to the visible RNZ and the putative invisible bit "just to the right of the map" - and it would be difficult to justify why the map would omit this putatively proximal "right side RNZ" and instead show so much uninteresting empty space to the left of the chain of outposts.

The only reason that this portion of the RNZ is shown is that it's the section that's under attack at that particular moment.

But take any other portion and it would lack Romulus! Surely that makes this one very special indeed?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But what I do is outline the heretofore undiscussed reasons why the map does not need to suggest two-dimensionality - it just has Outposts from 1 to 7 (and perhaps 8) lined up close to Romulus, because of special bias. The, say, fifty thousand other installations (many of them no doubt automated) would cover the other dimensions

"Dimension" does not work that way

In three dimensional space, a preference to cluster the "first" outposts close to Romulus would see them distributed in some sort of ring or an array, probably something similar to the Starfleet formation in "Redemption Pt 2". A border in three dimensional space isn't a line, it's a PLANE, and thus the first nine outposts would almost certainly be arranged in a diamond formation with the others being numbered radially outwards from it.

...Which is about as stupid as the Xindi launching a warning attack before their main one.

No, because without futureguy's interference, Earth never would have known where the probe came from or who built it or why. The next attack would have been just as unexpected and just as sudden, especially since Earth had no pre-installed defenses or early warning system in place to warn them of such an attack. This is not the case for Romulus; the outposts ARE that early warning system, and their being destroyed gives Starfleet a heads up that the Romulans are about to come charging through. That element of surprise is rather pointless if the Romulan fleet spends another few days prepping to sortie before they actually GO anywhere.

If this cloakship (and perhaps a couple of sister ships) were engaged in breaching the Federation siege where it's the most convenient, at the Earth-patrolled sector close to Romulus, then it would seem prudent for them to immediately signal the Praetor about the success, even at the risk of exposing themselves.

They had orders for strict radio silence and the overzealous centurian who sent the message was immediately demoted for it. So no that was not prudent at all. This mission was a raid, not a prelude to an invasion.

What may instead have held back the "immediate" Romulan attack may be that the attack against the siege was in fact a dismal failure.

No, what held back the "immediate" attack was the fact that no such attack was planned, and even the Enterprise knew this, based on their history. There is NO suggestion that this was the prelude to an invasion on the Enterprise; they knew this was a raid.

And the Romulans knew this too:

CENTURION: We've seen a hundred campaigns together, and still I do not understand you.
COMMANDER: I think you do. No need to tell you what happens when we reach home with proof of the Earthmen's weakness. And we will have proof. The Earth commander will follow. He must. When he attacks, we will destroy him. Our gift to the homeland, another war.
CENTURION: If we are the strong, isn't this the signal for war?
COMMANDER: Must it always be so? How many comrades have we lost in this way?
CENTURION: Our portion, Commander, is obedience.​

Kirk and Mark Leonard are on exactly the same page here: this mission is a probe to see if the Federation has the stomach for war. Kirk's mission is to prove they still have teeth. If the Enterprise does nothing, the Romulans see weakness and go to war. If the Enterprise gets destroyed, the Romulans see weakness and go to war. If the Enterprise attacks and fails to destroy them, the Romulans see weakness and go to war. If Enterprise kills the attacking vessel, the Romulans see SOME weakness but still realize that Starfleet are no pushovers when you get them angry enough.

But take any other portion and it would lack Romulus! Surely that makes this one very special indeed?

Not if it's a string of outposts in this system's asteroid belt, in which case this position is where Romulus just happens to lie RIGHT NOW.

Like I said, most of your theory just flows from a series of very far fetched assumptions. It's not totally implausible, but it's a couple of parsecs short of "obvious"

 

[Samuel]

I would really love to see someone do a comprehensive history of the Earth/Romulan War. Perhaps in fan fiction. I would be nice if it was something that could eventually be canonized (perhaps by having a character in a Trek series refer to it or be seen reading it much like people read histories of World War Two today). It would be even better if it was comprehensive enough that the majority of fans could agree with it. .

Personally I would go with the "long war" idea though one reason is I'm very partial to Diane Duane's ideas (The Romulan Way).

Note, in regards to canon sources, doesn't Picard mention something in one of the movies about "warp drive changed the Romulans from a minor power into an empire" (misquote, I know)? This strongly suggests that the acquisition of warp drive was something that happened AFTER humans encountered Romulans for the first time. Another reason that I'm partial to "The Romulan Way" as it has the Romulans acquiring warp drive after capturing an Earth starship.

In a fan fiction short story a number of years ago which was based on the events of "Yesterday's Enterprise" it has the Enterprise-D crew thanks to the intervention of the Borg and Q get to view an early battle of the Earth/Romulan War where scores of small Romulan ships swarm and destroy three starships. They capture a bunch of escape pods from one of the self destructing starships, torture and interrogate the humans for warp drive secrets. Good story.

 

[Timo]

In three dimensional space, a preference to cluster the "first" outposts close to Romulus would see them distributed in some sort of ring or an array

Or then not. A zigzag pattern would work just as well, and seems to be what's suggested for the UFP sector grid in most maps dealing with sector numbers anyway.

The thing is, we do see clustering of low-numbered outposts close to Romulus. It's an onscreen fact from which we can derive two conclusions, and then choose between them.

A) It's a coincidence.
B) It's not.

From the latter, it directly follows that the map must be "large". No assumptions involved, beyond choosing between A and B.

Why should we prefer A over B under any circumstances? Coincidences normally do not happen, especially astronomical coincidences.

This is not the case for Romulus; the outposts ARE that early warning system, and their being destroyed gives Starfleet a heads up that the Romulans are about to come charging through.

Exactly. So there's no point in delaying once the destruction happens. But:

That element of surprise is rather pointless if the Romulan fleet spends another few days prepping to sortie before they actually GO anywhere.

This sort of fumbling is characteristic of many (most, really) military campaigns ITRW, though - especially ones relying on an all-new breakthrough technology, such as the tanks of WWI.

But it's all a matter of relative timespans. The hero ship had no means of summoning immediate help, or Kirk would have done exactly that. So the outposts must be the thing physically stopping the Romulans from having war, not starships or other mobile assets which apparently are absent from the RNZ. So blast a hole in the wall or outposts and you can rush out with the fleet.

Kirk and Mark Lenard are on exactly the same page here: this mission is a probe to see if the Federation has the stomach for war.

Why use a cloakship raid for that? Just have the war and see if it works. Romulus will gain exactly nothing from any "fact-finding" outcome of this mission: it only takes one to have war, and UFP guts don't matter except as a thing to be spilled.

Tellingly, the mission was a success from the Romulan point of view, except it resulted in the loss of their ship after the success. The Romulans know that, thanks to the clever Decius guy who understood his mission better than his commander did. Nothing should stop them from sending another similar mission the next day, and popping four more outposts.

But if this teeny weeny cloakboat is the proud flagship of "the Praetor", then this Praetor guy can't be anybody important. He's not the man going to the war if he has no warfleet. Others will be deciding for him, or more probably against him. And it's easy to find fault in the depicted mission, despite it having succeeded in everything even remotely relevant.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But it's all a matter of relative timespans. The hero ship had no means of summoning immediate help, or Kirk would have done exactly that. So the outposts must be the thing physically stopping the Romulans from having war, not starships or other mobile assets which apparently are absent from the RNZ.

Well, no, they'd have to all be within phaser range of each other for them to actually do that, and even then it wouldn't actually work. They have weapons capability to defend themselves, but to actually STOP the invasion fleet, that's just not even a question. The best they could probably do is slow them down a little bit, but if the Romulans came screaming out of the neutral zone at FTL velocity they would blow right by those outposts without so much as a scratch. And the outposts, of course, would raise hell, and Starfleet would assemble a flotilla to meet them (eventually) along whatever course they were taking.

Which is exactly the scenario we see in "The Neutral Zone" a hundred years later. The outposts along the neutral zone start disappearing and the Federation fears an invasion. The Enterprise is sent to figure out what the hell is going on while the rest of the fleet gets into position, fearing the worst.

Either way, the outposts are there to ring the alarm, not to actually hold back the invaders. Even in TWO dimensional warfare, border outposts do not work that way.

Why use a cloakship raid for that? Just have the war and see if it works.

That's not how it goes. The Romulans are following a kind of imperialist ideology that states that "If we can win, then we must fight." Or the opposite of the President's line in TUC: "We can do a thing, so we must do that thing."

They find out that the Federation is unprepared for war and unable to defend itself from their new weapons and technology, THEN that is the signal that their enemies are vulnerable and it is time to invade. That's why the presence of the Enterprise is so worrying to Mark Leonard. Not because he's afraid he will loose, but because he's afraid he might WIN. The outpost destruction can be written off as the destruction of some poorly defended and badly-outdated asteroid bases, but a Federation starship struck down in battle? There'd be no question then. It's all the proof the Praetor needs that the time for war has come.

Romulus will gain exactly nothing from any "fact-finding" outcome of this mission

This is easily the wrongest thing I have ever seen you post.

 

[Ronald Held]

I always thought that the 2D diagram was fairly realistic, as sensors and probes can cover above and slow plane.
For a test of the defenses, why send the BoP above or below plane,it takes more fuel and not the best strategy.
If there are more cloakable ships cloee, sending a message makes sense. If only the one prototype, silent running seems best. No idea why not send the only one as a test?

 

[Forbin]

Can't argue with that!

 

[Albertese]

Some more thoughts from the Romulan's dialog that could lend details to their situation if assuming a single system Neutral Zone.

CENTURION: We've seen a hundred campaigns together, and still I do not understand you.

There's no need to assume that the Commander and the Centurion are discussing interstellar wars they've fought in. I propose that in the period between the Earth-Romulus War and the events of "Balance of Terror" the Romulans were a fractured and divided people. Perhaps there was a single emperor but his or her actual control of the people was not all that secure. Imagine a situation like in medieval Europe, where all the kings and princes technically answer to the pope but really more or less do their own thing and fight amongst themselves. The "hundred campaigns" these two guys have fought together may well have been against other factions of Romulans on their homeworld and perhaps on bases or colonies around their inner system. Note the Commander's line:

Our gift to the homeland, another war.

Notice he doesn't refer to his "homeworld," but, rather, his "homeland," suggesting that his loyalty lies with some region on Romulus, not the whole dang planet. Note also the person they answer to is called the Praetor, which is a title for the Roman equivalent of a general or a magistrate, not a head of state. This magistrate or general could well be assaulting the Earth outposts of his own initiative, without the sanction or backing of the sitting Emperor. We don't have that information. (And the details of that story could be fascinating indeed!) But the idea that this Empire is a collection of regional areas on just a handful of planets whose individual magistrates and warlords constantly battle each other, is hardly without precedent in real history. It could also be a good reason for the strict totalitarianism the Romulans are subjected to in the 24th Century; a government trying to hold a tight grip on a people with a tradition of antagonistic autonomy.

CENTURION: Take care, Commander. He has friends, and friends of his kind mean power. And power is danger.
COMMANDER: Danger and I are old companions.

Political infighting is a way of life for these people. Romulan v. Romulan conflict seems a given.

There is only one line in the whole episode that I think (on it's surface anyway) does lend to the idea of the Large RNZ model:

COMMANDER: It is good we approach the Neutral Zone. Not too soon for me to see the stars of home.

What does he mean about "the stars of home?" If he's a few light-years from home, then he could be referring to the constellations as visible from Romulus. But then, if he's only a few light-years away, all those stars should still be visible and the distortions from how they'd appear from home wouldn't be very different. Since most stars that make up constellations are tens to hundreds of light-years away, the parallax of such a relatively short flight wouldn't make anything unrecognizable.

However, with some Timo-esque logic noodling, we can fit this line into a Small-RNZ model too. Since the difference in constellations aren't different enough to be what the Commander is talking about, perhaps the Stars of Home are some important Romulan artifice on the planet. Perhaps the Stars of Home are a monument in their homeland where returning heroes land and are welcomed home. Perhaps "the stars of home" is a literary reference to a famous Romulan epic poem where the hero's family are his guiding stars, so its a metaphor for the people you love and hope to return to. It would make sense for these not to be literal stars, as those stars are not invisible from his current location.

I'm still going with the Small-RNZ model. Your mileage may vary, of course.

--Alex

 

[Timo]

Well, no, they'd have to all be within phaser range of each other for them to actually do that, and even then it wouldn't actually work.

Then again, all sorts of long range weaponry could be available to the outposts (or, rather, to a hierarchy of outposts, with the crewed and numbered ones at the very top) - but none of it relevant to this particular adventure, because of the cloak that allows the Romulans to fight point blank.

if the Romulans came screaming out of the neutral zone at FTL velocity they would blow right by those outposts without so much as a scratch.

Dunno about that - stopping adversaries who move at warp and forcing them to fight at sublight happens basically all the time in Trek. Heck, Starfleet believed in a stationary blockade whenever the Borg came, and it actually worked the first time around, at Wolf 359.

Maybe warp is fragile like that?

And the outposts, of course, would raise hell, and Starfleet would assemble a flotilla to meet them (eventually) along whatever course they were taking.

But this episode would have us believe Starfleet can't do that, or Kirk would have had backup. So why not just ignore the outposts and skip the cloaking thing and do exactly what you describe - pounce the unwary UFP with a warfleet?

Conversely, striking at the outposts without attacking would make the above impossible, and hence achieve nothing positive.

Which is exactly the scenario we see in "The Neutral Zone" a hundred years later. The outposts along the neutral zone start disappearing and the Federation fears an invasion. The Enterprise is sent to figure out what the hell is going on while the rest of the fleet gets into position, fearing the worst.

...And had there been an invasion, the UFP would be toast while Picard investigates.

They find out that the Federation is unprepared for war and unable to defend itself from their new weapons and technology, THEN that is the signal that their enemies are vulnerable and it is time to invade.

But by then, it's too late.

Think of the Japanese striking against Pearl Harbor and then waiting for two weeks to see if the US "has a stomach for war"... Even if the answer were "no, they're just making angry speeches at our general direction", any hope of conquering the Pacific would be forever gone.

The outpost destruction can be written off as the destruction of some poorly defended and badly-outdated asteroid bases, but a Federation starship struck down in battle? There'd be no question then. It's all the proof the Praetor needs that the time for war has come.

But if he's intent on making use of that proof, then his warfleet must already exist, indeed be ready for potential action. Why would he take no for an answer, then?

There wasn't much "testing" involved in the cloakship mission. The Romulans would know their weapon works against the asteroid - it's simple physics there, and we see evidence of generous overkill. The Romulans would also know it doesn't work well against starships that can outpace or outrange it. So it's all about testing whether the enemy can defeat the cloak. But the cloak need only allow for the weapon to be used against its intended targets - neither the cloak nor the weapon nor the two in combination can be construed to be a working anti-starship weapon. And so the only relevant test of the cloak would be to see whether it allows an invasion fleet to sneak past starships altogether...

...But the relevant strategic scenario there would be to first sneak and then attack. The scenario where the ship first attacks and then tries to sneak isn't telling the Romulans anything of strategic importance, any more than an exercise where a superpower boomer launches a volley of SLBMs and then sees if it can fight its way back to home base.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

However, with some Timo-esque logic noodling, we can fit this line into a Small-RNZ model too. Since the difference in constellations aren't different enough to be what the Commander is talking about, perhaps the Stars of Home are some important Romulan artifice on the planet. Perhaps the Stars of Home are a monument in their homeland where returning heroes land and are welcomed home. Perhaps "the stars of home" is a literary reference to a famous Romulan epic poem where the hero's family are his guiding stars, so its a metaphor for the people you love and hope to return to. It would make sense for these not to be literal stars, as those stars are not invisible from his current location.

Or then he's really speaking about the literal stars of home, but what he means by "seeing" is getting an eyeful of the fiery spheres up close, rather than identifying one or three of 'em bright dots as the stars of home with some assistance from the nav computer...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Dunno about that - stopping adversaries who move at warp and forcing them to fight at sublight happens basically all the time in Trek.

That has literally NEVER happened in Star Trek without the influence of Godlike superbeings. People voluntarily dropping out of warp to fight each other for some unexplained reason is totally a thing, but one ship forcing another to drop out of warp using anything other than interception and concentrated weapons fire... that is not even a thing.

But this episode would have us believe Starfleet can't do that, or Kirk would have had backup.

Why would he have backup? He didn't CALL for any, and being up against just one ship, he didn't think he needed any.

So why not just ignore the outposts and skip the cloaking thing and do exactly what you describe - pounce the unwary UFP with a warfleet?

Because this was an expedition to see if the Federation outposts were advanced enough, smart enough or prepared enough to withstand this sort of attack. They were testing the Federation's defenses as much as they were testing its resolve. That a Starfleet vessel just happened to be in the area was a fortunate coincidence; that that starship was the Enterprise was a very unfortunate coincidence, at least for the Romulans.

But by then, it's too late.

Think of the Japanese striking against Pearl Harbor...

Timo, the attack on the outposts WAS NOT a prelude to an invasion, nor were there any broader strategic moves to follow. It was a test to see if the Federation was "weak" enough to bother going to war at all. Proof of weakness would lead to the mobilization of forces and THEN an invasion plan would materialize, probably starting with the Romulans destroying ALL of the remaining outposts and then expanding to neighboring systems.

But if he's intent on making use of that proof, then his warfleet must already exist

Of course it does. That doesn't mean it's sitting in a staging area waiting for the flag to go up.

This is a test of the Federation's strength, NOT a prelude to an actual invasion.

There wasn't much "testing" involved in the cloakship mission.

That is literally the entire premise of the episode, Timo.

 

[Timo]

That has literally NEVER happened in Star Trek without the influence of Godlike superbeings. People voluntarily dropping out of warp to fight each other for some unexplained reason is totally a thing, but one ship forcing another to drop out of warp using anything other than interception and concentrated weapons fire... that is not even a thing.

...Why "anything other than"? Firing at a warping ship is the means by which every warp chase can be ended at the discretion of the chasing ship - say, Sisko in "A Time to Stand" had zero wish to slow down but Reynolds just plain collapsed his warp field.

Which probably is the very reason why ships volunteer to drop out of warp.

Why would he have backup? He didn't CALL for any, and being up against just one ship, he didn't think he needed any.

He'd be an idiot, then: the border has been compromised and he's betting everything on his wild guess that he's only up against a single ship (rather than, say, a dozen) and that he can handle that ship.

He did send a message to his superiors. And they'd be idiots not to send help if that were within their powers. They never sent any.

Because this was an expedition to see if the Federation outposts were advanced enough, smart enough or prepared enough to withstand this sort of attack.

If they weren't, they sure would be the next time around, so the test could only backfire, and never succeed.

But that's not a particularly threatening prospect, as the plasma belcher was physically incapable of being defeated: it pulverized entire asteroid fortresses (and arguably the asteroids themselves) with at most two shots, and by no means was limited to firing just two shots. You don't set out to test "whether" a tank armed with a 14 inch naval cannon can knock out Shermans or Tigers.

That a Starfleet vessel just happened to be in the area was a fortunate coincidence; that that starship was the Enterprise was a very unfortunate coincidence, at least for the Romulans.

How so? Any starship and her skipper would be equally motivated to outrun the plasma weapon, and equally (un)prepared to initiate that action. So it would be simply down to the numerical value of the "emergency speed" of said starship. And we have little reason to think Kirk's ship would be especially fast.

Timo, the attack on the outposts WAS NOT a prelude to an invasion, nor were there any broader strategic moves to follow.

We know it resulted in no war, which is illogical to the extreme. We're just grasping for rationalizations as to why. The idea that it was a test of technology is speculation, never suggested in the dialogue. The idea that it was a test of resolve is speculation, dependent on interpreting the dialogue in a specific way (that is, the outcome the Commander speculates on is the actual mission of the ship, rather than just some subtext the Commander perhaps falsely sees in the mission). The idea that it was an element in an audacious plan of attack, conducted on a need-to-know basis and leaving the Commander out of his depth, is speculation dependent on nothing more than a general impression on what makes the Romulans tick (backstabbing tradition, the role of the Praetor, the works).

Is there a hierarchy to the validity of the three lines of speculation? Sure. Multiple hierarchies, really. Do we value the amount of onscreen facts grafted into the rationalization? The rationality of the rationalization? The support the rationalization gives to the omniscience of the characters? These simply give different orders of preference to the rationalizations.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

...Why "anything other than"?

Because you have to actually intercept the warping ship to get in weapons range and then lock weapons on it. Space stations do not make warp speed intercepts of enemy vessels; outposts burried a mile under an asteroid definitely won't.

He'd be an idiot, then

We're discussing Balance of Terror, not your fanfiction version where the Romulans are about to invade in force.

You don't set out to test "whether" a tank armed with a 14 inch naval cannon can knock out Shermans or Tigers.

It wasn't a test of their weapon systems, Timo. It was a test of the size of the Federation's balls. The the type of ship and weapon selected was based on the target they were going after; if they were explicitly going after starships, they would have used a ship with armaments more suitable to that goal.

Put another way: this little commerce-raiding submarine went to sea equipped with cruise missiles and a mission to see how the Federation would respond if they bombed one of their naval bases. The Federation responded by sending a cruiser to depth charge the shit out of them; the cruise missiles turned out to be not totally effective against those cruisers, which sort of undermines the point of this demonstration.

How so? Any starship and her skipper...

Because there's nothing special about the Enterprise and it's commander, right?

The idea that it was a test of resolve...

... is the basic premise of the entire episode. It's not speculation, it's the core concept of the Romulans' entire reason for launching the attack in the first place.

Is there a hierarchy to the validity of the three lines of speculation?

Nope. One of these things is "what happened in this episode." The other two things are "Something Timo made up based on 50 things we didn't actually see and don't make any sense in context" and are, therefore, wrong.

 

[Samuel]

Anyone remember the original series novel by Bantam books "Vulcan" by Kathleen Sky? The main story was about an extremely bigoted female scientist assigned to the Enterprise who hated Vulcans. But the underlying story was that the Romulan Neutral Zone was expanding into what was previously Federation space.

In the novel it was explained that because stars and planets constantly move, the location of the Neutral Zone was defined by the galaxies magnetic lines of force.

This was thought to be permanent. But massive ion storms (what the hell is that anyway?) sweeping across Romulan space was causing the magnetic lines of force that defined the NZ to bulge outward into what was previously Federation space.

The Federation had no interest in fighting over solar systems that would turn to Romulan control. Unless those planets were home to intelligent species. And one world which the Enterprise is assigned to take the female scientist to for her to evaluate has a possibly intelligent arachnid life form. I know, the novel is not canon and I don't think is even referenced by other novels, but it did have a unique take on the Neutral Zone.

 

[Albertese]

Anyone remember the original series novel by Bantam books "Vulcan" by Kathleen Sky?

....

Yeah, I remember that! I read that a couple times as a teenager. Though I don't recall the RNZ elements. Now I want to go dig that book out and reread.

--Alex

 

[Samuel]

Another question I've had that might've been addressed elsewhere is why was there ever a longstanding assumption (that IIRC made it onscreen into a couple of displays eventually) that the Earth/Romulan War was only four years long?