In universe... Why would Romulans need Klingon ship designs?

[Dukhat]

I agree with you. The clincher is the line, "They've been blood enemies for seventy-five years." If they weren't something other than enemies immediately prior to that, then there would be no point in pinning it down to seventy-five years, give or take. By the way, that line occurs in "Reunion."

Moreover, as you said, that time is proximate to the events of "The Enterprise Incident." That's clear support for the position that they were allies at the time of TEI, for however brief a period.

Exactly. If Geordi had said "two centuries" or so instead of the very specific "seventy-five years," then it would be a non-issue. And also, "Redemption" was filmed six months before TUC, so at the time of the episode's writing, the only thing we knew about Romulans other than that they were using Klingon designs in TOS was that they had a representative visit Nimbus III starting in 2267.

 

[Timo]

This is a two-pronged issue. For one thing, what the writers of "Reunion" had in mind contrasts against the greater context (where any Romulan/Klingon alliance necessarily belongs), and the two may either agree or conflict. For the other thing, we must decide whether to avoid conflict (because facts can't be in conflict in a pseudorealistic universe) or embrace it (because characters can be fallible and biased, especially on hot politics like the issue at hand).

TOS doesn't take place 75 years before the episode, but 100 years before it, and the writers would have been quite aware of this. We can speculate on them referring to a development that did happen 75 years before the episode, and that would be TUC. So does this mean they thought an alliance was broken in TUC? This would be an odd interpretation of an adventure where the Romulans actually cooperated and conspired with Klingons for the first time onscreen, in-universe.

As the adventure also involves betrayal, though, perhaps things indeed turned from bad to worse at the time? That would conflict with later introduced pseudofacts of ongoing conflict in the 2270s. But perhaps that conflict was merely bad and post-TUC is indeed worse. Or perhaps the alleged turn is all LaForge's Federation bias, and the Klingons and the Romulans know better.

In any case, none of this precludes a TOS alliance. It's merely an argument on whether it might be taken to support such a thing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kor]

I like the background from the John Byrne comics, in which the Klingons were meddling behind the scenes in Romulan matters just like they were doing with the Capellans and the Neural villagers.

Kor

 

[JonnyQuest037]

The episode was written by D C Fontana, who was with Star Trek almost from the start.

Yeah, but she was heavily rewritten on "The Enterprise Incident," and she's been pretty upfront about being disappointed in the rewrites (to the point where she actually apologized to Leonard Nimoy on set).

I like the background from the John Byrne comics, in which the Klingons were meddling behind the scenes in Romulan matters just like they were doing with the Capellans and the Neural villagers.

Same here. Very much the way TOS Klingons operated!

 

[Shawnster]

It's threads like this one asks the hard questions, I can't think, for the life of me, a reason why the Romulans would use Klingon ships... with a cloaking device. The new writing team of the 3rd season didn't do their homework on how inferior that device was. Now it seems the device can do things which would make a ship invincible.

I can't imagine why the Klingons would have an alliance with the Romulans???

I'm actually digging the idea the Romulans needed to quickly fill a tech void. I figure they already had shipyards, do it wasn't a lack of resources.

24th Century Romulan ships were powered by a quantum singularity. Perhaps they were beginning to research this in the 23rd Century and needed to buy ships from the Klingons to fill out the fleet until the new Romulan ships came online.

Why is it so hard to believe that the Romulans had improved their cloaking device since "Balance of Terror"?

Actually, they did improve it after BoT. That is why Kirk had to steal one in Enterprise Incident. It was so new and improved that even the Romulans couldn't track a ship with such a cloak.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, they did improve it after BoT. That is why Kirk had to steal one in Enterprise Incident.

Yup. Spock said as much in the episode -- "I believe the Romulans have developed a cloaking device which renders our tracking sensors useless."

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Actually, they did improve it after BoT. That is why Kirk had to steal one in Enterprise Incident. It was so new and improved that even the Romulans couldn't track a ship with such a cloak.

Again, I was never arguing that they didn't.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I can't imagine why the Klingons would have an alliance with the Romulans???

So, maybe the Klingons just cut a deal to get their hands on Romulan cloaking technology.

There's nothing canonical about the Klingons and Romulans being "allies" in this period, anyway. There is only, as discussed, convincing evidence of their not being blood enemies and obviously of there being conditions of some kind that would facilitate the Romulan use of Klingon design.

In other words, the idea that they signed some sort of technological exchange treaty which they both honored, at least for a period, is perfectly consistent with canon.

Furthermore, being parties to a treaty does not not imply an alliance. For example, the US and USSR were parties to arms control treaties, and yet they were not allies.

 

[Phaser Two]

Yeah, but she was heavily rewritten on "The Enterprise Incident," and she's been pretty upfront about being disappointed in the rewrites (to the point where she actually apologized to Leonard Nimoy on set).

Thank you; I thought I remembered this. It's honestly not a very good episode, and far beneath her talents.

 

[Samuel]

Anyone noted that the Klingon ships used by the Romulans in "The Enterprise Incident" were capable of outrunning the Enterprise even at Warp 9?

 

[Valenti]

Good catch.

 

[Phaser Two]

Anyone noted that the Klingon ships used by the Romulans in "The Enterprise Incident" were capable of outrunning the Enterprise even at Warp 9?

Right. That's yet another problem with that ep. Honestly the script is riddled with holes. I know it's fun to see Kirk acting out of character and then pretending to be a Romulan, but . . . .

 

[Masao]

When I tried to understand the ships and relationships of Trek governments, I always matched them with Cold War governments on Earth: Feds = NATO/US (Vulcans = Japan); Romulans = Red China; and Klingons = Soviets. I figured that the Fed ships were of the highest tech (as built by IBM or Boeing) but expensive; the Klingon ships were powerful but poorly built and cheaper (like Tupolev or MiG); and that the Romulan ships were artistic but fewer and ineffective. The Romulans (who had many resources) and Klingons (who had been eating up their resources to build powerful but slightly crappy ships) had been fighting each other at least since the end the Earth-Romulan War (which was sort of like the Pacific WWII, but with the Asian governments reversed). As the Federation advanced, the two enemies saw a need to become untrusted allies and share technology and resources, at least for a while. So, in trade for their resources, the Romulans are allowed to use Klingon D-7s.

 

[Samuel]

If you're going to push the late 1960s Cold War era analogy it should be noted that although the Soviets and Chinese were allied in the early 60s, in the late 60s they came to blows and its is rumored came close to a major war.

 

[Christopher]

If you're going to push the late 1960s Cold War era analogy it should be noted that although the Soviets and Chinese were allied in the early 60s, in the late 60s they came to blows and its is rumored came close to a major war.

Yeah, they hated each other. They both wanted to be the leader of the global Communist movement, and they had very different approaches to Marxism. And from China's perspective, the Soviets were just one more group of Western imperialists always trying to make everyone else do things their way. Contrary to American Cold-War paranoia and propaganda, any cooperation between the USSR and the PRC was grudging and limited, even with the West as a common enemy. Which is probably not unlike how the Klingon-Romulan alliance worked (or didn't work).

 

[Masao]

If you're going to push the late 1960s Cold War era analogy it should be noted that although the Soviets and Chinese were allied in the early 60s, in the late 60s they came to blows and its is rumored came close to a major war.

Yup. I said that the (Chinese-) Romulans and the (Soviet-) Klingons fought AND were untrusted allies. The times are slightly different between the present and the Trek, of course.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Right. That's yet another problem with that ep. Honestly the script is riddled with holes. I know it's fun to see Kirk acting out of character and then pretending to be a Romulan, but . . . .

Yeah. I honestly have never really gotten all the fascination with the Romulan Commander from that episode. IMO she's really easily duped and not a very interesting character.

 

[johnnybear]

I think the Klingons making peace with the Federation and Starfleet was the final straw for the Romulans and they broke off diplomatic ties with the Klingons over it! Especially because of their involvement in trying to broker a war between both parties and planning the murder of the Klingon leader, Gorkon! Kor spoke of taking on Romulan forces at Klach D'Kel Brakt soon after I believe, although none of it is corroborated as such!
JB

 

[Phaser Two]

Yeah. I honestly have never really gotten all the fascination with the Romulan Commander from that episode. IMO she's really easily duped and not a very interesting character.

Exactly. It's sort of hard to believe that she's a DCF female character. She fixates on Spock from the moment she first sees him on a viewscreen, and from that point forward, almost everything she does revolves around her immediate romantic/sexual fascination with him. That includes willingly committing suicide (she thinks) by grabbing him as he beams out!

And then we have this: What were Kirk and Spock going to do if the commander had been a straight male, or a gay female, or someone not willing to be instantly seduced by an enemy officer? Oof. I'll sort all this out while my turbolift car takes about two minutes to get from the bridge to Deck Two.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

And then we have this: What were Kirk and Spock going to do if the commander had been a straight male, or a gay female, or someone not willing to be instantly seduced by an enemy officer? Oof. I'll sort all this out while my turbolift car takes about two minutes to get from the bridge to Deck Two.

What if Kirk headed to that sector on intelligence that she was the commander and that she had a crush on Spock?