Reunification - makes no sense?

[DGCatAniSiri]

I think Spock was looking at Reunification in the way some people look at family members - if they weren't related, you'd sever ties, but because you are, you want to make nice with them, bring them back into the fold, even if they don't want to be brought back.

This is why no other Vulcans were supporting him - it was an emotional decision that he's attempting to cover with his own logic.

 

[RobertScorpio]

^ Not in TNG. They went back and forth on that all of the time throughout TNG/DS9/VOY. Sometimes it only applies to prewarp civs. and sometimes it seems to apply to everyone.

And it really kicks in when TREK producers want to save $$$

Rob

 

[Xerxes1979]

Actually the biggest problem was the unexplainable Romulan decision to cross the neutral zone at the speed of warp 2?!

How the hell can you cross a region of space one light year wide when according to the TNG warp scale you are only going ten times the speed of light? Does Vulcan sit directly on the neutral zone border?

The Federation Concil could have spent untold weeks debating a response to the "eminent" invasion of Vulcan.

Unification Part II had many flaws



(One Edit) After watching the episode on youtube, the speed is given as warp one when crossing into the neutral zone and "low warp" when entering Federation space. Still bad writing considering it takes 8.5 hours to cross the neutral zone traveling warp 9.

 

[Anwar]

Well, the Neutral Zone IS closer to Earth and all the other Core Fed Worlds since it was established back when Warp Drive was fairly primitive compared to the rest of Trek so yeah I'd think Vulcan is pretty close to it.

 

[cultcross]

What I never really got was the point of the Vulcan ships. They're accompanied by cloaked warbirds in the episode. If cloaked warbirds can get to Vulcan anyway, why bother with the Vulcan ships? They just announce your arrival prematurely.

 

[Timo]

A scenario that almost makes sense, as presented here a couple of times already:

The fleet of "peace envoys" was there to make noise that would mask the presence of dozens of not hundreds of cloaked warships. Those warships could never make it through the closely monitored NZ on their own, since the tiniest emission where no emissions should be would give them away. But if they rode in the wake of ships that had a legitimate reason to cross the Zone, then they could get through, and could indeed occupy Vulcan with a sufficient, realistic number of troops and amount of firepower.

Naturally, old Vulcan tubs would make more noise than other vessels - and old Vulcan tubs is something that the Romulans might indeed have in their possession, either dating back to the time of the exodus (Vulcan ships are known to have remained in service for centuries, so why not millennia?), or to recent raids on Vulcan shipping. That they'd have to steal some from the Federation would be akin to the plot of "Moonraker": they quickly needed one more, and thought "what the hell, let's take one from the Feds".

However, there could be a far more sinister motivation behind the choice of ships - one that would explain much more. Perhaps the peace envoy was genuine? Perhaps Romulans stole Vulcan ships in order to lure genuine Romulan peaceniks into them, and then leaked the news to Starfleet which obediently exposed the "invasion plan" (with significant help from Spock who was given the grand tour on the plan and then allowed to escape, but also from a series of hired goons who would steal the T'Pau in as loud and blatant a manner as possible). As the result, the peaceniks were massacred right in front of the eyes of Starfleet - and the entire galaxy cheered!

It would be a win-win plan for the Romulans: if Starfleet reacted, the peaceniks would be killed, and all UFP enemies would hail the audacity of the Romulan attempt. If Starfleet didn't react, Vulcan would be conquered and held for a few days or weeks, then a retreat would be effected, and the peaceniks would be killed anyway. Political victory would go to Romulus in either case.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cultcross]

^ Now that's an interesting two parter!

 

[ambessalion]

The plan had been for a peaceful delegation...no one would have known they were soliders until it's too late if Spock hadn't said so....

 

[JoeZhang]

The plan had been for a peaceful delegation...no one would have known they were soliders until it's too late if Spock hadn't said so....

Because nobody was going to run any scans? The ships weren't going to be bordered or inspected before landing on Vulcan - the federation was simply going to allow them to fly directly to Vulcan on the basis of a video transmission that could come from anyone or anywhere?

"The video transmission says it is a peaceful mission, we must therefore accept this at face value"

"most logical".

 

[cultcross]

The plan had been for a peaceful delegation...no one would have known they were soliders until it's too late if Spock hadn't said so....

But the point is - they sent cloaked warbirds along with. If they can send warbirds to Vulcan undetected, wouldn't a much better plan have been to, you know, do that, instead of making a great big song and dance about the Romulan's appearance and likely put security on high alert?

 

[JustKate]

I enjoy it too - it could have been better, of course, but I mean, it's got Spock. How bad can it be?

Extremely bad.

I remember how excited I was waiting for this and how disappointed I was when I saw it. Even Nimoy seemed to be having an off day.

Well, I must have been having shallow days the 2-3 times I've seen it because I've always enjoyed it. (I don't mean that to sound sarcastic, by the way - I mean, it's possible that I really did have a shallow day the times I've watched it.) Maybe I just shut down my critical faculties and enjoy the ride. It's not a favorite or anything, which is sort of a shame now that I think about it since it includes Spock, but I do enjoy it. I just let all those logical inconsistencies wash right over me...at least I have up until now.

 

[Myasishchev]

It has some awesome parts. They lost the ball only when they decided they needed some kind of cosmic jeopardy plot to ratchet up interest. There was never really any need. The possibility of harm to our heroes attempting to subvert the mean Romulan government was quite enough.

 

[Anwar]

I did enjoy this story, though I was a tad disappointed with the Romulan government turning out really be some kind of military dictatorship calling itself a Senate and it being said that "The Romulans are envious of the freedoms we enjoy". I mean, wouldn't having it turn out that Romulus is a good free world where the civilians live good productive lives and they just happen to be antagonists to the Federation WITHOUT being so obviously bad be rather refreshing? I mean as it stands they never really delved deep enough into the Romulan culture anyways and they used the Military Dictatorship stuff for the Cardassians (to their benefit). Why not have the Romulans turn out NOT to also be a Military-Ruled Empire but a pleasant place that just happens to oppose the Feds?

 

[Myasishchev]

^That would raise this question: "If they're both democracies, why are they at odds with one another to the point of a cold war?"

Heck, it's hard enough to answer that question in Star Trek without the ideological conflict.

 

[Anwar]

Same reason anyone has odds with anyone else really: Difference in life values. The Romulans can be a democracy that respects its' people without having the exact same values as the Feds, perhaps they see it as okay to go around settling on worlds with native populations and interfering with their development as long as they get a new world. Maybe they just feel they have a manifest destiny (which is pretty much canon...) and the Feds are an obstacle.

You can make up anything really, without making it so obviously a "Military Empires are inherently bad for everyone including themselves!" stuff.

Note, I am not advocating a military dictatorship as an ideal government. I'm just saying there's greater story potential for Trek in an antagonist who IS a democracy and not just another fascist Empire.

 

[Praetor]

^That's pretty much the way I see the Romulans, actually, Anwar - a rather repressive democracy with Communist Chinese trappings that sees a manifest destiny for taking what they please.

 

[Myasishchev]

Same reason anyone has odds with anyone else really: Difference in life values. The Romulans can be a democracy that respects its' people without having the exact same values as the Feds, perhaps they see it as okay to go around settling on worlds with native populations and interfering with their development as long as they get a new world. Maybe they just feel they have a manifest destiny (which is pretty much canon...) and the Feds are an obstacle.

Well, I can get on board with that. Like Praetor, I've always seen some quasi-democratic aspect to the Romulan Empire. Given the Senate, it appears to be an oligarchical or aristocratic form of government--so not free or particularly accountable, but also not centralized in a single person the way a dictatorship needs to be. Communist China (again as Prae said ) is a good analogue. So is, more obviously, Rome before Sulla. I wonder if there are any such things as tribunes in the Romulan Empire? (On a less serious note, why is the leader of the Senate called a praetor, anyway? The Roman praetors, while technically senators, were just a judge or junior army commander... is there a Romulan consul? Censor? Clearly, there is no imperator... if the praetor is a dictator he should just be called the Roman word for dictator... in the original Latin, dictator.)

For what it's worth, I think there was a period where they could have gone the way you suggest with the Ferengi, turning them into a rather fearsome (and topical) ideological enemy. We all know that didn't work out for a variety of reasons, and what we've learned of their government since has not helped anyone who'd like to see them as anything but a rather one-note, if entertaining, caricature.

 

[Anwar]

The Opposing Democracy would work for the Romulans, the Cardassians would be the Military Dictatorship, the Klingons being the Space Samurais.

That leaves the Ferengi open as basically the MegaCorp enemies of Trek. Basically take something like Weyland Yutani and make them a Trek enemy/presence. They sell routes for shipping lanes, to anyone who has the money (including Pirates), they sell weapons to anyone who can afford them (thus meaning if both sides can afford, the Ferengi will keep wars going for centuries as it cuts them a profit and neither side may find out what's happening), when you make a move on them they respond by taking control of a major resource trading network you rely on so you HAVE to back off.

Basically, have their power come from everything EXCEPT military dominance.

 

[c0rnedfr0g]

I prefer to think that after Sela's repeated failures someone just humored this one last nutty plan she had just to prove to the Senate that she should be drummed out of their service and the whole thing was engineered to fail.

Yes, this makes perfect sense to me. Her plans always seemed half-baked at best. I wonder if Picard's clone in NEM was also an aborted, hair-brained Sela scheme....

 

[Myasishchev]

The Opposing Democracy would work for the Romulans, the Cardassians would be the Military Dictatorship, the Klingons being the Space Samurais.

That leaves the Ferengi open as basically the MegaCorp enemies of Trek. Basically take something like Weyland Yutani and make them a Trek enemy/presence. They sell routes for shipping lanes, to anyone who has the money (including Pirates), they sell weapons to anyone who can afford them (thus meaning if both sides can afford, the Ferengi will keep wars going for centuries as it cuts them a profit and neither side may find out what's happening), when you make a move on them they respond by taking control of a major resource trading network you rely on so you HAVE to back off.

Basically, have their power come from everything EXCEPT military dominance.

Presumably they'd still need a rather impressive military. Contractual enforcement requires force of law, which is ultimately force of arms--and the great mercantile marauders of the past (like the Ferengis' in-Farsi namesake) all significantly outgunned their less sophisticated opponents.

A germane question is if the Ferengi, at this point, actually could be rehabilitated into a non-laughable threat.

As for the Cardassians, they can't be the military dictatorship anymore, what with the complete destruction of their government. Of course in the novels we have a Romulan Empire effectively prostrated by civil war (isn't that more of a Klingon thing?), so they can't really be much of any kind of threat, ideological or otherwise.