Romulan origin question

[Timo]

How about you cut TOS some slack as it was the first defining the nature of the Star Trek universe and expectedly had some startup hickups.

Nope, not gonna do that. Not until you in turn recognize that what came later was better thought out, by that very same token. And not only that, but it actually put right what once went so horribly wrong...

It's no good trying to pretend that TOS forms some sort of a continuity that is competitive with the other Trek continuities - it's the weakest of them all as a standalone construct. But competition sounds pretty stupid anyway, as the later amendments harmonize the whole thing (by indeed cutting slack for the clueless TOS writers). Isn't that a very Roddenberrian thing to do?

There's plenty of TOS internal continuity but apparently it was easier to overwrite TOS continuity than to devote proper research to it.

Naah. Hack writers put together episodes cut-pasted from previous works and never devoted anything much to them; all the respect should go to those who later tried to make sense of the garbage.

According to this reasoning we must already have industrial nuclear fusion reactors and nuclear fusion engines for our spacecraft (tell NASA!) because we have nuclear fusion bombs...

That's one interpretation. But the episode establishes the correct interpretation early on, by making the Romulans a credible interstellar threat; later episodes merely confirm what the correct interpretation should be.

What is not credible is the Romulans suddenly achieving warp capacity for "The Deadly Years" - in the very same ships we see in this introductory episode! If warp were something so monumentally new to them, it obviously wouldn't have fitted aboard existing ships but would have called for a dedicated, clumsy inaugural design.

Not that the presence of warp nacelles on the "BoT" ship wouldn't already be a giveaway...

I presume that if - at this time in TOS - they would have had warp drive, the praetor's "proudest and finest flagship" surely would have been equipped with one.

Why? If it were superfluous to the mission, the engineers should have been shot for even suggesting adding such dead weight...

All of this is moot, though, when we accept that Scotty was wrong. Which is justifiable if our heroes think the Romulans are attacking with multiple ships, because then these could perform the multiple attacks on the outposts at such short intervals. Scotty would then only be proven wrong if the Romulans engaged warp drive during their flight home - which we don't see happen, perhaps because warp drive and cloaking aren't compatible back then yet (a close analogy to the diesel sub thing). Perhaps Scotty never learned of his error until "The Enterprise Incident"? (Probably he did get the memo somewhat earlier, though.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

When Balance of Terror was written, the idea for the Romulan Neutral Zone was that they were confined to their own Solar System like the Kzinti in Larry Niven's stories. That's what Kirk meant when he said "The neutral zone separates them from the rest of the Galaxy". Obviously, they changed their minds later on when they wanted to use the Romulans more. That's all there is to it.

Also, Scotty's line about their power being impulse only is again part of the changed premise. In BoT "Impulse" was a form of FTL that was just less powerful than Warp, it didn't mean "Sublight" just yet.

Is there a quote that mentions the writers/producers intended the Romulan Empire to be limited to two planets? Hard to be a Star Empire if you only have one star.

 

[Mysterion]

Romulans aren't a separate species. Their differences with the Vulcans are mainly cultural.

This.

The seperation hasn't been long enough for there to be anything but cultural differences between Vulcans and Romulans.

Which of course makes all the Saavik is half-Romulan hoo-hah pretty meaningless, IMO.

 

[Timo]

Hard to be a Star Empire if you only have one star.

How so? You have a star, you have an empire, what more do you need?

What might be more difficult is having glorious battles (like the Centurion and the Commander had in the past) when there's nobody to fight but fellow Romulans. But then again, the episode establishes both the violent and infighting nature of the Romulans and their Vulcanoid heritage that would give them lifespans long enough to allow for a military career before the RNZ was slapped around the Star Empire...

The seperation hasn't been long enough for there to be anything but cultural differences between Vulcans and Romulans.

Unless there were biological differences before the separation already - possibly serving as the excuse for the separation itself. After all, how do you recognize a Space Nazi, evicted from Earth in 1945 and now returning with a vengeance? By his dashing Aryan looks, of course!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

Hard to be a Star Empire if you only have one star.

How so? You have a star, you have an empire, what more do you need?

What might be more difficult is having glorious battles (like the Centurion and the Commander had in the past) when there's nobody to fight but fellow Romulans. But then again, the episode establishes both the violent and infighting nature of the Romulans and their Vulcanoid heritage that would give them lifespans long enough to allow for a military career before the RNZ was slapped around the Star Empire...

More than one star and two planets. I don't see where it established infighting among the Romulans. There would seem to be those that disagree with the Praetor's policies, but nothing to indicate that they are a movement or party in Romulan society. More like its something you keep to yourself and discuss with people you trust.

The seperation hasn't been long enough for there to be anything but cultural differences between Vulcans and Romulans.

Unless there were biological differences before the separation already - possibly serving as the excuse for the separation itself. After all, how do you recognize a Space Nazi, evicted from Earth in 1945 and now returning with a vengeance? By his dashing Aryan looks, of course!

Timo Saloniemi

How would the Space Nazi change in slightly over half a century?

 

[Anwar]

Is there a quote that mentions the writers/producers intended the Romulan Empire to be limited to two planets? Hard to be a Star Empire if you only have one star.

Kirk's line about the Neutral Zone supposed to separate their worlds from the rest of the Galaxy, I'd say.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Nothing in "All Our Yesterdays" establishes the tech level of these barbarians, though. Perhaps in 3000 BC, they are meat-eating, brother-slaying barbarians with antimatter projectors?

Sure. Why not? It almost sounds like the Vulcans back then simply acted like...well...Klingons do in the present.