^Alright, I have to expand on some of the questions and comment on the answers.
First off, with "A Less Perfect Union", that story takes place in a universe that diverged from the main timeline shortly after the events of "Demons/Terra Prime", with Earth adopting a human-only philosophy.
The reason for the Romulan decision to wage war was the combination of rapid human expansion and human-fostered inter-species integration. The Romulan Star Empire was a larger and more developed civilization than Earth's sphere in the mid-22nd century, and arguably the natural hegemon of this part of the galaxy. Earth, by becoming so big so quickly and by bringing together different rival species, was a threat. In "A Less Perfect Union", Earth's failure to join the emergent Federation is the thing that prevented the Romulans from waging preventative war.
1.+2. Tomswift2002 and rfmcdpei right back at you. You have to remember that both the Romulan incidents happened before the timelines split, the Romulans showed themselves to be belligerent. Also do not forget all the Romulan agents in the Security ministry on Vulcan.
If we take the primary reasons of the Romulan War as the rise of Earth and the growing interstellar cooperation at face value, you have to realize that they were equally of value in “A Less Perfect Union”. I may be biased from the 23rd century view, where we see Earth strong as ever and a union of different races in the Intestellar Coallition, so why did the Romulans not intervene. I concede that these 2 sides stood primarily against each other, so the Romulans may have played in the shadows. It is just, that there are at least 3 known timelines where the Romulan War happened even though Earth was not a player in those timelines.
Which timelines were these?
United Earth and the Interstellar Coalition were strong, and could cooperate, but were equally rivals with an often-tense relationship. Separately, they weren't the potentially overwhelming threat that led to Romulan intervention. Am I correct in remembering that "A Less Perfect Union" had the prospect of Romulan intervention if United Earth did join the alt-Federation?
3. This still does not answer as to for what side he was working for. Was he a Vulcan who joined the Ejhoi Ormiin of his free will, a Vulcan radical? Or an Ejhoi Ormiin spy in Tal Shiar that was sent to Vulcan?
Apparently the former.
4. Well given that they required a relative crew of one. That a drone ship was equal to a allied cruiser. That they possessed a holographic “cloaking” device and self-repair ability. I would say they were quite a powerful tool. Were they perhaps too expensive?
I suspect that cost was key. In an environment where Romulus was already openly waging war, the particular strengths of the drone ship might have been irrelevant. (The issue of finding a telepath could also be important. I don't think we've got anything on Romulan psionics.)
The description of the Battle of Cheron that we got seems clear: without alien support, first of Andorian and Klingon freelancers then of regular Andorian, Tellarite and Vulcan forces, Earth's forces would have been crushed at the Battle of Cheron. Vulcan's government expected that if the humans were defeated there, Earth would fall to the Romulans.
Perhaps a better question would be how important was the battle itself to the peace treaty. Was the peace agreement started because the Romulans lost those 81 ships and due to the bluff of Vulcans, Andorians, and Telarites re-entering the war? If I extrapolate the end result from the first part of the battle, Romulans would have won with some 10 ships remaining, would this had meant that Earth would had no chance at all? I must note that I do not trust Vulcan analysts, as they operate from inaccurate data.[/QUOTE]
Why would they operate from inaccurate data? The
humans also thought that the Battle of Cheron would be a make or break scenario for Earth, especially with most of their high-warp ships dedicated to the battle. Remaining Earth military forces would be too spread out to quickly respond to a further Romulan push, especially if the Romulans managed to bring their experimental warp 7 ships online.
Going directly to the book, the actual intervention by (regular) Andorian, Tellarite, and Vulcan military forces was most important on a symbolic level. If they hadn't intervened, then the Romulans would have been able to destroy the last ships at Cheron, including most of Earth's high-end military ships. (If no one had intervened, then the Battle of Cheron would have been a clear, if costly, Romulan victory.) More importantly, that lack of intervention would have meant that Earth was isolated, with no other local power being willing to intervene to save its civilization from an aggressive empire already responsible for billions of deaths on multiple planets including well-known Coridan Prime and Draylax. A victorious Romulus would presumably have continued transferring its larger forces to the Earth front, which would fall.
