so, do they know about the Rommies now?

[Islander]

Where does it say that nobody knew about the Romulan in TOS? Kirk once boarded a Romulan ship to steal a cloacking device, he didn't go "OMG, they look like freaking Vulcans!". Not anyone ever having seen a Romulan just denotes how isolationists they are, it doesn't mean they don't know who they are and what they look like.

Before you site me the Enterprise episode where T'Pol didn't recognize the ship, she just didn't recognize the ship. If they had a viewscreen communication with that ship she probably would have said "OMG, you changed your ships!".

As far as Nero's ear, Rura Penthe probably took care of that. Either that or he's an Evander Hollyfield's fan.

 

[Franklin]

Nero's missing part of an ear - the rest of the Romulans have pointed ears (as did Nero when he first encountered the Kelvin). That Nero's missing ear had something to do with hiding his resemblance to a Vulcan was speculation.

They know all about the Romulans and Vulcans.

He had what looked like bite marks on his head, too. Probably the cropped ear and those other scars would've been explained by the cut scene with the Klingons.

As it is, I guess the audience had to surmise that he didn't age gracefully over those 25 years.

 

[Uncle Pennybags]

I don't even recall Old Spock telling Kirk anything along those lines in the mind-meld. Spock just went off to help some aliens called "Romulans" whose planet was going to be destroyed. They didn't necessarily have to be related to Vulcans for Spock to do that.

Old Spock told Kirk that he was working with some Romulans on reunification. I'm pretty sure the mind meld would have made that obvious that Romulans and Vulcans were basically one and the same.

Plus, I don't think its a secret that Old Spock would keep to himself, now that he's back in the past.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Nero's ear was bit off by a Klingon, JJ. cut out a whole Nero backstory which would have made the movie a lot better and not so confusing. He cut this scene in favor of the young Kirk scene being chased by the Cop. Poor decision IMO. I think Kirk shouldve been introduced in the bar alone. I would assume that now the FED. does now know about the Rommies.

 

[Kirk the Jerk]

I always thought the Federation knew of the Romulans but never saw them until that Famous TOS episode (I forget the name). Didn't they have a war around the time of 'Enterprise'? Around 2169? I always thought they'd be a new movie based on that, what with the cancelation of Enterprise I thought it would be fitting to do one based on that.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

In the original Timeline, the Romulans had not been seen or heard from in about 100 years, and nobody had seen the face of a Romulan, so nobody knew what they looked like.

This was until Balance of Terror, when a Romulan ship with a powerful disruptor weapon and a cloaking device decided to cross the neutral zone to test the Federation after a long absense.

With the new timeline, the Romulans came back in time and attacked the Kelvin.

At the time of the attack, nobody knew they were romulans. Presumably the numerous escaping shuttles, or telemetry from the attack, found something that identified the Narada as a Romulan ship (Markings of some kind, perhaps).

So by the Time Kirk had grown up, the ship was known as a Romulan vessel.

 

[Kirk the Jerk]

^ That just about sums it up i guess...

 

[pookha]

In the original Timeline, the Romulans had not been seen or heard from in about 100 years, and nobody had seen the face of a Romulan, so nobody knew what they looked like.

This was until Balance of Terror, when a Romulan ship with a powerful disruptor weapon and a cloaking device decided to cross the neutral zone to test the Federation after a long absense.

With the new timeline, the Romulans came back in time and attacked the Kelvin.

At the time of the attack, nobody knew they were romulans. Presumably the numerous escaping shuttles, or telemetry from the attack, found something that identified the Narada as a Romulan ship (Markings of some kind, perhaps).

So by the Time Kirk had grown up, the ship was known as a Romulan vessel.

what the bridge crew was federation standard.
but i suspect a mining crew would have been speaking romulan.
so all they would have to do is compare the original language tapes ..
and as for what orci said there are some differences in romulan star drives.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Where does it say that nobody knew about the Romulan in TOS? Kirk once boarded a Romulan ship to steal a cloacking device, he didn't go "OMG, they look like freaking Vulcans!". Not anyone ever having seen a Romulan just denotes how isolationists they are, it doesn't mean they don't know who they are and what they look like.

They didn't know about the connection between Vulcans and Romulans until "Balance of Terror." But yeah everyone knew the Romulans were antagonists. That doesn't mean much for future plotlines because the galaxy is chock full of antagonistic aliens.

The fact that the Romulans have a personal beef with the Vulcans (and now vice versa) is what has serious implications for Starfleet's strategy - if they don't know about the connection, they might just assume Romulans are just another Bad Alien Empire.

BobOrci: Survivors and telemetry from the Kelvin exposed the federation to Romulans earlier than would’ve occurred otherwise.

Everyone should read the Orci Q&A.

I'm lazy and this frakkin forum is more than enough work. Does he explain why Starfleet got the connection? (Romulan tech is suspiciously similar to Vulcan tech?)

Also, I think the fact that the Romulans are specifically descendents of the anti-Surak crowd is a key notion for Starfleet to learn because that's what explains the Romulans' actions.

Also, I am a purist and still believe that anything important to a story must be ON THE SCREEN which is why I refuse to read blogs or watch podcasts or any of that stuff on general principle.

Young Spock said in the movie "Romulans and Vulcan share a common ancestry..."

Whoah I totally missed that line. Gotta pay more attention the next time I see it (which will be soon - rather see Star Trek again than any of the other movies currently in theaters).

I think it's safe to assume the Vulcans know the history of the Romulans from up to 2,000 years ago, then during the Romulan War, and again after the Kelvin attack.

Well they better not, the big liars. Because before the Kelvin attack, the timeline was the original TOS one and the Vulcans sure didn't tell their Terran allies the truth about the Romulans when they were fighting em in that Earth-Romulan War.

It's been my longstanding suspicion that some Vulcan mucky-mucks did indeed know or at least made an educated guess. They just didn't trust their emotionally unstable human allies with such a potentially disruptive revelation. After all, if the Romulans can act that way, should humans really trust Vulcans? They might start to wonder if all that logic stuff is just a mask concealing something a lot more dangerous. That is getting way too close to the truth.

I'm pretty sure the mind meld would have made that obvious that Romulans and Vulcans were basically one and the same.

If the writers wanted us to conclude that, they should have had some kind of confirmation - visual or voice-over. Spock could have selectively allowed Kirk to know only what he wanted him to know. Or maybe he didn't think that detail was particularly germane.

At the time of the attack, nobody knew they were romulans. Presumably the numerous escaping shuttles, or telemetry from the attack, found something that identified the Narada as a Romulan ship (Markings of some kind, perhaps).

So by the Time Kirk had grown up, the ship was known as a Romulan vessel.

They know that the Kelvin was attacked by a Romulan vessel, but what about the attack specifically let them know that the Romulans were the descendants of the anti-Surak Vulcans from 2000 years ago?

Really the fact that Romulans are bad aliens who attack Starfleet isn't the thing that interests me. Everyone knows that. Knowing why the Romulans are doing this is the interesting thing - if Starfleet knew their origins, their motives would no longer be a mystery.

Of course the Naruda is no help there, since Nero's motives had nothing directly to do with the main conflict between Romulans and Vulcans. He could just as well have been a Klingon in the same scenario (which is one disappointing thing about the movie - why not use the elements that make Romulans unique?)

but i suspect a mining crew would have been speaking romulan.

That wouldn't help them, unless they realized that Romulan and Vulcan are very similar languages. And that would be a problem, because then why didn't humans during the Earth-Romulan war ever notice the linguistic similarities and draw the obvious conclusion? Are we supposed to believe not only that they never saw a Romulan's face but never heard any of them speak, saw a scrap of their writing, anything like that?

 

[pookha]

if they connected the narada with romulans through language , telemetery of the ship, ect the fact that the crew of the narada looked vulcan must have been pretty interesting.

add in going back to enterprise there were some similarities between the vulcan and romulan languages,..

2 and 2 starts adding up fast..

 

[Temis the Vorta]

So nobody heard the Romulan language during all of the Earth-Romulan War? Well okay I guess. Kind of an anticlimatic way for the truth to come out.

 

[pookha]

So nobody heard the Romulan language during all of the Earth-Romulan War? Well okay I guess. Kind of an anticlimatic way for the truth to come out.

uh you missed the point,, yeah they heard the language..
but there may be other other languages that are also similar.
so while it maybe raised flags and questions there was enough difference between the romulans in vulcans in things like behavour and philisophy
that without other evidence the similarity in language might have been mostly lost in the background of the excitment of the end of the war and the founding of the federation.

but now with the kelvin not only do the they have the language issue they also have seen a person who looks like a vulcan.
similarity to vulcan language and even looks vulcan.

so i suspect there were a lot of interesting discussions between different parties after the kelvin incident just like i suspect there were a lot of interesting discussions after the revaltion in balance of terror.


does this make more sense??