(Lore Note: My reboot-verse is intended to be something of a soft-reboot for Trek, staying very close to Prime Canon but fleshing out things more, but also changing things here and there. So if you see something and you think "That's not what happened"... it didn't, but it does here. There are small changes and big changes, you'll see as it goes along. The story is told as more of a historical overview rather than narrative-style.)
Prelude to War
Unbeknownst to those at the time, through the 21st century onward, the Romulan Empire had infiltrated every level of the Vulcan High Command. Initially, the Romulans viewed it as a straightforward coup attempt to bring their ancient homeworld into their empire, but saw an opportunity to weaken their galactic neighbors and strengthen their position.
The Romulans subtly guided various decisions made by the Vulcans. Their agents stoked hostilities with the Andorians, locking the two people into on-and-off wars as well as generally alienating other potential ally powers. The Romulans mirrored Vulcan concerns about the arrival of Earth onto the galactic scene, working to increase fears and attempt to slow down the young planets development.
Inciting increased tensions with the Andorians was a simple task, given that the two had been at odds with each other for centuries. The Romulans saw an opportunity to keep two of the potentially greatest threats to them mired in war and weakening their forces. These on-and-off skirmishes continue into the 2150's, greatly straining the military forces of both.
The Tellarites began to expand their territory in the 2140's, looking to an area of space that had been largely unexplored and thus deemed rife for expansion. There had no power who seemed to lay claim on the space, however the Tellarites found vessels they sent into the region to come under attack often. Stubborn as they tended to be, the Tellarites did not let this stop them, and they continued to send vessels in to chart and claim the territory. By the onset of the 2150's, the Tellarites found themselves apparently at war with an unknown enemy. Their adversaries were completely non-communicative, and with no one to negotiate with, the Tellarites simply continued on.
In 2152, the Vulcan/Andorian cold war turned temporarily hot over the planet Weytahn, long contested by both. A brief but bloody battle broke out, including a massive ground operation by both sides. Eventually, the humans of Earth intervened and help bring about a peaceful solution, but the quick and intense battle wreaked havoc on the Vulcan and Andorian forces.
While unrelated to the Romulan War, the Romulan Empire was nevertheless delighted when Earth was attacked by the Xindi. Unfortunately for the Romulans, the conflict did not play out as they had hoped and within the year, Earth had not only resolved their conflict with the Xindi, but forged closer bonds with both the Vulcans and Andorians, as well as the Tellarites.
With the increased cooperation between several of the local powers, the Romulans stepped up their attempts to disrupt peace between them. Utilizing sophisticated drone vessels with the ability to mimic sensor readings of different vessels, the Romulans staged a number of false flag attacks intended to bring the powers into conflict. Not only were these attacks unsuccessful, they backfired on the Romulans, as the powers cooperated even more closely to thwart their attempts and forged even closer bonds due to it. With the massive failure of the operation and several domestic changes to Vulcan society, the Romulan agents withdrew entirely from Vulcan.
With the announcement of the Coalition of Planets, the Romulans felt as if they were backed into a corner. They no could no longer rely on clandestine tactics and refocused their efforts on military resistance. Their shadow-war with the Tellarites escalated intensely, overwhelming the Tellarite fleet and sieging Tellar in 2155. The Tellarites now knew who their enemy was, and the Romulan War had begun.
While many humans refer to the conflict as the "Earth/Romulan War", others tend to simply refer to it as the "Romulan War". The war had truly begun a decade prior, before most in the galaxy knew that a Romulan Empire even existed. With the siege of Tellar, that all changed and the Coalition was called for assistance.
Initially hesitant to commit forces, the Andorians changed their mind when news of the Romulans tactics reached them. There was no planetary invasion, the Romulans simply rained nuclear fire down upon the planet, bombarding it from orbit. With the Tellarites in shambles, the next logical move for the Romulans was towards Andorian space.
Putting past hostilities aside, the Vulcans sent the bulk of their fleet to assist in Andorian space. Earth committed to join the war effort, but could only offer limited support given the state of their fleet. The other Coalition members could sense a sleeping giant in Earth, and dispatched scientists, engineers, and all manner of support to Earth to accelerate their development and production capability in a complete reversal of how many had treated Earth up until that point.
With the Xindi attack still fresh on their mind and already having turned an eye towards military production, the onset of the Romulan War put United Earth to the test. The planet united like never before, turning nearly the entire industrial capacity of Earth to war production. Through the remained of 2155, the remaining planned NX-Class vessels were rushed to completion, and many existing vessels were quickly retrofitted to be able to get into the fight. By 2156, Earth was able to fully commit to joining the war, and many humans consider this to be the beginning of the war itself.
The NCC-Class / "Daedalus-Class"
Although the NX-Class were formidable vessels, Earth needed to take a different approach. Those vessels were designed as explorers, with cutting edge technology that wasn't really necessary on a combat vessel. They were expensive and difficult to produce. With the help of their Coalition advisors, Earth was able to rapidly design and produce a prototype of a new vessel, designed to be cheap, easy to mass produce, able to operated with a skeleton crew to get as many vessels into combat as possible.
The first Nuclear Combat Cruiser, NCC-100 Daedalus launched in early 2156. The vessel was in some ways a step forward, in some a step back. While the NX-Class vessels were armed with cutting edge phase cannons and photonic torpedoes, those weapon systems were still largely experimental and expensive. The NCC-Class eschewed the exotic weaponry in favor of time tested, tried and true nuclear weaponry, along with several laser batteries.
The NCC-Class, quickly called Daedalus-Class by most, were small, cramped vessels with much of their internal volume dedicated to the nuclear warhead storage and delivery systems. The basic spaceframe actually harkened back to a design by the now-defunct United States Space Force as a next-generation space vessel, the large spherical habitation structure being the giveaway of the designs origin. The Daedalus, in its initial iteration, could comfortably sustain Warp 4.2. Fast enough to get into the battle, but was never expected to set any speed records. The NCC/Daedalus-Class were largely seen as nearly disposable weapons platforms, capable of being manned with as little as 12 crew.
With the full industrial capacity of Earth dedicated to constructing NCC-Class vessels, the ships began to flood out of Earth by mid-late-2156. The design was simplistic and adaptable enough that Earth had freely shared schematics with Coalition allies, who began to produce them themselves, depending on what industrial infrastructure they still had available. Throughout the war, it was not uncommon to see "Frankenstein" NCC-Class vessels, with a mishmash of alien systems somehow all working together, based on whatever was available or salvaged from down vessels.
While vessels like the Earth NX-Class, Vulcan Suurok, and Andorian Kumari were more capable vessels in nearly every way, the Nuclear Combat Cruiser became the mainline vessel of the war and the key to the victory of the Coalition, providing a counter to the Romulans previous advantage of vast numbers.
2156-on
After Tellar, the Romulans moved to Andor and repeated the atrocities there. The Andorian Imperial Guard was unable to hold out even with Vulcan support. The Romulans engaged in a terrible orbital bombardment, just as they did to Tellar. As United Earth vessels began to rapidly reinforce the battle lines, the Romulans were largely stopped on their way to Vulcan space. However while Vulcan itself was largely spared, many of its outlying colonies and infrastructure succumbed to Romulan attacks.
The Coalition had been at a disadvantage the entire time as they were not even sure where Romulan space even was. Several vessels attempt to scout into the suspected region, but often came under heavy fire. NX-02 Columbia made a critical discovery of an inhabited Romulan world with a vast industrial infrastructure. By 2158, the war had been nearly entirely defensive, with the Coalition unable to mount any real offensive.
Several attempts were made to contact Romulan leadership to discuss an end to the war, but messages were never acknowledged or returned. Eventually, so broadcasts over subspace audio-only radio were replied to, but only with simple goads and threats. It became clear to everyone that a peaceful solution was just not going to happen.
As 2159 began, the Coalition laid out their plan for their major offensive to take the planet Charon away from the Romulans. A major push was made, the Coalition forces taking heavy loses as they moved through the Romulan battle lines. Eventually they succeeded in reaching Charon and decimated the Romulan fleet protecting it. The question came up of what exactly to do now that they had control of the space around Charon. The Andorians demanded retribution, to orbitally bombard Charon into nothingness. Earth stood against that and instead suggested they follow the original plan despite the monumental losses, a ground invasion of the world.
As transport ships amassed untold numbers of troops from the Coalition worlds, a message was received over subspace radio. Once again audio-only, but the Romulans were willing to talk. The negotiations took some time, with the Romulans still being unwilling to meet in person or even through visual communications. The entire treaty was established over subspace radio, ending the war and creating a demilitarized neutral zone between the two, along what was presumed to be the Romulan border.
In 2160, the treaty was agreed upon and the war officially came to a close. It was now time to rebuild from the devastation of the world. Tellar and Andor were hit the hardest, having sustained heavy nuclear bombardment and a near total lack of all infrastructure. Vulcan was not hit directly, but lost many of its colonies and support structures. Earth, having been the furthest from the Romulans, emerged relatively unscathed. The balance of power in the Coalition had changed. Earth had previously been the newcomer, less advanced with pitiful capabilities compared to the other powers, but was now in possession of the largest fleet in the region and an immense industrial capacity. The Coalition powers, somewhat begrudgingly, looked to Earth to help recover.
As quickly as Earth had converted to war production, it shifted to humanitarian aid and rebuilding their allies worlds. The mighty Daedalus fleet was also quickly converted away from a wartime stance to dedicate to the recovery efforts, the nuclear warhead payloads being replaced with all manner of supplies to assist Earth's allies. With no precedent for such an undertaking, and the Coalition working slowly through political channels, Earth Starfleet took it upon itself to administrate the recovery efforts.
While appreciative of the support Starfleet had given during the war and its dedication to helping their worlds, the idea of Earth's military being entirely in charge of the recovery efforts did not sit entirely well with some. The Andorians and Tellarites shared concerns that Earth could exert its power to dominate their worlds, with no oversight to stop them. United Earth leadership worked diligently to reassure their allies that they had no intention of doing so, but the fact of the matter remained that Starfleet held the power.
United Earth wanted to show that they had no intention of abusing their newfound power and reintroduced an idea that had been briefly discussed among the Coalition members but ultimately dismissed to further strengthen ties and bring the worlds closer together through a stronger centralized organization. Rather than simply continue on as an alliance of worlds, the idea would propose the worlds align into a Federation. What had been dismissed outright a scant few years ago was now up for serious debate in the Coalition. Reorganizing their worlds into a federation suddenly became an attractive way to facilitate the rebuilding of their worlds.
The Birth of the Federation - To Be Continued
Prelude to War
Unbeknownst to those at the time, through the 21st century onward, the Romulan Empire had infiltrated every level of the Vulcan High Command. Initially, the Romulans viewed it as a straightforward coup attempt to bring their ancient homeworld into their empire, but saw an opportunity to weaken their galactic neighbors and strengthen their position.
The Romulans subtly guided various decisions made by the Vulcans. Their agents stoked hostilities with the Andorians, locking the two people into on-and-off wars as well as generally alienating other potential ally powers. The Romulans mirrored Vulcan concerns about the arrival of Earth onto the galactic scene, working to increase fears and attempt to slow down the young planets development.
Inciting increased tensions with the Andorians was a simple task, given that the two had been at odds with each other for centuries. The Romulans saw an opportunity to keep two of the potentially greatest threats to them mired in war and weakening their forces. These on-and-off skirmishes continue into the 2150's, greatly straining the military forces of both.
The Tellarites began to expand their territory in the 2140's, looking to an area of space that had been largely unexplored and thus deemed rife for expansion. There had no power who seemed to lay claim on the space, however the Tellarites found vessels they sent into the region to come under attack often. Stubborn as they tended to be, the Tellarites did not let this stop them, and they continued to send vessels in to chart and claim the territory. By the onset of the 2150's, the Tellarites found themselves apparently at war with an unknown enemy. Their adversaries were completely non-communicative, and with no one to negotiate with, the Tellarites simply continued on.
In 2152, the Vulcan/Andorian cold war turned temporarily hot over the planet Weytahn, long contested by both. A brief but bloody battle broke out, including a massive ground operation by both sides. Eventually, the humans of Earth intervened and help bring about a peaceful solution, but the quick and intense battle wreaked havoc on the Vulcan and Andorian forces.
While unrelated to the Romulan War, the Romulan Empire was nevertheless delighted when Earth was attacked by the Xindi. Unfortunately for the Romulans, the conflict did not play out as they had hoped and within the year, Earth had not only resolved their conflict with the Xindi, but forged closer bonds with both the Vulcans and Andorians, as well as the Tellarites.
With the increased cooperation between several of the local powers, the Romulans stepped up their attempts to disrupt peace between them. Utilizing sophisticated drone vessels with the ability to mimic sensor readings of different vessels, the Romulans staged a number of false flag attacks intended to bring the powers into conflict. Not only were these attacks unsuccessful, they backfired on the Romulans, as the powers cooperated even more closely to thwart their attempts and forged even closer bonds due to it. With the massive failure of the operation and several domestic changes to Vulcan society, the Romulan agents withdrew entirely from Vulcan.
With the announcement of the Coalition of Planets, the Romulans felt as if they were backed into a corner. They no could no longer rely on clandestine tactics and refocused their efforts on military resistance. Their shadow-war with the Tellarites escalated intensely, overwhelming the Tellarite fleet and sieging Tellar in 2155. The Tellarites now knew who their enemy was, and the Romulan War had begun.
While many humans refer to the conflict as the "Earth/Romulan War", others tend to simply refer to it as the "Romulan War". The war had truly begun a decade prior, before most in the galaxy knew that a Romulan Empire even existed. With the siege of Tellar, that all changed and the Coalition was called for assistance.
Initially hesitant to commit forces, the Andorians changed their mind when news of the Romulans tactics reached them. There was no planetary invasion, the Romulans simply rained nuclear fire down upon the planet, bombarding it from orbit. With the Tellarites in shambles, the next logical move for the Romulans was towards Andorian space.
Putting past hostilities aside, the Vulcans sent the bulk of their fleet to assist in Andorian space. Earth committed to join the war effort, but could only offer limited support given the state of their fleet. The other Coalition members could sense a sleeping giant in Earth, and dispatched scientists, engineers, and all manner of support to Earth to accelerate their development and production capability in a complete reversal of how many had treated Earth up until that point.
With the Xindi attack still fresh on their mind and already having turned an eye towards military production, the onset of the Romulan War put United Earth to the test. The planet united like never before, turning nearly the entire industrial capacity of Earth to war production. Through the remained of 2155, the remaining planned NX-Class vessels were rushed to completion, and many existing vessels were quickly retrofitted to be able to get into the fight. By 2156, Earth was able to fully commit to joining the war, and many humans consider this to be the beginning of the war itself.
The NCC-Class / "Daedalus-Class"
Although the NX-Class were formidable vessels, Earth needed to take a different approach. Those vessels were designed as explorers, with cutting edge technology that wasn't really necessary on a combat vessel. They were expensive and difficult to produce. With the help of their Coalition advisors, Earth was able to rapidly design and produce a prototype of a new vessel, designed to be cheap, easy to mass produce, able to operated with a skeleton crew to get as many vessels into combat as possible.
The first Nuclear Combat Cruiser, NCC-100 Daedalus launched in early 2156. The vessel was in some ways a step forward, in some a step back. While the NX-Class vessels were armed with cutting edge phase cannons and photonic torpedoes, those weapon systems were still largely experimental and expensive. The NCC-Class eschewed the exotic weaponry in favor of time tested, tried and true nuclear weaponry, along with several laser batteries.
The NCC-Class, quickly called Daedalus-Class by most, were small, cramped vessels with much of their internal volume dedicated to the nuclear warhead storage and delivery systems. The basic spaceframe actually harkened back to a design by the now-defunct United States Space Force as a next-generation space vessel, the large spherical habitation structure being the giveaway of the designs origin. The Daedalus, in its initial iteration, could comfortably sustain Warp 4.2. Fast enough to get into the battle, but was never expected to set any speed records. The NCC/Daedalus-Class were largely seen as nearly disposable weapons platforms, capable of being manned with as little as 12 crew.
With the full industrial capacity of Earth dedicated to constructing NCC-Class vessels, the ships began to flood out of Earth by mid-late-2156. The design was simplistic and adaptable enough that Earth had freely shared schematics with Coalition allies, who began to produce them themselves, depending on what industrial infrastructure they still had available. Throughout the war, it was not uncommon to see "Frankenstein" NCC-Class vessels, with a mishmash of alien systems somehow all working together, based on whatever was available or salvaged from down vessels.
While vessels like the Earth NX-Class, Vulcan Suurok, and Andorian Kumari were more capable vessels in nearly every way, the Nuclear Combat Cruiser became the mainline vessel of the war and the key to the victory of the Coalition, providing a counter to the Romulans previous advantage of vast numbers.
2156-on
After Tellar, the Romulans moved to Andor and repeated the atrocities there. The Andorian Imperial Guard was unable to hold out even with Vulcan support. The Romulans engaged in a terrible orbital bombardment, just as they did to Tellar. As United Earth vessels began to rapidly reinforce the battle lines, the Romulans were largely stopped on their way to Vulcan space. However while Vulcan itself was largely spared, many of its outlying colonies and infrastructure succumbed to Romulan attacks.
The Coalition had been at a disadvantage the entire time as they were not even sure where Romulan space even was. Several vessels attempt to scout into the suspected region, but often came under heavy fire. NX-02 Columbia made a critical discovery of an inhabited Romulan world with a vast industrial infrastructure. By 2158, the war had been nearly entirely defensive, with the Coalition unable to mount any real offensive.
Several attempts were made to contact Romulan leadership to discuss an end to the war, but messages were never acknowledged or returned. Eventually, so broadcasts over subspace audio-only radio were replied to, but only with simple goads and threats. It became clear to everyone that a peaceful solution was just not going to happen.
As 2159 began, the Coalition laid out their plan for their major offensive to take the planet Charon away from the Romulans. A major push was made, the Coalition forces taking heavy loses as they moved through the Romulan battle lines. Eventually they succeeded in reaching Charon and decimated the Romulan fleet protecting it. The question came up of what exactly to do now that they had control of the space around Charon. The Andorians demanded retribution, to orbitally bombard Charon into nothingness. Earth stood against that and instead suggested they follow the original plan despite the monumental losses, a ground invasion of the world.
As transport ships amassed untold numbers of troops from the Coalition worlds, a message was received over subspace radio. Once again audio-only, but the Romulans were willing to talk. The negotiations took some time, with the Romulans still being unwilling to meet in person or even through visual communications. The entire treaty was established over subspace radio, ending the war and creating a demilitarized neutral zone between the two, along what was presumed to be the Romulan border.
In 2160, the treaty was agreed upon and the war officially came to a close. It was now time to rebuild from the devastation of the world. Tellar and Andor were hit the hardest, having sustained heavy nuclear bombardment and a near total lack of all infrastructure. Vulcan was not hit directly, but lost many of its colonies and support structures. Earth, having been the furthest from the Romulans, emerged relatively unscathed. The balance of power in the Coalition had changed. Earth had previously been the newcomer, less advanced with pitiful capabilities compared to the other powers, but was now in possession of the largest fleet in the region and an immense industrial capacity. The Coalition powers, somewhat begrudgingly, looked to Earth to help recover.
As quickly as Earth had converted to war production, it shifted to humanitarian aid and rebuilding their allies worlds. The mighty Daedalus fleet was also quickly converted away from a wartime stance to dedicate to the recovery efforts, the nuclear warhead payloads being replaced with all manner of supplies to assist Earth's allies. With no precedent for such an undertaking, and the Coalition working slowly through political channels, Earth Starfleet took it upon itself to administrate the recovery efforts.
While appreciative of the support Starfleet had given during the war and its dedication to helping their worlds, the idea of Earth's military being entirely in charge of the recovery efforts did not sit entirely well with some. The Andorians and Tellarites shared concerns that Earth could exert its power to dominate their worlds, with no oversight to stop them. United Earth leadership worked diligently to reassure their allies that they had no intention of doing so, but the fact of the matter remained that Starfleet held the power.
United Earth wanted to show that they had no intention of abusing their newfound power and reintroduced an idea that had been briefly discussed among the Coalition members but ultimately dismissed to further strengthen ties and bring the worlds closer together through a stronger centralized organization. Rather than simply continue on as an alliance of worlds, the idea would propose the worlds align into a Federation. What had been dismissed outright a scant few years ago was now up for serious debate in the Coalition. Reorganizing their worlds into a federation suddenly became an attractive way to facilitate the rebuilding of their worlds.
The Birth of the Federation - To Be Continued
