Starfleet/Romulan Cold War (TGTMD Spoilers)

[BrotherBenny]

Would the Romulan attack on Coridan (as from TGTMD) have instigated a Starfleet/Romulan cold war?

IMO, I would have thought that the Rommies would do everything they could to destabilise the Coalition, and when they realised that it wasn't going to happen, they decided to commit genocide against one of the Coalition members, either unaware of or irregardless of the small matter that an attack against one of the members is an attack against them all.

The probable cold war would have lasted only a year, since the Earth(Coalition?)-Romulan war takes place in 2156 and lasts 5 years, unless part of the cold war is still occurring.

Whaddya think?

 

[Christopher]

I think the next book in the series will answer the question of what happened after Coridan.

 

[Sci]

Xeris said:
Would the Romulan attack on Coridan (as from TGTMD) have instigated a Starfleet/Romulan cold war?

I think you're being awfully optimistic by presuming that the inevitable conflict between United Earth and the Romulan Star Empire will stay "cold."

BTW, it wouldn't be a conflict between Starfleet and the Romulan Star Empire, it'd be a conflict between United Earth and the RSE. Calling it a "Starfleet-Romulan war" is like calling the Cold War a "United States Army-Soviet Union" cold war. You'd want to use the names of the states involved, not the names of their military apparatus.

IMO, I would have thought that the Rommies would do everything they could to destabilise the Coalition, and when they realised that it wasn't going to happen, they decided to commit genocide against one of the Coalition members, either unaware of or irregardless of the small matter that an attack against one of the members is an attack against them all.

Well, give them some time here. The Coalition's only just started up, after all, and it's a fair distance from Romulan space. It's not like they're neighbors that they can attack on short notice.

 

[Christopher]

Sci said:
Well, give them some time here. The Coalition's only just started up, after all, and it's a fair distance from Romulan space. It's not like they're neighbors that they can attack on short notice.

I don't know about that. The Aenar trilogy showed the Romulan drone ships going from Andorian/Tellarite territory to Romulus and back within the course of a few days. Although an unmanned ship might be capable of much higher speeds than a manned one, with no power needed for life support.

 

[Sci]

Christopher said:

Sci said:
Well, give them some time here. The Coalition's only just started up, after all, and it's a fair distance from Romulan space. It's not like they're neighbors that they can attack on short notice.

I don't know about that. The Aenar trilogy showed the Romulan drone ships going from Andorian/Tellarite territory to Romulus and back within the course of a few days. Although an unmanned ship might be capable of much higher speeds than a manned one, with no power needed for life support.

The Aenar trilogy also referred to Romulus as being a great distance from Andorian/Tellarite space -- as did The Good That Men Do. And Romulus is a comparatively huge distance away in Star Charts compared to the distances of most other planets seen by Our Heroes in the 22nd Century.

 

[Christopher]

Doesn't that underline my point? If Andorian and Tellarite space are farther from Romulus than Earth is, and a Romulan ship could get to their territory from Romulus in mere days, then the Romulans certainly could attack human space on short notice.

 

[Skywalker]

Okay, I'm a fan of ENT, but didn't they also say that Qo'noS was only two days away from Earth at less than Warp Five?

 

[Sci]

Christopher said:
Doesn't that underline my point? If Andorian and Tellarite space are farther from Romulus than Earth is, and a Romulan ship could get to their territory from Romulus in mere days, then the Romulans certainly could attack human space on short notice.

I'm not so sure. For one, as you note, those ships don't have to deal with life support requirements, so there's a lot of energy that can be re-directed to propulsion and weaponry. There's also the fact that that's only two ships; for an attack on Coalition population centers that would get past local defenses, you'd either need a suicide run (as was done in The Good That Men Do or an overwhelmingly large fleet capable of defeating local defenses. And the Aenar trilogy seems to imply rather strongly that the RSE has not gotten itself mobilized for a large conventional conflict, instead favoring covert manipulations of other states.

 

[Ronald Held]

Perhaps the short times are due to the warp corridors that faciliate rapid transits. With enough use, they get "worn out" and the transit times become much longer?

 

[Christopher]

Randy1012 said:
Okay, I'm a fan of ENT, but didn't they also say that Qo'noS was only two days away from Earth at less than Warp Five?

Four days.

 

[foravalon]

Ronald Held said:
Perhaps the short times are due to the warp corridors that faciliate rapid transits. With enough use, they get "worn out" and the transit times become much longer?

what?

 

[Timo]

...Just out of interest and ignorance, did we really see the droneship depart Romulus and reach the battlefields in a couple of days in the Aenar trilogy? Or did we merely see the droneship arrive at its hunting grounds a few days after the command was given? What I mean is that the ship could have been predeployed at the operating theater well in advance of actual use.

And yes, uncrewed vessels seem to be much faster in Trek than manned ones, as evidenced by Friendship One...

Looking forward to reading further parts of the unfolding story. Heck, looking forward to reading TGTMD, actually.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Skywalker]

Christopher said:

Randy1012 said:
Okay, I'm a fan of ENT, but didn't they also say that Qo'noS was only two days away from Earth at less than Warp Five?

Four days.

Four days, thank you. Isn't that still pretty darn close?

 

[Christopher]

^^It is a truism of Star Trek that starships travel at the Speed of Plot. It takes as long to get from one place to another as the story requires. The original script to "Broken Bow" postulated a four-week journey from Earth to Qo'noS, but the decision was made on-set to change it to four days because it was felt that fit the story better.

 

[BrotherBenny]

That is immeasurably stupid. All that would have been needed is Archer saying, "four weeks there and four weeks, then she's gone" to Trip and the plot carries from there. one word should not make that much difference - note that I say "should" not when I know that it does. Damned suits.

 

[Christopher]

^^I don't think so. Given the flow of events in the story, it's a bit hard to believe that it would've taken a whole month. The characters would've had more time to get to know each other, get past their initial tensions, and so forth. Maybe four days is a little brief, but four weeks would've been too much.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Christopher said:
^^I don't think so. Given the flow of events in the story, it's a bit hard to believe that it would've taken a whole month. The characters would've had more time to get to know each other, get past their initial tensions, and so forth. Maybe four days is a little brief, but four weeks would've been too much.

Yes well, I enjoyed ENT for what it was but the TCW was a poor plot. The flow of events in BB was a little far fetched anyway. If Qo'noS and Earth were really that close, there would have been a lot more fighting in the 23rd and 24th centuries and it would have been the Klingons fighting Earth rather than the Romulans. The "four days at warp five" is IMO one of the biggest continuity pitfalls from the series.

 

[Christopher]

No worse than the center of the galaxy being 20 minutes away in ST V, or DS9 suddenly being only days away from Earth in "Paradise Lost" after having been established as a frontier station. If it was that close, how come we never even met the Cardassians until the early 24th century? For that matter, if Ferenginar is within a week of DS9 and DS9 is within a week of Earth, how come we didn't meet the Ferengi until the late 24th century?

Then there's the Enterprise-E making it from the Romulan border to Earth in what seemed like minutes in First Contact. Not to mention the SS Valiant in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" somehow reaching the edge of the galaxy in the mid-21st century with primitive warp engines.

Like I said, speed of plot. This kind of storytelling shortcut has been part of Star Trek from the beginning, so there's no reason to single ENT out for criticism on this point. It's not even the worst offender.

 

[JD]

Christopher said:
No worse than the center of the galaxy being 20 minutes away in ST V, or DS9 suddenly being only days away from Earth in "Paradise Lost" after having been established as a frontier station. If it was that close, how come we never even met the Cardassians until the early 24th century? For that matter, if Ferenginar is within a week of DS9 and DS9 is within a week of Earth, how come we didn't meet the Ferengi until the late 24th century?

Actually, we did meet the Ferengi in the 22nd Century. I haven't actually seen it my self, but there is the Ent episode Acquisition, where a group of Ferengi maurauders take over the NX-01. From what MA says, they apparently got away with it by never identifing the Ferengi. So I guess you could still say that we didn't officially meet them 'till the 24th cent.

 

[Ronald Held]

Unfortunately speed of plot overrides any technical considerations of velocity and displacement.