Thoughts on the Romulan War, anyone?

[LutherSloan]

Wait....I thought it was canon that the Battle of Cheron was the last and decisive battle of the Earth/Romulan War which resulted in the Romulans giving up their territorial ambitions and staying behind the Neutral Zone. I'm pretty sure that it was mentioned that earlier in the war, things were going badly for Earth, to the point where the Romulans got pretty close to the Sol system. However, then Earth forces rallied back to push the Romulans out of 'Earth space'.

I found this quote on the Battle of Cheron from Memory Alpha:

The Battle of Cheron was a pivotal battle that took place in 2160, between the Romulan Star Empire and an Earth/Andorian/Vulcan/Tellarite alliance. The outcome of the battle effectively ended the Romulan Wars, with the "humiliating defeat" of the Romulans. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" production art)
Even into the 24th century, the battle remained an intense embarrassment for the Romulans, which, according to Alidar Jarok, would be retributed by "the new leaders" on Romulus, who "vowed to discard the treaty and claim the Neutral Zone," with Nelvana III being the first step. (TNG: "The Defector")

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Battle_of_Cheron

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Wait....I thought it was canon that the Battle of Cheron was the last and decisive battle of the Earth/Romulan War

No. All we know of it was that it was a humiliating defeat. Could have come at the actual end, could have come *near* the end, we don't know yet. And we don't know if this Cheron is the same as the one from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" either.

Spoiler: TrekLit

In the novels, it is. The Romulans had moved in and occupied the planet after the half-black/half-white natives had long since wiped themselves out.

 

[Christopher]

Wait....I thought it was canon that the Battle of Cheron was the last and decisive battle of the Earth/Romulan War which resulted in the Romulans giving up their territorial ambitions and staying behind the Neutral Zone. I'm pretty sure that it was mentioned that earlier in the war, things were going badly for Earth, to the point where the Romulans got pretty close to the Sol system. However, then Earth forces rallied back to push the Romulans out of 'Earth space'.

None of that is really canon, aside from the name "Battle of Cheron." The description of the Battle of Cheron you cite is from "production art," meaning probably a historical article on a viewscreen graphic, and though Memory Alpha treats such things as canonical, they really aren't. They're just placeholder text that isn't even meant to be legible onscreen (at least not without high-def and freeze-frame) and is in no way binding on the writers of future episodes or films.

As for the Romulans getting close to Sol System, that's fan conjecture. There's never been any canonical reference to that.

 

[rfmcdpei]

As for the Romulans getting close to Sol System, that's fan conjecture. There's never been any canonical reference to that.

Looking at the astrography, in order for the Romulans to get close to Sol (and Alpha Centrauri), they'd have to get past most of Earth's allies: Vulcan at 40 Eridani, Tellar at 61 Cygni, Andor at Procyon, Draylax at Epsilon Indi, et cetera. Maybe Romulans made it past a defense perimeter?

 

[LutherSloan]

I really thought that I got it from something. Could it have been mentioned in a novel? Maybe a non-ENT one?

I don't think I got it from that Starfleet: Year One book that was supposed to serve as a 'Birth of the Federation' book until Enterprise made it irrelevant. I read that almost 10 years ago.

 

[Christopher]

I really thought that I got it from something. Could it have been mentioned in a novel? Maybe a non-ENT one?

Definitely a non-ENT one. It's an old concept in Trek apocrypha. Since "Balance of Terror" called it the Earth-Romulan War, there have long been those who have conjectured that it may have involved Earth directly. DC Comics' Mirror Universe Saga postulated that in the MU, the Romulans conquered Earth and ruled it for a time, and the Terran Empire arose from the fierce resistance movement that overthrew their rule and then built an empire to ensure that humanity would never be conquered again. I'm sure there are other similar examples.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I really thought that I got it from something. Could it have been mentioned in a novel? Maybe a non-ENT one?

I don't think I got it from that Starfleet: Year One book that was supposed to serve as a 'Birth of the Federation' book until Enterprise made it irrelevant. I read that almost 10 years ago.

Well, there was that bit in DS9's "Past Tense" where (in an alternate timeline where the Federation never existed) Romulan comm chatter is heard coming from very near Earth...

 

[LutherSloan]

I really thought that I got it from something. Could it have been mentioned in a novel? Maybe a non-ENT one?

I don't think I got it from that Starfleet: Year One book that was supposed to serve as a 'Birth of the Federation' book until Enterprise made it irrelevant. I read that almost 10 years ago.

Well, there was that bit in DS9's "Past Tense" where (in an alternate timeline where the Federation never existed) Romulan comm chatter is heard coming from very near Earth...

Nah, I don't remember that part at all.

Maybe it was a Shatnerverse book.

 

[William Leisner]

I really thought that I got it from something. Could it have been mentioned in a novel? Maybe a non-ENT one?

I don't think I got it from that Starfleet: Year One book that was supposed to serve as a 'Birth of the Federation' book until Enterprise made it irrelevant. I read that almost 10 years ago.

Well, there was that bit in DS9's "Past Tense" where (in an alternate timeline where the Federation never existed) Romulan comm chatter is heard coming from very near Earth...

Nah, I don't remember that part at all.

Maybe it was a Shatnerverse book.

No, that was "Past Tense" -- aboard the Defiant, after they beam the three back in time, they lose all Federation transmissions and all transmissions inside the Sol system, and the only "local" broadcasts are Romulans on Alpha Centauri.

 

[LutherSloan]

Well, there was that bit in DS9's "Past Tense" where (in an alternate timeline where the Federation never existed) Romulan comm chatter is heard coming from very near Earth...

Nah, I don't remember that part at all.

Maybe it was a Shatnerverse book.

No, that was "Past Tense" -- aboard the Defiant, after they beam the three back in time, they lose all Federation transmissions and all transmissions inside the Sol system, and the only "local" broadcasts are Romulans on Alpha Centauri.

I guess that could be it, but who knows...

 

[Timo]

There's also "Whom Gods Destroy", where it's said that Kirk defeated some Romulans near Tau Ceti. Now, that would either require the Romulans to come out of their own territory, which the Neutral Zone supposedly prevents, or the Romulan territory to extend to Tau Ceti. And Tau Ceti is essentially a next-door neighbor to Earth, so if Romulan territory extends there, then they did get pretty close to Earth in the last war...

However, in that case, it wouldn't be such a shock in "Past Tense" to hear that Romulans in this alternate timeline are at Alpha Centauri, only slightly closer to Earth.

Other similar circumstantial evidence could be derived from "Homefront" where Sisko warns that the Jem'Hadar will be waging the sort of war that hasn't been seen since the founding of the UFP, and then recommends that Earth streets be filled with infantry. Did some sort of an invading force try and land its troops on Earth around the time the UFP was founded? Was this perhaps the Romulans?

However, this would be quite a leap of logic. Perhaps major infantry fights are indeed something that Starfleet last did in the 2160s, and perhaps the opponent back then was indeed Romulans - but this doesn't mean they would have fought on Earth's surface. Such battles could have taken place on the surfaces of other human holdings, which do exist in ENT. And of course, Sisko's ominous words might be unrelated to the exact type of countermeasure he suggests.

So that's circumstantial musings. In terms of solid facts, "The Defector" mentions the battle of Cheron as a humiliating Romulan defeat, but in no way establishes that the defeat would have been related to the old 22nd century war. Rather, it sounds like a very recent event, perhaps mere months old! No other episode mentions the battle, or the outcome of the war, in actual dialogue - although the potentially legible screen graphics of "In a Mirror, Darkly" do offer their bit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[rfmcdpei]

There's also "Whom Gods Destroy", where it's said that Kirk defeated some Romulans near Tau Ceti. Now, that would either require the Romulans to come out of their own territory, which the Neutral Zone supposedly prevents, or the Romulan territory to extend to Tau Ceti. And Tau Ceti is essentially a next-door neighbor to Earth, so if Romulan territory extends there, then they did get pretty close to Earth in the last war...

Tau Ceti hosts Kaferia, though, which is described as an independent world if not a Federation member-planet, while other Federation worlds including Draylax and Vulcan are just next door.

I'm guessing that the Tau Ceti incident was another case of a long-range Romulan scout testing Federation defenses.

However, in that case, it wouldn't be such a shock in "Past Tense" to hear that Romulans in this alternate timeline are at Alpha Centauri, only slightly closer to Earth.

The stellar geography of the Federaiton is interesting. Sol, Alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star form a tight little cluster relatively isolated from the stellar neighbourhood. This probably explains why Earth went uncontacted and Alpha Centauri uncolonized--it was too much of a bother. Towards the Romulan border, a whole slew of bright stars including Procyon, 40 Eridani, Epsilon Eridani, Epsilon Indi, and Tau Ceti exist clustered tightly together. This configuration of stars includes the homeworlds of the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites, among others.

If the Romulans managed to break into this cluster, then I'd say the game would have been up for the Coalition--their core worlds would have been directly exposed to further Romulan threats. That's why I think the absence of a starfaring Earth in the "Past Tense" timeline meant that the Romulans did conquer the worlds that would otherwise have been Federation members thanks to their Archer-less disunity and move beyond--they couldn't have settled at Alpha Centauri without doing so. Earth, battered and home to a pretechnological culture, probably wasn't of any interest to them.

Other similar circumstantial evidence could be derived from "Homefront" where Sisko warns that the Jem'Hadar will be waging the sort of war that hasn't been seen since the founding of the UFP, and then recommends that Earth streets be filled with infantry. Did some sort of an invading force try and land its troops on Earth around the time the UFP was founded? Was this perhaps the Romulans?

Or the Remans? Or proxy troops from a third, subject species?

 

[Daddy Todd]

Hmm. I had read the apparent inability to locate Columbia at the end of Kobayashi Maru to be a lead-in for Destiny (which I have not yet read). Do the events of the books not follow on one another?

I don't know. Maybe they were meant to but there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line. It happens sometimes despite everyone's best efforts to maintain continuity. At least in this case it can probably be reconciled.

I asked this very question a few months back, and, as I recall, David Mack replied that his intention was

Spoiler: Spoilers for Destiny Book 1

the disappearance of the Columbia was NOT a direct result of the events in Kobayashi Maru, but took place a year later.

 

[Praetor]

I'd rather denounce all of those points... Canon places the Daedalus adventures at early UFP era, that is, the last decades of the 22nd century - not the wars era. OTOH, the books suggest Daedalus predates ENT by some decades. So putting those together, it's certainly possible that Daedalus could have existed during the war.

But if she's the sphere-and-cylinder design we've seen associated with the name, a crew of 220 is highly unlikely - especially when the many, many times larger Enterprise made do with just 80. (If, OTOH, she is of some completely different design, it would be much easier to accept this, and a pivotal war role...)

Also, a midget ship predating ENT is unlikely to reach warp 5, let alone warp 6!

I'd be much happier with a compromise of sorts: the Daedalus is indeed the ball-and-can ship, but instead of being a prominent combatant, she is the 22nd century Oberth, an unarmed damsel in distress. She certainly looks the part, then! And 220 crew, as specified in TNG "Power Play", would be a civilian survey mission jam-pack, similar to how 80 people were packed aboard an Oberth in TNG "The Naked Now".

I was thinking regarding this: how about the notion that the Daedalus is Starfleet's Romulan War equivalent of a WWII Liberty ship - cheap and easy to build, but not all that powerful or durable. They built so many of the things that lots of them were leftover after the war and relegated to various tasks in the post-war Starfleet, explaining their later appearances. (Over 2700 Liberty ships were built in the real world, and lasted far longer than were originally believed they would, despite their inherent engineering problems.)

Thus, they would still fit in rather well in the idea of them as a damsel in distress and their only real innovation (and legacy) of the Daedalus could be the split-hull design innovation, which was what made them so cheap and easy in the first place, and could be the reason why the Sisko (as a man with a starship development background) would deem such a ship worthy of inclusion as a decoration in his office.

 

[LutherSloan]

I could have sworn there was some kind of mention in either KM or Destiny Book 1 that the Daedalus-class ships were under construction.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I could have sworn there was some kind of mention in either KM or Destiny Book 1 that the Daedalus-class ships were under construction.

Actually, ever since Last Full Measure at least, the Daedalus class has already been in service.

 

[Praetor]

Still doesn't really preclude them being a Liberty-ship equivalent when war breaks out though.

 

[uniderth]

Hmm. It will be interesting to see how this omulan war book compares with my Earth-Romulan War novels I'm writing. Will this be a single book or a series?

 

[Stephen!]

I have thoroughly enjoyed the Enterprise novels and look forward to the Romulan War. They all have been well written. I'll concede that I found the events surrounding Trip's 'resurrection' a bit stretched, but I'm all for the suspension of disbelief.

How does Trip actually fake his death in "Good that men do"? Is it pretty much the same as events happened in "These are the Voyages"?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I have thoroughly enjoyed the Enterprise novels and look forward to the Romulan War. They all have been well written. I'll concede that I found the events surrounding Trip's 'resurrection' a bit stretched, but I'm all for the suspension of disbelief.

How does Trip actually fake his death in "Good that men do"? Is it pretty much the same as events happened in "These are the Voyages"?

Here's how it is, basically:

Spoiler: Trip

None of what happened in TATV is legit. Those alien pirates, the ones who boarded the Enterprise looking for Trip, were hired by Archer - their presence was an excuse for Trip to fake a death scene. Archer, Phlox and Reed were all in on it as well. (T'Pol, AFAIK, only finds out later.) Not even the bits with Shran were real. The episode says that Shran is looking for his kidnapped daughter, but the real target was actually a group of Aenar who were being used as guinea pigs by the Romulans.