Which Romulan "history" are we to follow now?

I've been reading the Romulan Wars series of Enterprise. Besides not being particularly well-written, it poses a conundrum for old farts like me: I have always been an ardent disciple of Diane Duane's depiction of the Rihannsu and their history as depicted in "The Romulan Way". Now we have this revisionist history of the Earth-Romulan war as depicted in the new series. It bears no resemblence whatsoever to the Duane books. Her books were never "canon" so are these books non-canon as well? Which history do we follow or does anyone care?

 

^ No books are ever canon. There is an extended, shared history that most novels have been following for awhile, but they aren't obligated to do so. They can't contradict what is onscreen (which, as far as the Romulans go, is not that much), but they can and often do contradict each other.

Me, I prefer the Romulan history they've been using now. Vulcan's Heart, for example. It's one of my favorite Romulan-oriented novels ever (indeed, probably my favorite Trek novel of all time).

 

Also, certain elements of Duane's history of the Romulan War were flawed from the start: Sarek would not have been capable of negotiating the peace, for example, being a mere infant at the time (as was already clearly established in TOS).

There really was relatively little else about the war in the Duane books, save for the idea that the Romulans hijacked two Earth starships for reverse-engineering of their technology - which actually dovetails nicely to their ENT and ENT-novel habit of hijacking Earth starships by cyberattack (and is also described as being a late 23rd century Romulan modus operandi in Duane's own, later Bloodwing Voyages stories).

Nothing about the current stories really contradicts the Duane idea that an Earth vessel named Carrizal would have visited and scanned Romulus, thus forcing the Romulan hand in starting an all-out war with Earth. It's just something our ENT heroes wouldn't be aware of, because Duane writes that not even the Carrizal crew themselves realized what they had found.

Of course, Duane's Remus is merely "arid" rather than an apparently airless hellhole, but perhaps that's just an euphemistic Romulan way of putting it. And Duane joins the old bandwagon of Romulans lacking warp drive initially, but that could easily be ignored and merely taken to mean they had a more primitive type of warp drive and thus benefited from stealing a better one from the Earthlings.

I like to pretend that Duane got most of the story "right", even though some of it has become more legend than fact in Romulan telling and retelling - and that the things described in Duane's Romulan Way did take place in the background, shortly before the open fighting we see in the recent novels. Although I also am dismayed to find the newer novels singularly uninteresting and uninspired, both in general and in their description of the war.

Timo Saloniemi

 

None of tie tie-ins are canon, so it's up to the reader which version they accept. And the Enterprise TV series had already contradicted scores of classic Trek novels, and was incompatible with "The Romulan Way" anyway, going back to the era's human technological advancement in "Broken Bow" and later cloaking Romulans (and Romulans introducing themselves as Romulans) in "Minefield"

That later tv/film Trek has contradicted it doesn't in any way diminish the awesomeness of Duane's work. One of the writers of the last Star Trek movie lists "Spock's World" as one of his favourite Trek novels. Nero's chief henchman in Star Trek XI was named Ayel.

 

Sadly, I've never read "Vulcan's Heart". I have collected most of the TOS and STNG novels and have studied all the Romulan-related stories but somehow I can never find this particular book. I"ve heard it is a treasure-trove of material. I'll keep looking. Thx.

 

Greetings, Timo,

I really enjoyed reading your response. You know your back story. I started to write a STNG novel about eight years ago (!), put it aside and then, after reading the second book of the Romulan Wars "Beneath the Raptor's Wing", brought the manuscript back out for another look-see. I was quite annoyed at the re-telling of the Earth-Romulan war as mine was solely based on Duane's history. I'm going to go with Sela as my main character, but with a much darker story. Think of "Breaking Bad" meets ST. I got the "Kobayashi Maru" and "To Brave The Storm" for Christmas. I just finished reading the first one this morning. Meh. It was okay.

 

Luckylog, keep in mind that although you may not be a fan of the ENT Romulan War books, their authors are only working with what they were given; i.e. the fourth season of ENT, which established things that in no way resembled Duane's history (or even TOS history for that matter). They had to use the fourth season as a starting point for the war, as opposed to basing it off Duane's works or coming up with their own pre-Federation history, such as Michael Jan Friedman's "Starfleet Year One" for example.

 

I wouldn't see S4 of ENT as a limiting factor in any way. All the earlier tellings of the war (Duane, FASA, Friedman et al.) have described a lopsided prewar period where the Romulans are well aware of all things Earthling, and freely snipe at human targets from behind the cover of anonymity. ENT in no way contradicts this, as our heroes only barely work out who the Romulans might be and what they might be aiming at when 2154 concludes; dozens if not hundreds of Earth assets may have fallen to the Romulans in the meantime.

It's rather a pity the writers didn't even make the effort. As said, Duane's hijacking of the Balboa and the Stone Mountain would have been trivially easy to work into the ENT novel continuity; name-dropping the Patton as a further early casualty would have satisfied FASA fans at zero cost. Any and all of Duane's characters, or the FASA/FJ Praetor Karzan, could have been included. The Romulan politics behind the war in the ENT novels are 100% independent make-believe, not dependent on things established in the show at all; they could have been adjusted to include things from the preceding "continuity" (which, while making no actual effort for continuity, isn't particularly discontinuous or contradictory, either).

Timo Saloniemi

 

Why should any novel writer care about previously written novels, especially old novels that have only taken into account the two Romulan stories from TOS as opposed to the dozens Romulan stories from all five series?

 

Why should the writers care about anything? If novels are simply to be ignored, there's no point in having them reference the aired episodes, either. It's just pearls before swine.

if anything, modern writers should feel more free to ignore other modern writers, as the concept of letting others play in a certain writer's sandbox doesn't seem to be working too well. Miniseries such as New Earth or Vanguard are highly uneven, and the stories might work much better if each writer was allowed to exercise his or her strengths and come up with truly original stories.

Timo Saloniemi

 

That is my point exactly--with all of the rich history that has gone before, the author and editors could easily have used Duane's history as a springboard for this series of novels. I rather think that using the Enterprise series as a basis of the Earth-Romulan confict was brilliant, but they did not have the wherewithall to take full advantage of the plotline possibilities. That is where my disappointment comes from.

I thought Enterprise was probably the best series--after Next Generation--and did not deserve its fate. I still have to read "To Brave The Storm" so maybe it will pick up.

 

Regarding name-dropping, I'll take back one of my accusations. It seems that Praetor Karzan indeed makes an appearance in the ENT novels, beginning with Beneath the Raptor's Wings. Just goes to show that a) yes, the writers do quote truly obscure sources for the sheer heck of it , and b) the novel was too dull for me to read even every fifth chapter properly, causing me to miss Karzan altogether.

Timo Saloniemi

 

There were many Rihannsu refetences in the Enterprise novels. The Romulan language is the same as Duane's, and the ship used to ruin Coridan was named after S'task. The Romulans are said to be carrying honour blades.

You may also be interested in the "Vulcan's Soul" novels, that tell the story of the sundered's exodus from a different perspective, with some changes to account for later canon, and gives the Remans an origin story.

It's also worth noting that in Duane's TNG novel "Intellivore", which follows up on a plot thread from "The Romulan Way", Picard refers to the events of "The Romulan Way" as one of several legends about the Romulans origins.

 

It is amazing to see how many reference points there are regarding the Romulan language, culture, etc, mostly all based on Duane's creations. Sometimes I think Martin threw these in just to "impress" the less impressionable. Most of us could do the same with our eyes closed.

I was amused to see that he names D'deridex as the present Praetor but that is only because it a marketable and recognizable name, whereas at this current time period in "The Romulan Way" there are twelve Praetors with no dominant one. I'm nitpicking I know. I just think that these books would have been so much better if Martin had inserted the excellent Enterprise television storyline into the Duane background.

 

Since it's all fictional, follow whichever version you prefer.

 

No, they would have been better if they were actually any good. Ticking the right continuity boxes doesn't turn crap into gold.

 

Alas...

Still, at least these newer books can be used as reference material for better future ones.

In the late 23rd century, yes. Perhaps there's a story to be told there?

Although to be fair, Duane's Remus was the breadbasket of the two worlds, and drier than Romulus - that's basically all we know of it. There are no scenes to describe the Reman jungles or grasslands, nothing to establish the color of the sky (if any), no hints of Reman architecture or cultural achievements or demographics. Perhaps the way to produce decisive amounts of bread is to take the farming underground and exploit the constant sunlight of one side of Remus?

Duane paints with a broad brush. It's not difficult to insert familiar detail into the picture without changing its nature, then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Therin or Andor, thanks for the link! I may give it to myself as a late Christmas present! And thanks to the others who have recommended "Vulcans Soul" and "Intellivore" as well. I'm going in for a bone-marrow transplant in a few weeks so I'll need some good books to read while I recuperate.

I originally purchased "The Romulan Wars" as background material for something I'm writing, but found very little worth mining there. The "Kobayashi Maru" was a bit better but only for the spin on the original story of that ship. I'm wading through the second book again and will read the third one soon. If, as you all seem to be saying, the books all stand alone, picking and choosing from what has come before, then I will play "Taps" when I finish the third book and go back to the books I enjoy.

Michael Martin should sit down and read "The Game of Thrones" series to see how books should be written. Although, admittedly, this is a different genre, he might try and break the mould of ST novels and inject something truly original and worthwhile into his writing. As Virgil said, fortune favours the bold.