Why is it still the EARTH/Romulan War?

[Gotham Central]

I'm curious as to why the 22nd century conflict with the Romulans is still called the Earth/Romulan War in the rest of Trek continuity?

I know that it was specifically given that name in "Balance of Terror" but that's simply because of the still vague continuity in early TOS. During the ealry part of the first season the Enterprise was clearly identified as an Earth ship working for an Earth political/military entity. This was obviously before the Federation had been established as the political entitiy for which Starfleet serves.

Indeed it seems unreasonable for Earth to have fought any sort of war with the Romulans alone. Unless Romulan space is shockingly close to Earth, it seems doubtful that two worlds so far away would engage in a major conflagration. Its even less likely that Earth would have been able to impose the Neutral Zone on the Romulans so far away from its home space.

Isn't it time that we simply change the name to the Romulan War and identify it as a conflict with the early Federation (or the Coalition) instead of a purely Earth centered conflict?

 

[happydave]

Because it was between United Earth and The Romulan Star Federation?

At this point Earth did have allies in the Vulcans, etc.

So I'd say it's just named after the main two combatants, just Earth's allies did come in with the assist.

 

[Trevacious]

Federation historians wanted to be sure the blame was correctly apportioned.

 

[Vanyel]

The war could be named after the main combatants. The United Earth and the Romulans. Other wars have been named in the same way. The American War of Independence had 4. The Spanish supplying arms and the French their fleet. However the war is known mostly for it's 2 major combatants: The American Colonies and Great Britain.

 

[Timo]

Indeed. Let's remember that the concept of "Earth-Romulan War" was only mentioned once in the TOS episode - by Spock, in his brief lecture. Even if other species fought alongside humans, and perhaps even bore the main brunt of fighting, it could be that Spock and Vulcans in general feel Earth started the whole thing. Moreover, it might be important for Spock to remind all these humans in the crew that Vulcan wisely stayed out of the fight and pacifism is the correct approach to life - or, conversely, to bolster the human spirits by omitting mention that it was actually Vulcan, not Earth, that militarily defeated the Romulans in that conflict.

However, since the story of the war still remains untold, I see no pressing need to establish it as a Federation vs. Romulan Star Empire confrontation, or even as an Earth-plus-some-specific-alliance vs. Romulus-plus-some-specific-alliance thing. It could have been very different from what we imagine, or from what past and recent novelists have imagined. It could be interesting. Or then perhaps dreadfully mundane.

For all we know, people back then didn't even much realize that a big war had happened. Perhaps Earth simply did some police action against poorly equipped pirates later identified as Romulans, and then imposed a simple curfew on the perps. Never mind that from the Romulan point of view, a masterful plan of galactic conquest was ruined by a few upstarts who at the crucial hour got better starships than had been predicted...

There was a war with the Romulans at some point of the 22nd century all right. But it wasn't a big deal for our 24th century heroes any more - they don't bother to discuss whether Earth or the Feds fought this war, and they indeed don't even bring up the war much. It's just that the 24th century Romulans want to hold the candle. Such a lopsided "insight" into the war may hide interesting truths from us. Perhaps there's a perfectly good reason for why the RNZ was established, for why the conflict arose, for why one side or the other triumphed. Writers of onscreen material just haven't examined the subject.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

Or, it's revisionist history. The war with the Romulans may have damaged the other allies so much that Earth was the only one left to really fight anymore. In exchange for them finishing off the Romulans Earth forced the Allies into making them the head of the new Federation they were thinking of forming in the aftermath, and naming it the "Earth/Romulan War" was their first step in making the new history with Humans on top.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Personally, I just call it "the Romulan Wars" myself and leave it at that (saves me a couple of keystrokes). I'll let someone else worry about the specifics...

 

[Anwar]

See, this is why I think most ENT haters' complaints are silly. What we know about the Trekverse doesn't jive 100% with what TOS stated in a few episodes. Since the majority of the evidence is to the contrary, it should be the nonsensical TOS stuff changed in the prequel series and not have the prequel series make no sense even though it's being faithful to every word TOS put out.

 

[Myasishchev]

Or, it's revisionist history. The war with the Romulans may have damaged the other allies so much that Earth was the only one left to really fight anymore. In exchange for them finishing off the Romulans Earth forced the Allies into making them the head of the new Federation they were thinking of forming in the aftermath, and naming it the "Earth/Romulan War" was their first step in making the new history with Humans on top.

Explains why we see so few Andorians and Tellarites: bombed into near-oblivion by the Romulans' "primitive atomic weapons."

Something I wonder, it is just pervasive fanon that Vulcan sat the war out, right?

 

[NIUPonyBoy]

Picard also spoke of the Earth/Romulan War as that and their primitive atomic weapons on both sides.

 

[Anwar]

Or, it's revisionist history. The war with the Romulans may have damaged the other allies so much that Earth was the only one left to really fight anymore. In exchange for them finishing off the Romulans Earth forced the Allies into making them the head of the new Federation they were thinking of forming in the aftermath, and naming it the "Earth/Romulan War" was their first step in making the new history with Humans on top.

Explains why we see so few Andorians and Tellarites: bombed into near-oblivion by the Romulans' "primitive atomic weapons."

Something I wonder, it is just pervasive fanon that Vulcan sat the war out, right?

Yes, it is. Nothing indicates that they didn't actively fight in the war.

 

[Timo]

...And indeed ENT would suggest Vulcans at the time had a far more functional space combat fleet than Earth did. It sort of makes more sense to pit one warlike (even if abstaining) culture against another than to assume that a newcomer with little experience in space warfare would be able to triumph.

There have always been three main possibilities about how the war happened. One, the old Vulcan/Romulan schism might have had something to do with it, with the Romulans deciding to act when they saw Vulcan had gained an ally, or with the Vulcans deciding to act when they gained an ally. In this case, the ally could be the humans, or in light of ENT, the Coalition of the Gullible.

Two, early starfaring Earthlings might have stumbled onto something the Romulans considered their own. ENT certainly allows for that interpretation as well, because it shows that the war at least roughly coincides with an era where Earth's wanderings dramatically increased in range and scope.

Three, Romulans could have begun an expansion of their Star Empire, or an active campaign of piracy, or some other Hitleresque maneuver they calculated they could pull off without risking a full war. They miscalculated, perhaps because Earth was inexperienced and didn't know when to yield to expansionist bullies. ENT and other spinoff Trek has made this a less likely prospect than it originally was, because Romulans have been revealed to be very secretive and even timid in military matters, and not particularly expansionist. However, the plot in ENT to play the other cultures against each other with the help of chameleon ships does suggest that Romulans were actively scheming for aggression at the time. The plot could have been a reaction to possibilities one or two, of course - but it required a lot of technological preparation, and thus probably preceded Earth's entry to the interstellar game and stemmed from some other motivation.

it should be the nonsensical TOS stuff changed

This could very easily translate into needless dumbing down. After all, we're watching science fiction: weird is only to be expected. The BSG remake already gave the audiences an unimaginative vision of the 21st century conflicts translated into space opera. It would be a welcome whiff of fresh air if the conflicts of Trek were modeled on something more inspiring and distancing - such as the 1960s conflicts of Earth that were played out in TOS, or better still, the "nonsensical" conflicts invented for TOS.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

But from we now know, it's the TOS conflicts that no longer make sense: TOS implied that the Federation was a benevolent Terran Empire and all the alien races within were just weaker partners who were allowed equal rights instead of being outright conquered and that humanity invented the warp drive first. We now know it's more the opposite and that all the alien races in the original Fed Founders were the superior ones and humanity grew to power within the Federation long afterwards.

So the only reasonable explanation for the wars of the past to have been fought by Earth is that it's revisionist history to downplay benevolent alien assistance and play up Earth's power.

 

[NIUPonyBoy]

But from we now know, it's the TOS conflicts that no longer make sense: TOS implied that the Federation was a benevolent Terran Empire and all the alien races within were just weaker partners who were allowed equal rights instead of being outright conquered and that humanity invented the warp drive first. We now know it's more the opposite and that all the alien races in the original Fed Founders were the superior ones and humanity grew to power within the Federation long afterwards.

So the only reasonable explanation for the wars of the past to have been fought by Earth is that it's revisionist history to downplay benevolent alien assistance and play up Earth's power.

Perhaps, however maybe the 'weaker' Earth forces pissed off the Romulans and there was a conflict just between Earth and Romulus but not on as grand or as large a scale as we all thought, while the other races allied with Earth sat it out or rendered minor aid or technical help? It could have been a smaller affair fought to a stalemate or minor victory. Both sides saw the pointlessness of it and signed the treaty. It may have been a hollow victory but if it kept the Terrans out of Romulan hair and Romulan fingers out of Earth soup then it was a win for both sides. Either side could 'write' the history as they see fit.

Earth seeing it as victory that however the Romulans were pissing them off etc it had been stopped. And Romulus seeing it as a "W" as it kept the annoying Earthers out of their affairs.

 

[KingstonTrekker]

Likely because the Federation is a very Earth-centric entity. Just as Earth is the major player in the Federation (with Starfleet headquarters and the President of the Federation both located there), Earth is likely remembered (particularly by humans) as being the major player in the Coalition of Planets and hence the war with the Romulans.

 

[C.E. Evans]

My own personal take was that the war started with Earth, but then other worlds (Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar perhaps?) got dragged into the conflict later as the Romulans pushed deeper into the Galaxy. I would like to think that Earth led a coalition of its allies to victory at the Battle of Cheron...

 

[Anwar]

That doesn't much sense as Earth was clearly the weakest of all the Founder races. It really should be the "Coalition-Romulan War". It's just another TOS inconsistency, there are lots of them.

 

[Timo]

Naah. There's no proof that the Coalition was involved, even though it is known to have existed at the time. NATO stayed out of the Vietnam mess, for example...

We know that either Earth or Romulus had allies in that war, but that's pretty much it. The United States had allies in Vietnam, but the war is still known as having been between the United States and Vietnam (in the retrospective sense of what Vietnam became). One might argue that Vietnam was far from the most powerful players on the opposing side, but it still makes little sense to refer to, say, the US/USSR war in that context.

The Vietnam conflict was a specific subset of that larger war, though. We might just as well speculate that Romulus fought several wars with what we now know as the Federation, and that the one where Earth was the opponent is especially bitterly remembered, even though the one where Vulcan was the opponent (mentioned in VOY "Death Wish") may have been bigger and bloodier and involved more powerful combatants. It would then clearly be necessary to use a specific and descriptive name to distinguish the conflict with Earth as the opponent.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

But if the war was big enough to encompass all the Coalition races, then it makes little sense that the one they fought with the weakest of them (Earth) would be the one most remembered. And seeing how the Federation is made up of all the races involved on the Allies side you'd think they would've just decided to name it the Coalition-Romulan War, or just "The Romulan War". It just makes no sense it'd be so Earth-centric.

Unless we subscribe to my revisionist history theory..

 

[C.E. Evans]

As I said earlier, I generally refer to it as "the Romulan Wars" myself, but I do think historically most remember that the primary combatants were Earth and Romulus.

That being said, I tend to doubt that Earth could have won the war without help from its allies. Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar could have joined Earth's side after the war began if they felt that if Earth fell, they would be next (when I said "coalition" earlier, I meant that in a general sense of the term--with a lower-case "c"). If we go by what was suggested in ENT, Earth will apparently have to assume some sort of leadership role to bring these other arguably more advanced (yet otherwise uncooperative) nations together.