Before the Picard show, the Romulan Free State wasn't at war with the Federation, likely being in no shape to fight a war as their Empire is destroyed. The Romulans aren't happy with the Fed for abandoning them to the supernova, but they're still on civil enough terms to run a joint operation on the Artifact.
Events of Picard have changed all that. The Fed can point out the Romulans can't blame them for abandoning them now because the whole reason they were abandoned was due to the massive loss of life in the Mars attack, which was now revealed to be a Romulan operation. The Romulans inserted a spy into Starfleet who worked her way up to head of Starfleet Intelligence, Oh. Oh was responsible for forcibly mind melding with Jurati, a Fed citizen, and ordering her to kill Maddox, another Federation citizen. Hugh, another Federation citizen, was killed by Narissa Rizzo, another Romulan spy, and despite Rizzo's claims it was justified because Hugh was overhead planning to break the treaty, I highly doubt any intergalactic court will accept that justification especially with Elnor's testimony. At best, Hugh should have just been arrested. And at the end of the day, Oh's attack cost the lives of 92,000 Federation citizens.
Even if Romulan Free State leadership disavow Oh and insist they were unaware of all her actions, there's now the issue that 218 Romulan warbirds joined her with the intent to commit genocide. That's not exactly a few rogue ships we're talking about, and it looks less plausible that Romulan leadership was unaware of Oh's doings in light of that.
I really don't see how all this doesn't lead to war unless the Romulan leadership immediately and unconditionally extradite Oh for her crimes back to the Federation immediately, as well as her associates. And even then, they'd need serious proof they didn't know anything about what she was doing. Which, as I said, seems massively implausible considering Oh was able to grab 218 warbirds on a whim from a Romulan Free State that's already struggling after losing their homeworld.
And if the Romulan leadership refuses to extradite Oh, well, they don't have an Empire anymore and despite their show of 218 warbirds in the recent episode (which Riker felt could be defeated by one Starfleet squadron), I don't think what's left of the Romulans would survive a war with the Federation.
What do all of you think?
Events of Picard have changed all that. The Fed can point out the Romulans can't blame them for abandoning them now because the whole reason they were abandoned was due to the massive loss of life in the Mars attack, which was now revealed to be a Romulan operation. The Romulans inserted a spy into Starfleet who worked her way up to head of Starfleet Intelligence, Oh. Oh was responsible for forcibly mind melding with Jurati, a Fed citizen, and ordering her to kill Maddox, another Federation citizen. Hugh, another Federation citizen, was killed by Narissa Rizzo, another Romulan spy, and despite Rizzo's claims it was justified because Hugh was overhead planning to break the treaty, I highly doubt any intergalactic court will accept that justification especially with Elnor's testimony. At best, Hugh should have just been arrested. And at the end of the day, Oh's attack cost the lives of 92,000 Federation citizens.
Even if Romulan Free State leadership disavow Oh and insist they were unaware of all her actions, there's now the issue that 218 Romulan warbirds joined her with the intent to commit genocide. That's not exactly a few rogue ships we're talking about, and it looks less plausible that Romulan leadership was unaware of Oh's doings in light of that.
I really don't see how all this doesn't lead to war unless the Romulan leadership immediately and unconditionally extradite Oh for her crimes back to the Federation immediately, as well as her associates. And even then, they'd need serious proof they didn't know anything about what she was doing. Which, as I said, seems massively implausible considering Oh was able to grab 218 warbirds on a whim from a Romulan Free State that's already struggling after losing their homeworld.
And if the Romulan leadership refuses to extradite Oh, well, they don't have an Empire anymore and despite their show of 218 warbirds in the recent episode (which Riker felt could be defeated by one Starfleet squadron), I don't think what's left of the Romulans would survive a war with the Federation.
What do all of you think?