Romulan warp drive (or the lack thereof):
Sources indicate that upon discovering the Romulan system, the Romulans (named after the Romans I speculate) had no warp drive. A lot of fans envision that the Romulans stole the warp drive after capturing an Earth Force ship. I shall endeavor to leave the realm of fantasy and say this most likely didn't happen. I think the Romulans were near creating their warp drive, and even had a prototype being developed.
Speculation 1) Captured alien technology will not yield advantageous products in a short timespan. Captured alien technology must be translated acurately and spin-off technology tested rigorously before a working product can be used. This could take decades if not a full century. Anyone who has firm faith in that the US government has a captured alien ship (of which I DO NOT) can see that we don't have starships yet. I do not beleive the Rosewell Incident, so that makes my arguement pretty unsteady in that regard. But if the Romulans were less advanced than the humans in starship design, would they have been able to understand human language enought to crack the technical code? We are talking two seperate cultures with two very differing paradigms. That is a leap of faith to assume the Romulans could create warp drive off a captured Earth ship so soon.
Speculation 2) Who said the Romulans had warp drive throughout the war? No one. But if the Romulans didn't, then what explains the final victory for the Earth at the Battle of Cheron? Or think of it this way, why would Earth seek to conquer a solar system that they knew was home to an indigeous intelligence (at that time it was unknown that Romulans were descendants of Vulcan.) Say the Romulans fired first and destroyed an Earth survey ship. Is that means to wage a war solely on Romulan "soil" whereas a warp culture has the advantage? A more cilivilized culture would take their losses and try to find out more about these aliens that shoot first and ask questions later. And if Earth fired the first shot, that makes matters even worse: A violent warp culture attacks a sublight culture for reasons unknown! What threat would a sublight culture impose?
Speculation 3)The war was fought over an misunderstanding and territorial claim. This makes the most sense. I don't see Earth trying to take territory that they knew wasn't theirs. Human history should have that point well driven across. I believe the first or second contact with the Romulans was disasterous, which spurred both sides to defend themselves against an unknown enemy. The Earth forces built military ships while the Romulans tested their warp drive, and upon finding it a success, built their warships as well. And finally war was waged on the outshirts of territory.
And finally, in the Cheron System, Earth won.
Well, I guess they don't have to have one, if you assume that Romulus is quite close to Vulcan, which it most likely is.
But then the questions you raise remain valid. What was the basis of the war? I'm attempting to write a UFP Constitution, and the Romulan War plays a big part in the foundation of the UFP. But how?
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"I'll be the sky above the Ganges
I'll be the vast and stormy sea.
I'll be the lights that guide you inward.
I'll be the visions you will see."
--
R.E.M.
Of course, that's for a game that simulates warp speed combat...
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Peace!
Brigs
You could also speculate that the romulans didn't have warpdrive per se in "Balance of Terror" TOS - that as per the episode "Timescape" in TNG the romulans have a force artificial quantum singularity.
Andrew
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With the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all
irrevocably." Capt. Jean-Luc Picard - The Drumhead
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"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong."
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Wheeelersburg Correctional Facility
Inmate #05301999
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"I'll be the sky above the Ganges
I'll be the vast and stormy sea.
I'll be the lights that guide you inward.
I'll be the visions you will see."
--
R.E.M.
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Risk is our business! That's what this starship is all about....that's why we're aboard her!"
As for the Rommies, Cargile made a comment about their being less advanced in starship tech than humans. How is this possible? They had interstellar flight 1700 years before humans had even gotten to the Moon. I'm sure they probably had warp drive, or were damn close to it by the time humans did.
To expand on something, I think humans' leap from putting people in orbit (1960s) to warp drive (2060s) in only a century is uncommon. There was space travel on Vulcan in (Earth calender) the 300s. I doubt that they had warp drive until at least the 1800s, if not the 1900s. That's why they were surprised that humans achieved warp flight when they did. They had considered humans, in Troi's words, "too primitive". Now, if we assume that Vulcans took until the 1800s to invent warp drive, and we assume that the Romulans were set back a bit by their lengthy spaceflight from Vulcan to Romulus, and their lack of mental discipline (I'm sure they had a few wars to add to the setback), it is conceivable that they took a couple hundred extra years to invent warp drive. However, I'm sure they would have had it by the time of the Terro-Romulan Wars.
Now, on another note, here's the story I came up w/ for the start of the wars:
The Vulcans hadn't told the Terrans about the Romulans. It was an embarassing subject for them (at least as embarassed as a Vulcan can get), so they didn't bring it up. When the first Terran ship found its way to Romulus, they mistook the Romulans for Vulcans and used the Vulcan salute on them. The Romulans that they encountered decided that any friend of the Vulcans was an enemy of theirs, so they killed them. Since the Romulans were isolationists to an extent, even back then, the crude translators the Terrans had gotten from the Vulcans couldn't translate Romulan, so the misunderstanding became worse, until the Romulans blasted the Terran ship out of the sky. Now, at this time, Terrans were still a bit more inflammable than they are in Trek, so they declared war on the Romulans. They enlisted the help of their new friends, the Andorians, whom they had met through the Vulcans, and who, as we know, are admittedly warlike. The Vulcans, of course, refused to fight. This may even explain some of the distrust that humans tend to feel toward Vulcans.
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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
-Albert Einstein
I take only canon sources into consideration. We know the Romulans were once part of the Vulcans, but seperated during a dispute of which they knew they could no longer co-exist peacefully. From what we know, the ships they left on were sublight. This tells us that they were advanced enough to understand space travel, yet not advanced enough to grasp warp physics. The descandents of the original Vulcan seperatist arrive at what is later dubbed Romulus by the humans.
Let's say that a hundred years from now a simular dispute and war erupts on Earth with some of the population leaving on advance starships toward the Alpha Century system. Generation ships are going to suffer a withdrawl of technologic placement with each generation born on the ships. This will happen through inadaquate training, and complacency and dependancy upon technology not to breakdown. We have lived with televisions for decades, but how many out there can repair a faulty television?
Also such space travel must prioritize what they deem more important for survival. If the ship is advanced enough, it can take care of itself with little manual intervention. This happens to be the kind of ship you would want for a Generation starcruiser. "We have more problems with enviromental systems than the automatic propulsion system, so we will focus out efforts on the enviromental systems." In a sense, with such an advanced ship, less propulsion studies will be taught to the next generation, unless it is faulty. And if it is faulty to an extreme it must not be that great of a ship. Since we know the Romulans reached their new home, we know the ships they traveled on was superior work.
Now when a race finds a new home, stellar propulsion advancement is not a high priorty. We found a home, now lets put our efforts to making it OUR home. Here technology in space travel suffers as people focus their attentions to settling a new world.
Settling Romulas and Remus had to have taken a great toll on the colonist. Their spendature of energy on making those planets home would have taken from the energy that could have been spent on developing a faster star drive. I hope you can see the common sense in this. If not, I don't how else to say it. This allows for the Vulcans to continue their star drive project, while retarding the Romulans theirs.
So that by the Romulan War, they still have no warp drive, but they do have a prototype that is eventually successful by 2158, and put into use during the war.
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. . .I don't believe in God, I just believe in me.
--John Lennon
No, really, that's what I meant when I said that they could be expected to take a couple hundred years longer than the Vulcans in inventing the warp drive...
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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
-Albert Einstein
My spin on it goes like this. An Earth ship makes contact with the Romulans and is destroyed. UESPA lists the ship as missing. Meanwhile, through examining the ship's database and interrogating any survivors, the Romulans discover the connection between the Vulcans, Earth, and the other future allies. Utilizing a fear and hatred for the Vulcans that had been simmering for 2,000 years, the Romulan government launches a preemptive strike against Earth forces, in the hopes of breaking up the percieved Vulcan hegemony. Things proceed to go downhill from there.
How does that sound?
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"I'll be the sky above the Ganges
I'll be the vast and stormy sea.
I'll be the lights that guide you inward.
I'll be the visions you will see."
--
R.E.M.
like an evolution of sorts, the evolution to warp drive for terrans, originated quicker, since there were more succesive generations, to bring new ideas, compared to Romulans, who would have not had such great leaps in new thinking within the one generation.
Andrew
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With the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all
irrevocably." Capt. Jean-Luc Picard - The Drumhead
"The scientists aren't certain how these intense fields would affect our nervous systems. Let's do some more testing and experimentation. After all, a hundred years from now, all the stars we're planning to explore will still be there, eh?"
--Baloo
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The hyperhamster is alive and well.
I HATE double-posting!
--Baloo
[This message was edited by Baloo on March 14, 1999.]
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Wheeelersburg Correctional Facility
Inmate #05301999
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"Look into any eyes you find by you; you can see clear to another day..."
-The Grateful Dead, "Box of Rain"
It depends upon the cultural bias that goes along with longevity. If you have a long time to develop an idea, you might feel less pressure to come up with something new than if you have a limited time to make your mark.
Somehow I think that the Romulans brought the Vulcan (cultural) characteristic of thoroughness with them when they went into exile. They might have (as with many non-western societies here on Earth) decided that "progress" was less important than perfecting what they had. New ideas aren't very important if the old ones are perceived as adequate, and might be viewed as disruptive of the "natural order" of things.
The Japanese had gunpowder technology during the middle ages, and simply decided that it didn't fit into their scheme of things, so they outlawed the technology until the middle of the 19th century. Why couldn't the Romulans have had theories that predicted the possibility of FTL travel (or disproved it, for that matter) and simply decided not to pursue the technology, since the technology they had already met their perceived needs.
If they were confronted with a race of spacefaring beings who used FTL technology, they might already have had the basic theory worked out and were just waiting for a reason to use it? If they had been space travellers for that many hundreds of years, I would suppose that even if their theories "disproved" the possibility of warp travel, they probably had plenty of speculation on how it might work anyhow.
We ourselves possess many theories of how FTL travel might be done, but few ideas regarding how to implement them. In a few hundred years, we still might not know exactly how it could be done, but perhaps if confronted by a race of beings who actually did it, we might gain clues as to how it could be done by examining their technology. The laws of physics are universal, after all. If our understanding of how FTL travel might be possible was good enough, a working example of the technology might be all we needed to understand how it could be done.
Another thing that we humans take for granted is the fact that whenever we discover any useful technology, we will implement it almost immediately, even if we do not fully understand how it will affect the development of our society or the health of its inhabitants. Asbestos was a good fire-resistant material when it was first discovered. Everything from brake pads to theater curtains to drywall contained asbestos, because it reduced the risk of fire so well. It was a comparatively recent discovery that inhaling asbestos dust could cause (or increase the risk of) cancer.
Perhaps the Vulcans (and by extension, the Romulans) have a long-standing tradition of fully exploring the implications of any new technology before they implement it. The reason the Romulans didn't have Warp when first contacted by the Federation might be that they weren't confident that this new technology had no unpleasant side effects. When confronted with a technological society that used that technology, they decided that it was better to risk partially-understood technology than to depend upon the (unproven) good will of strangers.
</Speculation>
--Baloo
PS: This thread sure has a lot of long-winded responses, doesn't it? 
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The hyperhamster is alive and well.
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"I'll be the sky above the Ganges
I'll be the vast and stormy sea.
I'll be the lights that guide you inward.
I'll be the visions you will see."
--
R.E.M.
One: Further evidence that the Romulan-Vulcan separation occurred in the distant past is supported by the fact that not even Spock had heard of the Romulans in "Balance of Terror". What's more, the Romulans were the ones to first say they were distantly related to the Vulcans, suggesting (as usually occurrs in society) that the ones who were forced to leave are the more likely to remember the parting.
Two: There is one definite reference made by Spock (and I can't remember when) that the wars that nearly consumed Vulcan, just before their leader and founder of their faith (what's his name? it escapes me) began to teach them to rise above their emotions, happened nearly a thousand years ago. This is very close to being the amount of time the Romulans would have needed to get to their new home, forget how to use warp drive, and then learn how to use it again. Precedents for that are ample, how long was it before we discovered indoor plumbing again after the collapse of Rome? Too, the war provides good excuse for the Romulans to leave, especially if we consider that they rejected S's (the leader again) philosophy of logic above all. This war also, as devastating as it was, gives us reason to understand the Vulcans failure to begin exploring sooner. After such a war the technology, or at least the reason or will to use it, would have been lost.
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"A screaming comes across the sky..."
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Risk is our business! That's what this starship is all about....that's why we're aboard her!"
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Peace!
Brigs
Now, fandom has generally assumed that Vulcan was a rather advanced planet at the time of those wars. There's really not much evidence either way, but for the renegade Vulcans to seriously consider fleeing the planet as an option, there would have to have been a pretty advanced spacefaring tradition, warp drive or not. They probably had access to all sorts of advanced drive systems that present day space programs would love to get their hands on.
So regardless of warp drive, the Romulans could have probably made it to their new home in a relatively short period of time, with a few stops along the way.
Of course, an alternate theory would be that not all of the renegade Vulcans agreed with each other, and were dropped on several planets, with only the Romulans surviving. Perhaps this explains the existance of the Mintakans, described as protovulcans. They could have been outcasts who chose Mintaka as their new home, but for some reason were not able to hold on to their history or their technology, and reverted to a primitive society. This does depend on where exactly Mintaka is located, however.
Meanwhile, back on Vulcan, the juggernaut of progress is tempered by the cool cautiousness of logic. This explains why Vulcan is not 2,000 years ahead of the rest of the Federation in terms of technology. As for the Romulans, their energies were focused on taming their new home, and they would not look back to the stars until later.
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"I'll be the sky above the Ganges
I'll be the vast and stormy sea.
I'll be the lights that guide you inward.
I'll be the visions you will see."
--
R.E.M.
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-=Ryan McReynolds=-
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http://frankg.dgne.com/
Grimlock: "You are creator?"
Primacron: "Unfortunately...yes."
Some additional thoughts:
1. There must have been a lot of dissenters that later became the Romulans. Otherwise the event of leaving or being expelled from Vulcan would not have been an important event in Vulcan history, and, after all, the huge Romulan civilization needs some basis. So there must have been a huge fleet of "Romulan" ships leaving Vulcan forever, warp drive or not.
2. Maybe the Vulcans actually lost trace of the dissenters, maybe the later Romulans even left Vulcan prior to the climax of the civil war, whereupon all Vulcan starships might have been destroyed or abandoned. The Vulcans did not tell anyone of the Romulans because they didn't know of them themselves.
3. I think the Romulan War must have been very short (in terms of number of space battles, not necessarily years), just as it has been described several times in this thread. There hasn't obviously been a "normal" first contact situation, and during a long war there would have been lots of possibilities to get to know the enemy, at least what they look like.
4. The Romulans most probably did have warp drive. Even if the Neutral Zone in "Balance of Terror" was directly outside the Romulan star system, it would have taken years to reach the Fed outposts with impulse drive and attack them. Moreover, the complete Romulan War must have taken place inside the Romulan Star system in this case. And no one of the Federation managed to explore the Romulans during this time?
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Brain. Brain. What is brain? (Kara the Eymorg, "Spock's Brain")
www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/
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Now why Joseph Franz put in is Tech Manual that the Romulan War was ended by peace-treaty sent over subspace radio, I have no idea. I don't know whether to treat this information as "historic misinformation", a subspace radio system that was of such mammoth porportions that it could only be planet based--but how would the Romulans get one too, or plain rubbish. I'm opting for rubbish.
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"Look into any eyes you find by you; you can see clear to another day..."
-The Grateful Dead, "Box of Rain"
Now I'm not 100% certain about this, but it seems to me that the Vulcans and the Romulans would be doing things a bit too well in order to have a war which nearly wasted Vulcan (as Spock once said), and then to go on to have another altercation, this one lasting about a century.
It's my guess that this 100-year "good family feud" and Spock's war are one and the same. BUT that leaves the question:what role did Quinn play in all of this?
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If no-one will play with me, then I'm going home,and I'm bringing the inflatible with me.
Take chess. It is a war of sorts where the opponents use strategy and the forethought to see the outcome of possible moves. A game of chess takes a lot longer than a wrestling match.
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The Leader in Offensive Ideology.
De-Value Life Today!