posted
This has been on my mind for a while and since I sketched a UEDF warship just for the purpose of participating in the war, I had a few thoughs on the subject.
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.
posted
I think the Romulans had to have some form of warp drive. After all, they needed one to actually get to Romulus from Vulcan in any reasonable amount of time.
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?
------------------ "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.
posted
If you want to look at a non-canonical resource for a possibility... in Star Fleet Battles, the Romulans are described as having "non-tactical warp" or a "jump drive" during that time period. That is, they could travel between star systems but not fight at warp speeds.
Of course, that's for a game that simulates warp speed combat...
posted
Then there are Picard's comments about Romulans in Insurrection, but I believe they are open to interpretation - if i remember the two lines exactly he mentioned, i'd too remember what I had said previously in this area, but let me just say it was me still saying the the rommies, could travel ftl more than 100 years ago, and that this incident that Picard mentioned 100 years ago was to do with the Tomed incident, which was the catalyst for a Romulan period of isolation for more than 70 years, broken by the Borg presence in 2264. (The Neutral Zone) TNG season 1.
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
------------------ 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 First One
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
Member # 35
posted
Good point. Surely their unusual way of powering their warp drives suggests an independent development of warp. Just as Cochrane used an obsolete nuclear missile, they used a pretty lethal and stupid power supply. Maybe they were in a hurry to start acting like the Galaxy's Nazis. . .
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Well, you have to smash it down real small...
------------------ "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.
posted
I think the singularity power source came later. Likewise I think the Phoenix wasn't powered by a matter/anti-matter reaction due to the situation of human affairs at the time. The AM would have been created and stored prior to the nuclear war. The warring surviving factions would eventually find these AM reserves and use them on their enemies. There is too much risk involved in designing a ship to use AM you maynot be able to obtain, or secure from theft or exposure to matter. That's not the way I would have done it. Mostlikely it was a fusion generator that kicked of enough energy to hit warp one. Cochran's goal was making money, not history. So who would buy something that used something as rare and dangerous, and difficult to create without a well trained particle accelerator team, as anti-matter? Had the Earth went to war with Vulcan at that time, Earth ships would have been built with primate warp drives. And the Vulcans would have beat us. So true must it be that the Romulans used a primative warp drive and not something as exotic and difficult to manufacture than a singularity. Plus a singularity will pose a more enviromental threat than fusion.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
I agree with that assessment. There is no way that Cochrane and Lilly could make a warp core on their own. Therefore, a fusion reactor system seems the most logical explanation. Even though, in ST:FC, Riker specifically says, "Let's bring the warp core online". I wonder if he meant this generically, as in a fusion reactor, or if he meant a matter anti-matter warp core.
------------------ Risk is our business! That's what this starship is all about....that's why we're aboard her!"
posted
I'm sure that it was just force of habit. After so many years of calling it a "warp core", it's gotta be second-nature. I agree that Cochrane probably used a fusion reactor, and probably got the M/AR idea from the Vulcans.
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.
------------------ "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein
posted
Allow me to extropolate on the starship advancement idea.
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.
------------------ . . .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...
------------------ "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein
posted
No human, and by extension no Federation member, had ever seen a Romulan until the events in "Balance of Terror." Of course, if the first humans to make contact with Romulus were killed, in the days before subspace radio, that secret would be preserved.
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?
------------------ "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.
posted
OK, on top of all the previous ideas, maybe the Vulcan and Romulan long live span...
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
------------------ 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
Printer-friendly view of this topic
