What with summer reruns and all, I thought it'd be neat to revisit these old discussions as they are viewed the second time around. We'll have had months to let the original settle in (and in many cases, be forgotten), so this may add a different perspective to the show.
So, we start with the early season two episode "Minefield". Now that the season is over, does anyone have anythiing additional to say about the technology? Especially the Romulan tech... Considering all the stuff we've seen in the past year, is it really still worth wondering about? And since they haven't shown up again, what about the war we know is coming?
posted
This is not my own personal view of things, nor is it something I think is a good idea, but consider: A war against the Romulans was fought, according to Kirk and crew, by "Earth and her allies" about a hundred years before "Balance of Terror." Since then, everyone has assumed that this both took place before the founding of the Federation, and was in some way the impetus for the same. However, is this notion, in the strictest sense, canon? Consider that, at the time "Balance of Terror" was written, no one had thought up the Federation yet. Other episodes have references to Earth doing this, or that, and no one assumes this to mean that these events did not involve the Federation. If "Balance of Terror" had appeared in the second season, would the line still read "Earth and her allies"? We've all been assuming that the Romulans were something that Enterprise would have to deal with, but, strictly speaking, are they?
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quote:Originally posted by Sol System: This is not my own personal view of things, nor is it something I think is a good idea, but consider: A war against the Romulans was fought, according to Kirk and crew, by "Earth and her allies" about a hundred years before "Balance of Terror."
SPOCK:
"Referring to the map on your screens you will note a line of Earth outpost stations. Constructed on asteroids, they monitor the Neutral Zone, established by treaty after the Earth-Romulan conflict of over a century ago.
"As you may recall from your histories, this conflict was fought, by our standards today, with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives. Nor was there even ship to ship visual communication. Therefore, no human, Romulan or ally has seen the other.
"Earth believes the Romulans to be warlike, cruel, treacherous...and only the Romulans know what they think of Earth.
"The treaty, set by subspace radio, established this neutral zone, entry into which by either side would constitute an act of war."
That's what was the main summary of ther war. This was the only mention of allies. [I edited this last line because I had written exactly the opposte of what I intended...which was this was the only reference to "allies" related to the war.]
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"Referring to the map on your screens you will note a line of Earth outpost stations. Constructed on asteroids, they monitor the Neutral Zone, established by treaty after the Earth-Romulan conflict of over a century ago.
"As you may recall from your histories, this conflict was fought, by our standards today, with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives. Nor was there even ship to ship visual communication. Therefore, no human, Romulan or ally has seen the other. "Earth believes the Romulans to be warlike, cruel, treacherous...and only the Romulans know what they think of Earth.
"The treaty, set by subspace radio, established this neutral zone, entry into which by either side would constitute an act of war."
That's what was the main summary of ther war. I don't recall any mention of allies.
Actually, we've had this discussion before, but you said it yourself - "Therefore, no human, Romulan or ally has seen the other." Obviously somebody had an ally...Earth would seem to be the most likely prospect for this...
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"...with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives."
Well, "Enterprise" has tossed that one down the shitter, hasn't it?
At the risk of defending the continuity-free B&B duo, one could make the argument that the photon torpedoes will remain sufficiently rare that only a few dozen/hundred would be used in the war, out of the hundreds/thousands of torpedoes fired.
Not that such a concept helps with the whole phase cannon thing. But, then, they had the plasma cannon thingies, too, and Spock didn't mention those. Of course, those sucked as badly as the spatial torps, so it was okay. :-)
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posted
There's always the possibility that Spock was comparing the atomic weapons of the 22nd century (phasers, fusion and photon torpedoes) and the atomic weapons of the 23rd (phasers, photon torpedoes), since those were the decisive ones in the conflict. And the atomics of the 22nd would be primitive compared with those of the 23rd, device by device, weapon type by weapon type.
Secondary weapons such as plasma cannon or lasers or kinetic kill missiles or dress swords in turn would not be discussed at all.
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Consider that, at the time "Balance of Terror" was written, no one had thought up the Federation yet. Other episodes have references to Earth doing this, or that, and no one assumes this to mean that these events did not involve the Federation.
Indeed, the war was always assumed to involve the Federation in every published novel and manual I am aware of... until the Chronology. What is strange is Okuda's inconsistent use of this "Earth only" idea. It's like he just plain wanted to set the war before the Federation, so he latched onto the Earth idea.
In "A Taste of Armageddon," for instance, the Valiant is said several times to be an Earth vessel, on an Earth mission... but Okuda didn't assume that the Federation must have been founded after 2218, or that the Valiant was part of some special Earth fleet. Why would the Romulan War be any different? We've got fourteen more seasons of Enterprise before the lack of a Romulan War violates canon.
posted
Sort of. After all, it's one of those entries in the chronology that comes under the "we sort of made it up, so it's canon unless a future episode changes it."
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posted
I believe it was D.C. Fontana who originally came up with the idea that the Romulan War precipitated the founding of the Federation. (Earth and her allies banding together for mutual defense against any further threats.) I think the Okudas credit her with this in the Chronology.
-MMoM
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posted
Well, to explain the Valiant reference, you've really got to draw the line somewhere. After all, "A Taste of Armageddon" does come from the early TOS period, before they'd definitively settled on "Federation" and "Starfleet." Some of the previous references (like UESPA and Combined Service) can be retconned or explained away, others just need to be ignored.
Making the Romulan War a pre-Federation conflict makes sense considering the timetable described in "Balance of Terror," after all -- Spock said "over a hundred years ago," so there's a rough time frame established.
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quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Well, to explain the Valiant reference, you've really got to draw the line somewhere. After all, "A Taste of Armageddon" does come from the early TOS period, before they'd definitively settled on "Federation" and "Starfleet."
"A Taste of Armageddon" was episode #23, while "Balance of Terror" was episode #9.
"Armageddon" referred to the United Federation of Planets and featured Federation Ambassador Fox (identified as such); if I'm not mistaken, they actually called the Enterprise an Earth ship, too! So at that time, the Federation was established, but they used it somewhat interchangeably with Earth... as if it was something of an "Earth Federation," actually. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the original idea at the time, which would tend to support that the terms are interchangeable at least through TOS season 2. That's just speculation, though.
quote: Making the Romulan War a pre-Federation conflict makes sense considering the timetable described in "Balance of Terror," after all -- Spock said "over a hundred years ago," so there's a rough time frame established.
I'm not saying it doesn't make sense. I'm definitely not saying it should be a Federation conflict. I'm just saying that the idea that it has to be pre-Federation is pretty arbitrary. Even with "over a century," that's six years of Federation time, if one wants to stick it in there.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: There's always the possibility that Spock was comparing the atomic weapons of the 22nd century (phasers, fusion and photon torpedoes) and the atomic weapons of the 23rd (phasers, photon torpedoes), since those were the decisive ones in the conflict. And the atomics of the 22nd would be primitive compared with those of the 23rd, device by device, weapon type by weapon type.
But none of those weapons are really "atomic" as the way people understand atomic (splitting atoms versus total annhilation). If phasers and photon torpedoes are atomic, then so's a poptart.
Though, you do inspire another point. It's atomic, not nuclear. So what, were they throwing kiloton-ranged weapons at each other? That's not much of a fireworks show, even by today's standards.
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posted
Have you seen some of the crappy new pop-tart flavors? It would'nt suprise me.
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posted
Probably not -- if photon-ic torps in Ent are variable yield just like photon torps later on then that would invalidate the "no quarter in battle" observation.
Personally, I had hoped the Enterprise series would stick with lasers, plasma cannons, nuclear weapons, tri-cobalt fusion weapons but not go anywhere near phaser aka phase cannon, photon-ic or photon torpedoes and leave those just as items mentioned in research papers of the time for both Earth, Klingon and Romulan forces.
Oh well.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: There's always the possibility that Spock was comparing the atomic weapons of the 22nd century (phasers, fusion and photon torpedoes) and the atomic weapons of the 23rd (phasers, photon torpedoes), since those were the decisive ones in the conflict. And the atomics of the 22nd would be primitive compared with those of the 23rd, device by device, weapon type by weapon type.
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