posted
Hey was I reading over at EAS about Bernd's impression of the ENT romulan ship and how he thinks it's a little too advanced... I tend to agree but that's besides the point. It suddenly hit me... what if the Earth-Romulan War set the Romulans back a hundred years to near pre-warp levels? This would explain a lot after the fact, right? Anyway, just a thought, I don't have time to elaborate on it, but there isn't much need to. What do you think?
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posted
Sure, it's possible, but it implies a level of destruction so massive that...well, it doesn't exactly fit with the post-conflict relationship between the two powers that we've seen. All the anecdotal evidence suggests, in my opinion, a relatively short conflict that ended in a bit of a draw, with little or nothing in the way of territorial gains on either side. If Earth had been in a position to bomb every Romulan world back to the Einstein age, surely they would have been in a position to at least get a good look at one, if not occupy some Romulan territory outright.
Of course, you could suppose that Earth launched a sizable wave of relativistic projectiles at all the planets in the Star Empire, and Earth ships never got anywhere near them, but, uh, that's a little extreme for the good guys in a Roddenberry universe.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
That would also fail to offer a reason why there'd be a stalemate that would last for 100 years afterwards.
Don't take for granted the political decision to make a neutral zone where neither side may enter in order to keep each other at arm's length. That kind of situation only develops when two sides are at approximately equal strength and are willing to concede certain territories.
It's like the Korean DMZ -- an enforced border that developed mainly from equal forces.
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posted
I think the Romulans probably had far superior technology during the brief war but their relatively limited rescourses meant very few warp capable starships. The warp drives the had were built into carriers for smaller BOP's than the Enterprise version and during the war many of thses were lost....along with enough of starfleet to make continued hostilities a bad idea. Thus the Neutral Zone was born.
Limited dilithum or antimatter rescourses also would explain the Romulans shifting to a singulatity based power source for their ships.
Just a thought or three...
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posted
But the Romulans having limited warp drive all stems from a single line in an episode that plainly didn't mean what certain people think it could mean. The BOP in "Balance of Terror" quite plainly could travel FTL. And in modern Trek talk, FTL = warp. There's no need to argue about big ship carriers, or anything like that.
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posted
AAARGH.
"Warp drive turned a bunch of thugs into an empire" and "we can handle the Son'a / somebody said the same thing about the Romulans a century ago" are NOT causally related, per se. Period. There shallt be no more rehashing.
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Unless you want to argue that the BOP in "Balance of Terror" lacked a FTL drive. But to do that would be a sign of madness.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
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posted
if you believed that your brain would be running on simple impulse
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posted
Is tha3t why I ke3ep hitting the "3" on my ke3yboard by mistak3e? 33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333
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1) I postulated the idea that the Romulans lost warp drive or a significant portion of their warp capable ships during war because it seemed like they weren't much of a threat for a while after that.
2) Just because you set up a DMZ has nothing to do with the fact that both sides where equal. Earth might have seen that the war was over but they didn't feel like destroying the Romulans [who would?]... as a concession to end the war they went for the Romulans demand of a DMZ.
3) "BoT," as if we need to go over it again, indicates nothing to me about the ship not being warp capable, only that it was using "Impulse Power" in other words "Fusion Power." And for another matter, where the Romulans were at would have required some type of FTL flight [period].
4) I was trying to rationalize Picard's conversation about the Romulans in Insurrection. There is no doubt that the Romulans have had FTL capability for many more years than Earth, but it also seems likely that they haven't had the development to Antimatter/Matter power or the ability to produce as many warp capable ships as Earth.
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
posted
The thing is, to destroy the Romulan capacity for warp travel, and to destroy it in such a way that it stays destroyed, suggests that Earth would have had to have made pretty serious inroads on destroying the Romulans in general. It isn't good enough to just destroy every Romulan ship, or even every Romulan shipyard. Look how quickly industries can get repurposed in the real world. To ensure that the Romulans couldn't build any warp capable ships, I think you'd have to destroy the majority of Romulan industry. You'd probably also need to kill most of the warp engineers pool, including potential future ones. That implies a pretty severe number of casualties. And you'd have to do this on any Romulan world whose industrial base could potentially support constructing warp drives.
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posted
One should note that Earth could have cut the Romulans off a crucial warp resource, though. Think of, say, Japan at the later stages of WWII, or just prior to it. No oil, no coal and little or no iron ore or bauxite means no war industry beyond the very basics, even when the society itself remains mostly unharmed.
What would be a crucial warp resource? Remus has dilithium, it now seems - and one can have warp without dilithium (or perhaps synthesize it, like one can synthesize liquid fuels out of coal?). But could Romulans have been short of warp coil materials? Should the RNZ be seen as an embargo measure first and foremost?
posted
I think the same concerns apply in that case, though. Either Earth is in a position to block trade from one planet in the Star Empire to another, in which case they've essentially conquered the Romulans and destroyed the empire, or they've wiped out every warp drive, functioning or in the process of being built. Either scenerio seems to me to argue for an overwhelming sort of victory, which I don't think is what's intended.
On the other hand, we know very little about this war, so it very well could have proceeded in such a way.
Incidently, re: the Neutral Zone as an exercise in economic sanctions: Has the issue of whether or not the Federation or the Romulans prevent neutral third parties from crossing it been raised? Moreso the Federation, since presumably if the Romulans want to prevent someone from traveling through it they simply blow them up.
The only example I can think of is in DS9, when we hear that the Dominion is making attacks across the Neutral Zone, presumably in an effort to split Starfleet's attention and resources. But I don't remember if anything was mentioned about the Romulan position on the issue; whether they were actively letting the Dominion through, or whether they were just not overly anxious about preventing it. Or, I suppose, whether they honestly didn't know about the attacks until they occured. And, of course, the Dominion hardly represents a neutral third party. What about "Birthright"? The Yridian ship took Worf across the NZ, as I recall.
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