I've been working on this for a few years, and finally have a version I'm happy to share. It's a bit long, but I'm interested to see how everyone likes/dislikes it. WARNING: Even though I didn't like the finale of ENTERPRISE, I take it seriously in that I believe 2161 was the founding of the Coalition, not the UFP; and that the Romulan War did not happen before the founding of the CofP (explaining why there was no mention of it). As can be read below, in my view the Earth-Romulan War was after 2161, then the transformation of the CofP to the UFP was after that.
Enjoy!
Background
Since the time their place of origin, Vulcan, was rediscovered, the Romulans desired to expand their Empire into what is now known as the Alpha Quadrant. When the Romulan-Vulcan reunification campaign suffered a serious setback in 2155, the Romulans changed their strategy to one of laying the foundation for future conquest by promoting instability in the region. The first attempt at this was later that year, when the Romulans used an unmanned, remote-controlled attack ship that was capable of adopting the appearance and weapons signature of any race in the region to cause a war between the Tellarites and the Andorians. The mission failed when humans interfered—first, by successfully mediating a truce between the rival worlds, then by taking the lead in tracking down and destroying the Romulan vessel. However, afterward, some Senators who had either supported or closely followed the mission realized two key things: 1) the attack ships developed for this mission showed great promise, and only needed additional time in research and development to become a viable weapon in the Empire's arsenal; and 2) humans were becoming a catalyst in promoting cooperation amongst numerous worlds in the region—and this posed a threat to the Romulan Star Empire's long-term goals of expansion. In 2156 this group of hawkish Senators began to advocate attacking Earth and its colonies; they believed that with the demise of humanity, the region would stay in a perpetual state of discord—and the Romulans would take advantage of that instability when ready. But despite the power of the warhawk caucus (significant enough to have the charges against Admiral Valdore and Senator Vrax dropped soon after they were arrested), a group of moderate Senators proposed a more subtle approach to dealing with Earth—an approach that involved covert operations aimed at sabotaging the relationships between Earth and its neighbors. The approach sponsored by the moderates won favor with the Praetor, and over the next 4 years, two covert operations were launched—both of which failed. These failures, compounded by the forming of the Coalition of Planets in 2161, caused the downfall of the Praetor, and allowed the warhawks to gain control of the Senate. In late 2161, with the installation of a new Praetor that came from their caucus, a war plan that had been in development by the warhawks for the last six years were put into action.
Strategy
The Romulans' overall goal was not the conquest of Earth and its colonies, for the Empire was not yet capable of maintaining any conquered worlds so far outside their own region of space; in addition, conquering Earth would invite aggression from Earth's current allies—something the Empire was not in a position to defend itself against. Rather, the Romulans' strategic goal was more subtle: they would facilitate humans permanently removing themselves from interstellar affairs through attacking and destroying all of Earth's ships, outposts, and colonies. Based on intelligence gathered in the last several years, the Romulans knew that such a campaign would cause a radical internal political reaction on Earth: isolationist and anti-alien political factions would rise and take control of the United Earth government—and with an isolationist government in power, Earth would withdraw from the Coalition of Planets, effectively dissolving the new-born alliance and causing the region to fall back into its previous prejudices and conflicts. In order for this strategic goal to be reached, the war plan that was developed called for Romulan forces to attack only human targets (so as not to draw any non-humans into the fight), to completely destroy their targets (leaving nothing that could be easily repaired or rebuilt), and to attack in a random manner—random in the frequency of the attacks as well as in the locations of the attacks. (Attacking without a discernable pattern was vitally important: though the Romulans knew that soon after their attacks began Earth would deduce who was responsible for them, with patternless attacks the Romulans could conceal where their homeworld and bases were located, leaving Earth with no way to take the offensive—a circumstance that both protected Romulan territory and put humans in the undesirable position of constantly being on the defensive.) By executing their war plan, the Romulans would eliminate humans as a force in interstellar politics without the need for an invasion of Earth itself—in fact, without the need for the Romulan Guard at all.
The Romulans would not need to use its military personnel at all in the campaign because the primary instrument to be used in executing the war plan was an upgraded version of the crewless, remote-controlled warship developed in the 2150s. Crewless warships had some important benefits: with no crew, there was no chance for an enemy to take prisoners and gain information through interrogation; also, the vessels were designed without the structural restrictions necessary for manned ships, which gave them much greater maneuverability than a manned ship as well as enabled them to continue operating despite suffering damage that would incapacitate a crew and thereby render a manned ship prematurely impotent. This second-generation crewless warship, though similar to its predecessor from a decade earlier in size, speed, maneuverability, and the capability to self-repair, had some key differences: gone were the holographic emitters (and the unorthodox design necessitated by this feature, including the multitude of hull-mounted antennae), the variable-configuration weapons emitters, and the reliance on telepresence control by an involuntary subject; instead, the new warship had a streamlined 'warbird'-like design, had a traditional, less complex, weapons system, and was remote-controlled via telepresence by a specially-trained Reman pilot. Remans were not as telepathically strong as Aenarians, so a significant modification to the control system for the crewless warships was developed: special satellites were developed that could boost the telepathic signal of Remans to increase their range. Besides increasing the telepathic range of Remans, the use of a satellite network as an intermediary between Reman pilots located in a control center on Romulus and warships located in deep space gave the Empire a extra layer of security: even in the worst-case scenario of a warship being captured intact (something that was not likely given the redundant self-destruct programs built into the warships), there would be no way to track the signals that controlled the vessel back to Romulus.
Though the Romulans used cloaking technology, the first-generation crewless warships could not use the technology because it would have interfered with the telepathic signal of the Aenarian pilot. With the new satellite-enhanced control system, this was not an issue; however, it was still decided not to equip the new warships with cloaking systems due to the tactical and operational limitations of the technology. The Romulan cloaking system required so much power to operate that it could not be engaged when a vessel travelled at warp speed, activated its shields, or fired its weapons; in addition, the cloaking effect was generated by a combination of holographic and sensor-dampening technologies—both of which were complex systems that required hands-on adjustment and monitoring to operate. But despite not being well-suited for the crewless warship, Romulan cloaking technology was perfectly suited for the satellites that relayed commands to the warships—and when deployed, the combination of cloaking technology and inconspicuous but strategic placement would make the satellites virtually undetectable.
The Romulans began building the new crewless warships in early 2162; since research, testing, and prototype trials had been ongoing for the past five years, the construction of the first three squadrons went relatively quickly. While the warships were being produced, the satellite network was set up throughout the region using cloaked warbirds. After readying a dozen warships, the Romulan Senate declared war on Earth.
The War
The first act of aggression by the Romulans was specifically chosen to be as demoralizing as it was tactically significant. On June 17, 2162, the Romulans attacked and completely destroyed what many humans considered to be Earth's crowning achievement in its quest to explore space: Starbase One. No one that survived the attack was in a position to see the attackers, and all indications were that there were no warnings or demands made before the attack. Earth was left with no clue as to who it was that attacked or why—nor did they know if it was an isolated incident or the beginning of something larger. Nevertheless, immediately after the attack Earth put all of its civilian vessels and colonies on alert, and Starfleet reassigned all of its starships to patrol and escort missions.
The answer to the question of whether the destruction of Starbase One was the beginning of something larger came two weeks later when a convoy consisting of four Earth freighters and the two Starfleet starships escorting them was attacked while travelling to the Vega colony. All six ships were completely destroyed. Again, the few survivors there were had not been in a position to see the attackers, and there was no warning or demand received beforehand. The destruction of the convoy was so complete that none of the ships' sensor logs could be recovered, leaving Starfleet Command with absolutely no data on the attacking ships—not even something as simple as what the ships looked like. The only information Starfleet was able to gather came when they compared the weapons signatures on the convoy wreckage to the weapons signatures on the Starbase rubble and found a match. It was evident that both attacks were carried out by the same party. Despite not knowing who the enemy was, the United Earth government declared Earth and its colonies in a state of war.
Realizing the difficultly that faced Earth, the other Coalition of Planets members decided to increase patrols around their own worlds and colonies, and formally agreed to come to the assistance of any member's ship or planet that came under attack. But after seven more attacks were made on Earth convoys and colonies over the next three months—resulting in the loss of over twenty ships, the Vega colony, one of the Alpha Centauri colonies, the Tau Ceti colony, and the loss of hundreds of lives—Earth and its fellow Coalition members came to the conclusion that whatever the aggressor's motive was, humans alone were the target.
Though in each of the last seven attacks Starfleet's ships were able to engage the attackers, they were always outmatched: as was learned from three Starfleet bridge officers who survived two of the attacks (sensor data was still not available from any of the encounters), the enemy used squadrons of small, heavily-armed and heavily-armored vessels that were well coordinated in their strikes and highly maneuverable—so highly maneuverable that Starfleet's ships had great difficulty targeting the enemy ships, leaving the battles both extremely one-sided and extremely short in duration. In the end, Starfleet's ships were destroyed along with whatever they were trying to protect. Compounding the tactical disadvantages that Starfleet suffered was a serious strategic disadvantage: The attacks were sporadic in frequency and random in location, leaving no discernable pattern from which to organize a cohesive defense. Adding to the tactical and strategic disadvantages was the frustration in trying to determine the enemy's motive: the enemy never established communications during any attack despite numerous hails, so no demands were ever received; in addition, no Earth ships were raided or captured and no Earth colonies were raided or occupied. The enemy simply appeared, destroyed everything, then left. The lack of communication and the lack of interest in the targets being attacked meant that there was no hope for any kind of negotiation with the enemy, and this lack of hope took almost as much of a psychological toll on humans as the physical losses did.
Just as it looked like humanity would be disappearing from space, in a bold move, Andoria deepened their commitment to their ally by assigning some of their own ships to Starfleet patrol and escort missions—effectively putting their own vessels in harm's way. Strategically, the primary reason for this action was to allow Starfleet to concentrate its starships around Earth in anticipation of a large-scale attack on the Terran system; but a secondary reason for the move was a theory held by some strategists in the Andorian Imperial Guard and Starfleet Command: if it was indeed the case that only humans were the enemy's target, then having a non-human presence in Earth convoys and colony patrols may act as a deterrent to further attacks. The Romulans noticed the mixing of Andorian starships with Earth ships almost as soon as it happened, but were not concerned about it; they knew that assistance in this manner from Earth's allies was a possibility, and had an adjustment to their tactics ready to be implemented for this contingency: 'surgical' strikes. The Romulans would continue to attack human vessels and facilities while completely ignoring any non-human combatants in the field of battle—regardless of the damage or losses inflicted by Earth's allies on the Romulans' warships (losses were of no real consequence since the warships were unmanned and since replacements could be produced within a few months). But though the warships were considered somewhat expendable, the attacks needed to be successful—and to this end, to ensure that any given attack could not be compromised by losses due to non-human combatants, the revised tactic called for larger squadrons of warships to be used (six instead of the usual four). Though some on Romulus viewed allied military assistance to Earth as a worrisome development, others welcomed this event; they believed that the use of the revised tactic, besides continuing the Empire's war plan, would serve to impress upon those who were aiding Earth how futile it was to interfere, while creating anxiety for those who were considering aiding Earth. In effect, this simple change of tactic could cause some worlds to segregate themselves from humans, which would aid the Romulan war plan.
After Andorian cruisers started assisting Starfleet, there were no attacks for just over two weeks; allied strategists had hoped this was an indication that their theory that the enemy would avoid human targets if non-humans were present was correct. In the third week, however, any such hope was dashed: a convoy of Earth freighters travelling to Trillius Prime escorted by two Andorian cruisers and two Starfleet starships was attacked. A group of six vessels quickly destroyed all of the Earth ships while completely ignoring the Andorian vessels—despite the Andorian cruisers registering a few direct hits on two of the enemy ships. Five days later, the Deneva colony and the two starships protecting it were attacked. Ignoring the presence of three Andorian ships—who actually destroyed one of the enemy vessels—the attacking ships destroyed the colony and the Earth ships. Morale at Starfleet Command fell to a new low after the attacks; only news that the Andorians were able to collect sensor data about the enemy ships tempered the grim mood. After the sensor data was analyzed, two conclusions were drawn: 1) the enemy ships were Romulan, and 2) the ships were an upgraded version of the remote-controlled, crewless ships encountered in 2155. Earth now knew who its enemy was. But though the attackers were now identified, their motive still remained a mystery: little was known about the Romulans, and they had no relations with anyone that Earth or its allies had contact with. The only known Romulan planet—an uninhabited world discovered by the S.S. Enterprise in 2152—seemed to have been abandoned by the time another ship was sent to investigate the system following the incident with the Romulans' first-generation crewless warship.
As some on Romulus had predicted, the attacks had a sobering effect on some of Earth's allies: Rijl and Denobula declared themselves neutral throughout the rest of the conflict from this point forward, while Draylax and Coridan severely cut back the assistance they were giving Earth. However, Earth's closest allies became more resolute in their support. After the attacks, Andor, Tellar, and Vulcan began sharing military technology with Starfleet: the Andorians and Tellarites worked with Starfleet to significantly improve the targeting systems on their starships, and the Vulcans and Tellarites introduced Starfleet engineers to defensive shield technology. Though refitting starships with defensive shield systems would take months, upgrading Starfleet's ships with improved targeting systems was quicker and easier: two weeks after the attack on Deneva, most of Starfleet's ships had been upgraded. The targeting upgrade enabled a starship's weapons fire to keep up with the maneuvers of the Romulan warships and helped to somewhat level the playing field in combat—as was proven in every encounter with the Romulans from this point forward.
In spite of being able to hold its ground in engagements with the enemy, for the next nine months Starfleet remained in the increasingly frustrating position of constantly being on the defensive as the Romulans relentlessly continued their attacks. Earth lost no more colonies, civilian ships, or civilian lives, but Starfleet losses continued, and no ground was gained against the seemingly never-ending supply of Romulan attack ships. All attempts to jam or interfere with whatever telepresence system the Romulans were using to control their warships failed, and though Starfleet was able to destroy many of the enemy warships, there was never anything left in the debris to examine so that Earth could determine how to stop them. Even in the rare cases when an enemy vessel was disabled instead of destroyed during a battle, Starfleet could not take advantage of the situation: the ship would self-destruct as soon as an allied vessel approached. Starfleet desperately needed a strategic or an intelligence breakthrough in order to avoid a long war of attrition.
On Romulus, the architects of the war plan were not concerned about Earth and its allies learning that they were the attackers, or about Earth's allies giving military aid to Starfleet: as long as they were careful both to conceal the location of their homeworld and not to draw Earth's allies directly into the war, they were confident that their goal of Earth isolating itself from interstellar politics would be achieved. From the beginning, Romulan strategists knew that any military or tactical advancements the humans made—whether through their own efforts or due to the assistance of their allies—would, at best, only make Earth's starships equal to the capabilities of the Romulan warships; in this situation, a war of attrition would ensue—and the advantage would go to the Romulans, for two reasons: 1) it would be much easier for the Romulans to produce and field crewless attack ships than it would for Starfleet to produce and field manned starships with trained crews, and 2) the Romulans planned for the long term, whereas humans were an impatient species. For the Romulans, it did not matter whether the campaign against Earth took one year or twenty years—their war plan was the same either way; however, the Romulans knew that humans could not or would not tolerate a long war of attrition—a fact that was reinforced by intelligence reports indicating that isolationist groups were beginning to organize on Earth in mid-2163. But regardless of whether the Romulan campaign was long or short, its success relied on their satellite network remaining undisturbed.
In June 2163 a Rijllian vessel searching for space salvage in an uninhabited system near one of their outposts picked up what they thought was a derelict satellite on their long-range sensors. When they approached the target for close-range scanning, instead of a satellite, they found a small asteroid—an asteroid with a peculiar radiation reading. Puzzled by the seemingly contradictory sensor readings, the vessel dispatched a shuttle to examine the asteroid up close. But just as the shuttle disembarked the ship, the asteroid exploded—yet strangely, the pieces of debris were clearly that of a satellite. The Rijllian captain took samples of the debris, and later reported the incident to his government; officials on Rijl were just as confused as the salvage vessel captain about what to make of the discovery. A few weeks later, at a science conference on Vulcan, a Rijllian scientist who had knowledge of the incident was casually discussing it with a Vulcan colleague; the Vulcan scientist was intrigued by the story, and asked to help analyze the debris and sensor data. After a few days of analysis and research, the scientists concluded that the object was Romulan. As soon as this determination was made, the scientists informed the Rijllian and Vulcan governments, which in turn immediately informed Earth of the discovery and gave Earth's scientists access to all pertinent data regarding the incident. Though there was no direct evidence in the data as to the satellite's purpose, the unusual radiation readings led allied scientists to theorize that the satellite, rather than being used for intelligence purposes, could have been a part of the Romulans' telepresence system. Starfleet decided to test its theory by dispatching a task force to search for similar satellites near previous battle sites using sensors modified to match the Rijllian salvage ship's sensors. Three weeks later, an additional satellite was found. The three-ship task force was able to get only minimal scans before the satellite self-destructed, but these readings confirmed that the satellites were Romulan and furthered the theory that these satellites were a key part of the system that controlled their attack ships. Though Starfleet would have liked to develop a way to disrupt the link between the attack ships and the satellites, they knew the only way to do so would be to actually capture either a warship or satellite—something not likely due to the self-destruct feature on both objects. Given this limitation, Starfleet focused on reorganizing their forces for satellite search-and-destroy missions. For the first time in the war, Earth went on the offensive.
Over the next several months, the nature of the war changed for both sides: Starfleet shifted their resources from defending colonies and convoys to searching for and destroying satellites; the Romulans shifted their focus from attacking Earth colonies and ships to attacking the task forces that were hunting their satellites. The Romulans were not worried about losing satellites—they could be replaced easily, and there were countless locations to place them—but they decided to take advantage of Starfleet's new tactics by setting up numerous decoy satellites to lure Starfleet ships into ambushes. With this new Romulan ploy, despite the change in the nature of the war, the results were the same for Starfleet as they had been for the past year: they gained no ground against the Romulans, and were dangerously close to being locked in a war of attrition. The root of the problem for Starfleet was in fact just what they thought they could bypass: the communication link between the satellites and the attack ships needed to be discovered and disrupted.
In the fall of 2163 Starfleet learned of a device that the Tellarites and Denobulans had been working on for a number of years that might help with their dilemma: a stasis field generator. The generator essentially created a forcefield around a stationary object that temporarily 'froze' any biological or mechanical operations within the field (the original purpose the device was to 'suspend' anyone suffering a trauma until they could be brought to a medical facility). After seeing the results of tests the Tellarites had just recently completed with a small-scale generator, Starfleet immediately recognized the potential of using such a device to try to 'freeze' a Romulan satellite so it could be fully examined without it self-destructing. Starfleet sent some of their best engineers to work with the Tellarites to build and test a ship-based version of the device. In early 2164, the device was completed and successfully tested; however, it had some limitations: once a stasis field was formed around the test objects, the field lasted a maximum of two minutes; in addition, it took an enormous amount of power to generate the field in the first place—so much power that most starship systems had to be shut down to their power to the generator when it was engaged. Regardless of its limitations, Starfleet wanted to use the device as soon as possible. Within a week after the tests concluded, the device was installed on the S.S. Polaris, which, immediately after being fitted, was deployed in a task force on a satellite hunting mission. Five weeks later—after having survived two ambushes when what turned out to be two decoy satellites were tracked down—the task force encountered a genuine satellite. As had become the norm in satellite hunting missions, a squadron of Romulan warships appeared almost immediately upon the task force's entering the vicinity of the satellite. Per their tactical plan, most of the task force engaged the warships while the S.S. Polaris and its Andorian escort maneuvered toward the satellite. The ships had to travel at high warp speed to almost the exact location of the satellite in order to prevent the satellite from self-destructing. Immediately upon coming out of warp, the S.S. Polaris generated the field around the satellite, and both ships collected detailed sensor data for as long as the field held up. Just over two minutes later, the field began to weaken, at which point the satellite self-destructed. The entire task force withdrew, and the data was transmitted to Starfleet Command. Earth finally had something to work with in discovering—and disrupting—the link between the Romulans' satellites and warships.
After almost two weeks of analyzing the sensor data, allied scientists were able to figure out how a Romulan satellite worked mechanically—but in order to recognize and then disrupt the signal that was relayed through the satellite, the scientists needed sensor data from the battlefield. To this end, they developed modifications to allied ships' sensors so that any vessels that engaged in battle with the Romulans could collect data on the communication that took place between their satellites and warships. Two months and a half-dozen battles later, allied scientists had gathered enough sensor data to discern the general patterns of the communication. However, even with the advantages of knowing the inner workings of the Romulans' satellites and being able to identify the Romulans' communication signals, the highly exotic nature of the signals—a function of their being telepathic—did not lend themselves to being disrupted or nullified by methods that were standard amongst the Coalition of Planets members. Finally, after many more weeks of often frustrating work, the scientists had hit upon something: if the Romulan warships' hulls could be irradiated with a specific combination of subatomic particles, the ships would no longer be able to receive telepresence communication. With this breakthrough, Starfleet's top priority became developing a weapon that would generate the necessary subatomic particles. Unfortunately, neither human scientists nor any other Coalition member's scientists had achieved the level of technological sophistication required to create a beam-type device that could fire subatomic particles, so Starfleet engineers had to fall back on a less practical approach: nuclear weapons. The explosion of a nuclear warhead would generate the necessary subatomic particles, and if it was exploded close enough to an enemy ship, it would sufficiently irradiate the ship's hull with these particles. However, within Starfleet Command, the idea of using nuclear weapons was controversial: because the radiation released in the detonation of a nuclear device in space affects everything around it indiscriminately—the radiation cannot be 'directed'—and because some forms of radiation from a nuclear explosion could not be shielded against, these weapons would be potentially as dangerous to the party using them as to the party they would be used against. An allied ship in the wrong position during a detonation would have its hull irradiated. In the best-case scenario, where the ship was distant from the explosion, the crew would have to be treated for radiation poisoning and the ship would have to be taken out of service to be decontaminated; in the worst-case scenario, where the ship was close to the explosion, the ship would be permanently contaminated, meaning the crew would have to abandon ship as soon as possible (treatments for radiation poisoning will not work in an environment of constant exposure), and the ship would have to be dismantled or destroyed in a remote area. In addition to the immediate danger to ships and crews, a large area surrounding a detonation would remain irradiated for a long period of time, meaning that this zone would have to be avoided by spacecraft indefinitely. The proponents of using nuclear weapons within Starfleet Command acknowledged the dangers, but pointed out that the Romulans' tactics actually helped make the use of nuclear weapons an easier choice: since Romulan satellites were located in unpopulated and/or untravelled areas, and since their warships were unmanned, then as long as the allies were careful to protect themselves, the use of these weapons was a viable option. In early May 2165, Starfleet began the development, testing, and production of torpedoes armed with nuclear warheads. By the end of the month, the new torpedoes—dubbed 'atomic torpedoes' by Starfleet engineers—were introduced into the fleet's arsenal.
Starfleet prepared a specific tactic for its task forces to follow when they used atomic torpedoes in engagements with the Romulans: upon encountering a Romulan squadron, the task force would adopt a wide formation, launch a coordinated volley of torpedoes toward the Romulan forces, withdraw from the area with a short warp burst to stay clear of the radiation zone, then stand by—being ready to engage in combat with any ships that were not sufficiently affected by the radiation. In Starfleet's first engagement against the Romulans using the new torpedoes, the protocol was followed flawlessly, and the results were stunning: within seconds of the torpedoes' detonations, all Romulan ships began drifting; seconds after that, one by one the ships self-destructed. (Starfleet analysts concluded that the attack ships were set to automatically self-destruct after losing communication—a feature that made it impossible to board or capture the ships for study.) In the next two engagements, Starfleet repeated their tactic, with the same results. The atomic torpedoes worked so well that there was no need for ship-to-ship combat—a somewhat unanticipated but very welcome outcome which ended Starfleet's losses in ships and personnel. With no more losses, Starfleet was able to make a bold strategic move: after only a few engagements, all Starfleet starships were reassigned to satellite-hunting missions (Andoria, Vulcan, and Tellar offered to protect the Terran system and Earth's remaining colonies with their ships). The result of the aggressive strategy was that just three months after the introduction of the atomic torpedoes, the tide had turned in Earth's favor.
The Romulans were taken by surprise by the humans' new tactical weapon; in response, they made adjustments to their telepresence system and tried different battle tactics to deal with the interference—all without success. After three months of disastrous battles in which they lost every ship and satellite in every engagement with Starfleet, the Romulan Senate held an emergency session to discuss the situation. At the end of the session, it was decided that the war was over: no more ships would be produced and no more satellites would be replaced; the few ships remaining in the field were recalled, and the remaining satellites were destroyed. Though the Praetor and the warhawks in the Senate were embarrassed to have the war come to an end in this way, they remained in firm control of the government—for despite the outcome of the campaign, the Empire ended the war on its terms, with no lives lost and no Earth or allied forces having entered Romulan territory; furthermore, Romulan analysts believed that even after the end of hostilities, the losses from the war would have a negative psychological effect on humans for a significant period of time—and that Earth's population would remain receptive to isolationist or xenophobic rhetoric during that time. Romulan intelligence believed that if the various isolationist movements that existed on Earth could sufficiently organize themselves, the current United Earth government would be replaced, and the Romulans' overall goal of having Earth withdraw from interstellar affairs would still occur. With this in mind, a unique covert operation was authorized by the Senate soon after the emergency session: the mission called for three agents to be surgically altered to appear human and have them placed on Earth, where they would each join a key isolationist group and assist in organizing and coordinating the various groups into a unified isolationist political party. Though a radical operation by Romulan standards due to both the 'humanization' of its agents and the direct manner in which the agents would carry out the mission, the Romulans believed manipulating human politics in this way would guarantee the election of an isolationist United Earth government within a few years. However, when the Romulans observed Starfleet making significant fleet movements just weeks after the Empire ended its attacks—movements that indicated the humans were preparing for offensive operations into Romulan territory—the operation was put on indefinite hold.
Since Starfleet was no longer losing ships after it started using atomic torpedoes, its fleet quickly grew over the middle part of 2164 as newly-built starships became additions to the fleet rather than replacements. With this rapid increase of both ships and trained personnel, Starfleet Command decided it was time to 'take the war to the Romulans': in October 2164, Starfleet organized a fleet of ships and deployed it on a special mission to confront the Romulans in their own territory. The initial stage of the mission centered on the M-class planet where humans first encountered the Romulans in 2152. Though follow-up missions in 2155 and 2156 indicated that the Romulans had abandoned it (there were no longer any mines in orbit, and no ships appeared to challenge Starfleet's vessels), the planet, now named Sextus III, was the only lead any Coalition member had as to the whereabouts of Romulan space—and this being the case, the Sextus system became the first stop for the fleet. After the fleet arrived at Sextus III, patrols were set up in and around the system while a Starfleet facility, designated Outpost Foxtrot, was constructed on the planet. When Outpost Foxtrot was completed, the fleet was broken up into small squadrons which were sent out to methodically survey the region of space around the Sextus system for any Romulan activity. After two months, the search/survey missions could find no trace of the Romulans anywhere in the region. When this was added to the fact that no Starfleet task forces had encountered any Romulan satellites or warships for the past four months, allied strategists concluded that the Romulans had ended hostilities. This tentative conclusion brought two responses: from many, celebration that the war was over; from others, a belief that the last had not been heard from the Romulans, and that Earth needed to continue its offensive measures. Earth's allies agreed with the latter response, and concurred with the view held by many at Starfleet Command that, given their recent history, the Romulans must not be allowed to simply disappear, but must be defeated in order to prevent them from carrying out further aggression in the region in the future. To this end, Andoria and Tellar pledged to add their own ships to Starfleet's offensive forces once Romulan territory was penetrated. Though tempted to 'let sleeping dogs lie,' the United Earth government heeded the advice of both veteran Starfleet officers and diplomats from Earth's closest allies and elected to extend the state of war against the Romulans until the enemy sued for peace. The offensive operation currently underway in the Sextus region was not only continuing, but Starfleet committed the majority of its starships to it. The additional ships based at Outpost Foxtrot allowed Starfleet to both reorganize its ships into more potent task forces and deploy these task forces in a much broader search/survey pattern. The result of this major boost to the operation was immediate: just ten days after the task forces were formed and deployed, the Romulans were encountered for the first time in months.
In early February 2165 a Starfleet task force discovered a Romulan outpost orbiting a planet in a system over three dozen light-years away from Outpost Foxtrot. The task force commander demanded that the outpost surrender, but the Romulans responded by firing on the ships. After a brief exchange of fire, Starfleet's ships had disabled most of the outpost's systems, and closed in on the facility so that personnel could be sent to occupy it; however, just as the first group of shuttles was launched, the outpost exploded. Despite the destruction of the outpost, immediately after the battle additional task forces arrived on the scene as reinforcements—for Starfleet fully expected a counter-attack from the Romulans. But no counter-attack came. The Romulans essentially sacrificed the outpost; the leadership on Romulus did not want to give any indication as to the location of their territory through fleet movements—especially not over such a relatively insignificant and distant outpost—and so no counter-attack was ordered. The lack of any retaliation by enemy forces tempered the initial belief that the discovery of the outpost indicated that Starfleet had reached Romulan space. Despite this, since the outpost was the only lead they had come across in their search for Romulan territory, Starfleet redeployed many of their task forces to search the region surrounding the system for any signs of the enemy. But what finally led Starfleet to Romulan space was not the efforts of their task forces, but the efforts of their diplomats.
From the beginning of offensive operations around the Sextus system, Starfleet squadrons and task forces were charged with the additional duty of making first contact with any advanced civilizations encountered in the region—primarily to allay any apprehension these worlds may have about the presence and purpose of the task forces, but also because it was still part of Starfleet's mission to establish peaceful, friendly relationships with any new civilization they discovered. Three weeks before the Romulan outpost was encountered, one of the allied task forces made contact with Altharra, an advanced civilization located approximately 35 light-years from Outpost Foxtrot. Two months later, during one of a series of follow-up diplomatic missions to Altharra, Earth's diplomats learned that the Altharrans had heard of the Romulans (though not the Romulan Star Empire), and even knew the general location of the Romulan homeworld. The Altharrans had encountered the Romulans long ago in their past, and knew they were a dangerous race; learning what humans had been through, the Altharran leaders did not hesitate in sharing all the information they had about the Romulans with Earth's representatives. Finally, after months of fruitless searching, Earth and its allies had solid information regarding their enemy—and Starfleet wasted no time in acting on it.
In early April 2165 a large fleet of Starfleet ships, Andorian ships, and Tellarite ships was assembled at Outpost Foxtrot; on April 12th, the fleet departed on a heading toward the region of space the Altharrans indicated contained the Romulan homeworld. The Romulans learned of the Coalition fleet shortly after its mobilization, and were shocked when they determined that its heading was almost a direct path to Romii—the Romulan's first colony, and a system that neighbored Romulus. The Romulan Guard immediately assembled an armada of warbirds at Romii and dispatched it to intercept the allied fleet at the earliest possible point on their trajectory. Though the allied fleet was larger than what they mustered for their fleet, the Romulans believed they had two key advantages—one tactical, one strategic—which would ensure that the humans and their allies would not advance into Romulan space after the fleets met in battle. On the tactical side, the cloaking system on a warbird, though not impenetrable to advanced sensor systems, was still effective in confusing sophisticated sensors when used to disguise maneuvers during battle (especially in the chaos of a large, multi-ship battle), meaning Romulan ships had less exposure to enemy fire, and thereby enabled them to both fire their weapons more often and endure in battle longer than their opponents. On the strategic side, since the Romulans knew from their intelligence-gathering that humans were averse to war, the leadership on Romulus calculated that they could take advantage of this human 'weakness' and still end the war on their terms by offering the enemy a truce immediately after the upcoming engagement—something that would be too tempting for the humans to refuse no matter the outcome of the battle (the Romulans expected to win the battle outright, but knew a draw—what they were confident was the 'worst-case scenario'—was possible). Five days after the allied fleet departed Outpost Foxtrot, the Romulan armada intercepted it at an unnamed system approximately 60 light-years from Romii.
On April 17th, 2165 one of the Coalition squadrons scouting ahead of the fleet detected a large number of alien ships near a system the Vulcan space charts identified as Galorndon Core. As the allied fleet set course for the system, the squadron confirmed that the ships were Romulan, but that they were not the crewless warships encountered throughout the war. Two hours later, the Coalition fleet arrived and confronted the Romulan armada. At first, the Romulans had the upper hand in the battle as their tactics—including judicious use of their cloaking systems—proved that they were much more experienced than their opponents. However, as the battle progressed, the allies adjusted to the Romulans' tactics; soon, even the cloaking effect was rendered tactically ineffective, for despite the confusion experienced by allied sensor systems, the allies were able to compensate with their superior weapons-targeting (ironically, an advantage that came about due to Starfleet having had to cope with the Romulans' attack ships) that made each strike count when sensors had clear readings. The result of the allied adjustments to Romulan tactics was that forty-five minutes into the battle, the Romulans were taking much heavier losses than the allies. With this unexpected turn of events, the Romulan fleet commander, Chulak, was forced to admit defeat; he ordered all disabled ships to self-destruct to avoid boarding, then ordered all remaining ships to retreat to Romii. As the Romulans withdrew, for the first time in the war they opened communications with their opponent: the Romulan commander requested an immediate cease-fire with Earth, and proposed a meeting between human and Romulan representatives at this system in three days to discuss an end to hostilities. The Starfleet admiral in charge of the allied fleet was surprised by the communication—and the offer; after a quick consultation with Earth's leaders, the admiral accepted the cease-fire on behalf of Earth and agreed to the meeting.
End of the War
Though Earth now had a truce with the Romulans, they were not going to relinquish their strategic position: Starfleet was charged with maintaining an active military presence in the Galorndon Core region in the days leading up to the meeting with the Romulans—primarily to act as a deterrent, but also so the region could be scouted to learn the extent of the Romulan's domain. A few hours after the battle, reinforcements from Earth and Andor were sent to Galorndon Core; in addition, Starfleet set up a small, temporary outpost—designated Outpost Omega—on an uninhabited planet in a star system a few light-years from Galorndon Core to use in coordinating patrol/survey missions for the region. The next day, ships from the allied fleet began to aggressively patrol the region.
Three days after the battle, a squadron of Romulan warbirds appeared at Galorndon Core under truce. Earth's lead diplomat, Theodore Barker, hailed the Romulans and suggested that talks be held at the Starfleet outpost nearby. The Romulan representative, who identified himself as R'mek, immediately rejected the offer to meet face-to-face—either in person or through visual communications—and stated that all communication between the parties would be carried out via subspace radio only. Though this was deemed unusual by Earth's diplomats, it was immediately overshadowed by R'mek's next statement: the Romulans demanded that all Earth and allied vessels end their patrols in this region of space, and warned that no negotiations would take place while any Earth or allied forces were beyond the base at Sextus. Earth's diplomats were somewhat taken aback by the Romulans' arrogance; some of the diplomats wanted to remind the Romulans that the allies had the upper hand, then press the issue by making a demand of their own regarding when and where the negotiations for a border would take place—but Barker vetoed this response as too aggressive. Instead, Barker took a more casual approach to responding to the Romulans' demands: he informed R'mek in firm, direct terms that Earth and its allies would not give any ground; then, in order to keep these crucial first negotiations from deteriorating, he proposed that a demilitarized zone be established between the Romulan Star Empire and the region of space containing the Coalition of Planets homeworlds, colonies, and outposts. After a long wait, R'mek responded that his government would consider the proposal, and would communicate their reply to Earth's forward outpost (Outpost Omega) in one day.
On Romulus, the Senate was extremely unsettled by the appearance of allied ships constantly probing their frontier in the days following the Battle of Galorndon Core. (The Romulan Guard, in a weakened state following the battle, could not spare any ships to mount aggressive challenges to the allied ships on the frontier without sacrificing the protection of the core worlds of the Empire.) With Earth's firm rejection of the Romulan demand that all allied vessels leave the region, many Senators—mostly moderates—saw establishing a demilitarized zone as something of a face-saving way out of the humiliating situation of not being able to impose their will on their enemy, while other Senators—primarily the warhawks—were indignant at the idea that the Romulan Star Empire would be restricted from expanding where it wished, and favored using the Romulan Guard to drive Earth and its allies from the region regardless of the strategic risks involved. In an emergency Senate session that followed the initial talks with the humans—in which it was clear that the moderate Senators were now in control of the Romulan government—it was decided to accept the establishment of a border with a neutral zone, and to require it be located approximately 100 light-years away from Romulus.
The following day, the Romulans contacted Earth's representatives at Outpost Omega and stated that the Empire would accept Earth's proposal of a demilitarized zone; but in what the allies viewed as another display of arrogance, the Romulans unilaterally announced the location of the new border: they transmitted the border coordinates to the allies, and made it clear in their communication that this was the border that they would honor and that they expected the Coalition of Planets to honor. Again, some of Earth's diplomats wanted to emphatically remind the Romulans that the allies had the upper hand, and would not tolerate any unilateral decisions made by the Empire; but once again Earth's lead negotiator, Barker, vetoed this response—at least at this point and time. Instead, when Barker resumed talks with R'mek, he downplayed the Romulan announcement by casually but pointedly referring to it as a 'proposal,' and promised that Earth and its allies would examine it while, in the meantime, the Romulans could examine the allied proposal for the border's location (the coordinates of which were transmitted immediately afterward).
When the allies examined the Romulan's border location, they dismissed it out of hand as too generous, and decided to push for their border location in the next round of talks; however, knowing that the Romulans were going to have a negative reaction to this, a decision needed to be made as to how far the allies were willing to go in pushing their position. Hours of intense discussion amongst Terran, Andorian and Tellarite civil and military leaders resulted in a solemn commitment by all involved to take further military action if necessary in order to compel the Romulans to accept the general location of the allied border; in effect, Earth and its allies were prepared to break the cease-fire to force the Romulans to acquiesce.
After the Romulans analyzed the allies' coordinates, they were incensed that the allies' border was some 50 light-years closer to Romulus than where they wanted the border to be located. Though the power of the Senate warhawks was waning, they managed to set into motion one last tactic in an attempt to obtain the border the Empire desired: since humans were averse to war, threatening them with continuing it at a point when they thought it was over would, they believed, prompt Earth to accept the Romulan's border.
When talks resumed the following day, the Romulans issued an ultimatum: Earth and its allies must accept the Empire's border or talks would end—meaning the parties would remain in a state of war despite the current cease-fire. Expecting a move like this, Barker knew that now was the time to pressure the Romulans to back down by driving home the point that the allies had the advantage. Barker told the Romulans in no uncertain terms that the Empire had two choices: accept the general location of the allied-created border, or the allied fleet—which in a matter of days would be larger than the fleet that fought at Galorndon Core—would lay in a course for Romulus. (To increase the impact of the latter choice, Barker transmitted the coordinates of Romulus with his communication—letting the Romulans know that Starfleet had discovered the location of their homeworld.) Earth's counter-threat worked: the Romulans, realizing that they had miscalculated the humans resolve, and knowing that they had no other practical options, conceded that they would have to accept the border location as set out by the humans and their allies. This diplomatic defeat was the death knell of the Senate warhawks; from this point forward all negotiations with Earth were handled by members of the moderate caucus.
A few hours after the exchange of threats, the Romulans contacted Earth's representatives at Outpost Omega and announced that they would accept the general location of the border and neutral zone as proposed by Earth. Over the next few days human and Romulan representatives worked out the specific coordinates of the border/neutral zone as well as the rules that would govern it; one day after the border and the rules were finalized, on April 28, 2165, both parties confirmed them by signing the Earth-Romulan Neutral Zone Treaty. The war was officially over.
In order to guard against any violation of the new treaty by the Romulans, over the next several months Earth deployed hundreds of satellites on their side of the Neutral Zone, and monitored them through nine outposts constructed on asteroids found in uninhabited systems strategically located along the middle of Earth's side of the zone. The outposts and satellites were considered high priority assets, and were constantly updated with the latest sensor technology. Earth and its allies suspected the Empire would not be quiet for very long, so in addition to having a sophisticated sensor system in place to give them an early warning about any aggressive moves made by the Romulans, they also maintained a high naval presence in the border region: ships were permanently assigned to bases (and later planets) in the area, and patrols were conducted continuously in the region. However, due to a post-war change in the Empire's government, neither humans nor their allies would encounter the Romulans again for an entire century.
Aftermath
On Romulus, the humiliation of being forced to accept a border that was so close to their homeworld and that closed the Empire off from a region of space equivalent in size to the old Delphic Expanse—in addition to the humiliation already experienced due to an unsuccessful campaign against the humans—cost the Praetor and the Senate warhawks their positions in the government and military; and for some in that group, it cost them their lives. After the warhawks were officially ousted, the moderates took over the Senate and installed a new Praetor from their caucus; the new regime immediately steered Romulan policy away from Vulcan and the worlds in what would later be called the Alpha Quadrant and moved it toward expanding the Empire in other areas.
On Earth, the end of the war was celebrated across the globe. In addition to the mixture of emotions the Terran population felt at the war's conclusion (joy and relief that the fighting was over; sadness about the loss of so many lives), there was a new appreciation for Earth's allies: for if not for their assistance, the human race may not have survived. The appreciation for Earth's allies led to a growing recognition among the population that having strong ties with other worlds was crucial if humanity was to peacefully explore and colonize their galactic neighborhood; and as this recognition grew, so grew the enthusiasm for Earth's membership in the Coalition of Planets.
At its inception, most humans viewed the Coalition—somewhat correctly—as simply an organization that coordinated various exchange programs; after the war, popular support gathered for the Coalition to become more than just a 'loose alliance.' With the growing mandate from its citizens to transform the Coalition into something more, in late 2165 Earth representatives began discussions with fellow Coalition representatives about forming a union between member worlds—a union that would include a) an umbrella government founded on the shared high ideals from across all member cultures, b) the free and complete sharing of resources and technologies between members, and c) a single space agency to handle both exploration and defense for and in the name of all members. Four years later, many of the members of the Coalition of Planets came to agreement on forming a new alliance: the United Federation of Planets.
-------------------- "One person's modus ponens is someone else's modus tollens."
Registered: Mar 2001
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And I thought I had too much time on my hands. Oh well. Maybe we'll get some historical data from ST:XI, to compare this too. It sounds reasonable. One note though, your version of events seems to ignore the one canon event that we know the date of during the E-R war. The battle of Cheron, was mentioned to have taken place in 2160, and was one of the last battles of the war, resulting in the Romulan defeat. Then again, your version could be completely non-canon based ( which you might have mentioned, but I may have missed).
Very nice though.
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
Registered: Jul 2007
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Well Shik, as the saying goes: "How do you eat an elephant?" "One bite at a time."
As for the Battle of Cheron, though I know that in some official and semi-official materials it is viewed as taking place in the Earth-Romulan War, in my view it was a humiliating defeat at the end of the Tomed Incident (so humiliating that the Romulans went into reclusion AGAIN--at least regarding the Federation--for 50 more years). It just makes more sense to me that Admiral Jarok and his colleagues would still have a humiliating battle on their minds from 50 years ago rather than from 200 years ago. As it is, I think the only canon references to the dates of the Earth-Romulan War and the Battle of Cheron being part of that war are on background graphics (the timeline from "In a Mirror Darkly" and a page from Picard's family album in "Generations"), and I don't really have much of a problem contradicting those types of things.
As for "Rijl" and "Rijllian" versus "Rigel" and "Rigellian", that was my attempt at a clever way to explain why Archer didn't recognize the name of a planet that had a name that was so common in human astronomy; it also helps with the view (held by many other people apparently) that the "Rigel" mentioned in so many TOS episodes and in ENT is not the "Rigel" (Beta Orionis) of human astronomy--I mean it helps clarify that they are different simply by changing how each is spelled. Pretty sneaky, eh?
-------------------- "One person's modus ponens is someone else's modus tollens."
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
A spoken word moment from Shikkie, brought to you by your friends at the Flare forums... Nicole Blackman would be proud.
Holy Christ, Scott- all you need is some floods and a wrathful deiety to have a bestseller/cult on your hands.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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