Canon on the Rommie War

Romulans, phase-inverters, friendships, OH MY!

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Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Weeble » Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:18 pm

I took the opportunity to re-watch (although its been years) the TOS episode "Balance of Terror". Why? Well as my latest story is careening toward the Romulan War I decided to go to the real source of Trek Canon TOS.
It was a fun watch gotta love the old Rommie helmets and the future Sarek.

Some notes.
The teaser was about Kirk performing a wedding that is cut short by a red alert. Well it does mean that StarFleet eventually caves on fraternization doesn't it.

The reaction of the bridge crew when they see their first Romulan makes it abundantly clear to me the ST:E (see BnB-ARGGHH) way over played Romulan/Vulcan interactions. I find it incredulous that so little is known 100 years later given what was presented in the ST:E series. The future Enterprise had no clue they were Vulcans and Spock didn't either (although not specifically) Not sure how that can be written properly.

The Romulan ship travelled at impulse power.
The cloaking device used was not invisible to all sensors.
The Rommie ship was detectable by Enterprise's motion detectors.
Phasers were as usual mixed up with photon torpedoes and exploded by proximity detonators.
The cloaking device was an enormous power consumer (the Romulans said that) and so was not typically used.
"Lt. Styles" the navigator (this was pc as in pre-Checkov) lost many family members in the war 100 years previous, a captain, some commanders and lieutenants. Fertile ground for names....(i know thats sick)
The Rommie ship Kirk blasted was the Rommie Flagship.
The blond big haired human female who kept the log was very very comfy around Kirk......You also could have put a birdcage in her hair.
Red Alert did not necessarily mean battle stations, that was an additional command.

The fun part was the episode for all its goofy-ness was really good.

Please add any thoughts etc. you might have.
RIP Tom, I will miss you, as will many others

Kotik

Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Kotik » Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:50 am

Weeble wrote:I took the opportunity to re-watch (although its been years) the TOS episode "Balance of Terror". Why? Well as my latest story is careening toward the Romulan War I decided to go to the real source of Trek Canon TOS.
It was a fun watch gotta love the old Rommie helmets and the future Sarek.

Some notes.
The teaser was about Kirk performing a wedding that is cut short by a red alert. Well it does mean that StarFleet eventually caves on fraternization doesn't it.


No other Startrek series even had something like the the no-frats before Enterprise. Kirk on principle did everyone in a skirt if she couldn't run away fast enough and if it was a scotsman he said 'oops' before going about his business. Picards Enterprise had families aboard, so one can deduce that any incarnation of Starfleet after 2155 got the fax that people won't be happy with occasional visits to Mrs. Fist, Finger Avenue 5 for as many years.

Weeble wrote:The reaction of the bridge crew when they see their first Romulan makes it abundantly clear to me the ST:E (see BnB-ARGGHH) way over played Romulan/Vulcan interactions. I find it incredulous that so little is known 100 years later given what was presented in the ST:E series. The future Enterprise had no clue they were Vulcans and Spock didn't either (although not specifically) Not sure how that can be written properly.


The only people on screen that had ever had any direct dealings with the Rommies were the 85 folks aboard Enterprise and even them never got to see them, so it stands to reasons that, since all of them (except for T'Pol) would be very dead by Kirk's time, the little knowlegde that was there would be lost. Since war is usually fought over a distance, I would surmise that not too many Human have any close dealings with Rommies and except for a few Vulcans all of them are dead by Kirk's time.

Weeble wrote:The Romulan ship travelled at impulse power.
The cloaking device used was not invisible to all sensors.
The Rommie ship was detectable by Enterprise's motion detectors.


We never saw the Rommie cloaking device as the deus-ex-machina before the season one episode "The Neutral Zone" of TNG, so it is not unplausible that it was experimental both at Enterprise's time and Kirk's time. After all the good ol' NX-01 found the cloaked mines too with a bit of Suliban wizardry.

The cloaking device was an enormous power consumer (the Romulans said that) and so was not typically used.


In terms of technology Archer's Enterprise was to Kirk's ship what an American muscle car is in comparison to a Lamborghini - something that went out of style when the Romans buggered off. Considering that our heroes nonteless were able to knock out the cloaking tech on the mines and the drones with their rickety barge makes it plausible that Kirk didn't have any problem either and it gives sense to Spock's claims that there wasn't any wide-spread use of cloaking in the Earth-Romulan war.

BTW. shouldn't that post be in the non-ship section?

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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Weeble » Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:17 am

Yeah, probably should've put this in the non-ship section OOPS.

My point with the Rommies is that BnB pushed the envelope of the long term plausible. Don't forget that the Vulcans new something was up re:Rommies in ST:E and the coalition knew the Rommies grabbed an Aenar. I will also state that knowledge of this sort tends to not disappear but spreads especially given that it was a long 5+ year war where any and all would be desperate for useable intelligence. It implies to me that not much ground action took place.

One other tidbit was that apparently nukes were heavily used in the war, although I think that was more a 60's political statement than anything else, kinda like the whole show.

All in all TOS canon does give plenty of room for a story...
RIP Tom, I will miss you, as will many others

Kotik

Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Kotik » Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:19 pm

Weeble wrote:My point with the Rommies is that BnB pushed the envelope of the long term plausible. Don't forget that the Vulcans new something was up re:Rommies in ST:E and the coalition knew the Rommies grabbed an Aenar. I will also state that knowledge of this sort tends to not disappear but spreads especially given that it was a long 5+ year war where any and all would be desperate for useable intelligence. It implies to me that not much ground action took place.


I'm in the unique situation of coming from a nation that let Austria drag them into WWI, took the head shot for it at Versailles and then started WWII. That last war is now about 50 years ago and you wouldn't believe the amount of knowledge that has been lost. Yes there are a few military tacticians and historians, who still have the full picture, but most people don't know the least bit about it. Classical case in point is that most people still think that Germany started World War I, when in fact Austria-Hungary started it by declaring war on Serbia. That's the same sort of time frame between Archer's Enterprise and Kirk's ship. If such vital information get lost now, why would knowledge not get lost in 200 year's time?

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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby putaro » Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:42 pm

I've been trying to stick with the TOS canon which I boiled down to:

1) No one "knows" that Romulans are Vulcans until Kirk & Company. So, any actual contact has to be very contained and secret. Battles are going to have to be ship-to-ship only.
2) Nukes - though, if you've got anti-matter, nukes are like firecrackers, so I came up with a reason why the Romulans would use them.
3) Fighting at impulse (sub-light) speeds. I think the TOS writers got their speeds confused because if the Romulans were at impulse, NCC-1701 Enterprise can run rings around them.
4) The final treaty is negotiated via sub-space radio.

Now, there's some ENT canon to fit in as well, mainly that the Romulans were up to mischief on Vulcan, but it was all fairly secret.
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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Weeble » Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:51 pm

Putaro,

I agree with you on your take, I just wanted to confirm some things and then I shared....

Admin,

Can this thread be moved to non-ship, Kotik is correct
RIP Tom, I will miss you, as will many others

Kotik

Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Kotik » Fri Mar 29, 2013 2:07 pm

putaro wrote:1) No one "knows" that Romulans are Vulcans until Kirk & Company. So, any actual contact has to be very contained and secret. Battles are going to have to be ship-to-ship only.


I think the Rommies were very much interested in nobody finding out that they're ex-Vulcans, because that would mean that the Coalition knows that any weapon effective against Vulcans, works on them, too and the Andorians certainly have many of those.

putaro wrote:2) Nukes - though, if you've got anti-matter, nukes are like firecrackers, so I came up with a reason why the Romulans would use them.


Antimatter goes BOOM and that's it, while nukes radiate the area and make it inhospitable even after the conflict. It's sick, but so are we. Else we would never have cooked up this shit.

putaro wrote:3) Fighting at impulse (sub-light) speeds. I think the TOS writers got their speeds confused because if the Romulans were at impulse, NCC-1701 Enterprise can run rings around them.


Even in TNG's era ships still had to drop to impulse for the actual fight.

putaro wrote:4) The final treaty is negotiated via sub-space radio.


See point one. The Rommies have no interest in the coalition knowing where they came from

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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Cogito » Fri Mar 29, 2013 2:13 pm

It seems more likely to me that the Romulans don't want people to know what they look like because their main strategy is infiltration and subversion. Being able to pose as a trusted ally on Earth, or a native on Vulcan, would be hugely useful to them.

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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Alelou » Fri Mar 29, 2013 5:19 pm

Yeah, it was my understanding you couldn't fire weapons at warp. (Wouldn't you disrupt your own warp bubble?)
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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby putaro » Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:09 pm

Alelou wrote:Yeah, it was my understanding you couldn't fire weapons at warp. (Wouldn't you disrupt your own warp bubble?)


That's one of those things that is very inconsistent in canon. For example, in "Fallen Hero", they're shooting torpedoes off at warp but Malcolm claims he can't fire the phase cannons at warp (though he's "working on the problem"). I'm sure there are plenty of examples where they're firing the phase cannons at warp, though.
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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Transwarp » Mon Apr 08, 2013 5:29 pm

I did the same analysis as weeble prior to starting my last fic, and I came to the same conclusions. Here are the author notes I wrote regarding the topic:

Note 4: It is firmly established in canon (going all the way back to Trek Original Series) that Humans were unaware of Romulan physical appearance until Kirk's encounter with a Romulan warship. [TOS episode 'Balance of Terror'] To me, this is one of the more idiotic instances of canon in the Trek universe. I find it highly unlikely that in the 110 years between the first Romulan war and the episode 'Balance of Terror', Humans would not have been able to determine such a basic piece of information as the physical appearance of the Romulans, an aggressive race that had attacked them once. However, it IS canon, and canon from TOS, no less, so who am I to dispute it? I will jump through the requisite hoops to avoid violating this particular tenant.

Note 5: Despite the fact that the Romulans had developed cloaked mines and ships [ENT episode 'Minefield'], I am postulating that the technology at that time was still highly experimental, and not suitable for operational use on warships. This seems to fit with canon, as Kirk was surprised by the technology a hundred years later [TOS episode 'Balance of Terror'], as if it had never (or rarely) been seen.

I explained Spock's statement about the war being fought with 'crude nuclear devices' by postulating an antimatter shortage during the war. This is actually a manifestation of Kotik's point, that details of the war would be forgotten over time. When TOS-era people hear that nukes were used in the war, I can easily see them assuming that it was because the technology for a/m warheads had not been developed.

Kotik wrote:Antimatter goes BOOM and that's it, while nukes radiate the area and make it inhospitable even after the conflict.

Actually, an antimatter explosion would also release vast quantities of hard radiation (mostly gamma radiation), just not radioactive residue from the fissionable materials. Best to steer clear of both!
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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Alelou » Mon Apr 08, 2013 6:44 pm

My theory about technobabble, personnel shifts, etc. that you can make it up as long as it sounds half-way reasonable. Probably some diehard geeks and a few vets who know better will object, but you'll never please everyone. Besides, if you're writing more than a sentence or two about it -- and hopefully then only because it serves the plot -- you'd better start worrying about your pacing.

Technobabble aside, Transwarp, when do we get another chapter about Chosin? :poke:
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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Transwarp » Mon Apr 08, 2013 9:14 pm

Ouch! Easy with that stick.

Umm, next chapter... Yes, well, umm, you see it's umm, it's umm... Ah, hell. It's that darned thing called 'reel life'

If you want to help, I suggest a letter writing campaign to my employer, demanding that time be set aside each day for me to write 'Enterprise' fan fic.

I'm sure they would accomodate that.

Right?
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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby Alelou » Mon Apr 08, 2013 11:14 pm

Hmmm. I imagine they'd appreciate that as much as my employer would.

Damn. And nobody can hope you'll get deployed again just to get fanfic.
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Re: Canon on the Rommie War

Postby putaro » Tue Apr 09, 2013 2:02 am

Alelou wrote:My theory about technobabble, personnel shifts, etc. that you can make it up as long as it sounds half-way reasonable. Probably some diehard geeks and a few vets who know better will object, but you'll never please everyone. Besides, if you're writing more than a sentence or two about it -- and hopefully then only because it serves the plot -- you'd better start worrying about your pacing.


I'm going to disagree with you on this one.

Remember when you agreed to beta my fic and I originally outlined the TnT date in San Francisco to you? I told you they were going to take a walk on the Golden Gate bridge and wind up at a jazz club. You said your reaction was: "Has he been to SF? Does he know how long that bridge is and how far a hike it is from any jazz clubs?"

However, since I'm both an SF native and I did my homework, my plot had them taking a taxi from the bridge (OK, getting a taxi to come and pick you up when you want in San Francisco is pure fantasy :-)) to North Beach and then a cable car over the hill to a jazz club in lower Nob Hill. I dropped a few street names in the story and I double checked my memory with Google Maps for every single one. I looked up and double-checked the bell signals used on cable cars (and learned a new one that I tossed into the plot - see if you can figure out which one it was :-))

Now, you can easily blow that work off with "Well, it's only people who've been to SF who would notice." However, it rubs all of them the wrong way and it gives people who've never been to San Francisco the wrong impression. If I'd had them taking a walk across the Bay Bridge, many people would have hit the roof, at least without adding some other explanation (in 2013, at least, there's no pedestrian walkway you can use to get to San Francisco and the whole bridge, from Oakland to San Francisco, is something like four miles long).

The same thing holds true for technobabble. I usually go through and do a little basic arithmetic to check what I'm tossing in. For the final battle in "Setting the Course", I found an online orrey, ran it forward to the date, and checked the positions of the planets in the solar system and how far it would be between them and then calculated how long it would take to get from the various points and that laid out how the battle was structured and what would be going on. Why? I could just make up all the numbers. But, having the numbers all fit together makes the thing more concrete. It gives constraints that I can't wiggle around anymore than I can wiggle around the fact that Hyde Street and Powell Street do not cross.

Bogus technology also puts a lot of people's teeth on edge, just as poor spelling and grammar do. Sorry, it may just be us "geeks" but this is science fiction and geeks are a big part of the audience (and science is not the end of it - I've had history professors on here nagging me, correctly, about a throw-away line about the Lewis & Clark expedition and I was pretty sure I had fact-checked that!). When someone talks about a "synchronous orbit", immediately "30,000 miles" (it's actually 22,236 miles or 35,786 kilometers - this is why I fact check myself) above the Earth pops into my head, just as for you "three miles from the Golden Gate bridge to Nob Hill" immediately popped into yours. If they then have a shuttlepod going down to the planet in just a few minutes it's off.

Now, a lot of things we can't figure out. Warp drive is, according to present physics, impossible. Faster-than-light travel, in general, according to present physics is either impossible or has a bunch of easy ways to do time-travel baked in. Trying to explain warp drive and causality violations (or lack thereof) will annoy the physicists and confuse everyone else.

However, there's plenty of other things that are well within our ability to figure out and explain. And they add reality to our imagined world. The crew complement is a key one. My Enterprise has scientists on board (yah, I know they do in the series too, but we never met one, did we?). However, with a crew complement of only 84 on board, having a reasonable number of scientists (let's say 20) starts to put all kinds of constraints on all of the other departments. How many engineers are on shift at any time? Security personnel? Galley and mess? I know people love to talk about "stewards" on Enterprise. With the number of personnel onboard, you ain't getting table service, sorry. Is there a barber? Hmmm - 84 people. If they get they're hair cut once a month and it takes 30 minutes per, that's 42 man hours (heh - yes, I know it was supposed to be 'their hair'. Did you just wince? Welcome to my world, baby). If there's a full time barber, they spend a lot of time sitting around reading. No, it's got to be a part-time position for someone who has other duties.

I've been asking the question about shifts and watches because those will change the whole crew structure. If we go from eight hours on duty to twelve hours on duty per 24-hour day, we've cut our crew requirements by a third. And, suddenly, we have room for those scientists to be onboard along with Malcolm's security people and Trip's engineers. Do we need to outline the whole watch structure when writing? No. However, when we write about how the characters are working, when they're working, how tired they are, how much free time they have for neuro-pressure, it's all going to be influenced by the watch structure. When we talk about "alpha shift", "beta shift" and "gamma shift", suddenly one of those just disappeared.

So, that's my rant for today. Doing the homework for many of these things gives our stories texture and keeps them from veering off into complete fantasy. Constraints that the characters have to work around (distance, technology, available work hours) are obstacles for them to overcome and make the stories more interesting. You don't have to expose the bones of everything you've figured out but it should be there in the background.
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