The UFP vs. The Romulan Star Empire

[Sunburst]

Interesting that this is even a debate.

The Federation as far more than the Romulans can handle. Even in the alternate timeline at the end of TNG "All Good Things..." the Klingon Empire had conquered the Romulan Empire. And the Romulans have usually been a secondary threat to the Klingons in conflicts with the Federation.

In every Trek map of the galaxy I've seen the Federation territory exceeds that of the Romulans, giving the Federation more resources to draw upon.


Also in reference to the Sovereign vs Defiant debate. The Enterprise-E fired 4 quantum torpedoes at the Borg Sphere in First Contact. And when firing at a cloaked ship like the Scimitar the Sovereign's full coverage phasers would be more useful than the forward targeting pulse phasers.

[Mike DiCenso]

The Romulans were enough of a threat that the UFP really did not want to go to war wth them, if it could be helped, which is why the Treaty of Algeron was signed and the Federation was willing to give up cloaking technology in exchange for total peace between the two powers.
-Mike

[Picard]

Federation doesn't want to go to war with anyone if possible. And in DS9, when Klingon Empire invaded Federation, Federation was caught by surprise, but it still managed to stall Klingon advance (I think that it was even implied by Martok Changeling that Federation will push Klingons back after it regroups). And I think that Rodenberry implied that reason why Starfleet did not develop cloaking technology even before Treaty of Algeron was its dislike to such 'sneaky' tactics.

[Mike DiCenso]

Um, the big problem with that is that this is simply not a matter of the UFP itself not wanting to go to war with anyone or not being sneaky. There are plenty of reasons that Starfleet would want cloaked ships since it blocks visible as well as sensor sight of their starships, which is highly useful for certain explorations of lesser advanced civilizations, and preperation for some types of first contact scenarios while a society seeing a big starship bright in the sky would cause problems.

Futher cloaking technology is such a huge tactical and strategic advantage that the Federation would have to make huge gains in return for having to give it up.
-Mike

[Mith]

Actually, the Romulan Empire's fleet was mostly left intact during the war. If you remember, they only entered in the last year of the war. The heaviest losses they suffered was at the Second Battle of Chin'Toka and probably during the Invasion of Cardassia. The first battle they lost around a hundred ships--the second maybe a thousand or two of it were really bloody.

The offset however, is that it's implied that the Romulans don't have that large of a fleet, as in DS9 they were using their cloaks to keep the Dominion from getting an idea of their fleet strengths. This implies that they were short on ship. As I've suggested before, this matches exactly everything we've seen about the Romulans. Remember that they used to build small BoPs before TNG era. They had to trade their valuable cloaking technology for D7s at some point.

No doubt their economy improved to the point that they could build larger ships of course, but I think they delibertly went with the somewhat obviously bad design specifically to make their ships look larger and more intimidating, in adition to the psychological effects it would have on an enemy in battle, it would suggest that the Romulans had a massive industry.

As per the Romulans compared to the Federation? Pre-DS9, they were the third wheel. The Klingons and the Federation had always been potrayed as larger, more advanced, and more powerful adversaries than the Romulans. It seems to me that the Romulans were always scheming to push over their larger neighbors, ever since Balance of Terror. This I think, was made obvious during the Romulan's multiple attempts to influence their neighbors. Ie, during the Quo'nos crisis, their own ambassador (presumably under the command of the Empire) assisted in trying to invoke a war between the Federation and the crippled Klingon Empire. A war that was stated the Federation would have a good chance of winning. The second time of course, was during their attempt to instal an allied presence in the Klingon Empire.

The Dominion War did many things to the political climate of the major powers. The Cardassians were devistated, reduced to most likely no more than a few hundred ships--and most probably only a handful after the allies are through with them. The Breen had taken heavy losses and no doubt go back to being a third rate power. The Klingon Fleet is pretty much in shambles after the Klingon-Cardassian War, the conflicts with the Federation, and the sole war the Klingons faced with the Dominion forces when they took over the Cardassian Union. According to S31, they'd be working for at least ten years before their fleet was back up on its feet.

According to the same source, the Romulans and the Federation would then be in struggle for control of the Alpha Quadrant. That suggests to me that the Federation, despite its heavy losses, wasn't crippled like the Klingons had been--but it also suggests that the Romulans, despite the heavy losses their enemies face compared to their relatively smaller ones, are unable to make up the difference.

So, in a post Dominion War (1-2 years afterwards), the Romulans and the Federation would actually be a fairly close match for each other. However, there are some clear advantages and disadvantages. The first is cloaking--ironically enough in favor of the Federation. We know they've developed cloaking technology as per Pegasus, even though they've never actually deployed them (sans the Defiant and Pegasus). However, they've been working on ways to protect their territory from cloaked ships for decades--where as the Romulans have shown very little means to protect their own territory from invasion. Their advantage however is that they actually probably outnumber Starfleet's own remaining ships, despite the smaller industry base. This, in addition to the fact that Starfleet is probably still off balancd and weary from war, where as the Romulans are still fairly fresh.

It's the only time that the Romulans would be in a strong enough position to invade the Federation and overpower them--hence why S31's actions to not only keep the Romulans in the war, but to also keep them from trying to take advantage of both exhausted powers before they're able to recover. That's probably what the whole business behind the Romulan Military supporting Shinzon rising to power; he'd give them the war that they wanted with the Federation. Before they could recover.

Anything that occurs a decade afterward is sure to end in favor of the Federation--and the Klingons. Even if we keep the Klingons seperate for some reason, Starfleet would have ten years to flux is larger economy and pretty much overtake the Romulans in ship building. It also gives them more and more time to find ways to counter the Scimitar cloak, which was pretty much the Romulan Ace in the hole.

Pre-Dominion War, the UFP & Klingon Alliance steamrolls the Romulan Star Empire. And I do mean steamroll.

[The Dude]

Theres winning and then theres a Pyrrhic victory, which I suspect the later is what the UFP is afraid of. No sense going to war if you wreck your own empire in the process.

[Picard]

Plus, if we actually give 10-20 years of time for both powers to recover, disparity in fleet power would be even greater in favour of Federation. Not only fleet numbers, but also ship-to-ship firepower. Remember that best thing Federation had in TNG was Galaxy class ship, which was large, complicated to build, with loads of science facilities etc. And even then, commander of Romulan D'Deridex class warbird seemed weary, even afraid, of attacking Galaxy class starship head-on in one-on-one battle. I'm even not sure if Picard was aware that Romulans are around. Plus, every time Romulans tried to ambush Enterprise, they had TWO warbirds waiting at very least.

However, Federation of TNG era had lot of very old ships, with new Galaxy, Nebula and not-so-new but still extremely strong Akira class being best of the fleet. However, these ships were avaliable in miniscule numbers compared to Excelsior class and other outdated ships. And yet, in DS9 Federation managed to slow down and would eventually halt invasion of Klingon Empire, which had much more militarized ships (I think Vor'cha was match for TNG-era Galaxy) and advantage of surprise.

In post-DS9 era, we have totally different situation. Federation has suffered some damage to its shipbuilding facilities, but fleet has gone through heavy modernization program, which vastly increased its already good fighting abilities. Old ships were probably equipped with new technologies, plus we have seen some new starships, which seem to be much more combat-oriented than previous classes (possible exception being Akira class). Sovereign class, Prometheus class, Defiant class - all of these classes seem to be built for war, with last two being pure warships, and all of these ships are equipped with new technologies developed to counter Borg which additionally increased fighting ability and survivability. Ablative armor, quantum torpedoes, regenerative shields etc. Plus, Defiant and Prometheus class, being warships, are easier to build than standard starships of similar strength. Also, I expect that these new technologies will become more wide-spread as time passes, so in this war majority of Starfleet ships will have at least ablative armor, and maybe quantum torpedoes.


Also, I think that Federation has better industrial basis than Romulan Empire - while Romulans are reducing their shipbuilding speed by producing huge ships, Federation is doing same by producing relatively small multi-purpose ships. That is why I think that in case of war Federation will stop production of most ships and concentrate on Prometheus, Defiant, Akira and maybe Sovereign and Galaxy classes which, although complicated to build, have rather impressive fighting capabilities.

About Romulan Empire building Scimitar - I don't think its realistic option. We don't know if design sketches survived, and even if it is case, that ship is huge and rather complicated design. Federation will surely upgrade its fleet, plus I'm not sure if Romulans would even go in trouble fielding it - main ability of ship is planet-killing, and that would bring Empire in position of having every major and minor power within radius of 5 or 10 000 light years on its back. Plus, in such case, peace treaty between Romulans and Federation will be irrelevant, so war will probably see Federation deploying Interphase cloak on majority, if not entirety, of its fleet. And that can prove very dangerous for Empire.

[KirkSkyWalker]

Federation doesn't want to go to war with anyone if possible. And in DS9, when Klingon Empire invaded Federation, Federation was caught by surprise, but it still managed to stall Klingon advance (I think that it was even implied by Martok Changeling that Federation will push Klingons back after it regroups). And I think that Rodenberry implied that reason why Starfleet did not develop cloaking technology even before Treaty of Algeron was its dislike to such 'sneaky' tactics.

Not only that, but the Federation only used cloaking technology during the Klingon/Romulan alliance, because the Federation was being threatened. But such alliances between distrusting regimes as the Klingons and Romulans would naturally be short-lived, at best; as Garak said, “enemies make dangerous friends.” And so once that alliance broke down, then the threat would be over, and the Romulans would be at the Fed’s mercy.
The Federation's philosophy was non-imperialist, so they wouldn't use stealth-ships in times of peace anyway; so obvioslu they would have no problem signing a treaty promising to refrain from it something they never did in peacetime, in order ito buy the peace. Clearly the Fed clearly began winning once they started using cloaks, and so the Romulans cried uncle to get them to stop-- particularly since the Klingons could use the cloaked ships gotten from their alliance, to attack the Romulans as well as the Federation; so the Romulans had no choice but to make peace with the Federation.
In ''The Enterprise Incident," Scotty didn't have too much trouble hooking up the stolen cloaking device to the Enterprise and making it work; clearly he had some working familiarity with the technology, indicating that the Federation was attempting to copy it--thus leading to Kirk's high-risk mission to steal it.
Before that, during "Balance of Terror," Spock could only surmise a vague theory on how a ship could turn invisible. However after encountering this new enemy-technology, of course Starfleet would immediately begin research into it; and a Starfleet engineer had to stay abreast of the latest developments during hostilities.
The Romulans didn’t even have warp-drive tech, before allying with the Klingons, and for this reason, their ships barely had enough power to run their cloaks, limiting their range. However they did have the new plasma-weapon, which the Federation didn’t have at the time; this indicates that Romulans tend to make the mistake of focusing on war-technology, while neglecting their engines; and like Scotty told the Dolman, without engines there would be no ships or weapons to fight with.
"

[Mike DiCenso]

The Romulans didn’t even have warp-drive tech, before allying with the Klingons

That hoary old myth simply isn't true as ST:ENT as well as TOS' "The Deadly Years" show the Romulans with warp drive well before any trade or alliance with the Klingons. Hell, even "Balance of Terror" contradicts itself by having the Romulan warbird travel across interstellar distances.
-Mike

[KirkSkyWalker]

The Romulans didn’t even have warp-drive tech, before allying with the Klingons

That hoary old myth simply isn't true as ST:ENT as well as TOS' "The Deadly Years" show the Romulans with warp drive well before any trade or alliance with the Klingons. Hell, even "Balance of Terror" contradicts itself by having the Romulan warbird travel across interstellar distances.
-Mike

That's a common misconception regarding the meaning of "impulse," which many confuse to mean sub-light only, since that's all that the Enterprise's impulse engines are used for; however actually it simply refers to the type of engine before standard warp-factor, which permitted extremely high-speed travel in comparison. When Zefframe Cochrane's ship disappeared, for example, it was only impulse-driven, but could obviously cross interstellar distances.

In contrast, warp-drive uses a different design of the same space-bending effect for much greater speed. So when Scotty says "their power is sheer impulse," he was referring to their still using themore primitive design-- not their being STL-only. A simple look at the Romulan BOP clearly shows a dual-nacelle arrangement like the Eterprise and Klingon ships, but not the speed.

[Mike DiCenso]

That's a common misconception regarding the meaning of "impulse," which many confuse to mean sub-light only, since that's all that the Enterprise's impulse engines are used for; however actually it simply refers to the type of engine before standard warp-factor, which permitted extremely high-speed travel in comparison. When Zefframe Cochrane's ship disappeared, for example, it was only impulse-driven, but could obviously cross interstellar distances.

Actually impulse engines are not necessarily propulsion, though that seems to be it's common use, they are a power source. So a warp drive's coils can be charged up using plasma from an impulse engine's fusion power plant, it just will not have anywhere near the energy that an AM/M powered reactor will.

As for Zefram Cochrane's ship that he took off with when he was old and dying, we have no information on it whatsoever, except that it was stated in ST:ENT's "Future Tense" to be an experimental vessel of some kind:

ARCHER: I wonder if this could be Zephram Cochrane. They say he was piloting a one-man vessel when he disappeared.

T'POL: How could he have travelled this far?

ARCHER: There were a lot of rumours after he was lost. One of them said he was testing some kind of experimental warp ship. Any markings on the hull or control panels?

Given that Cochrane disappeared around 2117, a good 54 years after his warp flight in the Phoenix, I think it's safe to say he was using AM/M in his warp reactor.

In contrast, warp-drive uses a different design of the same space-bending effect for much greater speed. So when Scotty says "their power is sheer impulse," he was referring to their still using themore primitive design-- not their being STL-only. A simple look at the Romulan BOP clearly shows a dual-nacelle arrangement like the Enterprise and Klingon ships, but not the speed.

Actually he said "Their power is simple impulse", but I digress. The fact of the matter is that the "simple impulse" statement can even be disregarded as an outlier statement, since in "The Deadly Years", the Romulan warbirds were capable of speeds of at least warp 5 in the pursuit and surrounding of the E-1701.
-Mike

[KirkSkyWalker]

That's a common misconception regarding the meaning of "impulse," which many confuse to mean sub-light only, since that's all that the Enterprise's impulse engines are used for; however actually it simply refers to the type of engine before standard warp-factor, which permitted extremely high-speed travel in comparison. When Zefframe Cochrane's ship disappeared, for example, it was only impulse-driven, but could obviously cross interstellar distances.

Actually impulse engines are not necessarily propulsion, though that seems to be it's common use, they are a power source. So a warp drive's coils can be charged up using plasma from an impulse engine's fusion power plant, it just will not have anywhere near the energy that an AM/M powered reactor will.

And fusion produces about 1/50th as much power as M-AM. And even if they only had 1/50th as much power, then they could still reach warp 4-5 etc. on impulse engines.

But this is the point exactly when talking cloaking-devices, i.e. the Romulan's impulse-engines didn't have enough power to run the cloaks without depleting the fuel; Spock's initial speculation about the Romulan cloak, was that it was theoretically possible, but would require a lot of power-- and the Romulan engines didn’t produce a lot at the time: their power was impulse, and their only anti-matter was used in their plasma-weapons, which is obviously easier to manage as a weapon than a power-source (like our use of fusion today in H-bombs but not as a power-source)
Also it's interesting to note note that Romulan warp-engines, when developed later, used artificial black holes-- not M-AM reactors; perhaps their engineers and scientists didn’t have as much history with it?

As for Zefram Cochrane's ship that he took off with when he was old and dying, we have no information on it whatsoever, except that it was stated in ST:ENT's "Future Tense" to be an experimental vessel of some kind:

ARCHER: I wonder if this could be Zephram Cochrane. They say he was piloting a one-man vessel when he disappeared.

T'POL: How could he have travelled this far?

ARCHER: There were a lot of rumours after he was lost. One of them said he was testing some kind of experimental warp ship. Any markings on the hull or control panels?


Given that Cochrane disappeared around 2117, a good 54 years after his warp flight in the Phoenix, I think it's safe to say he was using AM/M in his warp reactor.

We don’t know that; however we do know from ST-TOS’s “Metamorphosis” that he ended up on a planet in an uncharted system, and everything else was learned about his fate, since he was alive and well to tell it. As stated above, warp 5 might be able to be achieved via impulse-power.

In contrast, warp-drive uses a different design of the same space-bending effect for much greater speed. So when Scotty says "their power is sheer impulse," he was referring to their still using themore primitive design-- not their being STL-only. A simple look at the Romulan BOP clearly shows a dual-nacelle arrangement like the Enterprise and Klingon ships, but not the speed.

Actually he said "Their power is simple impulse", but I digress. The fact of the matter is that the "simple impulse" statement can even be disregarded as an outlier statement, since in "The Deadly Years", the Romulan warbirds were capable of speeds of at least warp 5 in the pursuit and surrounding of the E-1701.
-Mike

See above; warp 5 could easily require only 1/50th the power as warp 8, since power-speed ratio might not be linear, as shown with SST travel—i.e. power-requirements increase greatly as one nears mach 1. Likewise in “The Cage,” it was stated that “the time-barrier’s been broken” around the time that Pike was captain of the Enterprise; while this wasn’t explained, this could very well refer to the use of M-AM engines.

[Mike DiCenso]

See above; warp 5 could easily require only 1/50th the power as warp 8, since power-speed ratio might not be linear, as shown with SST travel—i.e. power-requirements increase greatly as one nears mach 1. Likewise in “The Cage,” it was stated that “the time-barrier’s been broken” around the time that Pike was captain of the Enterprise; while this wasn’t explained, this could very well refer to the use of M-AM engines.

Not to rain on your parade, but the use of AM/M reactions to power warp drive existed at least by the 2150's as first mentioned in ST:ENT's "Cold Front":

TUCKER: The gravimetric field displacement manifold, commonly known as the warp reactor. Just think of it as a great big engine but instead of using electricity or chemical fuel it runs on antimatter. See this swirling light? When matter and antimatter collide it creates a whole lot of energy. We channel that energy through those conduits over there. They lead to the two large glowing cylinders you may have seen on the outside of the ship.

So the "time barrier" break through would have to be something else, either more efficent warp coils, or more efficent warp reactors, but the use of AM/M reactions is old news to them by this time.
-Mike

[Picard]

It is actually possible to achieve warp flight with impulse engines (or at least such was idea during TOS) but warp drive is faster and more efficient.

[KirkSkyWalker]

It's likely that the time-barrier would pertain to Special Relativity despite warp-drive, but would definitely be a speed which exceeds the light-barrier.
In any event, there's no such thing as retroactive canon-- only retconning.