The Romulan War

[Teaos]

Well considering Earth had a few NX ships and a unknown amount of crappy Intrepid and Neptune class ships I wouldnt bet on us even if the Romulans only had a dozen ships.

[Sionnach Glic]

Indeed, it'd be like if Earth had gone to war with a more militarised Vulcan. No hope.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Indeed, it'd be like if Earth had gone to war with a more militarised Vulcan. No hope.

There's always hope, as long as there's one fool left to fight for it. Cookie for reference.

[Sionnach Glic]

There isn't. There really isn't.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

There isn't. There really isn't.

I was making a joke and a reference.

[Sionnach Glic]

Fair enough.

[Graham Kennedy]

The "official but not canonical" dates for the Romulan war are 2158 - 2160. Season 4 of Ent ended in 2155, so they had three years.

If we dismissed the loooong construction gap between Enterprise and Columbia as teething troubles with the class and said that a bunch of new spacedocks were coming online in the early to mid 50s, you could reasonably say that NX class ships started rolling out at six to eight a year after the Columbia. In three years then, you could have 20 or so. You could also claim that the Intrepid and Neptune types were refitted with warp 5 engines; for all we know there are dozens of those around during Enterprise, and dozens more could be in service by 2158 on top of the NX class.

That would give Earth a fleet of up to a hundred or so warp 5 starships. Civilian ships, also refitted with high warp engines, could serve a troopships for MACO divisions. You couldn't depict a war on the DS9 scale with that fleet, but it's certainly enough for a good sized war, with decent battle scenes.

And as justification for this massive upgunning you have the Xindi crisis; just say that Earth woke up to the dangers and opportunities of alien races and quadrupled Starfleet's budget.

[Mikey]

*snip Graham*

You're right of course; but one of the basic issues that troubled me about ENT is that it forced the viewer to come up with conjecture rather than holding any sort of consistency on its own. If your theory is correct, then why didn't they show some sort of build up? (that's a rhetorical question.)

[Graham Kennedy]

The build up I am suggesting would take place almost entirely after the main body of Enterprise ended. What I am saying is that as Enterprise ended, there were spacedocks around Earth with maybe ten or fifteen NX class ships in various states of building, ready to start rolling out just about the time the last of the regular run episodes ended.

And it's not atypical that we get surprises sprung on us. We never even knew Starfleet operated any other starship but the NX until we suddenly saw two new classes in operation in The Xindi. We still have no canonical idea if those were new high warp ships, low warp ships long in service, or what.

We do know Archer claimed as early as 2151 (Fortunate Son) that three more NX class ships were "on the drawing boards". They took Columbia from drawing board to operational between 51 and 55, so we have a building time of four years, which means three docks could turn out a ship every sixteen months. I think it's safe to assume that as they built expertiese and overcame bugs they could get the building time down to two years, say.

And I don't find it implausible that they could add another few docks in the 2151 - 2153 span before the Xindi strike... four more, say. And then from 2153 to 2155, assume they added another eight. That would give them a sixteen spacedocks, each churning out a ship every two years; that's eight ships a year right there.

None of that strains credulity, IMO. In fact I think it's pretty conservative. Once Earth gov started to see what was really out there, they would have been increasingly nervous about Earth's vulnerability. The Xindi thing would only prove it.

[Mark]

That's reasonable. Unless SOMETHING along those lines happened, there really is no believable way Earth could have avoided being conqured.

[Sionnach Glic]

That seems fairly reasonable, Graham.

[Teaos]

But even then the tech difference we saw was to vast. It would take 3 or 4 NX class ships to take on a Romulan ship.

[katefan]

I think what would have been nicer is if the different TOS races in Enterprise had different sorts of technology that when combined would equal TOS starships; some races have phasers, others deflector shielding, still others tractor beams, etc. It is only through the exterior Romulan threat that these races agree to an exchange of technologies. I think I also mentioned it before, but I would have liked to have seen the three major races-Andorian, Vulcan and Terran-each with their own unique take on starship production that when combined you see what a Constitution cruiser would look like; Terran warp nacelles (perhaps the nacelle design is what humans bring to the table), Andorian saucer shaped ships, Vulcan tubular designs.

Or we could have seen a collaboration between scientists from different races coming up with new technologies. This is similar to what happened during WWII when the British and Americans saw advances in radar and jet propulsion technology as well as aeronautics and computers.

[Mikey]

That would make sense; however, the war has been referred to as "The Earth-Romulan War," not the "Alliance-Romulan War," or the "Quadrant War," or anything like that. It would follow that Earth was the vastly major, if not only, player on its side.

[katefan]

That would make sense; however, the war has been referred to as "The Earth-Romulan War," not the "Alliance-Romulan War," or the "Quadrant War," or anything like that. It would follow that Earth was the vastly major, if not only, player on its side.

Good point.