[horatio]

Didn't the Federation give up cloaking technology after a 24th century skirmish?

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

I've always figured that there must have been some kind of balance brought about by that treaty. Perhaps the advantage is in production capability. The Federation being made up of so many member worlds may be able to produce say 5 ships to every one Romulan one. So the Romulan ship may in battle be able to take out multiple ships in battle due to it's advantage with the cloaking device, but that advantage is counterbalanced by the Federation's production ability. Treaties without balance of this type tend not to last long, unless one side is so much stronger than the other that it can simply impose it's will.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by horatio

Didn't the Federation give up cloaking technology after a 24th century skirmish?

Oh, I don't know - who can keep up with this stuff!!

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Originally Posted by horatio

Didn't the Federation give up cloaking technology after a 24th century skirmish?

Ah, you are correct. I always thought it was the treaty that ended the war. I was wrong on that. So, that pretty much messes up my whole premise

[horatio]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

I've always figured that there must have been some kind of balance brought about by that treaty. Perhaps the advantage is in production capability. The Federation being made up of so many member worlds may be able to produce say 5 ships to every one Romulan one. So the Romulan ship may in battle be able to take out multiple ships in battle due to it's advantage with the cloaking device, but that advantage is counterbalanced by the Federation's production ability. Treaties without balance of this type tend not to last long, unless one side is so much stronger than the other that it can simply impose it's will.

Perhaps the Federation just wanted peace at any price and perhaps giving up cloaking technology wasn't a high price as the UFP doesn't seem to know much about it? On the other hand, it seems pretty foolish to give up such a technology in the long-run.

About the balance of power, in a two player game it might be indeed a simple matter of numbers. Kinda like in the Dominion War, they were simply faster at ship and soldier production. But there are also Klingons, so matters become a bit more complicated due to the potential of alliances in a three-player game.
Furthermore every side plays differently. Kevin mentioned the Rom(ul)an self-sacrifice and Klingons don't mind to die in battle either whereas the Federation is fairly defensive.
And last but not least, in war neither Klingons nor Romulans dare to go all in as they have other enemies on the far side of their borders. So even if these two powers are far stronger than the Federation, a balance of power can exist and endure.

But these militaric issues have never been portrayed too well in Trek, that the Klingons could wage war against the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation in Yesterday's Enterprise seemed pretty unlikely to me. On the other hand, it is easy to piss off a Klingon, especially one who wants to get fast to Stovokor.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

That is true, the Klingons act as a wild card in all of this.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by horatio

Perhaps the Federation just wanted peace at any price and perhaps giving up cloaking technology wasn't a high price as the UFP doesn't seem to know much about it? On the other hand, it seems pretty foolish to give up such a technology in the long-run.

But again, since in almost all instances of it's use a method of detection has been quickly devised to counter cloaking technology when encountered (unless plots warrant otherwise) I'm still left wondering what long-term effect not having the technology had on the Federation.

Based on the available evidence it never really set them back any.

Of course, we don't know what (if anything) Romulus gave or up or conceded in the agreement so there remain important gaps in the circumstances of the Treaty that mean it's hard to effectively judge the cloaking device element.

About the balance of power, in a two player game it might be indeed a simple matter of numbers. Kinda like in the Dominion War, they were simply faster at ship and soldier production. But there are also Klingons, so matters become a bit more complicated due to the potential of alliances in a three-player game.

Furthermore every side plays differently. Kevin mentioned the Rom(ul)an self-sacrifice and Klingons don't mind to die in battle either whereas the Federation is fairly defensive.

And last but not least, in war neither Klingons nor Romulans dare to go all in as they have other enemies on the far side of their borders. So even if these two powers are far stronger than the Federation, a balance of power can exist and endure.

But these militaric issues have never been portrayed too well in Trek, that the Klingons could wage war against the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation in Yesterday's Enterprise seemed pretty unlikely to me. On the other hand, it is easy to piss off a Klingon, especially one who wants to get fast to Stovokor.

The balance of power is something that seems to get short thrift and all that's left is guesswork based on the fact that none of the big players have been able to swarm over the other and usually have to form alliancies in order to gain a workable edge over the remaining power.

[Livingston]

Originally Posted by Akula2ssn

I think that probably presupposes gaining control of planets was an objective of the war. If you aren't really interested in gaining control of a planet and are just content with destroying the enemy presence on it then you can certain just nuke the planet from orbit and just move on.

I actually kind of question if the war was really a very large scale war like what we see in the Dominion War or something much smaller. If it was a large scale war, I'd find the likelihood of either side not seeing each other rather difficult to believe. Instead I can see something on a smaller scale like the Quasi-War from 1798-1900 between the United States and France. That war was almost exclusively fought at sea. Most of the battles were small and often involved privateers instead of just regular navy warships. The war was essentially a conflict over freedom of the seas. France had began seizing or attacking American merchant ships heading to Britain, the British later would do the same to American merchant ships heading to France. At the time the war was starting, the United States Navy didn't exist. The only maritime service the United States had at the time was the United States Revenue Cutter Service (present day US Coast Guard). As French privateers increased their attacks, Congress authorized the creation of the United States Navy. So much of the combat capable ships supplied while the US Navy was being built were provided by the Revenue Cutter Service. Overall, the combat during that war was light, with only a few notable engagements between capitol ships. Losses for the US Navy were light with only one armed US Navy ship lost in combat, but it's estimated that by the end of the war France had seized over 2000 American merchant ships.

The Earth Romulan War might have really started out with the Romulans harassing merchant ships, in much the same way we see in ENT with the drone ship. From there Earth and its allies mobilized their forces. After that the war might have simply been confined to an area of space that was vital to shipping between Earth and its allies. Not a particularly spectacular war, but still a state of war none the less. There probably weren't many large battles. Even in full blown wars, large naval battles are generally few and far between and it's not unheard of for a 4 year long war to go on with only 2 major naval battles. Chances are, Earth and its allies had ships patrolling the area, the Romulans had ships patrolling in search of merchant ships to attack. One on one skirmishes were probably common, maybe a few squadron battles here and there. Then maybe once or twice you had what might have been a major fleet action like the Battle of Cheron. Major fleet actions are very risky since both sides have to commit huge portions of their standing fleet.

It's not out of the realm of possibility to have a war without ground engagements, but chances are if you run with the idea that there were no ground engagements then you probably end up reducing the scope of the conflict. I think the Star Trek Space Flight Chronology has a more grand view of the war, I personally think the conflict itself may have been a lot less interesting than the events leading up to it, especially if we take ENT with Earth having very few capital ships of its own to begin with as well as Vulcan reducing its fleet size. Overall, you can play with it just about anyway you want considering how little information there is on the event that can be agreed upon as fact.

Good points.

As you said, the only explanation is that the war was not fought to occupy planets but to destroy bases, populations and forces on those planets. They didn't want to occupy Federation territory, the goal must have been to destroy Federation presence in those territories because if a ground war ever happened, surely the two sides at some point would come face to face.

Also nice analogy with the 19th century French/American conflicts. You sure know your history! If the Earth/Romulan War was fought on any scale such as the Dominion War, it would be hard to believe neither side came face to face and speaking of the Dominion War maybe the Romulan reputation at the time was something like the Breen, secretive, always in the shadows, no one's ever seen one and lived to tell it as I think Worf said. But you're right. It could go any way 'cause there's so little info out there on the Earth/Romulan War.

Another thing that always sort of tripped me up was that line of Bones' in TUD where he's trying to save Chancellor Gorkon and he says he doesn't even know his anatomy. The Federation and Klingons fought a war that lasted decades and they certainly met face to face and captives were taken on both sides. I find it hard to believe the Feds wouldn't be familiar with Klingon anatomy. But that's scifi, there are plenty of inconsistencies all over Trek as many other franchises.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by Livingston

Another thing that always sort of tripped me up was that line of Bones' in TUD where he's trying to save Chancellor Gorkon and he says he doesn't even know his anatomy. The Federation and Klingons fought a war that lasted decades and they certainly met face to face and captives were taken on both sides. I find it hard to believe the Feds wouldn't be familiar with Klingon anatomy. But that's scifi, there are plenty of inconsistencies all over Trek as many other franchises.

It's a little like in FF when Kirk tells McCoy and Spock he lost a brother once and they look surprised - despite being there when Kirk found his brother's dead body in 'Operation Annihilate'.

It doesn't even get rationalised by the fact that Kirk is talking about Spock because they should have assumed he meant George anyway.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Livingston

Another thing that always sort of tripped me up was that line of Bones' in TUD where he's trying to save Chancellor Gorkon and he says he doesn't even know his anatomy. The Federation and Klingons fought a war that lasted decades and they certainly met face to face and captives were taken on both sides. I find it hard to believe the Feds wouldn't be familiar with Klingon anatomy. But that's scifi, there are plenty of inconsistencies all over Trek as many other franchises.

Actually it probably isn't surprising, although in the movie McCoy makes two statements on the matter, both of which have potentially two different meetings. On the battlecruiser, I believe McCoy states, "Jim, I don't even know his anatomy." At the trial, I believe McCoy states, "I didn't have the medical knowledge I needed for Klingon anatomy." We can probably discount the first statement to an extent as being something he just said given the urgency of the situation. McCoy's knowledge of Klingon anatomy is probably sufficient enough that he can recognize one with his tricorder, just as he did on K-7. However, a knowledge of anatomy alone doesn't qualify anyone to treat a patient. I certainly know where a human heart is and the various parts of the heart and how they work together, but if someone were to have a heart attack, I wouldn't have a clue how to treat that. I'm more qualified to kill someone with a shot to the heart than save them.

Take Vulcans for example. McCoy is familiar with the anatomy and the general physiology, but he wasn't necessarily the most qualified doctor on the Enterprise or in the fleet to treat a Vulcan. Dr. M'Benga would actually be much more qualified having interned on Vulcan before. He would have more experience with the physiology and more direct knowledge over ways to treat Vulcans. This doesn't mean McCoy couldn't treat a Vulcan, but that McCoy is not the most appealing choice next to M'Benga.

For those of you who don't know M'Benga, he was like the assistance CMO on the Enterprise. In the TOS episode a Private Little War, Spock gets a gunshot wound. McCoy remains on the planet with Kirk. M'Benga is the doctor that treated Spock. He brings Spock out of his healing trance by violently slapping Spock repeatedly.

Originally Posted by kevin

Agreed - a single incident or encounter could have done it. In fact, given the general Romulan ideology (which has sometimes favoured self-sacrifice if no victory is possible - BoT and Unification) then even one major defeat could have been enough to humiliate the Romulans so badly they never forgot it.

Indeed. When you look at Midway in 1942, Japan had the largest fleet and still did even after that battle. However, they lacked the industrial capability to replace the carriers they lost in the battle. They also lost a lot of their veteran crews there. Both losses they were unable to recover from. The Japanese lost 4 of its 6 fleet carriers. The US lost just 1. This brought both sides pretty much even in terms of fleet carriers with Japan still having the Shokaku and Zuikaku, although Japan still had Ryujo, Junyo, and Hiyo but these were much smaller carriers with limited effectiveness. The United States was left with just the Enterprise and Hornet, a few months later even the Hornet would be lost and the Enterprise would be the only US carrier in the Pacific. Despite this, the US had the industrial capacity to replace the carriers and in a matter of a year or so, the US would gain carrier superiority. Neither side could afford additional carrier losses, but in the long run, Japan could afford it least of all.