All language subtitles for Final Year of the Earth-Romulan War(en-GB)

Hiya all, Ric here continuing our look into the
early Starfleet tales from around the time of

the formation of the United Federation of Planets.
From where we left off, Starfleet was pretty much

alone in confronting the Romulan expansion,
however, the Star Empire had been fighting

another war against the Haakonans, a war
which they had just finished and as such,

they could focus all their attention
on Earth and the Coalition of Planets.

This apocryphal lore is drawn from the Enterprise

sequel books that cover the Romulan War of
2155-2160 and we pick up at the tail end of 2159.

Fresh off their recent victories against the
Empire, Starfleet had managed to seize back

multiple systems from their elusive adversary
including Altair VI, Deneva, Delta Pavoinis and

Beta Virginis. On top of this, they had managed to
establish two new starbases, one at Beta Virginis

and one in orbit of Calder II. These bases were
originally meant to be Starfleet operated research

outposts, or at least with a civilian presence.
Instead, with the war on, they were basically

forwards operating bases for the fleets.
This bolstering however did little to detract from

the Romulan aggression as they hit Andorian supply
lines and a single bird of prey, the Aoi’fvienn

was encountered by the Starfleet SS Intrepid after
completing such a raid. The Enterprise NX-01,

the Intrepid and the Daedalus class Republic
approached the battle worn Star Empire vessel,

only to have it activate its shields, expand
them around two of the Starfleet ships

and vent their warp plasma. The Romulan ship then
went to impulse and detonated the plasma bubble,

crippling the ships and making its escape. In
earnest, Starfleet had caught the vessel unawares,

but the ship still managed to emerge
the victor, in so far as it got away.

The Enterprise, chose not to pursue as they
also received word that while these attacks

had been unfolding, the Star Empire had taken
back Altair and were now en route to Deneva. It

seems the harrying of supply lines had been done
to divert Starfleet resources to protect these

vulnerable routes while the Empire attacked major
outposts in earnest. Over the next three months,

Starfleet lost most of its retaken territory
including one of their new Starbases.

On top of this, the Draylaxians, a species
that Starfleet had managed to convince

of the Romulan threat were taken off the
board when a Romulan vessel collides with

Draylax at superluminal speeds, devastating the
world, a tactic they’ve employed twice before.

In early 2160, the Romulans began their push for
Earth. In February, Enterprise had been returned

to Earth McKinley Station for repairs, so was
on hand to help intercept the stealth attack.

Evading the Vulcan Detection grid was
something that the Romulans had become

very adept at and they made it all the way to
the Kuiper Belt before their shadow loomed.

Asteroids and comets from Sol’s orbiting rock and
ice fields, around 50 AU from the Sun, were often

used as materials for terraforming. They were
launched from the belt towards the needed planet

where they would coast across the intersystem
distance until received by fellow waiting ships.

For example, on Mars, they could simply bring
a ball of ice into its orbit and drop measured

chunks to the surface to add water, this is all
before terraforming tech such as Genesis and

weather control devices. Communications with
Iceberg 15 in the Kuiper Belt had been lost

and the ship sent to investigate also vanished. So
the NX-01 moved in to take a look and discovered

the debris of the SS Franklin as well as several
escape pods. They moved into recover a pod,

only to have it explode as they
closed in, with and Atomic Blast.

As mentioned in a previous episode, nukes
were pretty much outdated by the 22nd century,

even one detonating against a ship’s duranium hull

probably wouldn’t do much and spaceships are,
by necessity, radiation proofed. Nevertheless,

the tactic was obvious, rescuing escape pods was
now a danger as a bomb going off inside a Starship

would still cripple it. Not to mention,
you can still drop a nuke on a planet.

It was Lieutenant Mayweather, currently not on
the Enterprise who realised that a small Romulan

fleet was coasting along on low power, following
the trajectory of the terraforming-bound comets,

a similar tactic that he had used to approach
Mars undetected in 2155 to fight Terra Prime.

Once discovered, the Star Empire’s sneak
attack was easily defeated by Earth defence,

but they had gotten close enough to
the planet to land several blows.

Tunis and Madrid were subject to brief
but devastating orbital bombardment

before the Romulan vessels were destroyed.
Now it became clear that Earth had the Star

Empire’s near-complete attention, they had been
forced back all the way to their homeworld.

Near-complete attention. One looming issue
had been diverting Admiral Valdore of the Star

Empire’s attention. The warp 7 program that the
Romulans had been working on, was in fact being

run by splinter faction of Romulans called
the Ejhoi Ormiin. It seems that this group,

reverse engineering captured Vulcan tech wanted
to use their breakthroughs to seize political

favour in the Empire, while Valdore wished to
bring the rogue warp-7 program under his wing,

under his control.
As such, the project was not yet completed,

although nearing breakthrough at the facility
in the Cheron system. Agents of Valdore managed

to infiltrate and take control of the Cheron base
and its seven warp seven prototypes, to find them

incomplete. This is where Tucker, still undercover
renters the picture with his experience in Vulcan,

Romulan and Warp tech. Tucker had been
uncovered as a spy by the Romualns,

but thanks to his biology altering drugs he
had been taking to maintain his false identity,

they mistook him for a Vulcan agent pretending
to be a Tal Shiar Romulan. When in reality he

was a human section 31 plant, pretending to be
a Vulcan who was pretending to be a Romulan.

I can’t tell anymore if he’s making a
fantastic secret agent or an awful one.

But they basically co-opted his skill
in repairing the warp 7 ships through

mind probes, logical manipulations and constant
vigilance when he was working. He was not

able to sabotage the project as he had no doubt
been hoping, but he still had a critical role

to play in the upcoming Battle of Cheron which
I’ll cover in the next video of this series as

it marks the climax of the Earth-Romulan
war and the beginnings of the UFP proper.

The fact that this tale of ensuring Tucker’s
survival is so complex is actually made fun of

in at the book during its epilogue, so it’s very
self-aware about the craziness it’s weaving. But

as we move into the final chapter of Earths first
interstellar war, we can see that Starfleet has

been forced right back to protect Earth, which
itself is no longer safe. Their resources are

being drained, but so too are the Romulans.
However its mostly due to the split war with

the Haakonans and the Romulan’s own political
scheming that has handicapped the Star Empire,

giving Earth time to continue to argue the
necessity of intervention towards its Coalition

allies, which is finally about to pay off.
There is no doubt however, that the Coalition’s

view, humans in particular, of Romulans is
deeply altered by these events. Booby-trapping

escape pods, ambushes that turn out to be busts
against the ambushers, ship hijacking weapons and

warp-ramming runs on civilian worlds all breed
a lot of resentment against the Star Empire

and it would persist for generations. Reading
events such as this and being privy to the

thoughts of characters such as Archer during this
war make the mistrust of Romulus far more weighty

when we are confronted with fearful
reactions that the Star Empire produces

in the numerous Trek series. Bias breeds bias and
xenophobia comes around full circle if you let it.

So thank you for watching this video concerning
the Romulan War and I look forwards to recapping

the battle of Cheron as portrayed in these books.
After this, I want to continue looking into the

early challenges faced by the fledgling UFP
from a myriad of other sources and I’m also

planning to collate other interpretations
of the Earth-Romulan war, as this is far

from the only one, simply a beta canon tale that
incorporates the setup of Star Trek Enterprise.

I’ve been Ric, thanks again for watching
and I’ll see you later, goodbye!