Do you think the Romulans ever figured out that Garak tricked them into the Dominion War?
Technically a black hole didn't destroy their planet. A supernova did along with a whole swath of other planets (which is why they were so utterly wiped out)... Spock's red matter thing was supposed to MAKE a black hole and absorb or deflect the super nova wave using the extreme gravity generated.
Of course this is ignoring the fact that a super nova as depicted would have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to cover the distance between the many systems affected, this giving them PLENTY of time to fix it all...
About that last part, Star Trek has always had a hard time keeping track of just how big space is. All the way back in STVI, Sulu's Excelsior is caught in the shockwave caused by the explosion of Praxis while being presumably nowhere near Praxis or Klingon space generally. There's also that time a Federation fleet apparently blockaded the entire Romulan-Klingon border to keep cloaked Romulan ships from supplying one side of the Klingon Civil War…
The thing about space is that it is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
The thing about Star Trek is that it wants to be about space, but deep down it really wants to be about naval traditions, and the the thing about space is that is so mind-bogglingly big that all conventions about naval blockades and border patrols go completely out the airlock when you think about warfare in space.
i loved that the expanse had patrols patrolling specific trade routes, rather than “borders”.
anyone who wanted to avoid them could just go by an indirect way… if they had enough fuel!
(that’s kind of similar to the hints we get about how the Earth Cargo Service worked in enterprise. except between sections of the solar system rather than between the nearest stars. which, along with lots of other aspects of enterprise, generally suggests that the 2120s-2140s were much more narratively novel and interesting than the 2150s…)
I loved that The Expanse made space ship warfare feel new and different again compared to something like Star Trek. I also loved the take on how dirty and rickety an old spaceship would be, as compared to the clean and practically always perfect ships in Star Trek . The Expanse is some of the best cutting edge, modern sci-fi around.
i love the cobbled together ships too.
especially ashford’s frigate, which was half of a martian frigate he’d successfully destroyed and then salvaged. he clearly put a lot of care into getting that one back up and running, rather than just barely keeping going.
that’s a lot of what i prefer about DS9 to the other treks as well. it’s old, it’s barely working, they don’t even use internal subspace links for the computer. it’s got freaking open-front elevators, and old mining equipment that might cause problems.
plus, a lot like with ceres etc, when the cardassians were running it they kept the habitat ring all to themselves. just like the fancy apartments and offices (with false sky) for the earthers and corporate belters, while everyone else lived in the basement (medina district).
They actually had that covered. Albeit in a really sloppy, back of the napkin way.
The idea is that it was a special supernova that ripped through subspace as well as space cause the wave of destruction to travel much farther and faster than a normal supernova.
The problem is, they never bother to really explain this in the movies. Or explain exactly how this would have worked.
Say what you want about all the technobabble in Berman trek. At least it meant that, when the writers of that era needed to make up new laws of physics to make a story work, they at least would instinctively explain those laws to us in detail. So that, by the end of the story it didn't feel like they were pulling things out of their ass to advance the story.
voyager featured a number of “subspace explosions” and “subspace implosions” and “subspace shockwaves” affecting the ship as well. post-TUC, pre-2009.
perhaps to justify TUC by saying it’s rather common, or just a thing that got put on a list of potential space hazards (along with other aspects of the series bible like time wedgies or the warp 10 attempt) that just got used more and more as time went on.
I remember being 12 years old and watching the blockade episode and thinking, “Can’t they just go over or around it? It literally can’t be big enough to make it anything more than a minor inconvenience…”
Wise words from a hoopy frood.
I always thought of the blockade as a sort of "deep sensor web" where they had starships in close warp distance to vessels that were spotted. Not too different except the scale.
According the the Technical Manual sensors are normally effective up to 17 light years or so maybe not too unfeasible with some hand waving.
this is one aspect i really liked about the 32nd century as well. “short range sensors” are “only” 1000 light years or so. far beyond what “long range sensors” could do in TNG.
in a lot of other aspects it seems like less of a significant technological upgrade than TOS to TNG, just minor improvements like replicated food being beamed right next to wherever you are. (tho even in TNG there were tiny desktop replicators.)
but in terms of sensor range and warp speed, the 32nd century stuff is… maybe not 800 years ahead, maybe not even 600 years like the burn would suggest, but definitely way more than 100 years.
once they actually have the dilithium, their maximum warp speeds can seemingly get to deep in another quadrant in about a day or so, making discovery‘s jumps less and less useful.
It was the dilithium. It let the blast travel through subspace. Which is rather consistent throughout the franchise.
The thing about space is that it is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.
Actually, space is more than a hundred times bigger than that. :P
PIC retconned it to Romulus’s sun going supernova… somehow. At least STO acknowledges that it didn’t happen by accident
The first picard book (which has a whopping approximately 72 f bombs, including cluster fuck)
They don't say what caused it but they imply it was some fuckery by the tal shiar or similar. And that they treated the entire planet and the main scientist like idiots, kept them in the dark and denied everything...for some reason?
Should’ve kept the Iconians as the guilty party
Prime universe is one where it was a Supernova. Kelvin-Verse was created by a time traveler from a verse where it was the planet getting eaten.
This is why their Kirk looks like Chris Pine and not William Shatner.
It was Vulcan that ended up being eaten by a black hole in the Kelvinverse. We don’t know Romulus’s fate since the movies take place a century before the supernova, and the single mention of the Kelvinverse in DIS doesn’t mention Romulus at all
Picard mentions the efforts to save romulus, and the android reprogramming/rebellion blew up the rescue fleet, and then ni'var is formed from remnants of romulus returning to vulcan.
but there’s no indication of what happened in the 24th century of the kelvin-verse. besides that they apparently kept the type-A TNG uniform, without the collar, a bit longer.
Of course this is ignoring the fact that a super nova as depicted would have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to cover the distance between the many systems affected, this giving them PLENTY of time to fix it all...
Nah. A supernova would essentially expand at the speed of light. If Proxima Centauri went nova (it won't because it's too small, but just for the sake of argument/comparison) - it would hit us after about 4 years, since it's about 4 light years away.
The evacuation of Romulus was several years in the making. It's totally possible that they got signs a star only a lightyear or two from Romulus was going to explore very soon, that it would take like a year or two for it to explode, and then a year or two for the shockwave to hit Romulus.
Agreed. However, this super nova crossed an entire quadrant, destroying multiple star systems. From the systems shown one reen in the displays (which match up with known irl star charts) the distance prior to Romulus is over 90+ light-years.
(From the films bts) The supernova is triggered by another supernova and sets off a chain reaction. With each star that is struck also turning into a super nova. The resulting shockwave moved in all directions (3d) from the epicenter.
The Tie-in comics and novels imply that the supernova will destroy systems beyond Romulus at faster-than-light speeds.
So it has to be hand waved that the destruction is being caused by a super dimensional rift that is propagating at super luminal speeds or in subspace/warp. But... Can be stopped by a gravity source created by the red matter?????
And a shockwave in space going in all directions is stopped by a black hole in one direction?
They've already recharacterized the nova several times in canon. The initial description by Spock can be interpreted as non-literal if you want as well.
And a shockwave in space going in all directions is stopped by a black hole in one direction?
No, but you don't have to stop it in all directions - just the directions where it will hurt people. If you throw a black hole up at a certain point between the source and say, Romulus, the black hole will eat whatever is thrown in that direction and act like a solar eclipse. But you'd have to deploy it at the right point a certain far distance away to fully shelter a star system.
Drop a few of these strategically, and you can also stop whatever chain-reaction thing was with nearby stars was supposed to happen as well.
You forgot about the particles with inverted polarity that disrupted the quantum time field or something. It is like inflating a balloon to much!
Everything in Star Trek happens at warp speed. It's the only explanation.
Something something subspace shockwave.
In the "Path to 2409" lore for STO the supernova was able to travel through subspace and that's what allowed it to so quickly reach Romulus. But that timeline places the supernova as originating from the Hobus System.
Iirc PIC has the supernova originating within the Romulan sun itself.
About the "exploding stars and planets" thing. The Klingon moon explodes. Romulus star explodes and In Kelvin U Vulcan's star or something explodes. In Voyager Janeway makes an aside comment that an abnormal amount of supernovae are going on around them. Somebody's messing with someone I think.
also bajor’s sun almost went nova due to a protomatter bomb!
It traveled through subspace due to shenanigans. I actually wish Picard had addressed that.
You forgot about the (suitable technobabble)... tachyonic phase anomoly
IT HAS HAPPENED! I WATCHED IT HAPPEN, I SAW IT HAPPEN! DON'T TELL ME IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!
Did you just question Spock's methods ?
Don't get me started on the science in that film. It pissed me off no end.
Technically y'all are wrong bc that's an alt timeline not canon to the STTV series lol
Technically the alt timeline is AFTER Spock and nemo exit the time rift...
The Romulans empire being destroyed is main time line... And hadn't happened yet in the Kelvin timeline.
Back in the main timeline, in Picard, the super nova and slicks disappearance are canonized and play into the story
I refuse to believe that ever happened
IT HAS HAPPENED! I WATCHED IT HAPPEN! I SAW IT HAPPEN! DONT TELL ME IT DIDNT HAPPEN.
Nero's AA meeting introduction will forever be the funniest hing JJ ever put on screen.
“Hi, Christopher, I’m Nero”
Everyone: “Hi, Nero!”
I'm not gonna lie. I laughed entirely too hard at this comment.
It comes from the 09 movie, so I'd guess from that.
Both are canon in the prime universe. Picard S1 goes into quite a bit of the aftermath the destruction of Romulus.
I know they are canon, it’s just so depressing. They kinda wrote themselves into a corner with that.
In one universe, Romulus gets screwed, in another one a psychotic Romulan blows up Vulcan.
In the first one, somehow this ends with Romulans and Vulcans reunited under the same nation, in the second one, we'll never know.
That’s the fun part Romulans returning to Vulcan in a weird way was coming home. Now in the other universe with the sun eventually blows up Romulus again the species will truly have no home.
Unless Spock felt the need to tell them how to prevent it from blowing up.
I understand there's a "Temporal Prime Directive" and everything, but since Nero had already change pretty much everything at that point, if Spock kept that information from the Romulans, it would make him a huge asshole. Failed them one time, old man, save them now.
I have an insane theory that everything after Generations is really Picard tripping crazy shit in the Nexus
There was no good reason to do the Romulans so dirty, and even as paranoid and secretive as they are there is absolutely no way they would've collapsed like they did
edit: spelling
I mean, the entirety of the Dominion War also takes place after Generations, so
True, but that isn't TNG crew focused
I am also pretty unreasonable when it comes to Romulans
... You say that like the intense paranoia and secrecy isn't a fertile breeding ground that would cause the eventual collapse of any society...
Yeah, JJ has a knack for doing that with sci fi franchises
Amazes me anybody lets him anywhere near something that has lore or continuity.
Somehow... Shinzon returned
They kinda wrote themselves into a corner with that.
Did they?
Dominion War, Borg defeat, Romulan supernova… a lot of changes ca. 2380. Creates a great change of power balance.
They could write quite a few stories about that.
They kinda wrote themselves into a corner with that.
It was written with the intent of shelving the 'Prime' universe and rebooting Trek into the Kelvinverse. It wasn't that they didn't think it through - you were just supposed to ignore it!
Yea kinda killed off the villains for no reason. The union with Vulcan doesn’t seem earned at all. More hints of reconciliation with Earth than Vulcan. Even Warhammer’s union of the Dark and High Elves has more basis in lore
but romulans were trying to “re-unify” with vulcans in the 21st and 22nd centuries. they even almost succeeded, without the syrranites’ and humanity’s efforts to restore the truth.
then spock decided to try doing it the other way around over a century later. it took a lot longer to do the work, partly because he wanted a genuine democratic movement rather than a coup, but it did succeed. yet there’s still internal tensions between them, over a century later.
thats not exactly un-telegraphed, nor is it a peachy-keen happy ending for everyone. it even has a number of parallels to real-life nations who had been divided and either have rejoined to varying degrees or are still trying to reunify.
I don’t want picard to be cannon
it's not the worst thing and could've been the jumping point for some good storytelling when they returned to prime universe story telling but unfortunately we got PIC S1
Yes!
I am an 2387 Supernova denier
Doesn't PIC allude to the destruction of Romulus a whole bunch of times?
It's canon in the "Prime Universe"
But it didn't happen in the cinematic Pine universe, Romulus is still over there, so I guess that's the universe that you believe in
It was just a conspiracy theory citizens heard on whatever the Romulan version of InfoWars is.
Best not to bring it up they've had a rough few years of late
Still cant believe this did this crap, they were one of the coolest civilizations in trek
According to all pissed off Romulans, it was Picard and Spocks fault for some weird ass reason
I reckon they saw though the entire thing, but we're impressed at what Starfleet were willing to do that it convinced them to join the fight.
I agree, the Tal Shiar were probably looking for a casus belli anyway, both in retaliation for the ambush at the Battle of the Omarian Nebula, and because defeating the Dominion ASAP was best for Romulan security in general. They may have been glad Starfleet did it for them.
I like to think anyone with the sense to identify what actually happened also had the sense to keep their mouth shut. The whole thing doubled as the assassination of the most pro-Dominion senator. Even if you know the truth, if you want to get back at the Dominion you play the whole thing off as standard Dominion subterfuge, of which the Romulans are all too familiar with. Even if it wasn’t the Dominion, you’d want to play it off as Romulan because it sends a message to other sympathetic senators that their position is not one of safety or strength.
If you go even further down the rabbit hole and realize the Federation pulled the whole thing off as a false flag, you probably want to consider what that means. The Romulans spy on the Federation. A LOT. They have a good idea what they’re up to when they think no one can see what they’re doing, and if the war is going so badly for them that they are dropping their pretense of morality, that means the next step is to pull out the big guns, and that’s bad for everyone. We’re talking biogenic weapons, making stars go Nova, planting bombs inside of planets, that sort of thing.
Staying neutral just means whoever wins is going to eye the empire next, and siding with the Dominion means you just become their next vassal state, and that wasn’t working too well for the Cardassians. Buddying up to the Federation though, they’ll at least thank their allies and let them go back to their “mind your own business” status quo.
Buddying up to the Federation though, they’ll at least thank their allies and let them go back to their “mind your own business” status quo.
They can live with it
The Federation make for the best neighbours because you can routinely terrorise the shit out of them, and they basically do nothing about it.
Not like the Klingons at least.
It makes me wonder if a chill went through the Tal Shiar operatives when they watched it happen. You have the Federation, the high and mighty kiss the space I travel though enemy that swears they would never do something so underhanded, that they are evolved past those petty tactics, and leave it to their "secret" Section 31. But S31 didn't do it, or do anything.. or even think of anything. No it was the Federation proper, THE Captain on the front lines, who was so desperate as to take Romulan tactics to save themselves. If the combined forces of the Federation and the Klingons are running scared of the Cardassians and the Dominion, then this new group is much more deadly a threat than they thought. (Obviously the Dominion part... the Cardies are laughable at best)
So you have a Starfleet Officer working with an Obsidian Order agent to try and trick the greatest empire in the world to help using a fabricated plan (that was probably tactically sound) that probably wasn't even so outlandish to begin with. Imagine seeing your greatest enemy breaking their highest morals to ask for help from you?
fabricated
lol nicely played
Only the best fabricated evidence from a simple tailor.
if you go even further down the rabbit hole and realize the Federation pulled the whole thing off as a false flag, you probably want to consider what that means. The Romulans spy on the Federation. A LOT. They have a good idea what they’re up to when they think no one can see what they’re doing
But if you go even further you realize that Sisko is the only Federation officer who would know they were involved at all. Remember that he did everything on his own initiative (after Dax relayed that casualty report), and he had Garak arranging the dirty work so even if the master spy left a clue it wouldn't point back at Sisko. And of course the assassination part was Garak's idea which Sisko only found out about after the fact.
It was a false flag operation so well concealed and compartmentalized that even the person running it was technically unaware of it's goal.
So which would be worse, that Sisko completely fooled even the Tal Shiar, or the Tal Shiar knowing it must be a false flag but not having a single hint about such an operation even existing despite their vast spy network running against the notoriously information porous Federation.
I literally made this exact argument in another post. I doubt even Sloan knew as Bashir would have found out. I don't even think the writers considered it, it is far more chilling that they got away with it.
At some point a Tal Shiar operative is in a room with Sisko, offhandedly mentioning the assassination that got them into the war and how he was sure there must have been more to it but frustratingly none of his people could ever find a thing. "It was me" whispers Sisko, pulling out a PADD and showing pictures of the meeting, of how the evidence was fabricated, and of Garak planting the bomb. "Why are you telling me this?" the stunned operative asks. "Because no one... will ever believe you" he replies as he deletes the PADD's contents in front of the operative's eyes.
If only…
I love how every analysis in this sub ends up (correctly) at, "The Federation is just too diverse and innovative on top of partially militarized, so no one can effectively defeat them."
Could the Dominion have truly won? Nope! Federation virus, baby!
Could the Borg have won? They might've if they'd won at the start, but they didn't because the Federation rescued Picard and he got them access. Federation, baby!
Could the Romulans have truly turned on the Federation for Sisko's trick? They could've, but they won't, 'cause Federation, baby!
Can you imagine how crazy Unimatrix Zero would get if you started assimilating Starfleet personnel in the millions?
Borg don't want all that plot armor.
Wasn't there a bit about Boimler not getting assimilated because they were just like "ew, no thanks"
Plus the Romulans can use it in the future to potentially drive a wedge in the Fed-Klingon alliance, which we know has been one of their goals
i love this last detail. the fact that the carfassians were just beginning to be repressed in their own systems probably contributed to the romulans’ decision.
Right.
They know the Dominion is an existential threat to their empire. They know that if the Klingons and Federation fall that they would be next. And that if the Dominion can take on both those empires at once and win, then they can likely take the Romulan empire, too.
But they wanted the Klingons and Federation bloodied. So they sign a non-aggression pact and let their enemies go at each other. They want to wait long enough to weaken their rivals but not so long that their rivals can't contribute to the war any longer.
Timing is everything here, and Sisko doing what he did is a clear sign of desperation and a good signal that it was time to move in and 'save the day'.
If it hadn't been for Shinzon and the Hobus Supernova, this might have led to a Romulan campaign of conquest in the Alpha quadrant during the 2380's.
The head of the Tal Shiar was a Section 31 operative!
Section 31 was probably impressed too. Sisko did their job for them.
I doubt Section 31 knew, Bashir was in Sloan's brain.
Bashir didn't have time to access everything in Sloan's brain. Sloan was trying to trap Bashir there (and die with him) by enticing him with the possibility of finding out all those secrets. O'Brien had to convince Bashir to leave.
It makes no sense that it wouldn’t come up again though if Sloan knew. It’s heavily implied that they got away with it.
Sisko had to contact Starfleet to get approval "In the Pale Moonlight" after the attack on Betazed. So they certainly got wind of it.
They knew that he wanted bio-memetic gel and that Bashir was mad, but he didn’t ask permission about a false flag attack. 1st rule about false flags, don’t talk about false flags.
What is casus belli?! Is it about me!?
/s
Wernt the tal shiar gutted along with the cardassian secret police when they tried that sneak attack against the founders?
Like that was the whole point of the plan by the founders to neuter the two organizations?
Tal Shiar were weakened but they didn't fall out of power like the Obsidian Order. The Founders fully succeeded in destabilizing Cardassia but only partially succeeded in neutralizing the Romulans for a while.
oh I like this headcanon
The Romulans were probably genuinely impressed that the Federation was willing to be conniving. Probably was a big factor in their willingness to move towards more detente and continue entertaining reunification ideas, even before Nemesis.
Game respects game. Garak even said the Romulans wouldn’t be too mad because that’s exactly what they’d do if the roles were reversed.
This is exactly right, and it’s basically textual to the episode. Vreenak’s main complaint is the Federation is putting out peace feelers because they don’t have what it takes to win. Killing a Romulan Senator shows what the Federation will be willing to do.
Pretty sure the Romulans view misdirection and assassination the same way the Klingons view a Vulcan Hello.
If they did they wouldn’t say anything, and Garak knows it. They could try to kill him later for it and say it was for another reason, but they’d know Garak would have a safety policy that’d blow up in the romulans faces. Potentially figuratively and literally.
Good for Garak. The Romulan militaristic government deserved it.
I wonder if they'd want Vreenak back though? I assume of course that the bio-mimetic gel was so that Garak could make a convincing clone to blow up, and the real senator is locked in a crate underneath a lady's dress shop.
there’s strong hints that he used it to make the bomb, and he already had the WORM data rod.
Garaks response to assassination attempts, is to fake his own assassination attempts in a spectacular way.
Garak doesn't strike me as having a comprehensive (in the event of my death). I doubt he would allow someone to be that relatively dangerous to him to have that kind of power. Remember the former head of the order who felt a deeply personal betrayal was 'happy enough ' to leave him in exile, and lowish level agents were following that desire.
Simply put, any Tal Shiar retribution would be stalled by
'Damage done - retaliation not worth the effort'
I aways thought that Vreenak was just disappointed that the fake evidence was just slightly too fake. He might have loved it to be good enough.
He kinda messaged that to Sisco when monologing over that synthetic Romulan beverage.
"I know it will be fake, but let it be good enough."
I love it and it really fits his delivery but he'd already picked his side. Fake evidence wouldn't sway him. It's why they invited him specifically in the first place, or at least that's what Sisko believed.
He painted himself into a corner with his political stance. He was getting signs that the opinion on the matter will change. Military preparations where underway but withheld from him.
He was fearing to become isolated and losing influence. A juicy peace like well faked evidence would have allowed him to change his stance without losing face.
Bugger it. You've fully sold me. It's just too good and too Romulan not to be the case. And I'm very grateful for the new perspective.
Welp I know which episode I'm rewatching tonight.
I totally forgot about that, solid bit of writing. In retrospect it's such an obvious telegraph.
yeah, i always took that “you know, it’s growing on me. i almost forgot it wasn’t the real thing” line as hinting that he already (somewhat) knew what sisko was going to show him.
he was watching closely to see how sisko would react, hoping he wouldn’t have a good poker face. (but he did.)
To quote JLP : Captain Jean-Luc Picard : [concluding] You have manipulated the circumstances with the skill... of a Romulan.
I think they would see it as a hand well played. Maybe even respect.
Excellent tea
The irony of that story is it's unlikely Sisko's actions did more than just speed up the Romulans entering the war.
An empire doesn't launch a massive surprise attack unless they were already prepared to go.
Agree. Flimsy justification needed and received.
Speeding up the Romulans into the war saved countless Starfleet lives and ensured that there was still a Federation/Klingon alliance to ally with. Who knows how many Federation assets could have been lost IF the Romulans entered months later. Not only that Sisko gave the Romulan military a reason they could sell to the Senate to enter the war ASAP. Instead of the usual debate they do ie. [Star Trek Nemesis]. As well as leading the Romulans committing an important surgical strike on a Dominion foothold , attacks they did not see coming as they were focused on the Federation NOT on the Romulans they thought had a treaty with.
They probably were on the fence, and just needed a nudge.
Yep the Romulans aren't stupid, they knew if the Federation and Klingons lost they'd be next. The Non-aggression pact made sense at the start so they wouldn't be caught flat-footed and had time to prepare but it had outlived its usefulness.
They knew the Dominion hadn't forgotten the aborted Tal Shiar joint attack, and they were watching the Cardassian "allies" getting ground under the Dominions heel.
At best, they were letting the Klingons and federation get a little more beat up to be a lesser postwar rival.
Yep, just check out SNW S1 finale
An empire doesn't launch a massive surprise attack unless they were already prepared to go.
There was a massive intergalactic war on their doorstep. They were definitely ready to go. They just hadn't yet decided which side to join.
I think they knew it all along... and were more than willing to get rid of Vreenak anyway - he didn't want the Star Empire to join the fight.
The Romulans knew they were going to get wiped out by the Dominion if the Federation and Klingons lost after the debacle at the shapeshifter homeworld. No way was the Dominion just going to forget about that. They had no choice tactically but to join the fight.
Well, once the Dominion beat the Tal Shiar, with the Obsidian Order in tow, at their best game, a new playbook was needed. There was never a point were peace was a real option. As far as they knew, everyone asking for the Star Empire and Dominion to be chill with each other was an infiltrator, a dupe, or a straight up traitor...
Vreenak probably wasn't a shapeshifter, so a dupe or a traitor, and since the Founders had already proven that they were leagues beyond the Tal Shiar in terms of tradecraft, they had to assume that Vreenak was one or the other and they just couldn't prove it.
The end result was, I guess, a general attitude of "fuck that guy"; the operatives that investigated the incident, if they even managed to figure it out, had no incentive to say that the recording was forged. Let it be and see the Star Empire enter the fray with a vengeance.
yeah, i always figured they’d be able to tell it was faked despite garak’s “written off as damage from the explosion” line. but that it just didn’t matter to the state and its military goals. (and garak probably knew that.)
I agree that they likely knew but that it was a perfect invitation to get involved but I doubt the romulans knew about the virus infecting the founders. If they did they may have opted to be on the sidelines for a little bit longer see if the dominion would throw everything to burn the federation and Klingons.
Well, now that you’ve told them!
Yes pretty sure he's living undercover on Nepenthe under the name Rupert Crandall
And somehow knew a planet of androids
Nah. Garak is too good
He’s just a simple tailor!
I think trickery is par for the course in Romulan politics. It’s the only reason Romulans ever do anything. You want Romulans to enter a war, you have to trick them into it. There were Romulans trying to trick other Romulans into the war already. Sisko tipped it, he didn’t cause it.
I've always felt the Romulans knew but kept their mouths shut because
1) Oh holy crap, Federation. Look at you go kiddo! It could be tighter but good for you.
2) Oh shit. The Federation is throwing away the good boy act. Their scared. We have to take this seriously.
3) We'll keep this in our back pocket and use it post-war when its to our advantage.
But after taking heavy loses in the war and post-war twenty years events, the empire was so fractured that they were past the point of being able to use the secret as leverage against the Federation.
This has always been my headcanon as well. At a bare minimum the Romulans, of all cultures, would be deeply suspicious of the circumstances.
I think it makes the most sense if the pro-war faction of Romulan Senators who sent the fleet of D'deridex to support the Federation and Klingons in By Inferno's Light used the incident as a way to overcome the pro-peace faction that signed the treaty of non-aggression in Call to Arms.
At a certain point it didn't really matter if it was true. It was perceived as true by the Romulan populace and soldiery, and that gave the pro-war faction the leverage they needed.
The Romulan government might have just needed an excuse to get the Romulans angry so they will go into the Dominion War with passion.
Yes. I've always thought that the Tal Shiar would figure it out pretty easily, but that it didn't really matter.
Vreenak was a pro-Dominion Senator. His death cleared the way for anti-Dominion political forces to bring the Empire into the war, and gave them cover for criticism that they were allying with the Federation or exposing the Empire to undue jeopardy.
Moreover, I would say it's reasonable that Garak knew this would be the outcome. He didn't need to try to stage a false flag that would deceive Romulus, he just needed to do enough to give them an excuse.
Sisko couldn't stomach a killing under the terms that it would deceive the Romulan Senate, but he absolutely wouldn't have been OK with one that was blatantly political. Essentially, the Federation did what the Romulan military and clandestine apparatus were hoping for, but just couldn't.
My guess is no and this is for several reasons.
Garak offed anyone with direct knowledge of what was actually happening: Tolar and Vreenak (plus security and crew). That only left Sisko and Garak and as we all know, he deleted his entire personal log.
I mean, Bashir was unknowingly an unknowing co-conspirator and even objected to Sisko acquiring the Bio-Memetic gel in the first place. And... You'd figure Section 31 was probably very interested in why Sisko requested the bio-memetic gel, but seeing as Bashir didn't find out in Sloan's brain, it probably means that Section 31 was suspicious about why all this bio-memetic gel went missing, but probably turned up nothing.
If more people than Sisko and Garak knew, it would have been talked about seeing as all the attention the Romulans got in Picard.
It is far more sinister if Sisko and Garak committed a black flag operation and got away with it. That secret literally dies with them.
That only left Sisko and Garak and as we all know, he deleted his entire personal log.
The Emissary was taken to the Celestial Temple, so he ain't talking until and unless the Prophets send him back.
Garak won't keep any records and isn't likely to tell anyone, ever.
That leaves future digital reconstruction of Sisko's deleted log. However, we know from Nemesis that Data cannot be completely destroyed even by blowing up the ship it's on, let alone just by deleting a file.
I've always thought there was an outside chance they hired Garak to assassinate the senator themselves. We are led to think that Sisko originated the idea, but it's just as likely that Garak or his employer were manipulating Sisko from the beginning.
Maybe not hired, but I suspect Tal'shiar types had discussed it with Garak at one point. Garak said his contacts on Cardassia were all dead. Garak is a known liar, but the real message is the Dominion is keeping tabs on Cardie intelligence or already solved the problem (remember Tain killed many of his old associates). They can't just get information off. Then all of a sudden Sisko is doing heavy lifting. He pulls Odo off the scene and gets a forger with no obvious connection released.
Once, Sisko approached Garak, they had means a simple tailor didn't have. The Romulans tell Garak about Vreenak and get him close enough to DS9 where Garak will kill the tailor with Odo pulled off the beat. Then the Tal'shiar contact in the area just need to doctor some logs and presto, not only are the Romulans fighting, but they are fighting along side the UFP who just warned them about the Dominion threat.
Despite the potential intelligence, my guess is the Dominion doesn't keep tabs on Garak due to his status as an exile, control of his friends, and proximity to Odo who had been around long enough he might sense a hidden Founder, even if they weren't sick.
In my early days of trying to write fanfic, one story I wrote was about the Romulan government finding out, and then Starfleet and Section 31 frantically scrambling to damage- control that whole mess.
Romulans eventually saw that they had no choice but to join up.
They were a means to an end.
"I know that you know that I know that you know that I know you know that I know that you know that I know you know that I know you know."
-Tal Shiar, probably
My head cannon was yes they knew, and likely knew almost immediately but were looking for a way into the war that the general populace would be fine with and Dominion killing Romulon Senator who uncovers plot is just far to good to pass up.
I like to think they knew but kept second guessing themselves that someone in the federation would be able to live with that kind of decision.
The thing is, the Romulans absolutely HAD to know. The best way to think of it is as though the Romulans are a Chinese, Japanese, or Russian culture as far as "saving face" goes. All the pro-war elements of the Rihannsu government were looking for an excuse to push the doves out of the way and Sisko/Garak gave them one that allowed them to withdraw from the non-aggression pacts without having to admit it was a mistake all along. In the Romulan government, admitting such a huge blunder would be literally suicide. A constituency that feels they are being governed dishonorably would send their swords to their Senator-for-life as a suggestion that they kill themselves and make way for new representation. According to Diane Duane, this suggestion is "rarely ignored".
So basically: YES, pretty much everyone in the Romulan government knew (and most of the people probably suspected) that they got into the war via shenanigans, but at that point it didn't matter. The Romulans knew that once the wormhole was closed to dominion reinforcements, the Federation had the economic resources to crush the Dominion Expeditionary Force -- but only if they were resolved to destroy, which is not really in the typical Federation doctrine. The whole point of the non-aggression pact was to wait and see which side was likely to win and then join in at the last minute. By engaging in skullduggery which could have tremendously backfired, Sisko demonstrated the resolve of the Federation to win, and so won over the Romulans to the allied side.
Had the war gone worse for the romulans pethaps. But they really did join just in time to win.
Any romulan soy who figured it out, would weigh the option to needle the federation vs the propaganda of the romulans showing up as big damn heroes. Admitting you got duped into being a hero is probably not worth it.
A comparable hypothetical. Lets pretend pearl harbor was an insane false flag by China to drag the US into WW2, and today the CIA just discovered absolute proof. I genuinely think thry would bury it. Sure they could try to rake china over the coals about it. But it would do more to hurt the US brand.
not before finding out those fake plans were the same as the real plans.
Didn't the novels pick up this point? I guess non canon but the Romulans found out the truth and declared war on the federation?
I believe that the Romulans always intended to enter the war and only signed the treaty with the Dominion to buy time to mobilize their forces and ensure that they could enter the war at a time most advantageous to them.
So they saw through it from the start but weren't that upset, both because Vreenak would have had to be purged anyway, and because the Federation trying something so out of character is the signal that "it's now or never".
I imagine Koval, who was the director of the Tal Shiar and secretly working for Section 31, made sure the truth never came out since he would have wanted to keep the Star Empire's alliance with the Federation against the Dominion intact.
The Tal Shiar were likely the ones who determined the legitimacy of the Cardassian data-rod recording in the first place.
Koval would have used his authority in the Tal Shiar to influence the results of the investigation.
Probably. But they'd never admit a simple tailor got them so good.
I believe that Hollow Men by Una McCormack is a follow-up to In the Pale Moonlight.
Garak specifically? No, he's just some tailor. They might suspect Sisko. Anyway, once the Romulans threw themselves into the war, they didn't want to admit they were tricked.
If they did figure it out, would they ever admit to being manipulated?
Peter David featured that tidbit in a short story about his U.S.S. Excalibur series. The Romulans and another species go to war with the Federation over it.
They didn't really have time to do anything about it if they did:
The Tal Shi'ar were obliterated before the Dominion War so the main arm that would find such info out wasn't in a strong position to spy and backstab for a long time.
Their entire government got assassinated during the events of Nemesis. Thus the government that led the Romulan effort in the Dominion war and would have been interested in that kind of thing were all dead. Shinzon basically did Sisko a solid.
Romulus's Sun went nova and for some reason they struggled to evacuate their population.
According to Picard the Romulan Empire basically collapsed entirely in the years following Romulus blowing up.
They were more interested in sabotaging android technology than rebuilding a new Romulan homeworld or turning an outer Romulan Colony into the new Homeworld.
My theory is that the Tal Shiar figured it out right away but saw it as a chance to save face when they realized Vreenak was a changling.
I think they definitely suspected foul play in the death of Vreenak, but it would be hard to prove. After the war, they probably could have worked it out from whatever survived of Cardassian and Dominion files on their activities and plans.
I don’t think they ever worked out it was Garak, though.
It's why the joined, declared war on the Dominion. They saw the Federation was capable of deceit on the same level as them. They were impressed, and now think the Federation is willing to do what is needed to win, even if it compromises their "Federation values".
Nope... because he was alive at the end of the series.
Well after 2387. It'd be a moot point.
I think that, like other governments, they wanted to be "tricked" into going to war. It's not a willingness of the government to go to war. It's the ability of that government to convince his people. Sisko Garek gave them that ability. So yes and no. Officially, they never knew. Unofficially, they let it happen.
The Tal Shiar probably did; but never recorded that opinion.
Probably something similar to when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor; “oh no it would be horrible if you attacked us here(while our carriers arent there) and now the majority of the US is onboard with the war… oh no!”
Don't know why you're getting downvotee the US knew the attack was going to happen
They knew some attack was very likely to happen sometime, but not the exact date and time. Any serious study of the great extent of the Japanese secrecy plans makes that clear enough - but for whatever reason a lot of people seem unable to admit that the Japanese did a very good job of pulling off their plan.
(while our carriers aren't there)
At that time they thought battleships were kings of the sea, and carriers were support elements for scouting and raiding. "Send out the carriers to keep them safe and let the battleships get pounded" is taking a mindset that did take hold in the USN until mid-war and jamming into pre-war thinking.
Also, the aircraft carrier Enterprise was intended to arrive in Pearl Harbor on December 6th, but was delayed due to a storm. I could be wrong but I don't think FDR had a weather-control machine handy.
Also, the aircraft carrier Enterprise was intended to arrive in Pearl Harbor on December 6th, but was delayed due to a storm
"Fate... protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise."
-- Riker
Fate does love ships named Enterprise does she
The US government knew that soon they would need to militarily enter the war, just not sending aid and supplies, but to do so they would need public support. So they decided that the country would need to take a black eye. They knew the Japanese were planning an attack on Hawaii, they knew when as well, but decided to not act. Thwarting the attack wouldn't sway the pop, a full attack would
there were a lot of other attacks on other harbours on the same day, but the rest were shot down. pearl harbour is the one that was successfully hit.
now, you may still want to assert that the US decided to let one through right there. but that’s still a little different from simply not doing anything at all against it.
How could they? A simple gardener / cobbler.
According to yhe extended universe yes. And it led to the second earth Romulus war.
No lol.
That probably ceased to matter after Shinzon killed the entire senate and then a black hole destroyed their planet.