Why doesn't starfleet Tell the Romulans to F*** off?

posted on January 4th, 2013, 12:39 am

You didn't take any philosophy or logic classes did you. For that matter have you ever taken an engineering or even a computer programming course. You ALWAYS have mutliple back ups of your projects. Ask anyone in the business or military or anything that involves data and the real world and you will find it so.

For crying out loud I used to do inventory for a small oil firm which only had eight tanks and a crappy computer from 2004 and we still had backups on an offsite location and also on flash drives once a week.

This was a ship that was designed by lots of engineers and scientists (the Romulan Military according to Memory Alpha) and was a huge ship that required lots of resources to make. Something that big and complicated doesn't just disappear ESPECIALLY considering that it was a Prototype. Do you honestly think that Starfleet couldn't have made another Prometheus if the Romulans had been successful.

"I am sorry Admiral but we can't build anymore of those because I had all the plans on my notebook and the HD crashed last night"

Do you know how stupid that sounds?

At some point basic logic has to come in play and it highly implausible that they only had one set of plans and that they all happened to be aboard the Nemesis itself when it was destroyed. Which of course begs the question of how they built the ship in the first place if it was no where else to be found but on the ship...........before it was built.

Let me guess you are now going to claim that they erased all the files on all the computers...........because I am sure that the conspirators in the Romulan military are going to allow Shinzon (a former Romulan clone/agent) full access to all their info. :roll:

As far as the door being left open for "wild speculation" you have the awful writing of that movie to blame just like like that episode with the alternate universes and Worf.

Now YOU show where it was a one off project built by Shinzon and some Remans and they managed somehow to do what the entire scientific and military establishment of the Romulan Star Empire was incapable of doing.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 12:55 am

You've never read up on what canon and the canon polocy of Star Trek is, have you?

We are talking about Romulans using tech they've never used or been shown to have and canon does not support you. The Romulans never used that cloak, they were never shown with any perfect-cloaks and have never been shown bypassing the counters on a regular basis. It was only seen once by a group of resistence fighters with the only (known) prototype destroyed.

The Romulans may have captured the secret base the Remans used to make it and may have been able to salvage something from the database if they got it before the Romulan-hating Remans destroyed whatever they could. Canon never even implies anything and baseless speculation with no-canon support is irrelevent in a discussion about canon.

You lose by trying to rewrite canon to make your point, when nothing in that crappy and poorly-written movie supports it. On-screen episode or movie is canon, fan-theories and novels are not.

You going to novels and fanfiction to back you up next?

posted on January 4th, 2013, 1:01 am

The Remans were the cannon fodder of the Romulan Star Empire. This is according to the movie.

Star Trek movies ARE CANON..................for the love of cheese.

As for it not being mentioned anywhere else.........um when was the last episode of TNG, Voyager or DS9 made and when was Nemesis made? I will let you ponder that one.

The Scimitar was a result of a secret plot to take over the Empire by the military as show in the movie. In cased you missed it Shinzon was conspiring with actual Romulans very early on.

I am not rewriting anything you are the one making wild speculative jumps that defy all logic and frankly anyone here that is an engineer or has any job that involves data is scratching their heads at. You are assuming that the Romulans put energy and resources into a project that would the most significant advance in military technology for them since they first developed the cloak (a perfect cloaking device that let you fire weapons and keep shields up and travel at max warp speeds) and you expect anyone with an IQ higher than my shoe size to by that they "lost" it all.

Just stop it already. Your position is indefensible.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 1:27 am

I am using actual canon, you are making up stuff that was never show or implied. You really don't know canon if speculation is all you have; on-screen is what counts and Nemesis is the only time it has ever appaered or been mentioned at all with no history except that it was built by now-dead Remans in a secret base.

We saw in the movies a super-cloak used by Remans in a Reman ship constructed in secret by a guy who hated Romulans and kept them in the dark about much of his plans. we never saw anywhere Romulans using a super-cloak, nor were the Romulans ever shown to know anything about the tech on the Scimitar except the Thaleron weapon. Why would the Remans share that tech with the people they hate most who enslaved them?

My job is done; Scimitar was seen once, used by one person in one battle with one known ship (now destroyed) of the class built by a now-defunct group with no 'sequal-hook' or anything to imply the plans still exist. It's up to you to prove that canon supports more of them or Romulans using tech they've never shown for a ship that was never seen or heard of outside of one crap movie.

That is called suicide, as there is nothing outside of Nemesis about it and canon has pretty much no history on it. MA mentions it affiliated with the Empire, but the only connection Romulans have actually shown to it is that their Romulan-hating Praetor cammanded one.

And as for the 'lost it' bit, do you remember what happened when Chakotay was captured by Kazon? Got rid of the entire Shuttle database to make it useless. Reckon they're gonna recover data erased by a Self-Destruct or phaser to the computers memory storage?

posted on January 4th, 2013, 1:56 am

Now you are just being a deliberately obtuse and nothing more than a troll.

Watch the movie. At around the 30 minute mark the military commanders (Romulans, NOT REMANS) said that they supported him when he decided to assassinate the Senate. He needed their support, otherwise why bother bringing the military in at all and increase the number of possible leaks to their "secret" plan. Think about it for a second. If the Remans and Shinzon could build that ship all by themselves (one clone of picard and a race that was subjugated and the footsoldiers NOT THE SCIENTISTS OR ENGINEERS of the Romulan Empire, why would they have bothered to include the Military in their plot.

The reason you don't see anything after it is because THERE ARE NO MORE TNG MOVIES AFTER NEMESIS, and ALL THE TV SHOWS STOPPED AIRING BEFORE NEMESIS WAS RELEASED.

I swear, my little niece has better reasoning skills than you do when she wants candy before nap time.

Using the Chakotay reference......... Does that mean that Starfleet can't make anymore shuttlecraft. ROFL

The Romulans developed a perfect cloaking device that could bypass all forms of detection among other things, you accuse me of speculating about its contruction and then you claim that it was built in a secret installation just by Shinzon and the Remans..... post where it said that in the movie please. Otherwise you just shot your own argument down.

Just knock it off because you are hurting the heads of anyone with any job that has even the most remote amount of accountability, management, even basic access to computers. Even as a checkout clerk at one of my early jobs I knew that they backed up the information.

Now show me where in the movie it says that Shinzon and the Remans were the only ones that built the ship without the support of the Romulan Military.

I would also point to the 62 minute mark of the movie where the ROMULANS NOT THE REMANS are discussing the fact that he is planning to anhiliate Earth. Does Shinzon strike you as the type of person that just walks around telling everyone about the capablities of his "secretly built" ship?

posted on January 4th, 2013, 2:39 am

Calling me a troll... I see you know you can't prove your side and have resorted to attempting to discredit the other side. Thank you for admitting your side is unfounded in-series.

I've seen the movie and they never said anything about giving him Romulan tech or a Romulan ship, the only part they had in canon was talking to the senate and an assasination plot with a tiny mini-thaleron device.

No more movies = no more canon = you are arguing something you have no backing on. You just stated yourself why you cannot win. That's the problem I have; you claimed they do have Scimitar cloaks as the norm in canon, instead of something they might have adopted later.

If that shuttle had the plans for a top-secret supership that the paranoid terrorist group didn't want to share with their enslavers? Yes, destroying it would prevent more from being built if the original and the creators were also destroyed.

Again, the Romulans never showed the supercloak, meaning there is no proof they have them or even knew it existed.

Shinzon claimed it was built in a secret base with no mention anywhere of Romulans heliping the Reman owned and crewed ship. You need to prove the Romulans built it because you are claiming something canon doesn't support.

The Romulan Donatra was talking to acted like he didn't know the full extent of his plan. All he knew was Earth was the target. That also doesn't prove they knew about how advanced the Scimitar was. You seem to assume the Romulan-hating Human with Romulan-hating Reman helpers would share tech with the Romulans that enslaved them, who also didn't seem too fond of Remans.

You should stop trying to prove you know Trek better than Trek itself, you are trying to use real world logic to make claims canon does not support.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 2:55 am

On a side note, the Klingons in "The Motion Picture" and TNG et al look nothing like the Original Series Klingons, and the Romulans bear only passing resemblance (TNG Romulans went all funky eyebrows, huge shoulder pads and green everywhere. It was like Dynasty in space :p TOS Romulans were far more like their Vulcan cousins)

So as much as I might not particularly like the way that the J.J Abrams films have taken things, it's not the first time that Star Trek has done an about face stylistically and you cannot accept the changes from TOS to TMP and TNG and simultaneously reject the changes from TNG to the new films. Either accept or reject both

posted on January 4th, 2013, 2:56 am

My god nathanj, your argument about the perfect cloak is no more valid for the same reason you point out why Tylers argument is baseless. The Scimitar is NEW tech, and like any new tech there is no couter for awhile. It takes time to develop countermeasures and as you pointed out Nemesis is the last TNG movie so we obviouslt dont see them develop one. Its no different then in TOS when Kirk and Spock went and stole a Romulan cloak, at the time it was also the "perfect" cloak, the feds had no counter till they stole one and figured out how it works. All it takes is time. Also yes I know about the Klingons in the deleted scene in the new movie, but untill such time as its incorporated back into the movie it stays as uncanon.

Now to your point on the cloaked ships firing on the Scimitar if it was at Earth, you assume that the Scimitar actually needed to decloak to fire its weapon, as it seems unlikey it needed to be uncloaked or its mission woulda been destined to failure from the onset. The thing took like 10 min to charge and fire, you really think Earth wouldnt have had a FLEET of ships defending it? The second the Scimitar decloaked to fire it woulda been dead, which implies that it didnt have to be cloaked to fire it. Remember, Picard already warned Starfleet what was happening, they knew Shinzon was on the way. Now tell me what difference would it make if you have a cloaked fleet waiting in orbit around Earth versus a non cloaked fleet waiting around Earth? And dont forget the only reason they fired while decloaked was because Shinzon got cocky and let Picard ram his ship, which diabled all their weapons and the cloak, so all he had left was his super goo gun. So again we dont know if it could fire while cloaked, and if it COULD fire, then it doesnt matter HOW many cloaked federation ships were sitting around Earth.

And again who is to say they couldnt detect the Scimitar, yes the Enterprise couldnt detect her using her sensors, but who said a fleet of ships (which the Enterprise was on their way to meet) couldnt have formed a detection grid and forced it to uncloak. All we know based on the movie was that it was the perfect cloak to fool the Enterprise sensors, a lone ship far away from any assistance.

And another point, about you saying how dumb it would be to not have backup plans for making a cloak like the Scimitars, lemme ask you this; whens the last time youve seen a Klingon bird of prey fire a torpedo while cloaked?

posted on January 4th, 2013, 2:59 am

To play devils advocate somewhat, the Fire-Whilst-Cloaked Bird of Prey example is a bit iffy. Remember the whole theme of ST VI was to mirror the end of the Cold War. No doubt the technology behind the special cloaking device and/or torpedo (it was never revealed what exactly was modified) was banned under non-proliferation clauses in the Khithomer Accords. ("You want us to help save your people?, No more building these, these and these, got it?")

Not to mention there is something everyone in this thread has somewhat forgot. Just because the technology exists to build something, it doesn't mean it is feasible to put into general usage nor does it mean that it is feasible in general. For example, the Tsar Bomba. Absolutely enormous Thermonuclear bomb. 52mt yield, which could be "dialled" up to 100mt. But a bomb that big was so heavy only a modified Tu-95 could carry it, and only short distances that were no use operationally, it's blast radius was so big that if it was much over 52mt in yield, it would destroy the bomber that dropped it, and generally there just wasn't a need for a bomb that big and powerful. It existed, the technology still exists to build it, but treaties prevent it for one (see BoP example) and the fact it's pretty much unusable as a weapon of war renders the whole thing pointless.

Who is to say that the cost, (monetary or material) or practical application of Schimitar type cloaking technology were so prohibitive that only a mad man like Shinzon would bother. He was driven by revenge and he knew he was dying, ergo cost didn't matter. To the governing body of an interstellar power, it is very much a concern, as are any dangerous side effects that technology might have, be they physical or political. Balance of Power is very much at the heart of our own global diplomacy; I see no reason for that not to be true in Trek

posted on January 4th, 2013, 3:13 am

The Hobus supernova and the destruction of Romulus is canon for the TNG era.

not it isn't.

canon is things that were in: star trek tv show, or star trek movie, also acceptable is star trek animated series.

The supernova and the destruction of Romulus are clearly depicted as taking place in the Prime universe. The name "Hobus" for the star came from the prelude comics -- which aren't hard canon, but are very definitely firmer than typical secondary sources.

JJ Trek is very hard to swallow as canon. The weapons don't look anything like the orginal series, the Klingons and Romulans don't look like..........Klingons or Romulans. It was developed for mass consumption. I guess technically it should be canon and it is in an alternate timeline but to be honest.........WTF? I love the movies but I still cringe at the inconsistencies. And the engineering section..........I swear that I worked at a factory that looked just like that years ago.

Hard to swallow it may be, but the 2009 film is hard canon. I mean, Roddenberry is on record as saying he thought significant elements of the fifth and sixth films are apocryphal, but fans don't use that as a basis to exclude them.

Of course, most of the 2009 film is set in a quantum parallel past (the same for INTO DARKNESS), but that's not germane in a discussion of the destruction of Romulus.

The JJ Enterprise's engine room was shot in a brewery, as they couldn't be bothered with making a proper engineering set (seeing as Scotty is now a gag character). Apparently there will be an engineering set for INTO DARKNESS though.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 3:16 am

You are the one claiming that it was built solely by Shinzon and the Remans. You have shown zero evidence of that. Where in the movies does he say that he and the Remans built the ship secretly. He used thaloron radiation to destroy the Senate with the support of the military (30 minute mark) and they were aware that the ship could destroy all life on Earth (62 minute mark).

SHOW WHERE ONLY THE REMANS BUILT THE SHIP AND THAT ALL PLANS WERE DESTROYED WITH THE SHIP!

Tell me then, did Sisko have to take Defiant back to Utopia Planetia or where ever they built it and re upload Defiants schematics so that they could build another one? Do you even comprehend how stupid you sound right now. I am going to copy/paste this on Something Awful because I know alot of people that are going to have a hoot with your logic.

Regarding the Chakotay thing I don't know the episode that you are referring to but I am assuming that he downloaded some files to his computer from an alien ship and then deleted them after being caught. How in the hell does that have anything to do with anything? Did the alien species he stole the files form build his shuttlecraft? That is like saying that if I delete all the porn on my computer that all porn will cease to exist. That is just the stupidest argument I have EVER heard. Did the alien species he stole the file from all of a sudden no longer have the ability to build whatever it was he stole (assuming it wasn't one of those one off super ships like the time ship).

Show me where in the movie it says that Shinzon and the Remans built it by themselves. You claim that it isn't canon if it isn't in the movie but nowhere does it ever say that they were the only ones that built it.

If your going to use "set design" as an argument then good luck with that considering that every bridge has been different in just about every single movie because every set designer thinks they are God and that sticking a joystick on the bridge of a Sovereign class starship is a good idea.

What we saw was a dark ship with a goofy bridge and Romulan buttons all over the place. Just google images for Exceslior, Defiant, Intrepid, and especially the differences between the Galaxy class and the Sovereign class bridges. Hell google early season Romulan Warbird bridges and later season Warbird bridges like the on in the mystical portal episode.

You claim that there is no more canon so that means that the perfect cloaking device must not exist anymore because they didn't make anymore movies or tv show episodes after it............freaking bizarre logic to say the least. You then claim that somehow that means it is a one off and no one else knew about it .....once again according to you stupid logic because there were no more episodes or movies.

Basically you criticize me for saying that the Romulans had a perfect cloak (which clearly is shown and talked about in the movie including La Forge) and say that it was a one off because it was never mentioned again.......EVEN THOUGH THERE HAVEN"T BEEN ANY FILMS OR TNG SHOWS SINCE. *facepalm*

The conspiring Romulans specifically said that he was on his way to destroy all life on Earth. A normal Romulan ship would not have been able to do that by themselves..........at least in the TNG universe. They clearly knew the capabilities of the ship. Once again why would Shinzon run around telling anyone that wasn't part of his group about the capablities of his ship And the final nail in the coffin is that I will take the word of Memory Alpha over someone who doesn't appear to have ever held a position with any oversight or worked on even a basic engineering project with multiple people. There are backups and there are backups of backups and backups of different versions of projects stored and filed in various locations.

@Equinox......that is my point. The last thing we know is that the Romulans had a perfect cloaking device that could bypass any existing sensor technobabble. We don't know if it was a one off or if it was built by the Romulan military coup members or as one site i ran across claimed it was a captured Dominion cruiser.......(which actually kind of makes some sense since it looks very Dominionish).

Here is what we know. The Romulans had a super cloak that could pass through any sort of detection. The Feds had no way to detect it. That's it. We don't know anything else. So for Tyler to claim that is was a one off production and they apparently never bothered to copy their data anywhere else and the Romulan military just let him do it willy nilly is as you pointed out just as subjective as my assumption that it was funded and designed in part if not in whole by the Romulan military coup members. How else would they know about it's capabilities other than they helped build it or Shinzon just likes to go around telling everyone what his ship is capable of......especially people that he clearly has disdain for as he barely tolerates the presences of the coup members in his royal chambers.

My argument makes a hell of a lot more sense and you know it and so does anyone who has ever worked on a project with multiple people.

What is undebatable is that the cloak was perfect and there was no way to detect it.........end of story. We have no shows or movies afterwards so we can't surmise what happened. They might have found away around it and be able to detect it of they didn't. We just don't know. I am going by the last available piece of evidence and that is they had a perfect claoking devices and it couldn't be counter acted.

@Madhatter........the two biggest things that I am looking forward to in the next movie (I really like Star Trek 2009 it is just difficult because I also like the TOS series so much in fact more so than TNG and Voyager even) is that they promised reduced lense flare and that they have an actual engineering section.

They could have the crappiest plot ever and I would probably still be satisfied. JJ for all his faults and inconsitencies still did a hell of alot better than Insurrection and Generations.......BLECH!!

posted on January 4th, 2013, 3:33 am

Thats a....horrible example. Comparing the ST6 BoP to a Tzar bomb? Yeah I am aware of the bomb, but the reason for the Tzar bomb had nothing to do with functionality, it was a terror weapon designed to make a statement, as nathan pointed out earlier mutually assured destruction. Sloaking technology is not even in the same realm as WMD's. Thats like saying no one would dare mess with us if he had stealth fighters but no nukes. Its obsurd. In trek terms a Tzar bomb would be a trilithuim warhead that could cause a star to go nova, a WMD. Cloaks are a far cry from that. And the Khitomer accords didnt automatically make the feds and Klingons buddys, there was still alot of annimosity there and you really think the Klingons wouldnt equip their fleet with those cloaks if they had them yet? Just because they signed the Khitomer accords doesnt make them all of a sudden bow to the federations will. Shit then the federation could have just said no cloaks period. Now its not canon but I remember reading a backstory where it said Chang had the cloaked developed then had the entire team executed and all data destroyd as to not have it fall into enemy hands. But yes im sure the cloak was very expensive to develop, but like anything new, the cost goes down once you learn better manufacturing techniques and master the new technology, and for something like a cloak that lets you fire it would be worth developing and using for the Klingons, unlike a huge expensive bomb that you basically make to NOT use.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 3:34 am

Personally, I'd expect cloaking / counter-cloak to be somewhat of an arms race. I would expect multiple Starfleet divisions would have gone over the sensor logs of the Enterprise-E with a fine-toothed comb when she returned to dock in order to devise a counter. The precedence for this is the progression that has already been seen in the TNG era for penetrating cloaking -- in "The Neutral Zone" it's remarked that the Romulans had improved their cloaking technology considerably since they were last seen, yet by "Face of the Enemy" the Romulans were cagey about crossing the Federation border due to improved detection capabilities. So, while the Scimitar's cloak was "perfect" by 2379 standards, by 2384 it may have been, as Patrick Stewart described the Reasonably Priced Car on Top Gear, "ordinary".

posted on January 4th, 2013, 3:40 am

Personally, I'd expect cloaking / counter-cloak to be somewhat of an arms race. I would expect multiple Starfleet divisions would have gone over the sensor logs of the Enterprise-E with a fine-toothed comb when she returned to dock in order to devise a counter. The precedence for this is the progression that has already been seen in the TNG era for penetrating cloaking -- in "The Neutral Zone" it's remarked that the Romulans had improved their cloaking technology considerably since they were last seen, yet by "Face of the Enemy" the Romulans were cagey about crossing the Federation border due to improved detection capabilities. So, while the Scimitar's cloak was "perfect" by 2379 standards, by 2384 it may have been, as Patrick Stewart described the Reasonably Priced Car on Top Gear, "ordinary".

I would agree as well it's just that we simply don't know as nothing canon is afterwards. The Romulans may have decided to not employ that technology again as a peace deal with Earth similar to how Earth agreed to not pursue cloaking. Hence Starfleet may have not bothered to make a countermeasue. God knows that Starfleet is incredibly inept and is famous for being caught with the pants down on many occasions. Or they might have employed it mass scale and eventually Starfleet figured it out......or they never figured it out. I can only go by what happened last and that was a cloak system that couldn't be detected.

Regarding the BoP cloak, I haven't seen the movie in a while but I thought that they found some gas emissions from the ship or something. I remember them doing "surgery" on a torpedo.

Edit: according to Wiki the stupid MMO is not canon because only films, shows and the animated series are canon. However I have seen a couple of people say that the timeline in STO is canon. Does that mean it just meshes with current timeline or that it is official. God I hope not. I still have nightmares about that awful naughty game.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 3:42 am

I'm pointing out what the movie shows; they alone demonstrated the super-cloak with nothing to say Romulans had anything to do with it. Show where the Romulans were shown designing and building what they were never shown to posses.

Very big difference in that we've actually seen the Prometheus several times and it wasn't destroyed along with the only people ever seen to use it. We also have no proof there were any Reman slaves that weren't moved to the ship after it weas built.

The Chakotay one was when he went to the Kazon ship to get their Transporter tech back and erased the database so it couldn't be used. Stupid is claiming people can build something from scratch with plans we have no proof they have and no prototype to copy.

Show me where the Romulans were stated to have built it.

We saw a goofy bridge with Reman button in the Reman language.

I never said it never existed, I said there is no more canon so you cannot prove it is still in use. Which you can't. Mine is sound, as no show means they never showed what happened next.

I said you are pulling stuff out of your ass, which you are by stating things that never showed up in the show. I am saying you cannot prove anything because there is no canon to base your claims off. Which there isn't.

The Romulans knew he had Thaleron, which would kill everything. The ship was unimportant.

Your side: Remans had a supercloak, so the Romulans must also have supercloak by association.
My side: We have no canon to go on, so it cannot be proven. Notice how I never said they didn't adopt it, only that nothing exists to prove it.

This is only going on because you apparently know it cannot be proven, yet insist on asking for proof you know doesn't exist.