7.13 Acknowledgements: Volume 7

Acknowledgements (Volume 9: 2151-2165)

Author's Comments

First of all I would like to thank Masao Okasaki of the Starfleet Museum web site for not only "loaning" me all of his Romulan War era ship designs but also allowing me to adjust their backstories in order to fit the Prime One timeline. Masao and his associates were doing their best to work out the issues surrounding the Romulan War long before I arrived on the scene. It seemed only natural to acknowledge his efforts despite minor quibbles we might have in our reference materials. Per Masao's request I have deliberately limited information regarding his starship designs in this document. If you want to see more, though — such as full color illustrations, 3D renderings, and his own interpretation of the TREK timeline — then you need to pay his Starfleet Museum Internet site a visit. It's well worth the trip, trust me. While I was at it I also threw in a couple of excellent Romulan War era starship designs by Aridas Sofia (with his kind permission) into the "cylinder ship" section for good measure. That way you "cylinder ship" fans will have a nice mix to bat around in your own sundry efforts.

I know a lot of you might take some issues with some of my dating for events in the Romulan War. What I did was take the Graham/Mandel chronology, the "official" chronology (Okuda), Masao's chronology, the FASA/SFC chronology, several other fandom efforts (Rosenzweig, Orion, etc.) and then lined up their events regardless of dates. A few events (but only a few) got juggled in order to make more sense. The same goes with the dropping of certain planetary and system names, as they did not fit with either of the sets of star maps that I had. The same goes for most of the later fannish musings on the Romulan War, with the singular exception of Masao's work. I have yet to find anything really "wrong" with his efforts other than the date issue, and that's just a minor quibble of whose chronology you go by. I guess I said all of that to say this: too many times people add onto established TREK canon (and that includes the "official" sources) without bothering to check already established places and events. That's one reason why the franchise is in the mess that it's in right now. Too many people pulling stuff out of their asses and saying, "THIS is what really happened." Hrumph. Like the issue of the planet Cheron, for instance.

The issue of the planet Cheron is a goof straight out of the old SFC. The "Cheron" where the Battle of Cheron took place cannot be the same planet Cheron that is featured in the TREK TOS episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." They just happen to have the same name. The Cheron of that story is clear on the other side of the Federation per the Star Trek Maps. Okay, so let's go to the later Star Trek Star Charts, which according to the Okudaites are "more accurate." Never mind that it left off any mention of the Kzinti save for one oblique reference. Ah, there's Cheron on page 66! Now how did it move all the way across the Federation and wind up just inside the Neutral Zone like that? "He made a mistake the first time." Yeah, must have been one helluva mistake for those two different sets of star charts to change so much. It's just another example of "the franchise" rewriting its own history at the sake of the fans. Besides, it can't be the same planet for the simple fact that the Romulans are never mentioned in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." If they had been anywhere near the Neutral Zone then Kirk, Spock, Sulu, Scotty, or somebody would have said something sooner or later given the way they acted about it in previous TOS episodes. That's the way it is on screen and that's exactly what the Star Trek Maps show. For ignoring something glaringly obvious like that I'm tossing out the Star Trek Star Charts and sticking with the good ol' Star Trek Maps from now on. At least they're consistent with what's on screen, not to mention the "old fandom tech" sources, and don't pull discontinuity stunts like that … leastways, none that I've been able to find so far.

I am by now well aware that this volume of the FSC has the same kind of time and distance issues that plagued the Enterprise pilot "Broken Bow." To be more specific, I put the Romulan border only a few months away from Local Group space at Warp 4, whereas according to the Star Trek Maps and FASA's additions it is years away at Warp 10. It's not as bad as "Broken Bow," which put the Klingon homeworld only five days away from Earth at Warp 5, yet the times I describe are still far too short for the distances involved. All I can say in my defense are two things. First, I didn't have all of FASA's research available at the time I originally drafted War in the Stars. That would be the RPG supplements The Romulans and the ultra-rare The Romulan War, which is the only licensed TREK work to date to deal at depth on the subject of this pre-TOS conflict. I have both of them now and I know better. The amount of rewriting that would be involved to correct matters, however, leads naturally into the next issue. Second, a lot of my supporters welcomed my inclusion of the various materials from the Rihannsu series of STAR TREK novels. Admittedly these are noncanon; however, to date they are the only source of information for certain materials (such as first contact by the Carrizal) covered herein. The Rihannsu materials appear to imply that the Federation was a lot closer to the Romulans than the STAR TREK Maps indicate. Since I can already see my Rihannsu readers sharpening their knives should I "correct" anything, I've reluctantly decided to follow the lead of the Official Franchise Heirs and ignore the problem for now. I'd rather get the Prime One version of events pegged down with regards to the Romulan War and correct for time/space issues later than have thousands of rabid Rihannsu fans cut my throat. I'll leave this issue to my readers to decide: do you want a Romulan War that's dramatic and dynamic, or do you want one that's absolutely correct (and therefore slow and drawn-out) with regards to the time, distances, and physics involved?

I know that to some of you the idea of building a minimum of several hundred starships every year (the "cylinder ship" program) during each year of the Romulan War may sound rather insane. I merely point you to the United States shipbuilding program during World War II. In three years we not only rebuilt almost our entire Pacific Fleet for the Navy but added several new ship classes and built hundreds of civilian "Liberty ships" to transport goods. The average build time of a Liberty ship was just over three months. I have no doubt that Star Fleet and its contractors could build a spacegoing warship with the minimum essentials necessary to fight in the same amount of time given similar pressures. Again, I point you to a historical parallel: the Independence and Sangamon "jeep carriers" of World War II, without whose presence events might have taken a very different turn. I would also like to point out that according to some of my sources the Romulans began the war with several thousand starships. It takes sheer numbers to beat sheer numbers, as any military veteran worth their salt will tell you. Technology alone cannot defeat a massed horde.

The strategic importance of the Gamma Hydra sector (Gamma Hydrae on the Star Trek Star Charts) is laid down in the FASA RPG supplement The Romulan War. This served as the basis for the tale of the war as it is retold in this volume. It is based on a direct quote from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The neutronic fuel carrier Kobayashi Maru was lost in the Neutral Zone near "Gamma Hydra, Sector 4." Both the Star Charts and the earlier Star Trek Maps place "the Gamma Hydra sector" on the far side of the Neutral Zone, away from the Triangle region and the Klingon Empire.

My apologies for the crudeness of the "Black Ops" fleet picture of the ships that were lost in 2147. I've probably got the mix all wrong tactically. I'm just trying to give an impression of how powerful this "lost fleet" might have been, which makes its unexpected loss all the more telling. Aridas, the ringship is in there just for you. ^_^

The Pallas XIV star system, which is shown on the STAR TREK Maps where I indicate it on mine, comes straight from the TAS episode "One of Our Planets Is Missing." It is named as such, "the Pallas XIV system," in the episode. This goes against conventional stellar nomenclature and I have no explanation as to why. This has caused more than one reader some confusion, so all I can say is grab your copy of Bjo Trimble's STAR TREK Concordance (either edition) and look it up for yourself.

The Marshall class "hammerhead" is without a doubt one of the most popular starships to come out of the old SFC. It could be due to its passing likeness to the Rebel Blockade Runner from the first Star Wars movie in 1977. Most fans will simply tell you that "the ship just kicks ass" because it's the Akira of the Romulan War. You know what that means. -_^ There was no question about its inclusion in the FSC given this data. I took the opportunity, though, to include some of the additional conjectural data that fans have come up with over the years, such as the Marshall-B and Patton derivative designs. The Patton class will get its own entry in a later issue of the FSC.

The question of the Bonaventure as seen in the original animated series (TAS) has long vexed STAR TREK fans. It is obviously a vessel of a generation not too far removed from that time; yet according to both Scotty and Spock it was the first to have warp drive. Many explanations have been put forward by fans over the years to account for this seeming discrepancy. In my attempt to deal with this problem I am most grateful for James Dixon's research on the subject as well as the speculations of Neale Pearson in Jaynz' Ships of the Constitution Era. I was also struck by Aridas Sofa's use of the TAS Bonaventure engines for his conjectural Horizon class, which was built near the end of this era. If the Bonaventure had the same engines then she must have preceeded Sofa's Horizon class by a few years, if not more. That's when the inspiration came: following the lead of Aridas would put the building of the TAS Bonaventure right around the 100th anniversary of the first flight of the Bonaventure. If the "Bonnie" were rebuilt for that anniversary then that might explain its remarkable appearance as depicted in the series. There was a lot of experimentation about to start happening in the next period in Federation spaceflight history. Star Fleet probably viewed the modernization of the Bonaventure as its first good opportunity to dabble and experiment, as it were. Best of all, since this was a historic project (read Federation Council mandated) they didn't have to worry about the cost. They pretty much had a free hand to do whatever they wanted and preservationists be damned … which, IMHO, is how we wind up with the "Bonnie" as seen in TAS. Anyone who thinks I'm off my rocker and that no military organization in its right mind would do something like this should take a look at how the Japanese and Americans rebuilt their older battleships during World War II. The vessels that came out the other side, in more than one instance, looked nothing like they originally did. The only thing they had in common was that they were built on the same hull. Why not do the same with a starship two centuries later? It would also help explain the justification behind the Enterprise being "broken down and rewoven into a new form" as many of the first movie (TMP) publications describe.

I took the liberty of changing the starting point and significantly altering the date of the Yorktown flotilla's "run across the border" per Masao's notes so it would better fit within the Prime One chronology. Starbase 10 had already been destroyed and the area of space taken over by the Romulans by the time the raid was supposed to have taken place (per his notes). Accordingly, I made it a preliminary event to Admiral Larson's pincer offensive in 2161-2162 that turned the tide of the war. Kind of like the Dieppe raid 1943 during World War II, only more successful. In this version of events the Yorktown and her fleet would have originated out of the Rigel Colonies or most likely Star Fleet advance bases set up somewhere between the Delta Triangle and the New Territories border. The most likely goal of the Yorktown's "border run" would have been the Gamma Hydra sector, which had already been secured by Federation forces early in the Romulan War.

The business about the captured humans at the end of the Romulan War giving berth to intelligence operatives, servants, and "princelings/princesses" of their captors is derived from three Star Trek novels: Final Frontier, by Diane Carey; and both The Price of the Phoenix and The Fate of the Phoenix, by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath.

Some readers of the first draft of this volume have commented on the tonnage of Masao's ships. I can't speak for him but I can speak about their use in this timeline. Remember, all of these were wartime builds. The extra weight probably comes from multiple layers of ablative armor for added protection.

Finally, my abject apologies for the crudeness of my tactical maps. I never said I was a mapmaker — just a writer. Hopefully they're enough to let you get a grip on how the Romulan War flowed in the Prime One timeline. Perhaps one of you can come up with some better ones for the next revision of this volume.

Regards,

- Richard

Special Thanks To

• Curt Danhauser
• Diane Duane and Peter Norwood (The Romulan Way)
• Ex Astris Scienta
• FASA Corporation
• James Dixon
• Last Unicorn Games
• Sandra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath (The Price of the Phoenix, The Fate of the Phoenix)
• Masao Okasaki
• Neale Pearson
• Alexander Rosewig
• Timo Saloniemi
• Aridas Sofa
• John L. Thiesen and Ross Babcock III (The Romulan War FASA RPG supplement)

Image Sources

• Associated Press (Qana massacre photo)
• Steve Baron (various SFC redrawn images & meshes)
• Battleclinic.com (various images)
• Julian Bolinger (Fa-Xian colony ship)
• Agartha Chamberlain (Marshall mesh)
• Eric Christansen (Jackill's Daedalus class blueprints)
• Harry Doddema and the Titan Fleet Yards (Cerebus)
• Donrelyea.com (Battle of Cheron image)
• Doug Drexler and Geoffrey Mandel (GSC prototype)
• DarkDrone (meshes of Masao's ships)
• Maeteen Greenway (Alpha Omega ß colony image)
• Todd Guenther (Enterprise Evolution Blueprints)
• Adam Heinbuch (Daedalus schematic)
• Kevin Mullen (artwork)
• The Klingon Academy Message Board (meshes & battles)
• New Eye Studio (The Star Trek Maps)
• The Red Admiral (Galileo retooling of the Daedalus)
• Paramount Pictures (various stills)
• Martin Paternoster (image used for Hell's Gate area)
• Phoenix Experimental Shipyards ("ringship" marauder)
• Sean Robertson (artwork)
• Starfleet Schematic Database (various)
• Rick Sternbach (various images)
• The Trek BBS (various images)
• Universal Entertainment (Battlestar Galactica image)

Your Help Is Needed!

I'm looking for some schematic and 3D/mesh artists to do spacecraft for future issues of the Federation Spaceflight Chronology. Want to contribute? Then drop me a line! rtrodude@cox.net