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Its a good idea Katefan. But with the wording of Earth/Romulan war and the way Spook mentioned it as a human war there couldnt be much more than token help, like what the US did for the UK before Pearl Harbor.

The questions of ship production and Earth technical capability would definitely need some kind of compromise solution that would be shaky at best. I would liked to have seen this as another season or movie though. My thought is that for once the Romulans would choose to act decisively and launch an all out assault against Earth (Valdore leading of course). Judging from Valdore's actions in The Aenar episode they clearly see us as a threat because of our ability to negotiate and unite under common cause with other species.

As far as the war goes, it's almost hard to picture a victory without some help from the Vulcans and Andorians. I think Graham comes up with the only feasible resolution. We must have more ships than shown on screen, and they are starting to be produced at a larger rate with technological upgrades from Vulcan and Andoria.

Maybe there was some sort of "lend-lease" deal with some of the more adavanced alien races.

Or . . . suppose the Romulans put a significant portion of their fleet into a major offensive. They entered Human space under cloak only to find their cloaking devices ineffective (due to Archer future scanning device thing he used) and their fleet is destroyed before they can even get their shields up.

We can speculate all day--don't really know though.

Maybe there was some sort of "lend-lease" deal with some of the more adavanced alien races.

Or . . . suppose the Romulans put a significant portion of their fleet into a major offensive. They entered Human space under cloak only to find their cloaking devices ineffective (due to Archer future scanning device thing he used) and their fleet is destroyed before they can even get their shields up.

We can speculate all day--don't really know though.

I rationalise the whole thing by figuring ENT never happened, B&B were fired half way through DS9 when they pushed for VOY and the world lives happily ever after...

Seriously though, do the Romulans have Cloaking ability, Kirk and Spock were shocked, a history buff who lost his grandfather never heard mention of it despite the fact that he could describe their ships in perfect detail, the overall Romulan designs didn't change and even had the same picture he describe on their underside. Did they use nukes and lasers as Spock said, surely Spock wouldn't be wrong about this and this wasn't some throw away remark either. ENT however gives use Phasers (call them what you will but it looks and acts like one so it is one) and "Spatial" then "Photonic" Torpedoes though the effect of each is largely the same with the exception of a higher yield...

Could the Earth Romulan war have been fought over a relative small sector of space, rather then a full scale war? I know there's the viewscreen issue, but still, the Earth/Romulan war should have been fought without either side learning that much about the other.

Its hard to imagine Earth dealing the Romulans such a blow, that the Romulans would agree to cease hostilities and establish the neutral zone though. Would they do it in exchange for Earth promising not to develop cloaking technology?

Honestly, the way I see it is this.

The Romulans were involved in another conflict, what scale or nature this may be is a mystery, with another nearby race, say the Klingons for arguments sake. Then they manage to tick off Earth, maybe they attack an Earth Convoy without warning and the situation deteriorates into a small scale War, maybe they cut off an Earther's ear and when the tale was told Earth rallied around him and forced the government to declare war even though they had no real hope of victory. Anyways, so the Romulans find themselves fighting on 2 fronts as it were, they do it for a while but eventually the 2 conflicts at once start to wear them down and they offer a peace deal that is too good to be rejected, Earth gets security while giving up little since of the two they were the minor power while the Romulans get out of fighting a 2 front war.

Its entirely possible that the Romulans managed to tick off another race, such as the Klingons, through their subversive tactics.

Now THIS is how a debate thread SHOULD be......

Ok, how about this. The Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellerites LOANED ships and crews to Earth. They were assigened under Starfleet's juristicion as Earth was the one emroiled in the conflict. That would explain how Earth was able to defend itself, until it was able to built and field it's own defense fleet. Call it a mutual defense agreement if you will.

Hope that makes sense. For some reason, I'm feeling a little dull today. Maybe I need more caffine in my system.

Mark wrote:The Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellerites LOANED ships and crews to Earth.

There's some canon evidence of this, albeit rather weak. One of the Enterprises on the rec-room wall in TMP looked suspiciously like a Vulcan ship. DITL entry

We don't really know that the Romulan ships of this era are particularly advanced as compared to the NX class. True they have a cloak, but Archer has a counter, and might be able to give that secret to the rest of the fleet. Beyond that, correct me if I am wrong but we don't know how fast their ships are, we don't know if they have shields, we don't know the strength of their armament... we know they can build really tough drones, but they had to use an alien to control them. I can't see them fielding those on a large scale.

On that same train of thought, I suppose that just like Starfleet, the Romulans could have a FEW rather powerful ships, but the mainstay of their fleet substantially less significant.

True enough, In TOS: Balance of Terror, Scotty derided the Romulan's power generation and the E was able to back off from their main weapon until it petered out. I guess the impression given in ENT was that Earth is learning quickly, but most races out there are much more advanced.

Yep, obviously by the time of TOS we surpassed the Romulans.

I still think ENT ruined early humanity. While many of you brought up ways it could be possible to have the war its not exactly what was implied or expected by many.

True enough Teaos, ENT ruined a great many things in Trek.