Like this comment - to dislike the video. Please consider Magic Spoon! Supporting the sponsors supports the channel. To get $5 off your own personalized Magic Spoon variety pack and get a head start on your health and fitness resolutions, click this link magicspoon.thld.co/lore_0122 and use code LORE at checkout!

Federation: Did you lose a warbird near here? Romulans: No. Why, did you destroy one? Federation: No. Romulans: Ok then. Federation: Ok.

"Stop breathing down my neck!" "My breathing is merely a simulation." "So is my neck, stop it anyway!"

Wish there was a scene where someone from Starfleet security went into Starfleet command to give a report to an admiral. Explain it had already been recaptured by Starfleet before we caught up with the Prometheus. That it was re-commandeered by EMHs. The admiral asks how as the EMH mk2 is programmed to deactivate itself. Then the security officer explains another EMH transferred onboard. The Admiral asks from where. Only to be told that it was from the USS Voyager. The camera turns down to the admirals desk and we see a picture of Tom there. I think it would be a good introduction to Admiral Paris.

I interpreted the diplomatic responses afterwards to go something along the lines of: “What the hell does starfleet think it’s doing! You attacked two warbirds and killed dozens of romulans!” “Yes.” “…so you admit it?” “Freely. In fact, go ahead and publicize to the entire quadrant that while we’re already engaged in a full scale war, you tried to stab us in the back, violate your neutrality, and that our warship managed to single handedly annihilate your most powerful warships.” “…” “No? Good. Starfleet doesn’t need more enemies right now, but if you fuck with us, we will be *happy* to accommodate you. Stay on your side of the goddamn line.”

Romulans: Detect an unknown UFP vessel near their borders. Also Romulans: Send elite operatives to capture the vessel instead of confronting Starfleet about it. The operatives: Get out played by 2 EMH holograms.

Actually I would say it makes sense why Prometheus was built near the Romulan border. The Romulans have a non aggression pact with the Dominion and it's unlikely that the dominion would be travelling through Romulan space without reason. So I would think this would provide a buffer of safety for the Federation.

Losing to Robert Picardo was one thing but losing to Andy Dick was too much of an embarrassment for the Romulans.

"The Romulans just got away with it, with no consequences." Well, I mean, as you said, *if* they had gotten away with it. And they lost an entire Warbird and crew. Aside from the poll noting that it almost certainly was a "rogue event" disavowed by the Romulans, seeing as the attempt failed, knowing Starfleets M.O. and considering the stakes of the Dominion War, I imagine they just kinda gave them the interstellar diplomatic equivalent of a look saying "we both know what you *tried* and failed to do, watch your arse." Similar to the end of the TNG episode "The Wounded" with the Cardasians. No official action was taken, but there were definitely consequences.

Quick note on timeline: "Message in a Bottle": stardate 51462, is closest to DS9's "One Little Ship" stardate 51474.2 12.2 stardate paces, at the generally observed 1000 or so stardates per Earth year during the TNG era, would place it a little under 4 and a half days before the DS9 Episode. The previous DS9 episode with a stardate for reference seems to be Waltz, at stardate 51408.6, placing those events 65.6 stardates before Voyager's episode, or roughly 24 days before. In the Pale moonlight, the "it's only been two weeks" narration, happens on 51721.3, 259.3 stardate paces after, roughly 95 days after. So in universe: the Romulans went from killing a Starfleet crew to steal an experimental ship, to joining the fight along side of Starfleet in about 3 months. if the 1000 stardates per Earth year work out

"thankfully I transformed this rock into a communicator" gold

I would hardly call losing the strike team and a D'Deridex warship to be "getting away with it". As for not making a bigger stink, I think you're right that the Federation didn't want to push the Romulans closer to joining the Dominion. But, it's entirely possible that Section 31 responded in some fashion...

It was stated in DS9 that the Dominion had been regularly violating the neutral zone to attack federation assets, it makes a bit of a sense that the Prometheus would be deployed in that area for testing. It's far away from the front lines so the Dominion wont steal it, but it's still got dominion targets to go after to test its capabilities. It's likely the Romulans saw this mysterious ship on long range sensors (We know they can scan past the neutral zone border into fed space, either by long range sensors or just using Cloaked warbirds in the zone) It's likely that a cloaked warbird encountered the Prometheus with its shields down (Not expecting cloaked dominion ships, maybe it was in a 'safer' area so they weren't at alert or anything. And the Romulans beamed over from a cloaked warbird before the Prometheus was aware it was there. It's also possible that they chased a dominion ship into the neutral zone, violated it, then left after it was destroyed, and a cloaked warbird shadowed it back to the shipyard where it then stole it while it was being repaired after that battle. My bigger question is why would a ship so secret and powerful not have some kind of bridge lockout, or a bio sensor that locks Romulans out of the computer considering you're that close to the Neutral Zone.

do you think starfleet was hiding the uss prometheus from Sisko like reason why the prometheus was being tested so close to romulan space was that was far as they could from Sisko. That is also the reason why the romulans did'nt say anything was the fear that if Sisko learned about the prometheus he'd want it he'd get it and end the war by the end of the week.

It didn't trigger a retaliation but it sure didn't help Romulan-Federation relations. Despite being co-victors in the war, later a Reman clone of Picard would fail in attempt to annihilate Earth. Then the Romulan supernova where the Federation abandoned plans to send a relief force. Only Spock showed up to help but he disappeared into a time vortex. The Federation doesn't retaliate but they may still hold grudges.

Starfleet should have demanded a exemption to the "no cloaking devices" rule in the Treaty of Algeron, at least for the duration of the Dominion war. Starfleet could have used Klingon cloaks because of course Starfleet have no cloaks of their own lying around… However that might explain the sudden loophole that the Defiant had about _using its cloak in the Alpha Quadrant_ - that was compensation for the Prometheus attempt. But if that's the case, Starfleet should have called for more. That was selling itself cheap. Perhaps the Defiant initially used it's cloak in the Alpha Quadrant without permission, violating the intelligence agreement, and Starfleet offered the Romulans that they should waive that stipulation in return for the Prometheus incident.

Here is the biggest problem with this whole premise. This was a Voyager episode, written by Lisa Klink, no less. There was no Ron Moore or IRA Stephen Behr to oversee how this would affect the greater Trek landscape on DS9.

I always saw a slight parallel between this incident and the 1861 Trent Affair between the USA and UK. For anyone not aware, two Confederate envoys were captured by the US Navy from a Royal Mail ship which caused a major diplomatic incident that almost resulted in war between the USA and UK. Essentially the US knuckled under and released them back to the British to avoid war. I see the Federation letting this go and accepting what I assume the Romulans claimed was a group of renegades-the Federation was too busy with the Dominion to really pursue any real response to this. Just my personal opinion. Great analysis (and skit) like always. Cheers

The Romulan high command probably disavowed the operation as the actions of rogue officers. The fact that the bridge recorders would indicate that the Romulan commander redirected the ship to the Tal’shiar instead of the Romulan high command would support the idea that this was an “off the books” operation.

As I'm sure others have commented, I've always thought it was a covert mission that went kind of tits-up, where-in the Romulans never planned on anyone figuring out it was them. Also, this may have been the sort of cold war thing that went on between factions of the Tal'Shiar and Section 31, a lot of unreported tit-for-tats, technology thefts, spying, etc.

Lore everytime you put out a Star Trek video I find it harder and harder to root for the Federation.

The antagonists in this episode should have been the Dominion, it would have made much more sense. But Voyager and DS9 had an agreement that the Borg belonged exclusively to Voyager and the Dominion belonged to DS9.

Well, but there were consequences for the Romulans. They lost their strike team, and, more importantly an entire D'deridex class, while 2 others were most likely damaged during the battle. I think it's safe to say that the loss of life was a lot higher on the romulan side..... I guess the Romluan government claimed it was a rouge Talshiar operation and the federation thought that the romulan losses made up for this in a way....

Obviously, it was the Zhat Vash who were behind the stealing of the Prometheus, as they were terrified of its automation possibly being an advanced AI. The Romulans, obviously, deny the existence of the Zhat Vash. Similarly, the Prometheus was obviously constructed by Section 31, as it was a pure warship, contravening Starfleet's design principles. The Federation, obviously, deny the existence of Section 31. The so the reason for there being no retaliation is obvious - both sides sat there, quietly twiddling the thumbs and pretending the whole incident never happened.

Loved this video and the ad read was so awesome. Thanks for creating great videos!

Once again the day is saved, by, The Doctor!!! Dr Who fans stand confused…

I chalk this up to the Voyager writers have no idea what's going on in DS9

Ok great video as usual! but I really got a kick out of the sponsored section too! I wish all creators would integrate like that haha.

This is awesome! I asked this in the last video and now there's a whole video!

The Romulans not only managed to hijack it from a Federation shipyard, but did it while wearing Romulan uniforms and weapons. Well there goes the theory that they were disguised as Vulcans and infiltrated Starfleet. So it wasn't a covert op, it was a raid. Was the tachyon detection grid down for servicing that day? And why does Starfleet have a shipyard near the Romulan border? ??

Magic Spoon: the only cereal so expensive that they have to break down the price per bowl to distract you from the $10/box price tag.

I think there's a typo in the title, maybe I'm just reading wrong. Also great video man hope to see another soon.

The Prometheus was a good example of how not to do a shared universe. At that point Star Trek had two shows running side by side without any communication between them to keep things in line. It's likely that when that episode was conceived and written, the Voyager team had no idea where the DS9 team was going with their story arcs.

I have a theory about how the Romulans were able to board Prometheus: subspace transporters. Some Trek tech they explored in an episode or two of TNG and then seemingly forgot about. It has the capability to beam through shields and can establish a transporter lock from several light years away which would make it ideal for boarding parties who want the element of surprise without a support ship tipping off the Federation crew that there were Romulans creeping about.

Love the implication that the events of In the Pale Moonlight were a subtle "you know what fuck those guys" to the Romulans following the Prometheus incident.

Is there a video like this for the Enterprise C? How did the Romulans get away with that?

a Stern lecture from star fleet and unknown deaths from s31

I would assume that the romulans responsible were disavowed by their gov't, who are now in fed custody. And blamed on a "rogue" unit of the tal shiar. Also known as the standard response. Without any evidence saying otherwise there's not much they can do.

The answers simple, I‘ll explain using a metaphor: You see your boss stealing out off the companies bank account. „Quick! Tell the bo.. ohhh.“

Battletech is blowing up, need more Battletech content again! Bring Sie Urbie!

5:30 Another reason that makes a bit more sense: Romulans have Shuttlecraft that can Cloak, Maybe they just surprised the crew by transporting aboard at some point in the Prometheus journey especially if the starfleet crew was small, but crew could just as easily be transported off a ship into vacuum.

Looking forward to watching this!! Edit: 1 minutes in I realized I can’t yet I don’t want to spoil too much DS9 for myself! I know the basic plotline but it’s my first time through and I don’t want to see any epic scenes yet…love your content though!

I remember watching this episode the night it aired when I was a kid and never quite understanding just HOW the Romulans walked up and stole a starship. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was a giant plot hole never addressed or talked about ever again.

They probably thought it was even enough, half dozen dead Starfleet officers in exchange for an entire crew of dead Romulans seems like a bargain.

I always thought the Prometheus event was the Tal Shiar's revenge for Vreenak. My guess is they realized it was the Federation all along and let it slide because it meant the Federation was finally playing by THEIR rules, and I think they respected that, but also couldn't let it go unanswered. As for how they got onto the ship, maybe it was another case of a Tal Shiar operative posing as Vulcan, who made it onto the crew.

At 0:50: Finally someone makes the obvious gag about the captain having to tell the computer what the date is every time he wants to make a log entry, which has always been totally dumb.

I like the RvB vibes in the ad copy lol

You know... I wonder about the Cardassians and how THEY got away with murder. In the episode "Ensign Ro", we learn that they try to frame Bajoran freedom fighters for the destruction of a Federation colony. How did they not earn the ire of Starfleet for that one?

I do not recognize this event and would really like to watch it now. Which series, season and episode number is it? Thank you very much!

I can easily see the Tal Shi'ar party having arrived at the dock the Prometheus is at in a cargo vessel or other non-warship. This would explain the lack of a Romulan escort vessel and how the Romulans snuck aboard the Prometheus - and how Starfleet knew what was going on, from interrogating the crew of the cargo ship after it failed to escape.

Khan taught Commander Joachim well.

Just out of curiosity did my comment on the Prometheus video about the "Message in a Bottle" and "Pale Moonlight" inspire this video?

Imagine if at the height of the cold war, a small CIA naval armada engaged a small Soviet fleet. The Soviets were wrong but the operation is a disaster, with the destruction of most of the American force. What do you think would happen? I don't think either side would divulge anything, and they would be quiet about it. The Soviets wouldn't say anything because they were wrong and the Americans wouldn't say anything because they were humiliated. Both sides realize this and decide to go ahead with things and "forget" what happened.

My opinion is that Starfleet could not afford a war on two fronts. Another thought that just hit me is that the Prometheus could very well be a joint Starfleet/Romulan project that the Tal Shiar caught wind of, and sent their operatives in to commandeer the prototype. I would explain why the Romulans did not have a support ship and why they seemed unopposed in taking the ship.

You adjusted the title - it didn't quite make sense with the original! 😄

One minor detail... If Section 31 had anything to do with the Reman Advances or the destruction of the Romulan Star... The thing you learn from the To-Med incident and several other events is that the Federation does not get mad.. It simply gets even.... Quietly.....

Not just the officers. I'm sure there would have been a number of NCOs on board to facilitate whatever testing and development of the Prometheus.

Yes, keeping the Romulans neutral was the "greater good", and them losing a warbird can be considered punishment/deterrence on its own.

may have been a romulan cloaked troop transport which could not match Prometheus top warp speed and could not fit inside the shuttle bays, so it was either self destrust, or flow back under with a small crew under cloak

The Romulans probably used some other race that had access to the space port. Hitched a ride with no intention of returning. Or it was a crime of opportunity? A cloaked spy ship saw an opening the members of the crew took it then that ship went the other way because it's mission was still on. Better question was how the Romulans got the access codes in the first place.

Voyager was probably not allowed to use the Dominion for some reason, which would've made much more sense for this narrative.

Japan bombed the “Panay” almost a year before pearl. They got away with that too.

I'm so glad the 8th reboot of MacGyver is still happening in the 24th century.

I've always seen this episode as outside the normal canon - like, the Doctor beamed to an alternative universe or something. The events are just a bit to ridiculous.

Since he's a bigshot ship engineer and warship designer, do you think Sisko found about the failed hijacking? Might that have factored into his decision to do what he did?

Making a big stink about the Prometheus incident would have been a disaster for everybody. The Federation wanted the Romulans to join the war. The Romulans knew they might and probably would need to join the war. Neither side wanted to make what would almost certainly be an awkward diplomatic event even worse than it had to be. So they kept it quiet.

Not going to lie, that was a great ad.

Here's an idea: How would Kirk Era Federation have dealt with the Borg/Dominion? That was a proper Military Starfleet.

No consequences Looking the other way Clean slate Let bygones be bygones (Seeing Sisko smirking) Yup!

Any opinion on how the Tamarian race works? They are shown to be at a tech level equivalent to or above the federation, however it's not clear this race could have things like math, instruction manuals, etc. Heck, even just seeing what one of their control panels looks like would be amazing. How do they teach their kids words? "His arms open" means something, but the words by themselves don't? Do they have pins for their bank accounts? Their cables can't even say CAT5 can they? What does a count down for a rocket launch sound like? His fingers exposed The cat came back She had a bite of cake Darmok yelled crap .. ok I'm out Please figure this out and return back to us.

The Romulans never knew about the events in "In the Pale Moonlight" however they were likely very familiar with the fact at some point Starfleet stopped allowing the Romulan "observer" to go in missions on the Defiant but they kept and clearly were using the cloaking device in violation of treaty.

I think the more important question is how they got ahold of the ship in the 1st place.

I would say that the entire event was Incredibly embarrassing for both governments involved so they both pretend that it never happened in the first place. "Did you lose a powerful warship and several officers to a romulan hijacking?" Starfleet: "no, no romulans or warship was involved, it was a....... nebula survey gone wrong, yea that it!" "Did you lose a state of the art warbird and tons of troops to two holograms in said warship?" Romulans: "no, nothing happened.... it was a...... yea nebula rescue mission gone wrong!" "The same nebula?" Both: "NO MORE QUESTIONS!"

I laughed quite loudly at the end there... Yup!

The real reason is bad writing and the writers not thinking that far ahead to write a story that made sense in context

No consequences… No consequences at all. Hey it's lucky that Starfleet had the means to stop the Hobus supernova _before_ it threatened Federation territory. Just a pity The Jellyfish didn't get their sooner. … …

Nice

7:00 For the most part agree but how can you be sure they were killed? They had life support off (well they diverted power, not necessarily disabled it) for a few minutes and depending on where they were people can usually survive for a while unconcious in reasonable-sized rooms without air being recycled.

Everyone goes into detail of "why this? Why that?" But everyone forgets this is a Voyager episode And on Voyager a thing called "consequences" don't exist.

The nearest I can figure is that they're acting independently from the empire they were either mercenary or Pirates, which was some of the recurring themes in Star Trek. Nero stated he was not acting on behalf of the Empire and was independent, the Ferengi that captured the Enterprise with Klingon birds of prey also said the same thing, when Riker stated they're threatening war with the Federation by capturing their ship, to some degree the Federation has done the same thing with using section 31, by claiming they don't represent the government and are an independent faction

Why is there a Tal Shiar uniform?

0:32 this would be me almost every damn day.

Why do they always say the date in the captain's log? Surely the date would be automatically recorded anyway...

The Federation was busy with the Dominion. Also the Romulans took one look at the battle and decided war with Federation wouldn't end well.

I mean how many ships and people did Tom Riker kill when he stole the defiant?

If you consider that Chairman Koval might be working with Section 31 at this point in time, this could get really weird in theory.

Don't worry... the Alpha Quadrant got the last laugh when Romulus got blown upon

It makes sense that both governments would agree to sweep it under the rug because it would be embarrassing for both.

Make a video on why bishops are uncommon in the Federation!

I'm sure the Romulan civilians would never have learned about it.

the emh'''s cut off life support but they was still air on the ship for so long

Because of two reasons Dominion war and they became allies with the Federation to fight against the Dominion

these things happen in cold wars. You might say they could both………… live with it.

The Federation is fighting a losing war, they can’t afford to be making more enemies. The Romulans are currently enjoying seeing all their rivals wipe each other out, they don’t want to get dragged in until everybody is too weak. Basically both sides couldn’t afford to pick a fight and agreed to act like the Prometheus incident never happened.

For federation it is new, clasifield warship. For Romulans it is top secret Tal Shiar operation to highjack classifield warship. It is obvious that nobony know nothing. So you are right. Federation won't say anything to Romulans about this incident, since it will have to admitt publicly to a huge failure. Romulans on the same basis, will never oficially admit to the loss of a warbird, loss in enagement with federation, and failure of performing top secret operation. As far as Romulans goverment is awere, the distroyed Warbird never even existed. They perhaps make some covert deal, that highjackers were renegate group, and were executed for treason. After their failure on the mission, they are going to be executed anyway, or were simply left on the Prometheus, and never ask for. (dont remember if they survied, or EMH's killed them). So yeah. No cosecuences and bad blod from either side.

Personally I think that supernova was galactic karma for them CONSTANTLY pulling this shit on a government they knew genuinely had no I'll will towards them.

Should have demanded free Romulan Ales for the next 100 year.

didnt the tal shiar and the obsidian order destroyed by the dominion? so this was before that, do we know the voyager stardate?

IDK, I think not perusing sanctions or even really acknowledging the incident makes perfect sense in light of the Romulans 'neutrality'. Despite the treaties with the Romulans, the Federation were in essentially a cold war with them. Giving them a casus belli while in a major conflict with the Dominion would be suicidal and they knew it. Could you bring it up later when/if you won the war against the Dominion? Sure, depending on how long it took you to recover from that war and if the citizens would put up with another major conflict so close on the heals of the Dominion War all while building up for a likely future and MAJOR conflict with the Borg.... yeah I don't see that happening either. If I were the Federation in this case I would have done the same thing. I would put all my focus into defeating the Dominion then focus on a ship building program that focused on advanced tech capable of taking on the Borg and the Romulans all while beefing up my obviously lacking ground forces and counter intelligence. Then the next time the Romulans pulled this kind of crap, pound them into the ground. You don't ever start a fight when you are on the back foot but delay and wait till you are in a position of strength. Edited for spelling

Did the holograms kill the Romulans? I remember the one ship getting destroyed but I don't recall them killing the Romulans on board.