Oh I’m sure the Andorians would have loved to “liberate” Vulcan. There might be some still clinging to good old days before the founding of the Federation. Say what you want about Enterprise, but it made the Andorians one of my favorite races in Star Trek.

Phase 1) Attack the largest known alliance of planets, capital city with 2000 highly trained troops. Phase 2) Phase 3) Profit

The small number of troops fits with your belief that Starfleet was pacifistic and naive. If Starfleet *lost* a border war with Cardassians who had no military advantage, Starfleet would never dare conduct an urban war against two thousand Romulan commandos. Give the same problem to James T. Kirk’s a hundred years prior and he would have picked up a phaser himself and started cleaning house

Two thousand troops is surely not enough to take and hold one city on Vulcan. A major pet peeve of mine is how the Class II+ civilizations of Star Trek are constantly thinking on such small terms. When the screwed-up augments predicted 90 billion deaths as a worst-case scenario for the Dominion conquering the Federation, that was still probably way too low, but at least it was a good effort. Two thousand? Ridiculous.

Something never well explained but often implied about the Neutral Zone is the “ample warning” required for a party to enter and pass. Two ships saying “we will both cross and meet in the middle” is fine, and sometimes an ambassador allowing clearance is fine, but other times even a probe going near after explaining to the other side what it is for is too much.

Never thought about the Absurdity of Picard and Data sent way behind enemy lines!

And even the tellerites weren't averse to fighting. So the have three founding members in reach of Vulcan... Great plan.... Lol

they had 2000 gelato repairmen and couldn't let them fall into starfleets hands

The Romulans look at a Borg cube with 5000+ drones and said 'Call that efficient hold my ale, will conquer a planet with just 2000 troops.'

Napoleon and his elite Army took Moscow and a few months later they were retreating while eating their own horses.

When the Romulans invade Romulus

Starfleet Admiralty: trust us, we’re competant.

"The Romulans are in the process of taking Vulcan. And they mean to keep it. Here's what the Romulans are not expecting....the United States Marine Corps." Chesty Puller

I'd like to know why the Enterprise seemed to be the only ship along a section of the Neutral zone that offered a straight path to the heart of the Federation especially since it was there by accident. Remember they were assigned to investigate a theft of a Vulcan ship. The only other ship in the area was a science ship (Oberth probably), which would of lasted 2 seconds.

The comment about the computers, she had security on them which was the same that Data and Spock had recently broke that she was not aware they had broken.

I see the 3 transports as a first wave with more troops to follow also taking the capital of Vulcan would give the romulans control of the planetary defense systems

I see three possible reasons the Romulans destroyed the transports: 1) at least as far as I am aware transporters operate through cloaking devices, so perhaps the cloaked warbirds transported the troops on board before the destruction of the transports. 2) the warbirds were already packed to the proverbial rafters with troops for the assault. Without the room needed for the troops on the transport their options would be reduced to leaving the troops as prisoners and possible information sources for the Federation or kill them. given the Romulan fixation on secrecy i can completely see them choosing the latter. 3) the transports were decoys and never carried troops. With how slow and vulnerable those transports were I would not be all that surprised of the Romulans were using simulated biosigns to help sell their story, with the real purpose of the transports being to help in confusing the Federation and conceal/camouflage the sensor distortions that indicate a cloaked ship

Data cannot be forced to divulged information, he even tells the Borg they will not be able to forcefully extract data or assimilate him.

Sela is like spock a lot both half human but one Vulcan other romulan.

Even as a kid I thought it was stupid that the Romulan Star Empire would try invading and holding Vulcan with only 2000 troops

Mild headphone warning starting at 8:02

2000 Romulan soldiers can capture and hold Vulcan due to the pacifistic nature of the Vulcans. The theory is that a puppet Vulcan government would then secede from the Federation (with all colonies that acknowledge the homeworld's orders). At this point, the Romulans can send in additional ships and troops to reinforce the Imperial Holding of Vulcan. The flaws being: 1) The assumption at the Federation Council would not consider this an act of war and respond (with Gowron - the man that would try to seize the Cardassian Union - would support his allies). 2) The assumption that the Federation will just accept this, and allow the reinforcements to travel through 1000 light years of Federation space without challenge. 2a) Or that they wouldn't use all those new Akiras, Steamrunners, etc. to blast their D'Deridexs out of space.

This is the problem with hero characters also being high ranking officers. It's the Achilles heel of Star Trek storytelling.

Romulans invading Vulcan would have started a war between the Federation and the Romulan Empire. As Captain Picard once told a person from an Vulcan extremist group. That was trying to reassemble the sonic resonator. The Federation would not sit back and watch one of the founding worlds of the Federation be torn apart.

So to take from this episode: Imperial Romulan Logic: Sends 2 or 3 Warbirds and 2,000 soldiers to take a planet in the near the center of its most powerful rival with over 5 BILLION inhabitants on it making it the one of the only planet in the Federation with a population near that of Earth, and this same planet having its closest interstellar neighbors being the Homeworlds of two most war and military minded species in the Federation and make up the majority of it's military body, which if not fore their attempts at being fanatic pacifists could wages interstellar warfare and conquest that could put both the Klingons and the Dominion to shame. However in defense of the Romulans, the UFP from the 2310s/2320s - early 2370s was in a case of Neville Chamberlinitis. But any attack on a Federation core world would just be a Peral Harbor scenario. So yeah no wonder why most of the alpha and beta quadrants as a whole were so unprepared for war until the Borg and the Dominion War. The entire 24th century is just the 1920s and 1930s in space. Great video by the way.

Were going to do an invasion of a federation home world with only a few thousand men and 1 warbird. Some random tal shiar.

7:45-8:17 Freaking awesome. Awesome video as always Lore

00:50 'The Romulans plans to invade Romulas.'

Worst day ever, Simon Tarses

Shrans Spirit when it is summoned upon hearing that the Romulans try to take over Vulcan: "Bring it on!"

To be fair to Starfleet, before he was Ambassador for the Federation Spock was a knowledgeable and connected officer in Starfleet. His connection with Kirk and various clearances would have granted him almost total knowledge of both Starfleet Operations AND Federation Policies. Not to mention access to The Academy, FleetOps, Starfleet Medical, Starfleet Intelligence Operations, SCE, Science Division, AND The Vulcan Embassy on Earth and the Government of Vulcan in general. I brought up that list thanks to Spock's friendships (Chekov, Kirk [until Reassignment to the Academy, then Demotion], McCoy, Scotty, His Own Access as the listed Science Officer of U.S.S. Enterprise and his Father respectively). He's got a lot of info locked up in his head, and The Romulans are really good at getting info from almost anyone. To the Tal Shiar, Spock in their backyard was tantamount to Christmas Morning. And that's just from Starfleet's point of view. As an Ambassador, Spock knows a lot about various Federation Policy Initiatives that (If revealed in full) could damage treaties or cause unrest in the Federation itself. That's why everyone and their brother are worried about Spock on Romulus. If he spills state secrets, "Political Shitstorm" would only be the mildest of terms. This is all on top of morale in the ranks would drop faster then an Indiana Jones Boulder going into freefall off the Grand Canyon.

I wonder if there was more to their plan then just invading Vulcan, or why else would the Romulans be so cavalier in quickly sacrificing their troops...they didn't want Starfleet to know the full extent of their plans.

I suspect the political situation on Vulcan was more complicated than meets the eye. I imagine that there were collaborators in the Vulcan government, in the capital, waiting for those troops to arrive. Additionally, I suspect that Vulcan's infrastructure and government were highly centralized. Taking the capital may have been the only necessary target. And as for those transports, I think I know why the Romulans destroyed them with all soldiers on board. Reman shock troops. Remans, after all, were only slaves.

could you do a video about romulan tach. how voyager and enterprise c might have advanced the empire ( eye of the needle episode)

I'm convinced that the Vulcan invasion was a distraction for something bigger a little ways in the future. Like, can you imagine the reaction they would need in order to make people feel safe? Those ships gotta come from somewhere

Sela hates Vulcans Sela enjoys writing

"Give peace a chance" - gee we got a legit John Lenon here... 8) "Imagine [the Quadrant's] leaders on pills... then imagine the morning after" - The Streets

To invade ROMULUS?

Any way you slice this, it would be all-out war. The fact that the Romulans were in Federation space would mean that they violated the treaty and the gloves would be coming off. The Romulan plan to take Vulcan now matter how it ended would put the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Star Empire at war.

Two thousand soldiers to secure an entire planet... AN ENTIRE PLANET, IN THE MIDDLE OF FEDERATION SPACE!

8:15 Romulans: *Conquers Vulcan in a surprise attack* Humans and Andorians: We are going to end this races existence. On a side note I wish we saw Andorians more, sure most of their awesomeness comes from Enterprise so is largely retroactive but still. At least Discovery included one as one of the 4 Admiral in season 2. Edited as it sounded like Enterprise bashing.

I'll say this. While we know there were only 2000 Romulans on those transports we have no idea if they were bringing along any extra 'surprises'. Starfleet would be less likely to start a major offensive if there was a doomsday weapon (not the ship!) that would cause massive devastation to Vulcan were the Romulan Commander to think he was going to lose the planet. It would also give another reason as to the destruction of the ships, denying Starfleet the possibility of acquiring any such weapons to reverse-engineer and develop countermeasures for. I know there's no in-universe evidence for this, but I like to try to think up possibilities that can explain away inconsistencies and plot holes.

I honestly think Pardek wanted to be good he trusted spock for 80s years. But because Pardek was a senator I think other Romulans corrupted him into changing his mind.

7:45 Given how effective Romulan intelligence usually is, you would think they would have known that taking Vulcan would have ended with the Federation kicking their teeth in, and IF THEY ARE LUCKY, the Romulans being sent limping home.

I literally re-watched this episode last night wtf

Picard would never speak, " They are four lights."

Often thought about that.. even with a quick annexion of Vulcan.... what then??? Now, of course, could be argued it could be a masterful strategic move to grab such a key world in the Federation... but that would assume that the Romulans could quickly consolidate their hold on Vulcan, which is highly unlikely.

At 2:01, Penny Crosby as a half-human Romulan officer sits at a desk, legs apart, an unlikely human female posture, so kudos to her for realising alien behaviour could differ.

Not only is pissing of two of the founding member worlds, who are VERY good at war, a poor idea. But at the time there was the Klingon/Federation alliance. The Klingons are always looking for an excuse to be let off the chain to die in battle.

if they can capture the Vulcan government before any one knows what is happening and the troops are disguised as civilians then they can make it look like an purely internal mater allowing and give starfleet a choice of eater braking the prime directive or letting Vulcan leave the federation to pursue reunification. or they can capture the planet and then offer to enter negotiations about Vulcan future.

"I'll Romulan YOUR Vulcan"

2000 was rediculous but I kinda realized starfleet was jacked up by the borg so this might have worked

How I spend my time just a few hours from major surgery. Watching lore reloaded videos #lorereloadedrules

Uh it is a well known fact that there is no torture that will make a Vulcan talk and Data cannot feel pain.

I think that the three warbirds are enough because they can simply threaten to destroy Vulcan if reunification doesn't occur and I feel like that would be enough to prevent the federation from making a counterattack.

Apparently the terms of the neutral zone treaty must have been changed along the way. That is to say that previously even entering the neutral zone was an active War but perhaps the treaty was changed to mean crossing the other side of the neutral zone into the others space was the act of War. Perhaps some sort of change in Canon that made that possible perhaps just a overlooked discontinuity between the original series and the Next Generation, after all even while Roddenberry was still alive next generation was more or less run by Rick Berman. Although more importantly the area of the neutral zone in the next-generation certainly seemed a lot larger than it did in the original series to Encompass entire planets or systems such as Iconia or galorndon core, while the original series are in neutral zone seemed much narrower strip separating the two powers...

No need for 'integration,' the planets are far apart. Someone just wanted to do a North, South Korea; East, West Germany story.

Yes I don’t know why it’s called a neutral zone there are ships crossing constantly

8:23 is that Gul Dikat on the left?

BTW the US supreme court passed a law the requires studios and copyright holders to consider if copyrighted content is fair use or not. So far the studios have not complied with that law because there is no punishment for them. This will continue until all the big youtubers get together and do a class action lawsuit to sue for lost ad revenue due to false copyright claims, and we get a good judge like the one who made the law in the first place to say yup hollywood you owe the youtubers 100 million or something like that, and for each follow up where you claim copyright on a fair use video it is an additional 1 million. that will help we need to get hollywood and RIAA to respect the law.

Just one possibility, the dumb invasion plan was meant to fail. Some Romulan wanted Sela to fail horribly and green lit a dumb plan (from the shadows of course) doomed to fail so he/she could then advocate Sela being tossed out an airlock for incompetence. Sela's never seen again (on film anyway).

I get the impression that you might have an issue with families and children being on starfleet starships.

Sela is the daughter of the alternate Tasha Yar from Yesterday's Enterprise .

"When I break down the plans of the Romulans to invade Romulus..."

Ok, I get why sending Picard would be a bad idea, Data also but in the pro's column we have: Data quite quickly (with a little help from Spock) gets into the Romulan internal net, something that the Klingons have been trying for years without success, this would be very useful for both the current and if it had remained undetected future operations by Klingon and Starfleet agents, also he doesn't need a universal translator, its built in so the risk of someone turning theirs off if they were suspicious and noticing that that they were speaking federation stranded is not a risk with Data. And as you say he remembers everything he see's and hears, good traits for a spy/recovery mission. Now as to Picard I can only see two reasons why you would send him, personal knowledge of Spock from his mind med with Sarak and leverage to get the cloaked ship from the Klingon's. Also I recall Ambassador Soval stating at one point that the only race Humans reminded Vulcans of was them pre-Surak, so are they not with this plan, invading the homeworld of one of the three races with the greatest capacity for violence in the Federation and doing so withing a days Warp travel of the homeworlds of the other two most potential violent races in the Federation? I can only assume that the plan was never to hold Vulcan for an extended time, they only way this plan makes any sense is if there is another motive, say having free reign to go through the Vulcan Science Academies data bases for example and making the Federation panic and pull force back to retake the world, leaving sectors on the boarder easy to take while the 'occupation' force is spirited away by the cloaked Warbirds. They then assume that based on how the Federation handled the Carrdassians they won't escalate to a full scale, drawn out war. As to not trying to force Riker to let them take their people back, we do know there are of Federation ships in the area, though based on the dialog with Crusher they are small, that said it could be that not all three Warbird were in close escort, I would assume that one was moving a good distance ahead as a Vanguard, so maybe only two ships there, with two if Riker went for the double cross then the odds are far less in the Romulans favour, also side note, if they are beaming people of the transports whats to stop the Romulans beaming a torpedo onto each one with the last beam out and making a run for it?

what kind of defences does Vulcan actually have?

The Romulans killed their own troops to remind Starfleet that they are batsh*t crazy and they weren’t to be trifle with.

yeah, invading Vulcan would had resulted in a full scale war...and not one that would go well for the Romulans. Or did the writers just forget about the Federation and Klingon Alliance?! Ya know that alliance that kept the Romulans at bay all of that time?

There's at least TWO glaring flaws in this plan.... 1. The Romulans only have 2000 troops in the invasion force. Even if they land them, they have to subdue the billions of beings on Vulcan and overpower Vulcan's security forces which're likely far more then 2000 beings PLUS by that point, the Federation would send ships to help the Vulcan defence ships block further Romulan reinforcements to Vulcan. 2. The Federation would never allow the Romulans to permanently control Vulcan which is one of its founding worlds. They'd keep throwing their forces at Vulcan to retake it from the Romulan invasion force no matter how well they dug themselves in until Vulcan was liberated PLUS the Federation would regard an invasion of one of their core worlds as an act of war which would trigger a wider conflict between them and the Romulans. If this isn't bad enough for the Romulans, the Klingons who were ruled by anti-Romulan officials led by Gowron were itching for an excuse to fight the Romulans for trying to subvert them and make them into their puppets who forsake honour so if war broke out between the Federation and the Romulans over Vulcan, the Klingons would aid the Federation by attacking the Romulans and would say "The Romulan P'taks attacked our Federation allies so we'll honour our pact and attack the Romulans!". The Romulans are tough and cunning but they'd lose against the combined might of the Federation AND the Klingons. Therefore, once the plan to subvert the Klingons a few months earlier failed, the Romulans should've cancelled their "take Vulcan" plan.

An interesting plan indeed, but how were only 2,000 Romulan troops going to take over the planet if this plan succeeded?

Hello! I hope you’re having a good day today!😊

How did they expect to take a planet with 2000 troops?

@Lore Reloaded, I mentioned it before, it is highly likely that the Romulans have already established a fifth column on Vulcan with agents and allies. V'Las was not the last Vulcan ally of Romulan Empire, so why should we assume its only 2,000 troops. My guess is that it's actually more like 2,000 troops with warbird support, along with a ground based insurgency of at least 100,000 Vulcans, who have sided with the Romulans. Julius Caesar's Roman legions did not march against Gaul alone with 2,000 men alone, even he admitted he had to get allies among the tribes in order to conquer what we know as present day France, where he had to subdue almost a million people. My point is militarily, Sela was using subtext to hide the fact that they had ground support.

I honestly don't think that was clever but incredible stupid. They could never have got Profit from this. But more importantly: Reacting to an Open Hand from your Twin-Race with an Invasion Plan is Crazy. Insane! Also, remember that time they forced one of their one Generals into Suicide? That's crazy. Just crazy.

I never understood the TNG design team's need to add the foreheads to the Romulans.

I just figured out that Sela is Spock's evil counterpart.

Starfighters under the end credits again? :-)

If by “clever”, you mean “stupid”, then sure… 😜

Personally I'd argue that the Andorians might not have been able to stop that Romulans invasion because they might not even have a space navy at all anymore. We know from DS9 that when a nation state joins the Federation their military is absorbed into Star Fleet Security. That may include their space navy as well. To bolster my theory I'll point out that when the Borg invaded during the Best of Both world it was mentioned that the Federation only called the Klingons for assistance. There is not mention of calling other nation state for aid. And all that said... that's just more reason to *_avoid_* Federation member ship entirely. Ceding your ability to defense yourself has never worked well in human history. And I can't imagine it working out any better in a future like what we see in Star Trek.

Well the Tal Shiar does have a knack for massive military failure. They did foolishly think a 20 ship fleet was sufficient to destroy the Founders home world. (The Die is Cast). Hell they make Ackbar good. He won his gambit!

Two of your problems are just do to Tropes. First Trope, Main character Syndrome, the main characters must do everything. You are paying for Patrick Stewart you are using Patrick Stewart. Second Trope, Writers don't understand scale. Many sci-fi writers don't understand the numbers to have war on a planetary or galactic scale. That's why love 40K, the writers understand scale. Armies are in the millions or billions, fleets are in thousands. Heck, the Sol ( Terra or Earth) defence fleet is made up of over 100,000 vessels. Plus The Phalanx.

It helps that Starfleet seems to keep the Federation’s most important worlds completely undefended until maybe the Doninion War.

The Romulans/Sela planned to invade Romulus? Did the Remans get ahold of that plan? ;)

Considering that the warbird had a crew of around 1500 its reasonable to assume they could carry twice that in troops meaning the three ships could have landed 9,000 troops and could have left the Vulcan transports where they found them. Nothing about their plans made any sense.

Considering how Earth is relatively equidistant between Andoria and Vulcan, I wonder how differently things would have gone if the Andorians had made first contact with Zefram Cochrane.

There can be no unification with Vulcans if there are no vulcans left Big brain stuff , Romulan Goverment

Taking the capitol of Vulcan is tantamount to someone saying let's take the capitol of Virginia! oh shit! Virginia is part of the United States! Well, this Idea sucks!

I never quite understood the Romulan's motive either. You are essentially landing troops on one of the core founding planets of the Federation. The Federation at this stage may have be pacifist but such a move will evoke such a strong response from the Federation that it will essentially mean war. It is like Britain surreptitiouly moving 2000 soldiers into New York and hunkering down (being British myself, I do not advocate such a move) all because it used to be a British possession. Could you imagine the response of the US government? No, I am sorry but it just would not happen. Granted, this is a Federation still reeling from Wolf 359 but by that time, the mindset had been set; we cannot continue being idealists, there is a galaxy out there that is NASTY. A return, if you will, to the Cold War militarist mindset the Federation portrayed during the Klingon-Federation Cold War of the Kirk era.

I think it's fairly obvious that the Vulcan/Romulan situation is almost identical to the North & South Korea situation here today. Would such a plan work for North Korea? ie: A small bastion of troops taking Seoul and her leaders/most important people hostage? Still - I agree. 2000 troops is laughable for a whole planet (never mind a system or sector). You'd need 2 million per planet (with a good 30-40 warbirds for aerial support again, per planet). I think they should have just gone for the hologram immediately and yes - thrown Spock into a cell. Like, almost immediately after he initially arrived.

Andorians might ok with it to some degree as the blue guys don't like the vulcans that much

She doesn’t say it’s an invasion to my recollection I always saw it more as a Vietnam we were soldiers, plan land on the planet simple orders find and kill the enemy and while the federation are dealing with this problem the romulans could slip something through in another way I see it as a distraction from something else they’re doing.

I'm kinda surprised that writers haven't ever written in that, none of the factions in ST, never attempted to store mass troops in transporter buffers, In order to deploy a grand scale landing party... Basically an overwhelming airborne attack. It would be oh so simple... A Galaxy Sized Starship, NO WEAPONS. But, must have... 2 wrap drives Numerous transporters, And Number of modules that's self powered, massive memory banks, & transporters dwarfing cargo bay style. ...assing two escort ships, Upon arrival, strategically transport modules to surface where they will clear a landing zone & replace with troops instantaneously. After settlement & occupation, the geography can be restored systematically. Way too simple.

What If the plan was to divert the attention of The Federation by using Vulcan. Also just take a look at the picture at 0:07 and tell me section 31 Sloan isnt evolved.

Am I the only one who assumed the romulans already had like 2000 spies on Vulcan?

You should really consider creating a bitchute account. With all the yt turmoil I'd hate to lose access to you. I know I am not the only one who has started subbing creators they love on this platform over there. Keep up the great work man, from a fellow lifelong geek. Edit: just realized I wasn't actually a sub even though I've been watching pretty religiously for a year or two. Resolved. Doesn't that kind of prove the point on one level though? What are yt subs really good for other than analytics and occasional plaques?

Romulans are extremely xenophobic and superior. Vulcans are pretty decent but there is a streak of superiority and separatism. The Romulans apparently have not developed their telepathy as much as Vulcans, in fact appear to have lost the ability. Additionally the Vulcan's home planet makes them super strong with excellent vision and hearing etc. So I could see that Romulans might see that by getting control of Vulcan and getting the Vulcan brethren on side, they could dominate the Alpha and Beta quadrants completely. Vulcans could go round mind controlling everyone and digging out all the secrets of other races, and Romulans can enforce with their large military. It would have been a fun plot to explore.

I disagree with your assumption that the Federation would do nothing. If anything, the lore of the show would indicate they would fight after an attempt at diplomacy. Even at this late date, the Federation would still remember how costly the first Romulan war was and even the first Klingon war. With this in mind, I think those two wars would have some impact on such a decision. If you will remember, in "Balance of Terror" one officer vividly remembered his own family history and their losses. Would it not make sense that the entire Federation would do the same? Especially with an enemy they knew very little about?

Plans for the Romulans to invade Romulus

While Vulcans are pacifists they are not wimps when push comes to shove they will fight, 2000 Romulan commandos wouldn't stand a chance.

Romulans plan to invade Romulous?