Starfleet's issues make since when you think about it. At this time Archer is the most experienced commander in Starfleet, he's been in one battle after another. Yet it took him a full year with far smaller skirmishes to become competent, and even then not till the Xindi war was he truly a become a competent commander. It would be assumable that Starfleet hasn't yet started training like a pseudo-military outfit like you see in Kirk's years onward, so its very likely that the remainder of Starfleet hadn't yet begun to train for combat scenarios and tactics. Therefore, it would be realistic that they would basically be ill equipped and take a while to catch up to a far more experienced enemy.

"They avoided our warp detection grid!" "Impossible! How?" "They didn't approach it at warp!" "Damn it, how could we have ever foreseen such a dastardly ploy. Dispatch our most powerful Oberth at once!" "Do those even exist yet?"

Part of the issue might be explained by infiltration of romulans. This was a key tactic all the way into the 24th century. Its hard to set up defense and tactics when your enemy is on the inside and undermining your efforts. Infact it was probably a blessing in descuise that the vulacans where stand offish. The fewer vulcans involved in things like research and tactics lessened the chance of the infiltration.

So the Federation has the Romulans to thank for the philosophy of their engineers to think outside the box.

Further Starfleet "mistakes". Not using the Cloaking detector that happened to be left on the NX Enterprise. Not reverse engineering the same and mass producing it… [what timeline integrity?]. Not getting their hands on their own Cloaking technology, they had a few options… Hit up Trips baby mama for the specs (they really should've done that at the time). Grab a Suliban Cell Ship, they have info on the Cabal and a operation to steal one wouldn't be too difficult. [Trip also had a basic understanding from tinkering on one, transfer him to engineering HQ to try and develop the theory]. Nicely ask the Suliban for the specs ["we win and we'll include the Suliban people in the Federation - they will have a Home and backup, they can settle on our Worlds in peace". Many Aliens that subjugate the Suliban would be agreeable to a "we'll take them completely off your hands and out of your territory offer"]. The Cabal joining Starfleet is a massive power up. And if you include their individual upgrades… ("look, we know you're all sensitive cause of the Augments incident, but this is a adult surgical biomod - imagine your crew being able to cope with decompression"). Do special missions to try and acquire any advanced tech they encountered before on their explorations… Also Mix and match their best counter in technologies amongst the Federation. All Federation ships get Human computer systems to prevent hacking. There would be issues with running it, but perhaps just communications needs the "downgrade" as it's the gateway. Conversely install the best weapons and shields they have across the board. Andorian "defensive" technology becomes the standard in Starfleet. Look at the complete pile of tech they have and go "hmm, we'll use this and this and this, not this as the Romulans can hack it". And base their shipyard manufacturing around the best combat/logistics design of the combined Federation. Perhaps a optimised Andorian combat frigate with Human computers. As for the Romulans. Instead of squandering their advantage by doing slow and steady while hoping a counter isn't developed, once they know it works go for a knockout blow. Target Starfleet shipyards around Earth, perhaps including a feint elsewhere just so they can true to their misdirection creed. That could ensure victory then and there, if not rinse and repeat at other important military infrastructure. But both sides need to get rid of their strategic advisors from the Star Wars universe.… …

Can’t they set up an “impulse detection grid”? I mean, the things gotta have a tailpipe.

I have a massive problem with this whole scenario. In canon, Starfleet has the ability to detect vessels at warp from several light years away, therefore it would take years to travel the distance between the limits of sensor range and the target. Its even worse if they were trying to slip through a border because you would have to stay at sub-light for double the distance needed to destroy the sensors, which could mean 5 years of chugging across space, hardly stealthy... Even if we assume that thee sensors around planets only have enough range to detect warp within their solar system, thats still hours or days of sub-light travel. We already have radar powerful enough to bounce off other solar system objects, are we really supposed to believe that by 2155 we couldnt detect a ship travelling sub light for hours?

In the TOS era, the Romulans used Birds Of Prey, the Warbirds were TNG era Romulan ships

Great video! The Earth-Romulan War is a fascinating era.

I could buy the excuse that humans "just weren't used to warfare because they had become such a peaceful race"... if the show Enterprise hadn't happened. By that time Archer and his crew would have told Starfleet to build guns, lots of guns, and devise strategies for coming conflicts. Earth may be a peaceful paradise but the galaxy at large is a shit show.

Can we get one of these videos focusing on the andorians, please

Wait! Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger and then Discovery? WHY DIDN'T I NOTICE THAT BEFORE? 😅

Great video!

The Breen next? 🥰

Seems like some building lots of orbital defenses would be a good idea, maybe have some positioned around the warp detectors. Assuming they couldn't be hacked like the starship that is.

Awesome video! 👏🏻

I remember reading those books and thinking "Oh, nukes. Cool I guess."

i love these videos bro, i actually consider those pocket now novels to be the true continuation of cannon lol

I seems like the issue with the detection grid was caused by hubris, not assuming the enemy is as smart as you are. I mean if you made the detection grid so wide that crossing it or at least getting to the sensors would take too long in sublight (remember Warp 1 is the speed of light and a single lightyear is huge in sublight terms but rather short for interstellar distances).

The warp detection grid only makes sense to circumvent if there is an extreme range limit. If you have a 1 light year range, it takes over a year to sneak in. If coasting works, it's not really useful.

Can you do a video on Mackenzie Calhoun? Just saw your video on the kobayashi maru test and loved his solution

Funny as we tend to see humanity and their Starfleet seem to be so incompetent in this book series because in the rest of the franchise they are highly resourceful and imaginative. Granted it is in the "don't wake the sleeping dragon" kind of way so I suspect them to finish the war strong. The only other time Starfleet was this worst of a shape was the 1st season of Discovery following the death of Kol, the fracturing of the Klingon Empire worsen and each Great House develop their own tactics to fight Starfleet instead of keeping a united front.

4:35 this tactic was used in TNG: Chain of command, but slightly upgraded

I find the hole nukes have to effect absurd especially since the photon torpedoes of the next generation era have a theoretical maximum yield of 64 Megatons and the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated Sara Bamba detonated with the yield of almost 50 Megatons on top of that we are dealing with weapons that essentially create a miniature star for a split second.

Given some of the comments I'm already seeing in the comment section (plus the general impression some people get because Starfleet officers try to defuse a situation before resorting to combat), it might be a good idea to do a video on Starfleet's combat strategies, logistics capabilities, etc. Focusing on what's traditionally referred to as canon of course, especially given how novels like the ones covered here handle things.

This is my favorite era of star trek I think.

I think after the attack on earth enterprise The earth government would’ve acted like the American government after Pearl Harbor they would’ve invested 70% of the GDP and building defensive weapons store they would’ve had at least 10 NX Ships by the time the Romulan war started as well as impulse patrol ships defensive satellite systems ground bass torpedo batteries

What about the Franklin class? Slow yes but could it be upgraded with something with a punch?

What I do not get how captain Archer could even get into contact with them and that the romulans could get their remote controlled holographic morphing ship AND its backup so far from Romulus so fast. Perhaps if the romulans had access to a wormhole opening up into what later would become deep into Federation territory. If so it would be one of the only assets worth protecting with a minefield. A personal theory of mine.

Having read the books.. they didn't approach the grid using a warp capable craft.. they used, for lack of a better term, a 'fighter craft' or a 'shuttle' without any sort of warp drive to approach the grids and disable them

What was the range of the warp detection grid? Do they need to cross a light year at sublight speeds to avoid it because if so it makes perfect sense why they wouldn't expect the Romulans to cross it at sublight speeds, or is it a million km in which case yeah sure that's piss easy to bypass without tripping an alarm and therefore pretty useless.

How about a complete history of warp speed?

Having read Robt. Blish's original book, derived from First Season TOS scripts, it plainly stated that the Earth-Romulan war was fought with Reacton-Powered Ships -- that is- rocket ships. IF you want to talk "canon," let's start here.

It seems like everyone is close to stagnating via technology, romulan singularities, star fleet warp cores, vulcan rings, and what ever the other guys used?

Must have been all that retconning... it can be very confusing. One minute they've got cloaking devices, the next they don't.

If warpspeed allows you to go star to star in say a week how big is a warp detection grid? Like seriously even if it was solar system wide (as far as Pluto) you'd have say a few minutes warning till they were at earth.....

Liked :-)

Only Vaadwaur and Tzenkethi have the best tactics. Just destroy everything in front of you with heavy artillery then talk.

Those detection grids are pretty weak in Star Trek Enterprise literature in this century. Even while CBS and Paramount were dealing with the fan based Star Trek Horizon film. The failure of copyright protection in the legal system.

What about the FREEDOM CLASS vessels like the USS FRANKLIN? Those did exist during Archers time in the Prime Universe.

I'm sorry who on zarquonns name would build any computer system without any firewalls? So much of this could of been fixed with decent IT security

so no one thought about just making the main computer isolated so it can't talk to any thing out side of the ship

Please name the episodes. I couldn't remember seeing these stories.

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you make me wanna play STO again :( but then i realised how much time and money you need to dump on that game lol...

(0:22 - *recuse)

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The warp detection grid problem makes zero sense. If the grid is supposed to give warning it need to detect ships far enough away that a warp 5 ships will take at least hours to cover the distance. Which would mean that a ship at impulse would take A LONG TIME to cover that distance. Impulse drive isn't just a bit slower than warp ffs.

You know they say nuclear weapons are outdated and harmless to modern starships buuuuuuuut... Take the standard photon torpedo with it's 1kg of matter and 1kg of anti-matter warhead, the amount of energy released when detonated is equivalent to 42 megatonnes of TNT assuming 100% of the anti-matter annihilates 100% of the matter. That's less energy than the Tsar Bomba's 50 MT yield. Not to mention that matter/anti-matter annhilation releases most of it's energy as gamma rays and neutrinos which don't do much damage to things like starship hulls. An anti-matter triggered 100% nuclear fusion warhead would be more effective at a much lower cost than a photon torpedo.

Really wish they would write the Federation with some semblance of competence in combat.

please do a video about the transporters in star trek please do a video about the hutts slaves & the slaves costumes in star wars,please do a video about how to marry & divorce someone in the star trek &star wars universe

Enterprise messed this up. Did not have cloaking until original series. They were behind Enterprise in technology.

Restart all system...nah just blow up!

Problem, romulans shutting down warp grids. Answer setup dummies with a large surprise, let the party start with a bang!

Ever since the newer STD that fits its abv! I've taken a disliking to all the Discovery ships...

I’ll be honest, considering how bad real life military fuck ups are, the warp detection grid fiasco is plausible

Its like we totally forgot how to wage war, yet we had the military still around? I never got the romulan war books, they were bad and badly written. you cant just FORGET how to wage war.

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This is why i'm kinda glad we didn't get the Romulan War on screen. All the stupid nonsensical shit we'd of seen on all sides.

Those Romulan War books were terrible! Also, Enterprise didn't age well in my opinion. Sure it was cool to see what was offered at first and in isolation, but in reference to what would happen and how the books tried to portray it...poorly done!

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Umm Discovery isn't cannon if you think it is you aren't a Star Trek fan.