This isn't very unusual though. Volunteers (and even military observers/attachments) has been made for both sides in a conflict several times.
As I have stated, Romulan commanders aligned with both Fed and KDF are Romulan Republic Naval Officers. Their loyalty is to the Romulan Republic 1st and then the Fed / KDF second. How does the possibility of engaging against fellow Romulan Republic commanders benefit the Romulan Republic as a whole? Also remember that it has been mentioned several times in the game itself that the Romulan Republic is short on resources. Guess what? Starships and the commander and crew on board those very starships are also counted as resources.
Let's make this a bit more personal. You are a Romulan commander, you decided to align with the Fed. Your big brother who always looked out for you when both of you were younger decided to align with the KDF. Tomorrow both Fed and KDF fleets will engage in combat and both you and your brother are part of the spearhead of your respective fleet.
It doesn't make sense, you are right. Which makes sending off captains to fight in battles against their other ally doubly ridiculous. Not only are Romulan ships blowing up both Klingon and Federation ships while supposedly being allied with them, but there's bound to be a few awkward moments where a Fed and KDF battlegroup meet and one of the following is likely to happen (since we don't know the exact protocol of these situations)
1) The Romulan captains on either side warp out and leave their allies to fend for themselves.
2) They continue to fight the KDF/Fed in the other fleet while avoiding engaging the other Romulan ship(s) and don't aid their opposing Romulan captain if they get in over their head.
3) Same as #3, but they aid Romulan ships in peril. can't imagine the KDF/Fed ships in such a fleet enjoying seeing Romulan ships supposedly on their side helping a Romulan ship trying to blow them up.
4) They fight, treating Romulan ships in the other armada as enemies.
All of these solutions IMO would result in either Republic ships being seen is incredibly unreliable or untrustworthy at best, or would require them to bloodthirstily gun down members of their own Republic.
While Cryptic didn't outline the details of the treaties between the Republic, Federation and Empire governing the use of Republic forces by the Federation and Empire, but I imagine a few things.
Firstly, Republic forces would be prohibited from being used in engagements with the Federation/Klingons, nor in support of the ongoing Federation/Klingon War. This means no Republic ships would ever have the chance of engaging each other and minimizes the chance of the loss of Republic personnel.
What good does this do for the Klingons/Federation? Quite simple: it frees up manpower to fight the war. Nausican Pirates on the frontier nowhere near the front? Send in the Romulans. True Way acting up? Send in the Romulans. Civilian scientists needing a starship to chart a dangerous nebula? Send in the Romulans. Breen raiding your borders? Send in the Romulans (they may even do that one gratis). The Federation and Klingon Empires are BIG, and even if they were at all out total war (which they never really were), they can not commit 100% of their fleets to the war, they need to maintain supply lines, deal with behind the lines issues, maintain their borders with other neighbors. For all those things, the Republic's Warbirds can step into the gap, freeing up ships to go fight the on the front. It also means that scientific projects that would have had to been sidelined due to the starships being needed elsewhere could still push forward (remember, the Romulans were just as scientifically minded as the Federation, so committing a warbird to chart something/research something isn't seen as a junk job like it is with the Kliingons).
Federation and Klingon planners know that Republic ships would refuse to engage one another and complicate things. They wouldn't put them in circumstances where they would be put into those circumstances.
Given this knowledge, the size of the Federation and Klingon Empires, this is the OBVIOUS solution to this dilemma, and in fact the non-Romulan featured episodes that the Romulans get reflect this, at least Federation side (I cannot comment on Klingon side as I have no Kling aligned Rommies).
This isn't even that hard to reason from the information and circumstances provided in game. What do you expect from Cryptic, to be handed a detailed 1000 page worldbook outlining how exactly everything works? Yeah, sometimes they do need more detail, but at the same time, I hoped people had a miocum of intelligence when it comes to logistics and deployment...
Reposting because it seems people completely ignored this earlier...
Reposting because it seems people completely ignored this earlier...
We know from one of the episodes though, that such precautions are not made because there is a mission where you end up butchering through a bunch of Klingons/federation and end up in a fight with a Romulan officer who (thankfully) doesn't end up losing his life (though for all those Klingons/federation officers the same cannot be said). It happened once, so it can happen again, and has probably happened other times as well.
besides there's the issue about how comfortable the Klingons and Federation would be with the Republic knowing that degree of military intel-too much of a security risk and a great deal of potential for Romulan captains backing out when they need them most.
Imagine a Starfleet convoy with a Romulan escort. A cloaked Klingon raider force is coming to intercept it with an accompanying Romulan ship. How do you think the federation captains are going to feel when there escort just ups and leaves saying "you are about to get attacked by a fleet with a Romulan ship in it, got to go!" I imagine similar frustraction from the Klingon fleet when the mirror happens (with the added malus of spoiling their sneak attack when the convoy is alerted by their escort hightailing it out of there). There just isn't a scenario that doesn't end with the Romulans looking like some combination of unreliable, cowardly, or untrustworthy.
And the realistically would be running into these sorts of situations all the time-as a KDF Rom you will be blowing up all sorts of Federation ships, and vica verca.
Even avoiding the particular issue of what happens when two fleets with Romulans meet in battle, there's the issue of how their allies feel about them blowing up their ships while they are simultaneously helping the Romulans rebuild New Romulus and protect their assets from the Tal Shiar/Elachii/Hirogen etc.
We know from one of the episodes though, that such precautions are not made because there is a mission where you end up butchering through a bunch of Klingons/federation and end up in a fight with a Romulan officer who (thankfully) doesn't end up losing his life (though for all those Klingons/federation officers the same cannot be said). It happened once, so it can happen again, and has probably happened other times as well.
didn't that happen because the Tal Shiar were manipulating both you and the NPC captain into thinking that each other were terrorists responsible for the Tal Shiar attack on your character's former colony world?
The fact that they were able to without a call coming in from HQ warning us that there was a KDF-Rom force heading towards the same planet shows that HQ might not keep as close a watch on the relative movements of the KDF-Rom and Fed-Rom ships as we might like.
Even with an alliance that prohibits Romulans from fighting in the conflict you encounter problems. Let's take that convoy idea and go a step further. The Federation is shipping vital supplies to a frontline outpost using a warbird's cargo bays. The Empire catches wind and sends a squadron to intercept. Even if there are no Romulans in that squadron, you're still facing the Empire attacking and probably destroying a Republic craft staffed with Republic troops. That's provocative action. That's an act of war against the Republic.
Okay, so the squadron decides not to attack an ally of the Empire. The Federation outpost gets its supplies. The Federation continues using warbirds in this completely passive fashion. The Empire blames its failing war effort, quite correctly, on the Republic. The Empire decides they'd be better off fighting the Republic and the Federation than maintaining the alliance with the Republic. War breaks out more slowly, but it does break out.
And of course from simple game mechanics we have Romulan ships showing up at Fleet Alerts and shooting at the other faction quite freely, so we know for a fact that the alliance has no such provisions against direct conflict. The only piece we don't have direct evidence of is Fed-Rom versus KDF-Rom, but there's already a fair bit of analysis of how infeasible any reaction to such a conflict would really be.
The Romulan Republic stands to unite all Romulans yet they are the only faction that cannot team any two members together. Think about that irony for a while.
Admiral Ryvaken, USS Arthra (NCC-947749), Aventine class.
As the seventy-fourth Rule of Acquisition clearly states, knowledge equals profit. And I am a very rich Ferengi.
Comments
As I have stated, Romulan commanders aligned with both Fed and KDF are Romulan Republic Naval Officers. Their loyalty is to the Romulan Republic 1st and then the Fed / KDF second. How does the possibility of engaging against fellow Romulan Republic commanders benefit the Romulan Republic as a whole? Also remember that it has been mentioned several times in the game itself that the Romulan Republic is short on resources. Guess what? Starships and the commander and crew on board those very starships are also counted as resources.
Let's make this a bit more personal. You are a Romulan commander, you decided to align with the Fed. Your big brother who always looked out for you when both of you were younger decided to align with the KDF. Tomorrow both Fed and KDF fleets will engage in combat and both you and your brother are part of the spearhead of your respective fleet.
What are you going to do?
1) The Romulan captains on either side warp out and leave their allies to fend for themselves.
2) They continue to fight the KDF/Fed in the other fleet while avoiding engaging the other Romulan ship(s) and don't aid their opposing Romulan captain if they get in over their head.
3) Same as #3, but they aid Romulan ships in peril. can't imagine the KDF/Fed ships in such a fleet enjoying seeing Romulan ships supposedly on their side helping a Romulan ship trying to blow them up.
4) They fight, treating Romulan ships in the other armada as enemies.
All of these solutions IMO would result in either Republic ships being seen is incredibly unreliable or untrustworthy at best, or would require them to bloodthirstily gun down members of their own Republic.
Reposting because it seems people completely ignored this earlier...
besides there's the issue about how comfortable the Klingons and Federation would be with the Republic knowing that degree of military intel-too much of a security risk and a great deal of potential for Romulan captains backing out when they need them most.
Imagine a Starfleet convoy with a Romulan escort. A cloaked Klingon raider force is coming to intercept it with an accompanying Romulan ship. How do you think the federation captains are going to feel when there escort just ups and leaves saying "you are about to get attacked by a fleet with a Romulan ship in it, got to go!" I imagine similar frustraction from the Klingon fleet when the mirror happens (with the added malus of spoiling their sneak attack when the convoy is alerted by their escort hightailing it out of there). There just isn't a scenario that doesn't end with the Romulans looking like some combination of unreliable, cowardly, or untrustworthy.
And the realistically would be running into these sorts of situations all the time-as a KDF Rom you will be blowing up all sorts of Federation ships, and vica verca.
Even avoiding the particular issue of what happens when two fleets with Romulans meet in battle, there's the issue of how their allies feel about them blowing up their ships while they are simultaneously helping the Romulans rebuild New Romulus and protect their assets from the Tal Shiar/Elachii/Hirogen etc.
didn't that happen because the Tal Shiar were manipulating both you and the NPC captain into thinking that each other were terrorists responsible for the Tal Shiar attack on your character's former colony world?
Okay, so the squadron decides not to attack an ally of the Empire. The Federation outpost gets its supplies. The Federation continues using warbirds in this completely passive fashion. The Empire blames its failing war effort, quite correctly, on the Republic. The Empire decides they'd be better off fighting the Republic and the Federation than maintaining the alliance with the Republic. War breaks out more slowly, but it does break out.
And of course from simple game mechanics we have Romulan ships showing up at Fleet Alerts and shooting at the other faction quite freely, so we know for a fact that the alliance has no such provisions against direct conflict. The only piece we don't have direct evidence of is Fed-Rom versus KDF-Rom, but there's already a fair bit of analysis of how infeasible any reaction to such a conflict would really be.
The Romulan Republic stands to unite all Romulans yet they are the only faction that cannot team any two members together. Think about that irony for a while.
As the seventy-fourth Rule of Acquisition clearly states, knowledge equals profit. And I am a very rich Ferengi.