If romulus was never destroyed the republic never existed. Remember what the temporal agent says on the flotilla.
The Republic does NOT want to see the timeline changed to bring back Romulus.
This new Tales of the war is as bad as #14
Yeah, that's a problem. The Republic is definitely a good thing, but it was most definitely borne of a tragedy. There's a lot of bad that's happened over the last few decades, but also a lot of good. As both the Krenim's and the Republic's respective 'time scientists' are finding out, there's no easy answer when you're trying to 'correct' the past while keep things 'good.' It's disruptive, potentially disatrous, and largely subjective as to what should and shouldn't be touched.
Better off not trying, and just making the best of what history brings us as we go along.
A lot of people keep saying if Romulus was not destroyed then there would be no Republic and it would still be a violent dictatorship. I respectfully disagree. Before Hobus the Reunification movment led by Spock was no longer a secret, underground organization and was starting to make some headway. Peace and diplomacy were the norms of the day and while the Prator was ineffective, at least he was understanding of outside opinions and influences. Had Romulus survived the social trends of the time suggested that the Empire would have embraced reunification with the Vulcans and Remans, thus leading to their inclusion in the United Federation of Planets.
Yeah, that's one of the unknowns. The Republic wasn't the first attempt at a break-away state to replace the crumbling Empire, and even without New Romulus there would've been massive change in the long-term. Whether it would've taken a bloody internal war with a higher body count than even Hobus amassed... who knows? The results are entirely unpredictable until a holodeck simulation shows just how badly you screwed up
So I've been assuming the time weapon will fail and create an alternate timeline that we undo.
However, there are two interesting possibilities I hadn't initially considered:
The Other saved the Iconians before. I wonder if The Other will be a better target for the temporal weapon. I had been thinking of using The Other for diplomacy or that they are us or something. But maybe The Other will simply be a cleaner target.
Even if we set time right, does the corrupted timeline cease to exist? Or are we simply off that track? Does anything remain from it? Because if it still exists, it'd be interesting for the Romulan Universe deleted timeline to continue interacting with us the way the Mirror Universe does and maybe they could fight to exist again as, say, a Temporal Cold War faction.
Say we corrupt things. The Romulans who have conquered the quadrant immediately kidnap us and start searching our ship for information. We set things right...
... But by the time we do, the Romulans know what we're planning and have extracted the blueprints for planetary temporal shielding from our ship.
We set things right but Romulus is temporally shielded when we're fixing things. Net result: We fix things but Romulus is still around.
This complicates the fight but as we win the final battle, we succeed in jumping a dyson sphere around the alternate Romulus to contain it.
Net result: The galaxy is up a Romulus but our timeline remains unchanged. Romulus was still destroyed. An alternate Romulus is now in its place. And we have contained it inside a locked Dyson Sphere until we can sort out its place in the quadrant.
Let's not forget that Romulus and Remus would not be the only planets saved by altering events from the past. I only need to bring up that in Star Trek IV: The Journey Home, planet Earth would have been destroyed by the probe if Kirk had not brought Humpback people (No Scotty, whales!) from the past. This forever altered the timeline by preserving Earth and Starfleet. It is hypocritical to think that what Kirk did was fine but preventing the destruction of Romulus and Remus is not fine.
What if by Kirk not letting the probe destroy Earth, he set about the destruction of a future that united an even greater United Federation of Planets under the auspices of preserving all life of which human's failed to recognize which sealed the fate of Earth's destruction. This new union of planets might even contain the Klingon and Romulan Empires creating a peace unseen in the galaxy. A catalyst to create a successful Nimbus III if you would, rather than the abomination Starfleet has allowed to continue for generations. A force that could have prevented the destruction of Romulus and Remus. A force that would sweep away any threat the Iconians could pose. All it took was the billions of lives lost on Earth.
If the only reason the Romulan Republic exists because billions had to die on Romulus and Remus than its existence is its own contradiction. Its like making the argument to invade another country and subjugate them costing untold amount of lives to bring freedom to the subjugated few that remain. TRIBBLE that, no ones freedom is worth mass genocide. The Romulan Star Empire was plagued by the Tal Shiar, but it was by far not the only faction trying to set the empire on a path. A new and better Romulan Republic could have been created if the billions had not died on Romulus and Remus.
If George and Gracey can be brought back from the past then I say let us restore the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus. But if this temporal manipulation is seen as too dangerous then let us be fully true to the idea and kill George and Gracey before Kirk can bring them back to save Earth. Or are the billions of lives on Earth worth more than the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus? Tell that to the Romulans when you explain to them that their loved ones need to die while Earth was preserved using temporal changes in the timeline. I'm sure they'll understand.
Let's not sacrifice the billions of Romulans and Remans for the false peace of a Romulan Republic today.
In the words of Spock and Kirk on rationalizing killing other's for a false future of peace from the original Star Trek episode 23: A Taste of Armageddon (Definitely an episode everyone should see):
"There is a certain scientific logic about it."-Spock on killing people for peace
"I'm glad you approve."-Anan7
"I do not approve; I understand." -Spock
"I didn't start it, Councilman. But I'm liable to finish it... Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided... We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes."-several quotes from Kirk explaining why sentient life is not doomed to destruction when given the full repercussions of war and given the opportunity to use the sentience to just say, "No we will not kill today."
Introducing this as your deus ex machina to end the war was the worst possible storyline choice you could have made, Cryptic. I hate everything about it. It was good to watch in Voyager, it's horribly executed in Star Trek Online.
Let's not forget that Romulus and Remus would not be the only planets saved by altering events from the past. I only need to bring up that in Star Trek IV: The Journey Home, planet Earth would have been destroyed by the probe if Kirk had not brought Humpback people (No Scotty, whales!) from the past. This forever altered the timeline by preserving Earth and Starfleet. It is hypocritical to think that what Kirk did was fine but preventing the destruction of Romulus and Remus is not fine.
...
The Federation breaks its own major laws - regular and temporal Prime Directives included - all the time when it suits them. Much of what it does is hypocracy, to fit whatever needs they have at the moment.
Let's not forget that Romulus and Remus would not be the only planets saved by altering events from the past. I only need to bring up that in Star Trek IV: The Journey Home, planet Earth would have been destroyed by the probe if Kirk had not brought Humpback people (No Scotty, whales!) from the past. This forever altered the timeline by preserving Earth and Starfleet. It is hypocritical to think that what Kirk did was fine but preventing the destruction of Romulus and Remus is not fine.
Kirk intervened as it was happening, this is not the same as someone from the future altering the past, Kirk used the past to alter his own relative present.
What if by Kirk not letting the probe destroy Earth, he set about the destruction of a future that united an even greater United Federation of Planets under the auspices of preserving all life of which human's failed to recognize which sealed the fate of Earth's destruction. This new union of planets might even contain the Klingon and Romulan Empires creating a peace unseen in the galaxy. A catalyst to create a successful Nimbus III if you would, rather than the abomination Starfleet has allowed to continue for generations. A force that could have prevented the destruction of Romulus and Remus. A force that would sweep away any threat the Iconians could pose. All it took was the billions of lives lost on Earth.
What in blazes are you blithering on about?
I'll tell you what would've happened without the Federation, the Klingon Empire would've fallen when Praxis exploded, and the Romulans would've overtaken the remnants of both nations.
So all hail our glorious Romulan overlords! Till they get assimilated by the Borg anyway.
Also, are you somehow implying the Federation as is isn't dedicated to the preservation of all life?
This isn't getting into how Earth's potential destruction as presented in ST4 isn't the fault of humans, but rather belligerent, uncaring and/or incompetent aliens that create probes that vandalise their surroundings.
If the only reason the Romulan Republic exists because billions had to die on Romulus and Remus than its existence is its own contradiction. Its like making the argument to invade another country and subjugate them costing untold amount of lives to bring freedom to the subjugated few that remain. TRIBBLE that, no ones freedom is worth mass genocide. The Romulan Star Empire was plagued by the Tal Shiar, but it was by far not the only faction trying to set the empire on a path. A new and better Romulan Republic could have been created if the billions had not died on Romulus and Remus.
So you think removing the sole catalyst for the creation of the Republic will somehow lead to the Republic being created anyway.
Logic? What's that?
And how is the Republic's existence a contradiction? It is a consequence of a galaxy altering change.
The same way Israel today exists mainly due to the holocaust, and the U.S. Became a dominant power due to world war 2.
I once saw a kid's show where the protagonist's attempt to save the Titanic ends up erasing himself from history, because his grandparents only met due to the aftermath of the sinking.
Even a kid's show understood the negative butterfly effects that can occur even with the noblest of intentions because however tragic the loss of people's lives are, we live in a world forever affected by those events.
If George and Gracey can be brought back from the past then I say let us restore the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus. But if this temporal manipulation is seen as too dangerous then let us be fully true to the idea and kill George and Gracey before Kirk can bring them back to save Earth. Or are the billions of lives on Earth worth more than the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus? Tell that to the Romulans when you explain to them that their loved ones need to die while Earth was preserved using temporal changes in the timeline. I'm sure they'll understand.
Let's not sacrifice the billions of Romulans and Remans for the false peace of a Romulan Republic today.
Again, Kirk was altering his own relative present. He and nobody with him had experienced a timeline with Earth destroyed.
Nobody from the future influenced Kirk. Kirk did not change the timeline because *there is no timeline where the whaleprobe destroyed earth, it doesn't exist and never did*
If a Romulan had gone back and prevented Romulus' destruction as it was occuring from their perspective, that'd be one thing.
30 years later after all it's effects have actually changed the galaxy is entirely different.
In the words of Spock and Kirk on rationalizing killing other's for a false future of peace from the original Star Trek episode 23: A Taste of Armageddon (Definitely an episode everyone should see):
"There is a certain scientific logic about it."-Spock on killing people for peace
"I'm glad you approve."-Anan7
"I do not approve; I understand." -Spock
"I didn't start it, Councilman. But I'm liable to finish it... Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided... We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes."-several quotes from Kirk explaining why sentient life is not doomed to destruction when given the full repercussions of war and given the opportunity to use the sentience to just say, "No we will not kill today."
Romulus is dead and gone. Nobody is being killed, they're already dead.
The people of Earth were not dead, they were alive when Kirk left, and this part's important, Kirk returned at the exact moment he left, when the window at Starfleet Command is smashed.
Kirk maintained his timeline in his present.
I just wonder why they don't attempt to use the technology to figure out whom the one was and then use the technology from stopping the one from putting all the iconians together again....its like they just don't pay attention to things they eaves drop on.
Or maybe they should simply use the technology to stop the iconians from destroying the one race that created them....
or maybe use it to make sure that the founders had a back up contingency.
Pretty simple....not sure why the romulans would want their original world back when they have a new world and have literally created an alliance with it. oh well......whatever.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
So you think removing the sole catalyst for the creation of the Republic will somehow lead to the Republic being created anyway.
The Republic wouldn't exist, that's for sure. But some other breakaway state would be around.
Things went to hell and back after Shinzon broke the Senate. "The Path to 2409" has Donatra lead her own breakaway state for a bit, for instance. Hobus accelerated the fall of the Empire, but it likely would've happened in due time - or at the very least, massive reform was going to be needed.
ok does she not realize restored Romulus=NO ROMULAN REPUBLIC, the restoration of nearly crumbling despotic empire?
A lot of citizens, military personnel in the Romulan Republic lost loved ones when the Hobus Event occurred.
I know the official line in the higher echelons of the Republic do NOT want Romulus restored. But if you propose to the average Republic citizen, soldier that if there is a way to restore Romulus, Remus and prevent the deaths of their loved ones, what do you think the "average Joe" of the Republic will say?
Which is one of the reasons why the "average Joe" of the Republic has no "need to know" a matter classified "Above Top Secret."
As far as Licensed materials and Canon is concerned, as per CBS, canon is canon. I'll be uberly amazed if STO will be given the go-signal to prevent the supernova.
(And I'll probably start a campaign that the Litverse be given the same leeway *pffft*)
If George and Gracey can be brought back from the past then I say let us restore the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus. But if this temporal manipulation is seen as too dangerous then let us be fully true to the idea and kill George and Gracey before Kirk can bring them back to save Earth. Or are the billions of lives on Earth worth more than the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus? Tell that to the Romulans when you explain to them that their loved ones need to die while Earth was preserved using temporal changes in the timeline. I'm sure they'll understand.
Let's not sacrifice the billions of Romulans and Remans for the false peace of a Romulan Republic today.
Again, Kirk was altering his own relative present. He and nobody with him had experienced a timeline with Earth destroyed.
Nobody from the future influenced Kirk. Kirk did not change the timeline because *there is no timeline where the whaleprobe destroyed earth, it doesn't exist and never did*
If a Romulan had gone back and prevented Romulus' destruction as it was occuring from their perspective, that'd be one thing.
30 years later after all it's effects have actually changed the galaxy is entirely different.
Just a sidebar but I find this interesting.
Because STIV wasn't actually strictly a matter of Kirk going back moments before Starfleet Command was wiped out and bringing back the whales at the exact moment they left.
Starfleet Command was destroyed BEFORE they left and they arrived back BEFORE they left. So they briefly DID experience a timeline where Starfleet Command (Cartwright, Sarek, the Federation President, etc.) was destroyed and they didn't stick around to see how it played out.
Technically, there should also be a duplicate of the Botany Bay and everyone aboard it as well. I've never seen anyone point this out, surprisingly. Because Kirk and crew arrived back with the whales before they left, there should be a second copy of them preparing to leave... who no longer had a reason to leave.
I just pulled up the movie to be sure.
Spock "made a guess" because Scotty could not account for the mass of the whales and water.
I just did the math watching the timer on the movie and they returned with the whales a MINIMUM of two minutes before they engaged warp speed to leave (possibly sooner as cinematic cuts often involve time lapses), passing right by themselves.
Depending on what someone wanted to do, you could ABSOLUTELY explain this away. It would be both reasonable and easy to do so. You COULD ALSO CHOOSE to infer that the versions preparing to leave no longer had to go back or could no longer go back without interacting with themselves from the timeline prior to that. They cannot become the versions of themselves who initially left because the versions coming back came from a slightly different timeline. If they did go back, there would now physically be two versions of them, one from the future branch where they didn't come back with the whales and one where they did and saw themselves come back.
It's the two Marty's paradox from Back to the Future. Where did the Marty who grew up with a successful, confident father go when he left in the deLorean? Once you have two Marty's, you've already bent universal conservation mass once and having fewer than two Marty's at that point is no less a violation of conservation of mass. In fact, having two Marty's isn't a problem since the "end of the movie" Marty came from a "no Marty" timeline which will go on Marty-less forever. But the second Marty (Lone Pine Marty or Marty-Who-Had-A-Confident-Dad) has to go somewhere and it can't be 1955 or he'd run into Twin Pine Marty, who we know is in Lone Pine Marty's past. In fact, my understanding is that Zemeckis is overseeing a comic book which will deal with Lone Pine Marty, what happened to the Jennifer left in the alternate timeline 1985, etc. and he considers this "official Back to the Future canon".
So, really, in Star Trek lore, I think we're left with two possibilities: The 29th Century Temporal Integrity Commission or Temporal Investigations of the 23rd century had to perform a surgical temporal integration to fuse the two versions of the Botany Bay, cleaning up what is effectively a "skip" in the track (but possibly violating multiversal conservation of mass to do so, which should have consequences)... Or they didn't complete the integration and there is a spare copy of the Botany Bay out there. My preferred thought is that they simply had to abduct the second copy and that the 29th century is full of copies of time travelers who couldn't be stitched back into the flow of time properly but who also couldn't be allowed to run around. And that this happens frequently whenever someone arrives before they left after going back in time.
As far as Licensed materials and Canon is concerned, as per CBS, canon is canon. I'll be uberly amazed if STO will be given the go-signal to prevent the supernova.
(And I'll probably start a campaign that the Litverse be given the same leeway *pffft*)
I think we'll prevent the supernova and then un-prevent it.
But it's possible that there could be residual things which get temporally shielded that are leftover from when we prevented it.
We prevent the supernova. Everything is terrible. We make sure the supernova happens... But maybe Romulus is temporally shielded or there's a stowaway aboard our ship... Which means that thing that was temporally shielded comes back WITH us.
So... Romulus is destroyed. We prevent its destruction and cause it again but in the process an alternate Romulus could spontaneously appear in 2410 if they're wise to our attempts to adjust the timeline again.
The net result could be that the timeline is unchanged. Romulus was still destroyed. But an alternate Romulus that was never destroyed now exists where Romulus was destroyed.
I could see CBS signing off on that because it doesn't invalidate Romulus' destruction (it was still destroyed) and the new, alternate Romulus could also be destroyed down the road.
Just like how CBS let them kill off Janeway in the Litverse as long as they were open to bringing her back (which they later did), I don't see why STO couldn't bring back Romulus as long as the fact remains that it WAS destroyed as part of our past and could be again if they requested it.
Introducing this as your deus ex machina to end the war was the worst possible storyline choice you could have made, Cryptic. I hate everything about it. It was good to watch in Voyager, it's horribly executed in Star Trek Online.
This is assuming that it will be. The entire point of the time ship is that it's own existence is the paradox, and the only way to resove it was to erase it.
Considering Cryptic are Trek fans, I'm sure they know this, and that using the weapon is ultimately futile.
If George and Gracey can be brought back from the past then I say let us restore the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus. But if this temporal manipulation is seen as too dangerous then let us be fully true to the idea and kill George and Gracey before Kirk can bring them back to save Earth. Or are the billions of lives on Earth worth more than the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus? Tell that to the Romulans when you explain to them that their loved ones need to die while Earth was preserved using temporal changes in the timeline. I'm sure they'll understand.
Let's not sacrifice the billions of Romulans and Remans for the false peace of a Romulan Republic today.
Again, Kirk was altering his own relative present. He and nobody with him had experienced a timeline with Earth destroyed.
Nobody from the future influenced Kirk. Kirk did not change the timeline because *there is no timeline where the whaleprobe destroyed earth, it doesn't exist and never did*
If a Romulan had gone back and prevented Romulus' destruction as it was occuring from their perspective, that'd be one thing.
30 years later after all it's effects have actually changed the galaxy is entirely different.
Just a sidebar but I find this interesting.
Because STIV wasn't actually strictly a matter of Kirk going back moments before Starfleet Command was wiped out and bringing back the whales at the exact moment they left.
Starfleet Command was destroyed BEFORE they left and they arrived back BEFORE they left. So they briefly DID experience a timeline where Starfleet Command (Cartwright, Sarek, the Federation President, etc.) was destroyed and they didn't stick around to see how it played out.
Technically, there should also be a duplicate of the Botany Bay and everyone aboard it as well. I've never seen anyone point this out, surprisingly. Because Kirk and crew arrived back with the whales before they left, there should be a second copy of them preparing to leave... who no longer had a reason to leave.
I just pulled up the movie to be sure.
Spock "made a guess" because Scotty could not account for the mass of the whales and water.
I just did the math watching the timer on the movie and they returned with the whales a MINIMUM of two minutes before they engaged warp speed to leave (possibly sooner as cinematic cuts often involve time lapses), passing right by themselves.
Depending on what someone wanted to do, you could ABSOLUTELY explain this away. It would be both reasonable and easy to do so. You COULD ALSO CHOOSE to infer that the versions preparing to leave no longer had to go back or could no longer go back without interacting with themselves from the timeline prior to that. They cannot become the versions of themselves who initially left because the versions coming back came from a slightly different timeline. If they did go back, there would now physically be two versions of them, one from the future branch where they didn't come back with the whales and one where they did and saw themselves come back.
It's the two Marty's paradox from Back to the Future. Where did the Marty who grew up with a successful, confident father go when he left in the deLorean? Once you have two Marty's, you've already bent universal conservation mass once and having fewer than two Marty's at that point is no less a violation of conservation of mass. In fact, having two Marty's isn't a problem since the "end of the movie" Marty came from a "no Marty" timeline which will go on Marty-less forever. But the second Marty (Lone Pine Marty or Marty-Who-Had-A-Confident-Dad) has to go somewhere and it can't be 1955 or he'd run into Twin Pine Marty, who we know is in Lone Pine Marty's past. In fact, my understanding is that Zemeckis is overseeing a comic book which will deal with Lone Pine Marty, what happened to the Jennifer left in the alternate timeline 1985, etc. and he considers this "official Back to the Future canon".
So, really, in Star Trek lore, I think we're left with two possibilities: The 29th Century Temporal Integrity Commission or Temporal Investigations of the 23rd century had to perform a surgical temporal integration to fuse the two versions of the Botany Bay, cleaning up what is effectively a "skip" in the track (but possibly violating multiversal conservation of mass to do so, which should have consequences)... Or they didn't complete the integration and there is a spare copy of the Botany Bay out there. My preferred thought is that they simply had to abduct the second copy and that the 29th century is full of copies of time travelers who couldn't be stitched back into the flow of time properly but who also couldn't be allowed to run around. And that this happens frequently whenever someone arrives before they left after going back in time.
I'm not sure how you interpret it like that. We never see Starfleet Command being destroyed.
We see the window smash (transparent aluminum lols), Cartwright order to get the comms back and Sarek staring out.
When Kirk returns we cut to the same scene with Sarek spotting Kirk's ship.
As far as temporal loops go, this one is pretty tight. While they may have appeared moments before the old Bounty (I assume that's what you mean) departs, there is zero communication between the Bounty and Earth at that point so they have no way of knowing what's going on. Remember it takes a while between the Bounty crashing, the whales being released, and the whales actually talking to the probe before it shuts down.
Whereas the Back to the Future ending is a paradox because Marty changed his own present, therefore the Marty going back in the second loop would have a different experience, Kirk did not change anything, he maintained his present.
Introducing this as your deus ex machina to end the war was the worst possible storyline choice you could have made, Cryptic. I hate everything about it. It was good to watch in Voyager, it's horribly executed in Star Trek Online.
This is assuming that it will be. The entire point of the time ship is that it's own existence is the paradox, and the only way to resove it was to erase it.
Considering Cryptic are Trek fans, I'm sure they know this, and that using the weapon is ultimately futile.
If George and Gracey can be brought back from the past then I say let us restore the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus. But if this temporal manipulation is seen as too dangerous then let us be fully true to the idea and kill George and Gracey before Kirk can bring them back to save Earth. Or are the billions of lives on Earth worth more than the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus? Tell that to the Romulans when you explain to them that their loved ones need to die while Earth was preserved using temporal changes in the timeline. I'm sure they'll understand.
Let's not sacrifice the billions of Romulans and Remans for the false peace of a Romulan Republic today.
Again, Kirk was altering his own relative present. He and nobody with him had experienced a timeline with Earth destroyed.
Nobody from the future influenced Kirk. Kirk did not change the timeline because *there is no timeline where the whaleprobe destroyed earth, it doesn't exist and never did*
If a Romulan had gone back and prevented Romulus' destruction as it was occuring from their perspective, that'd be one thing.
30 years later after all it's effects have actually changed the galaxy is entirely different.
Just a sidebar but I find this interesting.
Because STIV wasn't actually strictly a matter of Kirk going back moments before Starfleet Command was wiped out and bringing back the whales at the exact moment they left.
Starfleet Command was destroyed BEFORE they left and they arrived back BEFORE they left. So they briefly DID experience a timeline where Starfleet Command (Cartwright, Sarek, the Federation President, etc.) was destroyed and they didn't stick around to see how it played out.
Technically, there should also be a duplicate of the Botany Bay and everyone aboard it as well. I've never seen anyone point this out, surprisingly. Because Kirk and crew arrived back with the whales before they left, there should be a second copy of them preparing to leave... who no longer had a reason to leave.
I just pulled up the movie to be sure.
Spock "made a guess" because Scotty could not account for the mass of the whales and water.
I just did the math watching the timer on the movie and they returned with the whales a MINIMUM of two minutes before they engaged warp speed to leave (possibly sooner as cinematic cuts often involve time lapses), passing right by themselves.
Depending on what someone wanted to do, you could ABSOLUTELY explain this away. It would be both reasonable and easy to do so. You COULD ALSO CHOOSE to infer that the versions preparing to leave no longer had to go back or could no longer go back without interacting with themselves from the timeline prior to that. They cannot become the versions of themselves who initially left because the versions coming back came from a slightly different timeline. If they did go back, there would now physically be two versions of them, one from the future branch where they didn't come back with the whales and one where they did and saw themselves come back.
It's the two Marty's paradox from Back to the Future. Where did the Marty who grew up with a successful, confident father go when he left in the deLorean? Once you have two Marty's, you've already bent universal conservation mass once and having fewer than two Marty's at that point is no less a violation of conservation of mass. In fact, having two Marty's isn't a problem since the "end of the movie" Marty came from a "no Marty" timeline which will go on Marty-less forever. But the second Marty (Lone Pine Marty or Marty-Who-Had-A-Confident-Dad) has to go somewhere and it can't be 1955 or he'd run into Twin Pine Marty, who we know is in Lone Pine Marty's past. In fact, my understanding is that Zemeckis is overseeing a comic book which will deal with Lone Pine Marty, what happened to the Jennifer left in the alternate timeline 1985, etc. and he considers this "official Back to the Future canon".
So, really, in Star Trek lore, I think we're left with two possibilities: The 29th Century Temporal Integrity Commission or Temporal Investigations of the 23rd century had to perform a surgical temporal integration to fuse the two versions of the Botany Bay, cleaning up what is effectively a "skip" in the track (but possibly violating multiversal conservation of mass to do so, which should have consequences)... Or they didn't complete the integration and there is a spare copy of the Botany Bay out there. My preferred thought is that they simply had to abduct the second copy and that the 29th century is full of copies of time travelers who couldn't be stitched back into the flow of time properly but who also couldn't be allowed to run around. And that this happens frequently whenever someone arrives before they left after going back in time.
I'm not sure how you interpret it like that. We never see Starfleet Command being destroyed.
We see the window smash (transparent aluminum lols), Cartwright order to get the comms back and Sarek staring out.
When Kirk returns we cut to the same scene with Sarek spotting Kirk's ship.
As far as temporal loops go, this one is pretty tight. While they may have appeared moments before the old Bounty (I assume that's what you mean) departs, there is zero communication between the Bounty and Earth at that point so they have no way of knowing what's going on. Remember it takes a while between the Bounty crashing, the whales being released, and the whales actually talking to the probe before it shuts down.
Whereas the Back to the Future ending is a paradox because Marty changed his own present, therefore the Marty going back in the second loop would have a different experience, Kirk did not change anything, he maintained his present.
By virtue of existing twice, he changed his own present, just not in any way he might notice. It would depend as well on whether the "old" Botany Bay would have detected the Botany Bay we've followed the whole movie hurtling from the sun towards earth. We never see the "old" Botany Bay because they don't want us to think about the two or so minutes where there are two of them and the business with Scotty and Gillian getting stranded delays the release of the whales long enough that the departing Botany Bay wouldn't see the probe leave.
Basically, I am saying that there's no NEED for a paradox from the audience's POV. But you could always tug at the threads of that tapestry to have there be one. Which would get you a second Kirk running around as long as the one we followed never learned about it.
The Federation breaks its own major laws - regular and temporal Prime Directives included - all the time when it suits them. Much of what it does is hypocracy, to fit whatever needs they have at the moment.
The KDF and Romulan Republic are no more innocent in that regard.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
So many lives lost on Romulus and Remus, as well as other inhabited planets and moons, space stations and starbases and ships that were caught in the blast due to the Hobus system explosion.
Darn Adranna wanting to undo all of that!
If she could pull it off, she would. But no matter how much or how long that the Krenims worked on trying to rewrite time to get their desired outcome, it never turned out the way they wanted it to. How the Alliance would think they could do better, I don't know.
There are either two McFlies, even at the beginning of this film, or a wandering stranger passed in front of a take in the distance, during the terrorist shoot Doc Brown scene.
This is a litte off topic but at the end of the film you will see there is the future mcfly. who tries to save Doc before he is shot and he gets there just as doc is shot. however in RL it is probably one of the film crew who walked into camera shot
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
ok so why are we playing with time why not just build a weapon to target the iconions where it hurts the iconions use gateways to pull out of a battle or reinforce their numbers if they start losing so why not develop a technology that can be equipped on any starship so that if a gateway opens or is already opened withing 2 light-years or something of the technology the gateway will collapse and and prevent the iconions from escaping or bringing in reinforcements so we can destroy them.
The interesting thing about this is that would either have caused the JJ-verse to 'go poof!' (I don't think so, there's too many descrepencies even before Nero's appearance to say it was the same reality as what lead to TOS; which would mean the true split off from the TOS was before that event), or it would create a new timeline going in yet another direction depending on just what was altered to bring back Romulus.
The Federation breaks its own major laws - regular and temporal Prime Directives included - all the time when it suits them. Much of what it does is hypocracy, to fit whatever needs they have at the moment.
The KDF and Romulan Republic are no more innocent in that regard.
Tu Quoque is a fallacy. It's also irrelevant in this context. The comment to which you replied with this was directed at an assertion concerning the actions of a Captain of Starfleet being regarded as not hypocritical. But since you made the claim that the Republic is not devoid of hypocrisy, perhaps you can cite an example? I won't bother to ask for one related to the Klingons (for several reasons).
ok so why are we playing with time why not just build a weapon to target the iconions where it hurts the iconions use gateways to pull out of a battle or reinforce their numbers if they start losing so why not develop a technology that can be equipped on any starship so that if a gateway opens or is already opened withing 2 light-years or something of the technology the gateway will collapse and and prevent the iconions from escaping or bringing in reinforcements so we can destroy them.
Because we want to use the gateways ourselves, perhaps? We have rather limited understanding of gateway technology, so messing around with it could result in disastrous consequences, not only for the entire gateway system, but also for any area of space and any planet on which a gateway exists. I'm all for wiping the Iconians out entirely, but when it comes to unintended consequences for other, potentially wholly innocent, species, I'm not getting on board with that.
The Federation breaks its own major laws - regular and temporal Prime Directives included - all the time when it suits them. Much of what it does is hypocracy, to fit whatever needs they have at the moment.
The KDF and Romulan Republic are no more innocent in that regard.
Tu Quoque is a fallacy. It's also irrelevant in this context. The comment to which you replied with this was directed at an assertion concerning the actions of a Captain of Starfleet being regarded as not hypocritical. But since you made the claim that the Republic is not devoid of hypocrisy, perhaps you can cite an example? I won't bother to ask for one related to the Klingons (for several reasons).
ok so why are we playing with time why not just build a weapon to target the iconions where it hurts the iconions use gateways to pull out of a battle or reinforce their numbers if they start losing so why not develop a technology that can be equipped on any starship so that if a gateway opens or is already opened withing 2 light-years or something of the technology the gateway will collapse and and prevent the iconions from escaping or bringing in reinforcements so we can destroy them.
Because we want to use the gateways ourselves, perhaps? We have rather limited understanding of gateway technology, so messing around with it could result in disastrous consequences, not only for the entire gateway system, but also for any area of space and any planet on which a gateway exists. I'm all for wiping the Iconians out entirely, but when it comes to unintended consequences for other, potentially wholly innocent, species, I'm not getting on board with that.
Both the Klingon Intelligence and Section 31 use the same planet to slingshot in time, but there could be some members of the Romulan Republic that would be tempted to use it themselves to try to alter the timeline if they could. Whether they would have succeeded or not is another question.
The Federation breaks its own major laws - regular and temporal Prime Directives included - all the time when it suits them. Much of what it does is hypocracy, to fit whatever needs they have at the moment.
The KDF and Romulan Republic are no more innocent in that regard.
Tu Quoque is a fallacy. It's also irrelevant in this context. The comment to which you replied with this was directed at an assertion concerning the actions of a Captain of Starfleet being regarded as not hypocritical. But since you made the claim that the Republic is not devoid of hypocrisy, perhaps you can cite an example? I won't bother to ask for one related to the Klingons (for several reasons).
ok so why are we playing with time why not just build a weapon to target the iconions where it hurts the iconions use gateways to pull out of a battle or reinforce their numbers if they start losing so why not develop a technology that can be equipped on any starship so that if a gateway opens or is already opened withing 2 light-years or something of the technology the gateway will collapse and and prevent the iconions from escaping or bringing in reinforcements so we can destroy them.
Because we want to use the gateways ourselves, perhaps? We have rather limited understanding of gateway technology, so messing around with it could result in disastrous consequences, not only for the entire gateway system, but also for any area of space and any planet on which a gateway exists. I'm all for wiping the Iconians out entirely, but when it comes to unintended consequences for other, potentially wholly innocent, species, I'm not getting on board with that.
Both the Klingon Intelligence and Section 31 use the same planet to slingshot in time, but there could be some members of the Romulan Republic that would be tempted to use it themselves to try to alter the timeline if they could. Whether they would have succeeded or not is another question.
Okay, and so? Could, would, try, nothing of the sort has yet occurred, so this is not an example of hypocrisy on the part of the Republic, only an hypothetical situation. I asked gradii to cite a concrete example of hypocrisy on the part of the Republic, and I did not ask for a situation in which such hypocrisy could exist (fwiw, gradii and chipg7 are both in my fleets, and as the leader of those fleets, I feel a bit of referee responsibility for their interactions; the post by gradii to which I replied was a reply to chipg7).
The KDF and Romulan Republic are no more innocent in that regard.
The Romulans in general, I've always liked because they don't hide behind their own fallacies. The Federation always hides behind their laws, and amends them or flat out ignores them when they see fit (see President Okeg, for example, saying the Treaty of Algeron 'died' with Romulus, as a cover for yet another Federation breach of it). The Romulans, on the other hand, just go ahead and do, without hiding. They're not always right of course, as political leaders can and will be wrong, but the general Romulan tendency is towards the family and the state they call home - a much stronger personal connection than the Federation's set of 'values' that seem to change when the time fits.
It's also a known element that the Romulans have an ace up their sleeve. I've always thought the cloak to be a sort of symbolism, saying 'yeah we're here, but there's more that only the keen mind is able to find out.' An expert political game, with cloaked intentions.
The Republic is just that much better, in my opinion. D'Tan plays more of an open hand at the moment, mainly because there's so much at stake. Again, caring about the family and the state above all else as he does, his actions have been for the strengthening of the Romulan people post-Hobus and post-Empire. I have yet to see any hypocracy come out of the Republic. Sure, there are some that might disagree with his policies, but hypocracy is another charge altogether - and one largely without ground.
Comments
Yeah, that's a problem. The Republic is definitely a good thing, but it was most definitely borne of a tragedy. There's a lot of bad that's happened over the last few decades, but also a lot of good. As both the Krenim's and the Republic's respective 'time scientists' are finding out, there's no easy answer when you're trying to 'correct' the past while keep things 'good.' It's disruptive, potentially disatrous, and largely subjective as to what should and shouldn't be touched.
Better off not trying, and just making the best of what history brings us as we go along.
Yeah, that's one of the unknowns. The Republic wasn't the first attempt at a break-away state to replace the crumbling Empire, and even without New Romulus there would've been massive change in the long-term. Whether it would've taken a bloody internal war with a higher body count than even Hobus amassed... who knows? The results are entirely unpredictable until a holodeck simulation shows just how badly you screwed up
Due to chaos theory any holodeck simulation could be wildly off course compared to what actually happens.
However, there are two interesting possibilities I hadn't initially considered:
The Other saved the Iconians before. I wonder if The Other will be a better target for the temporal weapon. I had been thinking of using The Other for diplomacy or that they are us or something. But maybe The Other will simply be a cleaner target.
Even if we set time right, does the corrupted timeline cease to exist? Or are we simply off that track? Does anything remain from it? Because if it still exists, it'd be interesting for the Romulan Universe deleted timeline to continue interacting with us the way the Mirror Universe does and maybe they could fight to exist again as, say, a Temporal Cold War faction.
Say we corrupt things. The Romulans who have conquered the quadrant immediately kidnap us and start searching our ship for information. We set things right...
... But by the time we do, the Romulans know what we're planning and have extracted the blueprints for planetary temporal shielding from our ship.
We set things right but Romulus is temporally shielded when we're fixing things. Net result: We fix things but Romulus is still around.
This complicates the fight but as we win the final battle, we succeed in jumping a dyson sphere around the alternate Romulus to contain it.
Net result: The galaxy is up a Romulus but our timeline remains unchanged. Romulus was still destroyed. An alternate Romulus is now in its place. And we have contained it inside a locked Dyson Sphere until we can sort out its place in the quadrant.
What if by Kirk not letting the probe destroy Earth, he set about the destruction of a future that united an even greater United Federation of Planets under the auspices of preserving all life of which human's failed to recognize which sealed the fate of Earth's destruction. This new union of planets might even contain the Klingon and Romulan Empires creating a peace unseen in the galaxy. A catalyst to create a successful Nimbus III if you would, rather than the abomination Starfleet has allowed to continue for generations. A force that could have prevented the destruction of Romulus and Remus. A force that would sweep away any threat the Iconians could pose. All it took was the billions of lives lost on Earth.
If the only reason the Romulan Republic exists because billions had to die on Romulus and Remus than its existence is its own contradiction. Its like making the argument to invade another country and subjugate them costing untold amount of lives to bring freedom to the subjugated few that remain. TRIBBLE that, no ones freedom is worth mass genocide. The Romulan Star Empire was plagued by the Tal Shiar, but it was by far not the only faction trying to set the empire on a path. A new and better Romulan Republic could have been created if the billions had not died on Romulus and Remus.
If George and Gracey can be brought back from the past then I say let us restore the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus. But if this temporal manipulation is seen as too dangerous then let us be fully true to the idea and kill George and Gracey before Kirk can bring them back to save Earth. Or are the billions of lives on Earth worth more than the billions of lives lost on Romulus and Remus? Tell that to the Romulans when you explain to them that their loved ones need to die while Earth was preserved using temporal changes in the timeline. I'm sure they'll understand.
Let's not sacrifice the billions of Romulans and Remans for the false peace of a Romulan Republic today.
In the words of Spock and Kirk on rationalizing killing other's for a false future of peace from the original Star Trek episode 23: A Taste of Armageddon (Definitely an episode everyone should see):
"There is a certain scientific logic about it."-Spock on killing people for peace
"I'm glad you approve."-Anan7
"I do not approve; I understand." -Spock
"I didn't start it, Councilman. But I'm liable to finish it... Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided... We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes."-several quotes from Kirk explaining why sentient life is not doomed to destruction when given the full repercussions of war and given the opportunity to use the sentience to just say, "No we will not kill today."
The Federation breaks its own major laws - regular and temporal Prime Directives included - all the time when it suits them. Much of what it does is hypocracy, to fit whatever needs they have at the moment.
Kirk intervened as it was happening, this is not the same as someone from the future altering the past, Kirk used the past to alter his own relative present.
What in blazes are you blithering on about?
I'll tell you what would've happened without the Federation, the Klingon Empire would've fallen when Praxis exploded, and the Romulans would've overtaken the remnants of both nations.
So all hail our glorious Romulan overlords! Till they get assimilated by the Borg anyway.
Also, are you somehow implying the Federation as is isn't dedicated to the preservation of all life?
This isn't getting into how Earth's potential destruction as presented in ST4 isn't the fault of humans, but rather belligerent, uncaring and/or incompetent aliens that create probes that vandalise their surroundings.
So you think removing the sole catalyst for the creation of the Republic will somehow lead to the Republic being created anyway.
Logic? What's that?
And how is the Republic's existence a contradiction? It is a consequence of a galaxy altering change.
The same way Israel today exists mainly due to the holocaust, and the U.S. Became a dominant power due to world war 2.
I once saw a kid's show where the protagonist's attempt to save the Titanic ends up erasing himself from history, because his grandparents only met due to the aftermath of the sinking.
Even a kid's show understood the negative butterfly effects that can occur even with the noblest of intentions because however tragic the loss of people's lives are, we live in a world forever affected by those events.
Again, Kirk was altering his own relative present. He and nobody with him had experienced a timeline with Earth destroyed.
Nobody from the future influenced Kirk. Kirk did not change the timeline because *there is no timeline where the whaleprobe destroyed earth, it doesn't exist and never did*
If a Romulan had gone back and prevented Romulus' destruction as it was occuring from their perspective, that'd be one thing.
30 years later after all it's effects have actually changed the galaxy is entirely different.
Romulus is dead and gone. Nobody is being killed, they're already dead.
The people of Earth were not dead, they were alive when Kirk left, and this part's important, Kirk returned at the exact moment he left, when the window at Starfleet Command is smashed.
Kirk maintained his timeline in his present.
Or maybe they should simply use the technology to stop the iconians from destroying the one race that created them....
or maybe use it to make sure that the founders had a back up contingency.
Pretty simple....not sure why the romulans would want their original world back when they have a new world and have literally created an alliance with it. oh well......whatever.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
The Republic wouldn't exist, that's for sure. But some other breakaway state would be around.
Things went to hell and back after Shinzon broke the Senate. "The Path to 2409" has Donatra lead her own breakaway state for a bit, for instance. Hobus accelerated the fall of the Empire, but it likely would've happened in due time - or at the very least, massive reform was going to be needed.
<Communication broadcast> Praetor Ji'ana here. Arrest Adranna for questioning according to my order. That is all.
Which is one of the reasons why the "average Joe" of the Republic has no "need to know" a matter classified "Above Top Secret."
(And I'll probably start a campaign that the Litverse be given the same leeway *pffft*)
[ Blog: YOOki Chronicles ]
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"Someone should do a story where a Horta meets a Vorta. And then they find a portal to Vorta-Vor and become immortal. Sorta." ~Christopher L. Bennett
Just a sidebar but I find this interesting.
Because STIV wasn't actually strictly a matter of Kirk going back moments before Starfleet Command was wiped out and bringing back the whales at the exact moment they left.
Starfleet Command was destroyed BEFORE they left and they arrived back BEFORE they left. So they briefly DID experience a timeline where Starfleet Command (Cartwright, Sarek, the Federation President, etc.) was destroyed and they didn't stick around to see how it played out.
Technically, there should also be a duplicate of the Botany Bay and everyone aboard it as well. I've never seen anyone point this out, surprisingly. Because Kirk and crew arrived back with the whales before they left, there should be a second copy of them preparing to leave... who no longer had a reason to leave.
I just pulled up the movie to be sure.
Spock "made a guess" because Scotty could not account for the mass of the whales and water.
I just did the math watching the timer on the movie and they returned with the whales a MINIMUM of two minutes before they engaged warp speed to leave (possibly sooner as cinematic cuts often involve time lapses), passing right by themselves.
Depending on what someone wanted to do, you could ABSOLUTELY explain this away. It would be both reasonable and easy to do so. You COULD ALSO CHOOSE to infer that the versions preparing to leave no longer had to go back or could no longer go back without interacting with themselves from the timeline prior to that. They cannot become the versions of themselves who initially left because the versions coming back came from a slightly different timeline. If they did go back, there would now physically be two versions of them, one from the future branch where they didn't come back with the whales and one where they did and saw themselves come back.
It's the two Marty's paradox from Back to the Future. Where did the Marty who grew up with a successful, confident father go when he left in the deLorean? Once you have two Marty's, you've already bent universal conservation mass once and having fewer than two Marty's at that point is no less a violation of conservation of mass. In fact, having two Marty's isn't a problem since the "end of the movie" Marty came from a "no Marty" timeline which will go on Marty-less forever. But the second Marty (Lone Pine Marty or Marty-Who-Had-A-Confident-Dad) has to go somewhere and it can't be 1955 or he'd run into Twin Pine Marty, who we know is in Lone Pine Marty's past. In fact, my understanding is that Zemeckis is overseeing a comic book which will deal with Lone Pine Marty, what happened to the Jennifer left in the alternate timeline 1985, etc. and he considers this "official Back to the Future canon".
So, really, in Star Trek lore, I think we're left with two possibilities: The 29th Century Temporal Integrity Commission or Temporal Investigations of the 23rd century had to perform a surgical temporal integration to fuse the two versions of the Botany Bay, cleaning up what is effectively a "skip" in the track (but possibly violating multiversal conservation of mass to do so, which should have consequences)... Or they didn't complete the integration and there is a spare copy of the Botany Bay out there. My preferred thought is that they simply had to abduct the second copy and that the 29th century is full of copies of time travelers who couldn't be stitched back into the flow of time properly but who also couldn't be allowed to run around. And that this happens frequently whenever someone arrives before they left after going back in time.
I think we'll prevent the supernova and then un-prevent it.
But it's possible that there could be residual things which get temporally shielded that are leftover from when we prevented it.
We prevent the supernova. Everything is terrible. We make sure the supernova happens... But maybe Romulus is temporally shielded or there's a stowaway aboard our ship... Which means that thing that was temporally shielded comes back WITH us.
So... Romulus is destroyed. We prevent its destruction and cause it again but in the process an alternate Romulus could spontaneously appear in 2410 if they're wise to our attempts to adjust the timeline again.
The net result could be that the timeline is unchanged. Romulus was still destroyed. But an alternate Romulus that was never destroyed now exists where Romulus was destroyed.
I could see CBS signing off on that because it doesn't invalidate Romulus' destruction (it was still destroyed) and the new, alternate Romulus could also be destroyed down the road.
Just like how CBS let them kill off Janeway in the Litverse as long as they were open to bringing her back (which they later did), I don't see why STO couldn't bring back Romulus as long as the fact remains that it WAS destroyed as part of our past and could be again if they requested it.
This is assuming that it will be. The entire point of the time ship is that it's own existence is the paradox, and the only way to resove it was to erase it.
Considering Cryptic are Trek fans, I'm sure they know this, and that using the weapon is ultimately futile.
Or maybe I give them too much credit, who knows.
I'm not sure how you interpret it like that. We never see Starfleet Command being destroyed.
We see the window smash (transparent aluminum lols), Cartwright order to get the comms back and Sarek staring out.
When Kirk returns we cut to the same scene with Sarek spotting Kirk's ship.
As far as temporal loops go, this one is pretty tight. While they may have appeared moments before the old Bounty (I assume that's what you mean) departs, there is zero communication between the Bounty and Earth at that point so they have no way of knowing what's going on. Remember it takes a while between the Bounty crashing, the whales being released, and the whales actually talking to the probe before it shuts down.
Whereas the Back to the Future ending is a paradox because Marty changed his own present, therefore the Marty going back in the second loop would have a different experience, Kirk did not change anything, he maintained his present.
By virtue of existing twice, he changed his own present, just not in any way he might notice. It would depend as well on whether the "old" Botany Bay would have detected the Botany Bay we've followed the whole movie hurtling from the sun towards earth. We never see the "old" Botany Bay because they don't want us to think about the two or so minutes where there are two of them and the business with Scotty and Gillian getting stranded delays the release of the whales long enough that the departing Botany Bay wouldn't see the probe leave.
Basically, I am saying that there's no NEED for a paradox from the audience's POV. But you could always tug at the threads of that tapestry to have there be one. Which would get you a second Kirk running around as long as the one we followed never learned about it.
My character Tsin'xing
The KDF and Romulan Republic are no more innocent in that regard.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Darn Adranna wanting to undo all of that!
If she could pull it off, she would. But no matter how much or how long that the Krenims worked on trying to rewrite time to get their desired outcome, it never turned out the way they wanted it to. How the Alliance would think they could do better, I don't know.
brandedinthe80s.com/14688/back-to-the-future-the-other-marty-mcfly-theorem
There are either two McFlies, even at the beginning of this film, or a wandering stranger passed in front of a take in the distance, during the terrorist shoot Doc Brown scene.
Begin at 2:20 to make sure you see it.
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The interesting thing about this is that would either have caused the JJ-verse to 'go poof!' (I don't think so, there's too many descrepencies even before Nero's appearance to say it was the same reality as what lead to TOS; which would mean the true split off from the TOS was before that event), or it would create a new timeline going in yet another direction depending on just what was altered to bring back Romulus.
Tu Quoque is a fallacy. It's also irrelevant in this context. The comment to which you replied with this was directed at an assertion concerning the actions of a Captain of Starfleet being regarded as not hypocritical. But since you made the claim that the Republic is not devoid of hypocrisy, perhaps you can cite an example? I won't bother to ask for one related to the Klingons (for several reasons).
Because we want to use the gateways ourselves, perhaps? We have rather limited understanding of gateway technology, so messing around with it could result in disastrous consequences, not only for the entire gateway system, but also for any area of space and any planet on which a gateway exists. I'm all for wiping the Iconians out entirely, but when it comes to unintended consequences for other, potentially wholly innocent, species, I'm not getting on board with that.
Both the Klingon Intelligence and Section 31 use the same planet to slingshot in time, but there could be some members of the Romulan Republic that would be tempted to use it themselves to try to alter the timeline if they could. Whether they would have succeeded or not is another question.
Okay, and so? Could, would, try, nothing of the sort has yet occurred, so this is not an example of hypocrisy on the part of the Republic, only an hypothetical situation. I asked gradii to cite a concrete example of hypocrisy on the part of the Republic, and I did not ask for a situation in which such hypocrisy could exist (fwiw, gradii and chipg7 are both in my fleets, and as the leader of those fleets, I feel a bit of referee responsibility for their interactions; the post by gradii to which I replied was a reply to chipg7).
The Romulans in general, I've always liked because they don't hide behind their own fallacies. The Federation always hides behind their laws, and amends them or flat out ignores them when they see fit (see President Okeg, for example, saying the Treaty of Algeron 'died' with Romulus, as a cover for yet another Federation breach of it). The Romulans, on the other hand, just go ahead and do, without hiding. They're not always right of course, as political leaders can and will be wrong, but the general Romulan tendency is towards the family and the state they call home - a much stronger personal connection than the Federation's set of 'values' that seem to change when the time fits.
It's also a known element that the Romulans have an ace up their sleeve. I've always thought the cloak to be a sort of symbolism, saying 'yeah we're here, but there's more that only the keen mind is able to find out.' An expert political game, with cloaked intentions.
The Republic is just that much better, in my opinion. D'Tan plays more of an open hand at the moment, mainly because there's so much at stake. Again, caring about the family and the state above all else as he does, his actions have been for the strengthening of the Romulan people post-Hobus and post-Empire. I have yet to see any hypocracy come out of the Republic. Sure, there are some that might disagree with his policies, but hypocracy is another charge altogether - and one largely without ground.