I was completely floored when I watched the ending to a fabulous episode 1 of Star Trek Picard. It forced me to go online and research and develop a fictional timeline of events that could lead to an explanation of the intersection of the Borg and the Romulans and share with other Trekkies.
I also wanted to consider alternative story lines to explore as I progress in playing STO and developing fan fiction for the Star Trek Wiki that is over 54000 pages and growing. There is a detailed and descriptive world of all quadrants with the crews of the Enterprise, Voyager, and the Defiant living on in the imagination of Star Trek Fan Fiction writers.
Where should a historical account, although fictional start? Well, right at the beginning….
THE FOREVER VIOLATED PRIME DIRECTIVE
Violation of the prime directive—General Order One. The Prime Directive dictated that no Starfleet personnel knowingly interferes with the natural progression of pre-warp civilizations. No sharing of technology before ready because it can be warped or perverted.
But through out the entire historical history of the Star Trek series and all of its iterations, the Federation would violate it over and over again either directly or indirectly. Many wars fought with races that either had no knowledge of the directive or really didn’t care. These beings sought only to rule, restore order absolutely, by any means necessary.
The exploration of space initially was to learn and was specifically for scientific discovery. But the inadvertent effects caused by First Contact with civilizations with their own priorities and needs resulted in the inadvertent and premature Intersection of several violent races as they sought to preserve their own civilizations at all costs. But it never could take in consideration and be broad enough to have exception and when technology is eventually stolen as has been the case with the Borg and Romulans. Scientific discovery of anomalies and molecules revealed tremendous power that was eventually perverted. The power was used in an effort to propagate their races and civilizations but eventually destroying them, their worlds, and their very existence. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Violent Races and Technology Peversion
—Iconians Iconian Survival, Iconian, Gateways
-Borg-Borg Incursion of 2366-2367 and the Omega Particle
-Romulans
-Dominion, restoration of Order
—Synthetic Revolt Synthetics Attack on Utopia Planetia, machine consciousness
The Iconians were a master race that harnessed the power of the Gateways to travel throughout the galaxies and to communicate with each other. However, when they sought to subjugate other populations they began to be seen as the enemy and a war was raged against them. One of the last of the survivors of the Iconians was Kanda Jiak, who sought to take the Gem or Heart as it was referred to in Vulcan mythology, an artifact that opened and controlled a singular Gateway, to safety, but after entering the gateway, she was instead transported to Vulcan, where she died and the stone passed to the Vulcan race for a while. In 2368, the Vulcan archaeologist T’Sara rediscovered the Heart. This resulted in a deadly race among the races that had held the stone before to posses the Heart and the powers that the Heart possessed again.
In 2409, Cube 19721 found and analyzed artifacts of Species 29 (Iconians) and studied them under the project name “Iconia“, searching for Omega. The ship recovered Iconian artifacts in the T’liss system. An accident occurred, which removed the command center of the cube and a sphere of the space surrounding it. 19721 was rendered inert but inadvertently reactivated by scavenging Romulans.
Secundus of Borg’s previous identity was that of Colonel Hakeev, an officer for the Romulan Tal Shiar. He and the eventual Praetor, Taris thought the return of the Iconians to power would usher in a new era for the Romulan Empire. In 2410, an Alpha Quadrant Alliance away team led by Commander Tiaru Jarok beamed down to a former Tal Shiar data center she knew form her time on Romulus, to find out why the temporal incursion by the Annorax resulted in the disastrous assimilation of the Romulan Star Empire by the Borg Collective. Who would eventually be killed and the assimilation of the Romulan civilization would be placed on hold. This back and forth between freedom and assimilatiom would wax and wane for a millennia as allegiances with the Romulans changed, and as both teetered on the edge of extinction.
HOBUS SUPERNOVA
In an alternative storyline, Spock and Captain Picard petition the Vulcans to assist in the evacuation of the Romulan home world, but they would say no. And their research into Red Matter may have been stolen by the Romulans as they attempted to contact the extinct Iconians which probably led to the Star going supernova earlier.
The two former Starfleet officers decide to take things into their own hands and ask Geordi La Forge to bring the recently launched experimental starship Jellyfish to Vulcan so that Spock can use it to deliver red matter to the Hobus star to create a black hole to negate its effects.
On Romulus, the Senate finally authorizes an evacuation order, and ships are recalled to help ferry Romulus residents off-world. The military estimated that it will take six weeks to evacuate the planet, but unfortunately, a mere twenty-seven hours later, the Hobus star goes supernova. The resulting chain reaction destroys Romulus and Remus and billions of Romulans are killed.
Starfleet immediately orders all available ships to cross the Neutral Zone and assist the Romulan survivors. Several of these ships are attacked by Nero, a Romulan captain in command of a heavily modified mining vessel, the Narada. Additional cruisers are subsequently diverted to escort relief vessels in Romulan space. But Nero blames the Federation and the Vulcans for the destruction of the Romulan homeworld and Empire and wages a singular war on all allies. After Nero expands his attacks to Klingon ships, Chancellor Martok, of the Klingon high command, orders a fleet to enter Romulan space. He appoints his friend Worf, of TNG and DS9, as one of the mission’s commanders, making him a General for the mission. I hope this storyline will get Worf at least a Cameo in the Picard series.
On Stardate 64471.6, in an alternate storyline, the USS Enterprise-E observes the Hobus supernova being contained by a limited singularity, ending the threat to the quadrant.
Starfleet believes that both the Jellyfish and the Narada were also lost to the singularity. Nero just shows up in another dimension wrecking havoc on the unsuspecting United Federation of Planets in an alternate story line.
Romulan History and Geography After the Hobus SuperNova
The Rator system was part of the Romulan Star Empire since before 2151. (ST reference: Star Charts) Rator III was a colony and home to only one major city, Nova Roma. Starfleet Intelligence believed there were at least three major military bases on the planet. Rator Prime’s surface was largely covered by a continuous landmass, broken up by lakes and seas of various sizes. The continent itself was covered by a dense forest. (STO – “Romulan Mystery” mission: “Preemptive Strike”) In 2388, after the destruction of Romulus, the leaders of Rator III attempted to proclaim themselves the new capital of the Romulan Star Empire. The planet’s leadership council calling themselves the new Romulan Senate. Other worlds made similar claims, challenging the leaders of Rator III. In 2391 saw Rator III become the first planet whose people claimed Admiral Taris to be the Romulan leader, after a military victory of Taris’s in the Zeta Pictoris system. The admiral attempted to convince Romulan colony world leaders to come to Rator III in order to build a new government and capital.
In 2392, construction began for a new capital city, Rihan, and plans for the new government were formed but slowed by fighting among the Romulans. (STO novel: The Needs of the Many)
By 2409, the capital was known as Nova Roma and the seat of Empress Sela. The Tal Shiar kept a fleet of starships in the vicinity and protected the planet with turret emplacements.
Sela, Tasha Yar’s daughter, coordinated an attack on Vulcan. When Starfleet learned of plans to attack Vulcan with subspace weapons, Starfleet dispatched a team, led by Lieutenant Tess to destroy the weapon caches, and a fleet to destroy the Romulan assault fleet. Another Federation starship’s away team rescued Tess’s team when it was captured by the Romulans and completed the mission before joining the Federation fleet, led by the Jupiter-class dreadnought USS San Jose. A battle ensued at Rator IV between the Romulan fleet and its flagship, the IRW Decius. The Decius was the flagship of Operation: Khelian, a planned attack by the Romulan Star Empire against the Federation. The fleet was intercepted by a Starfleet task force led by the USS San Jose and was destroyed.
I AM LOCUTUS
The initial Borg Incursion of 2366-2367 was their first attempt to assimilate the United Federation of Planets. The incursion was instigated by a single Borg cube which left a trail of destruction on its way to its primary target, Earth. Reflecting on the events, Guinan told Picard that humanity’s contact with the Borg came before it should have. Picard, however, believed that Q did “the right thing for the wrong reason“; by bringing humanity into contact, Starfleet could become aware of a new threat and prepare for it. Again Q, and the Continuum cared nothing for the necessity to follow the Prime Directive. During the incursion Captain Jean-Luc Picard was assimilated and transformed into the Borg speaker Locutus. Eventually Locutus would be rescued and the Borg Threat to the Alpha Quadrant would be held off only for a short period of time.
The Dominion when Peace is Not An Option
The initial attack from the Dominion had provoked the Federation Alliance to put together a task force which planned to enter the Gamma Quadrant and meet an expected Dominion force head on. Fortunately Taran’atar, a Jem’ Hadar fighter, was able to explain the situation and the plan was called off. Taran’atar informed the allies that the Dominion intended to remain within its borders for the time being and that the Alpha Quadrant races were welcome to explore the Gamma Quadrant. (DS9 – Avatar novels: Book One, Book Two)
In an alternative storyline, in the Alpha Quadrant another small force of rogue Jem’Hadar refused to accept the treaty and had not returned to the Gamma Quadrant with the rest of the Dominion’s forces. A Starfleet task force led by the USS Enterprise-E and the USS Jupiter destroyed several Jem’Hadar vessels still operating in the Barisa system. The Borg never went any where. Because around the same time the Borg assimilated or destroyed several other Jem’Hadar vessels and facilities in the quadrant, including a Dominion cloning facility which they used to clone Jean-Luc Picard to make a new version of Locutus. (TNG video game: Armada)
With destruction of the Romulan home world rebuilding continued to stall with infighting with the surviving factions and predatory assaults by other civilizations cause an unstable situation only to worsen. The Klingons and Nausicaans were causing more instability in the quadrant with further incursions no peaceful solution in sight.
The Romulan colony worlds are starting to develop a loose network of alliances and rivalries, but none of the potential Romulan leaders had been able to unify the worlds under one banner. Left to their own devices, some of the worlds are looking to find allies outside the Romulan Star Empire. On Stardate 67620.54, the Romulan colony of Talvath formally requests Federation protection and offers to open talks that could lead to Talvath applying for Federation membership. Some see this as the first step to the dissolution of the Romulan Star Empire.
A bright spot for the Romulans has been Admiral Taris, who has been organizing the remaining ships into a new fleet. In areas with holes in the chains of command, Taris has been approaching each ship captain personally, and outside observers expect her to have the Romulan military fully operational within seven months. Federation analysts warn that a strong fleet could quickly overwhelm the weak leaders of the colony worlds, and that the Romulans may soon be under military control. For her part, Taris has not publically expressed an interest in governing the civilian population, and has ordered the forces under her control to concentrate on relief efforts and defense of the border regions.
Starfleet Command reluctantly agrees to pull back from the Klingon-Romulan border and reassign those ships to patrol the shipping routes. Leaders of some of the Romulan colony worlds howl with indignation that the Federation has broken promises of protection, but those voices are silenced after a sharp rebuke from Admiral Taris. “We are Romulan. We fight our own battles. I would rather see Romulans die with pride in their hearts and swords in their hands instead of mewing for protection like scared younglings.”
The Romulan Colonial Organization Committee continues the work of forming a new Romulan government. Several legislative sessions are interrupted by arguments between General Taris and General Tebok about what the role of the Romulan military should be. But what is obvious they not only had to protect themselves they had no natural resources, no power source, no technology. But then by happenstance a rogue Borg scout ship makes contact with destitute command. The Borg has their own problems. The Queen has been murdered, there had been a revolt lead by a former Borg drone Hugh(TNG), and a prolonged war with the Federation has left the Borg scattered and in disarray. They need a leader and have to find a way to exist in a balance of machine and consciousness. The Federation is wary of Synthetics and more so since the attack of the rogue band on the Utopia Planetia Shipyard at Mars. But the Romulans at the brink of extinction is ripe for a deal. I am sure there was an offer of sharing of resources and cooperation instead of assimilation was born, but treachery and the need for vengeance will undoubtedly pollute these allegiance between warriors. And at that Romulan base in the depths of the Beta Quadrant the first Romulan Reclamation Site was born.
Knowing the backstory of how all of these civilizations; Iconians, Romulans, Borg, Dominion, Synthetics intersected and how Picard played a major role in the conflicts and eventual resolution was important for me to understand the particular story line in the new Star Trek Picard Series.
The second episode of Picard, Maps and legends has dropped thi morning and I will be watching and posting on my breaks tomorrow! I hope you guys will enjoy it as much as I will enjoy commenting on it!
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