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welfconfed

An Empire Divided?

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I would argue that Shinzon ceased to be Praetor at the time the Romulan fleet turned against him. He still had effective command of the Scimitar, and possibly the rest of the Remans, but that was it. As Data said, the Praetor's power has always been the Romulan fleet. When that power base was lost, so was his control over the Empire. To argue that he was still Praetor while under fire from Romulan guns is ridiculous. If the Romulan government still considered him to be Praetor then why weren't the crew and commander of the Romulan ships charged with treason? As Donatra said, "We consider this a matter of internal security for the Empire. We regret you've become involved." or words to that effect.

 

Perhaps, but they didn't 'turn' til after the 'blood on our hands' conversation. I never suggested that he was the Praetor after the attack began, only that when the conversation was taking place the Empire hadn't turned on Shinzon or elected Tal'Aura. However, technically it could be argued that because of the nature of his obtaining his title, ie slaughteing the Romulan senate, he was never REALLY the Praetor at all.

 

With the loss of the Scimitar and Shinzon, would the Remans have enough to stand up to the rest of the Empire militarily? Probably not. The Remans lost their most powerful weapon. The Romulans lost two ships (that could still be repaired) and a room full of politicians. You might be right that their motivation to coming to the Enterprise's aid was to prevent the dishonorable destruction of Earth, but you can also bet that keeping the Romulan Empire for the Romulans entered into their calculation.

 

I couldn't agree more. Shinzon was a threat to the Empire, but I doubt that he could have made it back to Romulus. If he had murdered Earth, Starfleet and the Imperial fleet would both be looking for him. (My bet would be on Starfleet getting him first.)

 

The Romulan government - what was left of it after the coup anyway - knew Shinzon had this weapon of mass destruction. The fleet commanders wanted him to use it. In fact they were frustrated that he wasn't using it fast enough. Do you really think they would be surprised to learn that Shinzon was going after Earth? They knew all along that was the plan. They also knew that his weapon was genocidal. WMDs aren't exactly surgical strike weapons. They knew that any use of the weapon would mean the obliteration of a planet. That was fine, as long as they trusted Shinzon. When they stoped trusting him they had to eliminate him because they just might be next on his list.

 

I would have to rewatch the movie, but I'm not sure that the nature of the attack was spelled out, didn't it come as a surprise to the romulans that he was not going to use the conventional fleet? (That may have been in one of the deleted scenes)

I agree that self preservation colored Com. Suran thinking, but Donatra seemed to be sincere.

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