In star trek continuity, the battle of Cheron has long been marked as the culmination of the
Earth-Romulan war taking place just before the formation of the united federation of planets.
Hi, Ric here, and this video covers the build-up and battle as told in
the Enterprise sequel book, “To Brave the Storm”. Last time we left off, Starfleet had been forced
back to Earth after a string of defeats at the hands of the Star Empire, undoing their progress
over the past year. Now, on the 5th of May, 2160, the embedded section 31 agent codenamed Lazarus
(that would be Charles Tucker) managed to locate the Warp 7 program that the Romulans
had been working on in the Cheron system. The Star Empire, unknown to Starfleet at the time,
was amassing its vessels in this system, quite some months away from Earth
and has leaking false information on the progress of their warp 7 developments with
the expectation that Starfleet would reposition its defences to intercept high-speed targets.
This indeed was Starfleet’s response which in turn weakened their defensive line, all set for the
Romulans to advance from Cheron into Sol. However, Tucker, using the telepathic link with T’pol
established years earlier by their relationship, managed to brief her on the Star Empire’s plan.
In response, Commodore Archer petitioned Starfleet to amass a pre-emptive strike on
Cheron before the Romulans could get underway and was given the go ahead.
Twenty-four ships, headed by the NX-01 Enterprise under the command of Archer departed for the
remote system and privately Archer voiced the concern that if Trip’s information was wrong, then
he had just taken the majority of Earth’s defences months away from Sol into uncharted territory.
Fortunately, the tip was accurate, although when they closed in on the binary star system
in late July, you wouldn’t have thought it. The fleet of Romulan vessels, numbering some 81 ships
were hidden in the heliosphere overlap of the twin suns, masked by the interference.
Archer goaded the Romulan forces, on a hunch aiming a transmission at this location,
effectively walking into a room of hide and seek and simply shouting
“found you.” Admiral Valdore, thought Archer had indeed detected them, so made a move to attack,
splitting his vessels into two wings and closing from angles on the approaching Starfleet.
Naturally, the first thing the Romulans tried was to see if their hijacking telecapture weapon that
had served them so well in the past still worked. It did not as Starlfeet had made overcoming this
a priority and for 26 minutes, a cyber-battle raged between firewalls and malevolent code.
But then the ships closed in at warp speed. As the Romulan vessels exited warp, they entered the
standard blind spot that is created as sensors readjust for the switch from FTL to sublight,
only to find the Earth fleet gone. The earth fleet had used that time to warp towards Cheron proper,
passing by the Star Empire entirely to put their backs to the planets.
The Romulans immediately doubled back and eventually closed in on Archer’s fleet,
a brief exchange damaging many ships and destroying 4. During this skirmish,
31 more warps signatures were detected but fortunately, it was a small armada of Klingon,
Andorian and Tellarite ships. The Klingons had officially denied to help Starfleet, but
Kolos had amassed his own force of criminals, mercenaries and honour-seeking warriors who
would fight the Star Empire for glory or to replay a debt. As for the Andorian ships? Well obviously
they were being led by Shran who had basically gone AWOL with like-minded captains who were fed
up with Andoria’s refusal to aid Starfleet. Tellar too was offering unofficial aid.
This unexpected arrival caused the Romulans to revaluate their priorities and they disengaged
with the United Earth fleet, now numbering 12 ships to meet the rest of the Coalition.
Now caught in a pincer attack, the Star Empire’s forces were whittled down to 38
operational vessels, including its flagship. It was around this time that the Enterprise
received a data packet from the Romulan flagship, marked with Lazarus’ digital
signature. Cautiously, they opened it to find lines of Romulan code, but it took
them a long time to figure out what they were for. After assuming they were command codes,
Enterprise tried a series of commands to power down the Star Empire vessels, all failed until
they Control Alt Delete’d the Romulan’s antimatter containment system. This caused the fleet to stall
out while three more raptor ships exploded, unable to halt the antimatter cascade. The rest
managed to regain control of their vessels, but it was a handicap further to the Romulan fleet.
However, they managed to reengage Earth’s forces and the next skirmish resulted in six
losses on both sides. By this time, around 30 more warp signatures were detected, 10 of these
were Andorian, not Shran’s renegades, but the actual Imperial Guard, 10 Tellarite and,
surprisingly, 10 Vulcan. The High Command had finally broken is vow of pacifism in order to help
out its allies since ceding itself from active conflict, some four years earlier.
This was too much for the Star Empire and Admiral Valdore, and the remaining vessels yielded the
system, its non-operational warp 7 prototypes included to the Coalition of Planets. This strike
did more than simply defeat the Star Empire in one engagement, it proved that the Romulans had lost
their best weapon, their dividing of the Coalition through fear and misdirection. From the bombing
of Surak’s Katra to instigate a lockdown on Vulcan to the deliberate harrying of Andorian forces that
tried to help humans, all the Star Empire’s divide and conquer tactics went up in smoke when faced by
the combined official fleet of Andorian, Earth, Tellar and Vulcan. And some Klingon vagabonds.
Soon after, the Star Empire opened subspace communications, audio only, with Starfleet and the
Coalition to establish a Neutral Zone between the territories. The Star Empire considered this a win
of sorts, as they intended to continue spying regardless and now had a territorial clause to
hide behind, but nonetheless, it was not enough to save Admiral Valdore. He was assassinated soon
after negotiations began by operatives from the Senate, and so the Star Empire’s own political
power plays continued. They only would remerged from behind their emerald curtain to occasionally
harass other powers, at it wasn’t really until the latter half of the 24th century that they began
what could be considered a renewed campaign into Starfleet territory. But that was curtailed to.
Meanwhile, Vulcan, long absent from the war heavily went in on the mutual defence pact,
as if making up for lost time. It supplied almost all the resources needed to establish the
Coalition side of the Neutral Zone, dismantling many of its warships in full view of the Romulans,
and retooling them as guard posts along the border. This was to make it clear, in no
uncertain terms, that the Coalition intended to preserve the tense peace for as long as possible.
Over the next year, Earth, Alpha Centuri, Andoria, Tellar and Vulcan engaged in intense
discussions about solidifying the Coalition into a more robust and permanent form, to
shield against further threats like the Romulans, establish strong ties of trade and exploration.
On the 12th of August, 2161, the United Federation of Planets charter was signed
by the five worlds making up the four founding species. Archer is present at
the signing of the charter as well as many familiar names from the other member worlds,
and he notes that technically he’s here twice, as Agent Daniels has Archer’s younger self
observing the ceremony in the stands as well. Meanwhile, Tucker was recovered in an escape pod,
and given a false identity where he returned to Vulcan and Section 31 formed the cover story
as explained a prior vid. Starfleet was dissolved as a United Earth organisation,
as was the MACO service and re-established as the Federation Starfleet. Many ships and
individuals were retooled as explorers and a new age of exploration and development began.
Eventually Archer would go on to be elected as Federation President in 2184 but the events
that followed the battle of Cheron are a whole new tale, so we’ll save that for a new video. ¬
Thanks for watching this recap pf the Battle of Cheron the crucible that formed the UFP,
a battle won less by the negotiation of treaties and defence compacts,
and more on the bonds of respect forged by the Enterprise’s exploits and a Starfleet captain.
Thanks again, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you next time for a sci-fi lore video, probably Star Trek,
but I have a few Who stories to get through too. So until then, thanks again, and Goodbye!