Border Patrol
A StarFleet Battles™ Campaign
2013 Border Patrol Campaign Tournament
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Notes on Romulans
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Players familiar with the StarFleet Universe (SFU) timeline, specifically during the General War, which is when Border Patrol is set, know that the Romulans did not enter the War until after Y171. Depite the best efforts of the Klingons, the Romulan government did not formally commit to the General War until Y173.
The presence of the Romulans in Border Patrol is based on the assumption that, even prior to formal Romulan involvement, individual (and scheming) Praetors sponsored unofficial "observer" missions with their Klingon "friends" (generally assumed to mean the Klingons who bribed the Praetors). Romulan ships were then dispatched to Klingon Space in "gestures of solidarity" or on "non-combat fact-finding missions". As with all such diplomatic dodges, the orders to the Romulan captains were frequently very different.
In the Y171-172 timeframe that marks the start of Border Patrol, the Klingons were selling the War to the Romulans very hard indeed, and internal political forces in the Romulan Empire were pushing in the same direction. The concept of Romulan ships contrived to be in harm's way, firing in "self-defense", and the inevitable casualties, would have provided the Praetors with ample pretext to justify the bribes.