The New Romulan War

The **New Romulan War** was the most recent conflict between the Federation and the Romulan Empire, beginning only shortly after the conclusion of the previous, more brief war.

### The Beginning

The peace between the Federation and the Romulans had always been rocky. It was thought that saving one of their ships after an attempt at negotiations went wrong would ease relations, but alas, the desired result never occurred. However, after this attempt at negotiations, the Romulan Ambassador did admit that Geordi La-Forge, who was until this presumed KIA, was actually alive, though he didn't know where in Romulan space La-Forge was being held.
Subsequently, Commander Lucas Williams, first officer of the USS Enterprise, stole the ship to embark on an unauthorized rescue mission for La-Forge. He initially led his crew to believe that the mission was authorized, as they fought their way to the desolate Mustafar Alpha, but it quickly became apparent that this was not the case, as soon as the Inquisitor dropped out of warp, with a Warbird beside it.
Admiral Ash Yevel had taken command of the Inquisitor and attempted to pursue the Enterprise to the Neutral Zone, but was stopped by a Warbird. In an attempt to prevent a war, Yevel agreed to take Williams in and hand him over to Romulan authorities for his act of war, in exchange for the Enterprise being allowed to safely return.
Williams asked to beam over to the Inquisitor to explain, and he revealed his mission to Yevel, as well as that this mission had to be an unauthorized, lone-wolf affair, to prevent the Romulans inciting hostilities. Yevel gave Williams permission to continue his mission, so Williams beamed back to his ship and prepared an away team. However, when they transported down to the Romulan prison station, the defenses were too well-protected, delaying the Starfleet forces long enough so that La-Forge could be beamed up to the Warbird in orbit. Williams and what remained of his away team quickly transported back to the Enterprise, and they managed to get La-Forge back. The two Federation ships subsequently made a mad dash for Federation space, the Warbird pursuing, resulting in a deadly battle over Earth. While the Warbird was destroyed, the Enterprise lost her shields, so the Romulan forces made a failed attempt to take control of the ship.
After this, the Romulans declared war on the Federation, but La-Forge had been rescued.

### The Superweapon

After just a week of waging war, the two fleets traded blows with each other, minor victories and defeats being won and lost, but the Romulans had an idea to decisively cripple the Federation: destroy Earth. However, before their superweapon could be ready, Starfleet Intelligence caught wind of its construction and sent the USS Victorious and USS Inquisitor to Planet Epsilon in Romulan space to destroy the superweapon.
However, there was no superweapon to be found, and during the time it took to mount an assault on Epsilon's planetary installations, more Warbirds stormed in. Realizing this was a setup, the Victorious and Inquisitor turned back as soon as a distress call was received from Earth. The worst nightmare of the Federation had begun - the Romulans were invading their space and attacking Earth.
The Inquisitor and Victorious engaged the Warbirds above Earth, but during this time, they detected a strange energy wave coming from the Azure Nebula. As the energy discharge struck Earth, its molecular structure began to shift - the oceans boiled and the atmosphere burned. With the invasion fleet dealt with and taken care of, Yevel lead the Victorious and Inquisitor to the Azure Nebula to mount a counterattack and try to stop the Romulan superweapon.
However, the Romulans had an ambush waiting for Starfleet - the Warbirds quickly destroyed the Inquisitor, and the Victorious just barely escaped from this second Azure Massacre. As the Victorious returned home, Earth was completely obliterated.

### The Coup

With the failures of the admiralty to prevent such disasters, and barely repelling Romulan forces from their attack on Deep Space 9, Admiral Ash Yevel took the Enterprise on an unauthorized attack into Romulan space, using trilithium warheads to attack the planet, in violation of Tyler's orders.
The USS Cait pursued the Enterprise, and Rear Admiral Charles Kenrick beamed over to attempt to stop Tyler, but he was stunned and locked in the brig, and the Enterprise fled to DS9, announcing the beginning of Yevel's "New Federation Empire". However, it was not to be, as the Cait managed to disable the Enterprise, board the station, and capture Yevel, stripping him of his Starfleet commission.

### The First Victory

Realizing that the superweapon was due to fire again in a matter of days, the rebuilt USS Inquisitor set out for the Azure Nebula. Despite knowing that their cloaking device may malfunction in the nebula, this was their only choice. The Inquisitor did manage to successfully sneak in, past the fleet of Warbirds protecting the facility, and sent a boarding party. However, right as their transporters activated, the cloak failed, revealing the Inquisitor, which quickly came under attack.

The away team had a difficult time fighting past the Romulan guards, but once they did, they were able to trigger the self-destruct sequence. Meanwhile, the Inquisitor was engaged in quick passes and evasive maneuvers, engaging the fleet with fancy tactics as they traded shots. The Inquisitor took several deadly hits as it dropped its shields to bring back the away team, but its lowered shields were less of an issue as it dodged torpedoes and disruptor fire. The Inquisitor quickly fled as the station exploded.

### The Peace Talks

Managing to establish a temporary ceasefire with the Romulans, the Federation prepared for a peace summit at Neutral Space Station Ajax, sending Captain Jean-Luc Picard, one of the Federation's most distinguished diplomats, on the USS Enterprise, to meet with the IRW T'Gala and their Ambassador Tomrok.

Tomrok and Picard had trouble negotiating early on, not only because of his unreasonable demands, but also his discomfort with the number of Starfleet officers on the station and their apparent "snooping". However, despite the best efforts of the Starfleet security officers, Commander Lucas Williams of the Enterprise attacked the peace talks - he badly injured Picard's aide, Commander Liam, and grazed the Ambassador as he, his aide, Picard, and Liam all fled. Williams managed to use a transporter in the maintenance shaft to escape, but not before being seen by Commander Albert Jones.

There was a search aboard the station, but no one was found. However, when the booby-trapped shaft began to explode, Picard ordered a retreat from the station. Liam, who had been healed by a medical officer, and the Romulans were the last to go. Right as they were about to transport, Williams unleashed a flurry of bullets on the Romulan delegation, killing Tomrok's aide and badly injuring Tomrok. To save the peace, Tomrok was quickly put into emergency surgery, and after a tense medical endeavor, was saved. However, as Picard prepared to return his body to the T'Gala, it was Williams who responded, having taken over the ship!

Picard ordered Williams to transport over to the Enterprise, which he refused, and using his intimate knowledge of the ship, targeted disruptors and torpedoes on the Enterprise sickbay, syncing his weapons to the Enterprise shield frequency so they'd pass right through and destroy the Ambassador's body. Williams then retreated, saying "you can't trust those Romulan bastards", as two Warbirds attacked the Enterprise, believing they killed the Ambassador. The Enterprise fled, but hostilities had continued.

Starfleet eventually tracked Williams' Warbird and the Inquisitor followed it to Deep Space 9, but apprehended him and his followers.

### The Final Battle

As Commodore Blackwell pulled together an invasion fleet to end the war at Deep Space 9, he met up with Williams onboard the Enterprise brig, who had claimed to have knowledge obtained during his time away from Starfleet that would aid them. In exchange for his commission, he would win the war for them. Blackwell agreed and conducted a briefing. Subsequently, the Cait, Enterprise, Victorious, and Inquisitor all set out for Romulus.

They were frequently engaged by Romulan defenses, but once they made it to Romulus, they only had to destroy a few space stations, with the Enterprise detaching its drive section during the battle before reconnecting, before they approached Romulan Star Command