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Just rewatched "In the Pale Moonlight" and I noticed something. Sisko's plan wasn't as secret as we thought. He stated at least twice that he was operating under approval of some sort from Starfleet. This means that people in Starfleet and the Federation know. And knowing how governments work I bet there was paperwork to this.

What happens if the events of "In the Pale Moonlight" came to light a few months after Nemesis? What if these events were known just a couple years after the war?

It might have actually come out before Nemesis, explaining why relationships were suddenly freezing again and why the romulan military was at first so eager to support Shinzon's rise to power and his plans to irradiate Earth. Romulans also unlike the Cardassians retained a functioning secret service and since T'Pel surely wasn't the only one, still deep cover agents within the Federation who might have figured that out.

Doesn't really matter. In 8 years the Romulans will get blown up and then sucked into oblivion. The more I think about it, the Romulans have really shitty luck there in the end.

Well, if that comes out with evidences, that may provoke trouble with the Vulcans. And the Federation would suddendly lost a member and find a Romulan enclave in one of its previous strongholds.

Sisko doesn't mention Federation involvement, only that "Starfleet Command had given the plan their blessing".

Couldn't the Starfleet people who approved of this simply be declared by the Federation to be acting without any higher approval?

Well, their was the release of a fugitive from a Klingon prison, that same fugitive's attempt at killing Quark and the cover up involved for that, which includes Quark, Odo, the Dabo girl, any patrons present, and security officers who were at the crime scene and Doctor Bashir who healed Quark. There's the materials being made by Bashir(again) to obtain the Cardassian data rod, whatever Romulan officials noted the dead Senator's gap in flight plan before it exploded, and any paper pushers in Starfleet who have a record of this.

That's a lot of people, not all of them willing to keep a secret.

The Vreenak Affair was something I always thought was going to come back to bite Sisko in the ass during the second half of Season 6 or even during the Final Chapter. It seemed like they were setting it up for the excrement to eventually hit the oscillator.

The closest to a follow up was the novel Hollow Men from a few years back.

IIRC -- and it's been a couple of years since I read it, so may be wrong -- Starfleet approved of the plan to trick Vreenak, but they didn't know the full extent.

Sisko, who's still struggling with his guilt and is ready to turn himself in - comes clean with Admiral Ross, whose response is, "So?"

As he points out, they need the Romulans to win the war and they sure as hell weren't going to tell them or persecute Sisko for his role.

Baffalo wrote:Doesn't really matter. In 8 years the Romulans will get blown up and then sucked into oblivion. The more I think about it, the Romulans have really shitty luck there in the end.

There's no reason to assume that's the end of the Romulan Empire, only their home system was destroyed; catastrophe yes, oblivion no. Remember Kronos was fucked by Praxis and in TNG they were back at the top table. This is more severe, but no reason to assume that thirty years later a new Romulan Senate won't be ruling a powerful empire from Romii instead of Romulus.

As I recall from various novels, the Romulan Empire is designed to be politically controlled from Romulus, so the loss of that planet would seriously destabilize the Empire and could allow various factions the time they need to break away.

so the loss of that planet would seriously destabilize the Empire and could allow various factions the time they need to break away.

Also from the film there was no time for an evacuation of the population or industry base as there was with Kronos so a few billion Romulans died with Romulous whereas the Feds helped pay for a 50 odd year evacuation plan for the Klingons.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:As I recall from various novels...

...Remus was a garden world.

It really depends what novels you pick, no?

Darth Tanner wrote:

so the loss of that planet would seriously destabilize the Empire and could allow various factions the time they need to break away.

Also from the film there was no time for an evacuation of the population or industry base as there was with Kronos so a few billion Romulans died with Romulous whereas the Feds helped pay for a 50 odd year evacuation plan for the Klingons.

The energy wave would have killed a lot of them and made industrial evacuation pretty much a non-issue though.