They were, but they had been out of contact at that point for nearly a century. This episode sets itself up as a prequel to the TOS episode “balance of terror“
Comment on Annotations for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 4x08: “Orders of Magnitude”
th_in_gs@lemmy.sdf.org 1 week ago
For some reason I had it in my head that the Romulans and their Star Empire was not known to the Federation at this time. I guess that’s not correct?
eurodyne@piefed.world 6 days ago
jalanhenning@startrek.website 1 week ago Right, they fought a war a century ago: Earth-Romulan War.
The first Earth-Romulan encounter was when the NX-01 encountered a Romulan mine in the 22nd century (ENT: “Minefield”). Then Earth (and its allies) fought a war with the Romulans in 2160 which, when it ended, led to the formation of the Federation in 2161.