Why did it need to be "Birth of the Federation?"

[Nerys Myk]

But how many nations were in United Earth? When the United Nations was first formed it was 51 countries, not all.

All of them

CRUSHER: Well, think about Earth. What if one of the old nation states, say Australia, had decided not to join the World Government in twenty one fifty? Would that have disqualified us as a Federation member?

 

[Nerys Myk]

And it's where it is because?

How would a defensive strategy by Earth place the war's treaty line just outside the Romulan home star system?

Is there a scale to show how far Romulus is from the Neutral Zone? Its just a dot on a map Could be the Neutral Zone is where The RSE's border was before the war.

 

[HotRod]

And it's where it is because?

Hell if I know. It's never been stated in canon.

How would a defensive strategy by Earth place the war's treaty line just outside the Romulan home star system?

For all we know, it was a pre-existing border line. The treaty that ended the war could have stipulated that the Romulans return to their pre-war territory.

How would a defensive collection of Earth's technological second rate starships accomplish this? Against a military force commanded by Vulcans in all but name, using starship technology that was centuries old.

Something doesn't need to be a first rate piece of equipment to still be deadly.

Yes, the NX Class was their fastest ship. Yes, there were very few of them. But that doesn't mean a bunch of warp 4 ships armed with Phase Cannons and Photonic Torpedos can't put up a fight.

Hell, they showed exactly that when they had a group of inferior Earth ships scare off a Bird of Prey. Never mind what Earth could have done when presented with full-scale war. It'd be a pretty safe bet that after the Xindi attack they started building up their military capabilities. By the time the Romulan War broke out they could've had a pretty good sized fleet.

As for the technological abilities of the Romulans, regardless of how long they've been a spacefaring species, for whatever reasons they've never been shown to be much more advanced than Earth.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I've always assumed that Earth's allies were involved (The Coalition of Planets) So Earth has access to Andorian, Vulcan and Tellerite technology.

 

[Dukhat]

Trotting this out...(emphasis mine)

SPOCK: Referring to the map on your screens, you will note beyond the moving position of our vessel, a line of Earth outpost stations. Constructed on asteroids, they monitor the Neutral Zone established by treaty after the Earth-Romulan conflict a century ago. As you may recall from your histories, this conflict was fought by our standards today, with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives. Nor was there even ship-to-ship visual communication. Therefore, no human, Romulan, or ally has ever seen the other. Earth believes the Romulans to be warlike, cruel, treacherous, and only the Romulans know what they think of Earth. The treaty, set by sub-space radio, established this Neutral Zone, entry into which by either side, would constitute an act of war. The treaty has been unbroken since that time, Captain.

It's unclear whether Spock is referring to allies of Earth, allies of Romulus, or both. I'm assuming he just meant allies of Earth. Also, I never got the impression that the war reached either Earth or Romulus, but rather was just fought in deep space.

That's one of the things that always annoyed me about ENT. Because it was produced by the same people that produced VOY, everything looked far more advanced than what Spock described, since the production values were straight out of the previous show.

 

[Nerys Myk]

since the production values were straight out of the previous show.

Huh? I think the production values should be. Or did you mean the production design?

 

[HotRod]

Just going back to the question on the border of Romulan space, if we go by the map seen in SNW....

It appears the Romulan Star Empire basically pushed as far to the "west" and "south" as they could before bumping into denser and more populated regions of space.