Emblem of the Romulan Star Empire.
The Tomed Incident was a horrific act of terrorism in 2311 that cost many thousands of Federation lives. History records that Romulan Admiral Aventeer Vokar, an extremist in the Romulan Imperial Fleet, ordered his ship, the Tomed, abandoned by all but six of the crew. From there, Vokar and his cohorts set course for the Foxtrot Sector in Federation space. Upon reaching their destination, the ship impacted with an asteroid base, and its quantum singularity drive caused a massive explosion due to the fact that singularity contianment was lost whilst the warp feild was still active, disrupting space-time throughout the sector and wiping out dozens of asteroid bases and at least one starship, the USS Agamemnon. Thousands of lives were lost, with only the USS Enterprise-B escaping destruction. Vokar apparently commited this heinous act in the hopes of prompting a war between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire due to his long-standing Romulan chauvinism and imperialistic stances. The Tomed Incident nearly accomplished Vokar's goal before the Klingon Empire, previously neutral, sided with Federation forces, thus prompting the Imperial Fleet to retreat from the border.
Shortly after the Tomed Incident, the Romulan Star Empire forced the Federation to sign a revised Treaty of Algeron that banned cloaking technology within the UFP in return for the Star Empire's agreement to withdraw into its borders and to recall all of its diplomatic missions and citizens, effectively isolating them on the astropolitical scene. (TLE: Serpents Among the Ruins).
Serpents Among the Ruins
- In reality, Vokar did not cause the Tomed Incident, and only the lives of the six Romulans were lost. Capt. John Harriman and Starfleet Intelligence operatives Elias Vaughn and Drysi Gravenor of the UFP stowed aboard the Tomed and tricked most of the crew into abandoning ship. From there, they hijacked the Tomed, ramming it into the Foxtrot Sector asteroid base -- a base that had, like the Agamemnon and the other asteroid bases, been previously emptied of all crew but equiped with special devices designed to emit artificial lifesigns. The deaths of thousands of Starfleet officers from across the Federation had, in the previous years, been covered up, and those officers were then recorded has having all transferred to the Foxtrot bases and to the Agamemnon, completing the fabrication. The Starfleet operatives escaped to the Enterprise, but Vokar and his crew were killed.