Star Trek: All Good Things - Reality Vs Fiction

What Happened In The Episode: All Good Things does predict the fall of the Romulan Empire, though not quite in the way that the franchise would decide to depict. In this episode, the Empire falls to the Klingons, which in turn leads to the abolition of the Romulan Neutral Zone and the dissolution of the Treaty of Algeron.

This allows Admiral Riker to draft the Enterprise-D into service, fully equipping her with a cloaking device. No such agreement existed between Starfleet and the Klingon Empire, effectively lifting any restrictions on cloaking technology.

What Really Happened: In Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek: Picard, the Romulan Sun goes supernova, destroying Romulus, Remus and the rest of their system. That has the knock-on effect of devastating the Empire, as their economy and infrastructure never allowed for a rescue effort of that magnitude. In All Good Things, there is no reference at all to the Supernova.

Predicting supernovae themselves is not an easy task. According to Kate Scholberg's paper SNEWS: The SuperNova Early Warning System, it was entirely possible that the Romulan star simply hadn't exploded by the events of All Good Things, although Starfleet technology seemed to have advanced beyond the current early warning systems. In Star Trek: Picard, there are years of warnings before the star explodes. In Star Trek 2009, the nova seems to take everyone by surprise when it does finally occur.

The only thing that seems to be certain in Star Trek's future is that, for one reason or another, the Romulan Star Empire will fall. Considering they were originally meant to be early victims of the Borg, it seems that their number has always been up!