Okay...during the Dominion War, the Romulans coordinated pretty closely with Starfleet (for their typical behavior, anyhow...). I was wondering if, since Romulan personnel served in exchange positions aboard Federation starships, then could the reverse also have happened?
I can see it happening from a Romulan-to-Federation point of view. After all, a Romulan officer served on the Defiant to monitor the cloaking device, and there were Romulans aboard DS9. The I think the OEP might actually have benefitted further from the war. After all, think about it: A Klingon ship pulls into a Federation outpost needing repairs, and crew replacements, and the only personnel available from the pool are Starfleet officers. Is the Klingon going to a) wait until he can get reinforcements, b) complete repairs and then head back to a Klingon base wasting valuable time, or c) grab a few Starfleet officers to serve along with his group to get back into the battle soonest?
From the Romulan point of view, I know the situation is different. They're much more wary of the Federation (isolationism tends to breed that sort of thing). However, in the sense of giving them a better idea of how Starfleet operates, and perhaps for the personnel shortage problem I just described above, does anybody think this could have happened?
It should be noted that I have designed a character for a Federation/Romulan/Taurhai campaign who is a Starfleet officer, and has served aboard a Romulan vessel as an observer. He actually was involved in a fight with a Taurhai vessel (the Taurhai broke through to Federation territory and made contact, so...) while he was on a Romulan ship, and had to step in for one of the officers. A bit tricky, but it worked. Also got him a Romulan decoration since his actions helped save the ship (minor decoration, but the ship's captain was more like an old-fashioned Romulan of Kirk's time than the modern Romulans you think of).
Is this plausible or...?