Question Regarding the Bird of Prey

Was it repo'd? I KNEW they were on a smaller budget in S3, but that is just sad.

 

You guys are great! Thanks for the clarification!

 

Just that, for me, "Bird of Prey" never sounded very Klingon to me. It always felt like it suggested a bird hunting and stalking its kill, waiting for the right moment to strike. IN Trek terms, Romulans creeping up under cloak, then revealing themselves long enough to swoop in for the kill. Klingons, on the other hand, just go in and conquer or blast the shit out of you, so "Battle Cruiser" seemed more appropriate.

But, yeah, with TSFS, the damage was done, and future Trek's ran with it. Klingons didn't get "warbirds" until the Abrams Trek movie. Until then, it was a huge, Next Gen era Romulan ship.

 

AFAIK, no one knows what happened to the model.

 

Some vague points that I don't think have come up are vaguely related:
Some fans (as well as old FASA manuals) also believed the Klingon Bird-of-Prey was a Romulan design being used by Klingons, presumably as part of the battle cruiser/cloaking device deal. Enterprise later gave Klingon's a near-identical bird-of-prey at the end of season 2, about a century earlier.

The similarities in the K and R ships could still be explained by a technological exchange, just bump it back long before Enterprise. Otherwise surely Romulan ships would/should resemble Vulcan ones?

It's always seemed weird to me that Klingons and Romulans both have green ships. With Romulans it makes sense: Romulan blood is green, and they want to appear scary. With Klingons...they want to scare Romulans?

 

Perhaps entirely Romulan designs do. The D'deridex's open center recalls the ringship designs used for the Vulcans in ENT and the aft hulls of the ships from TNG's "Unification". Don't forget, the Romulan cruiser in "Balance of Terror" looks as it does because, according to the script, it was based on UFP designs, essentially a saucer section with warp nacelles attached.

 

To be sure, Klingon ships in TOS always played sneaky and dirty tricks. There was no "simple blasting" in any of the episodes, really.

In "Errand of Mercy", our introduction to the Klingon species sounds very much like an attack by a cloak-capable Bird of Prey: an enemy appears from nowhere, completely surprises our heroes despite them being on war alert, and launches a volley of torpedoes which all score perfect hits. The Enterprise shrugs off the hits, responds with a phaser blast, and the enemy is immediately dust.

Whenever Klingon Warbirds (sorry, battle cruisers) confront our heroes, they either yield ("Trouble with Tribbles", TOS-R "Friday's Child", "Time Trap"), or rely on saboteurs ("Elaan of Troyius") or strange superweapons ("More Tribbles, More Troubles") or superior numbers (TOS-R "Errand of Mercy", STXI simulation). Gorkon's flagship in ST6 is a rare exception to the rule, a bravely acting single Warbird...

Klingon ships also all tend to look like birds (wings, neck, head), while the original Romulan one did not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

So, in TUC, should the Klingons have been flying pink ships? That would have made an impression!

 

Koloth would have loved it.

 

Wasn't there also a rumor that Wah Chang purposely damaged it because he was paid less than he felt proper for the work?

 

I thought the old wives' tale was that little Rod threw the model into a swimming pool.

 

I have heard two different versions of why the original Romulan ship never appeared again:
1) it got broken, and the budget wouldn't allow for repair.
2) Gene hated it, thought it looked bad on screen, and would not allow its use again (possibly had it destroyed).
It's all speculation: take your pick.

Which episodes were those?
AFAIK, the Romulans only appeared in Balance of Terror and Enterprise Incident. TOS-R decided to make one of the ships in the latter into the ship from BoT, but in the Original Series I believe that ship appeared only in that episode.

 

^^ Stock footage of the Romulan BoP was reused in "The Deadly Years" when Commodore Stocker took the Enterprise across the Neutral Zone and the Romulans objected.

 

Yeah, I know that it isn't true. That's why I called it an old wives' tale.

It still gets repeated quite frequently, so I thought I would throw it out there.