Romulan Ship Variety

[Arpy]

I hadn't, no... I don't play STO. It's a nice image, but isn't it just a fleshed out version of the Gorn ship from the remastered "Arena" (which you had previously linked to above)?

Yes, it is. I've never seen it so fleshed-out, or other ships in the style before, though, and wanted to document it here for those interested. If you ever see any, say, fan created images in the Gorn style you linked please let me know.

 

[Arpy]

Nah, Romulans have them beat. We've never properly seen a Gorn ship. One was not originally shown in "Arena" to set an identity, and this one from the remastered TOS is the only one we really have to go on.

I remember this being the first one I ever saw (in the Star Trek: The Official Fanclub magazine ages ago), but I kinda doubted its officialness then too.

Kinda off-topic, but is there Gorn ship you like?

Even more Gorn ship variety, this time from the hardback graphic novel The Corn Crisis:
Gorn Cruiser
Gorn Fast Attack Craft
Gorn Troop Transport

I like these because there are distinctly different configurations for them all, closer to Federation ship diversity and unlike the common T-shape that is, for example, nearly all Prime Klingon ships before DSC.

 

[Ithekro]

Back before TNG, and the only Romulan ship was the TOS Bird of Prey (and the hint that the ST3 Klingon Bird of Prey might have been a Romulan design) FASA took both and ran with it to provide of lot of Romulans designs. Some rather unique. Some would even fit in with the later TNG style designs and the ENT era designs. More so than the Starfleet Battles designs, which are only based on he TOS Bird of Prey.

 

[Timo]

...While the Gorn are all across the map here, the Jim Martin design depicted on the first page of the thread would make for a fine Romulan vessel. Just color her green and the D'deridex-like contours are in evidence well enough. Probably not a warship, but something calling for a higher internal volume vs. engine size ratio.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

Infamously, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey was originally going to be a Romulan ship, but I don't know when in the design process the switch was made. Is the model entirely Romulan with a different name? It's pretty different from the K't'inga we saw in TMP... (I think I argued against.)

Nilo Rodis designed the ship to be Romulan. It was only after the completion of the model that the script was changed to Klingons stealing the ship from the Romulans, to finally just having the ship be Klingon. However, I once remarked that if they'd painted over the original green/red paintjob with blue, it would have resembled the D7s from TOS and the K'T'ingas from TMP a lot more:

https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/1423/images/80023_1.jpg

The Romulan ship we see on ENTERPRISE is what a ST II:TWOK era Romulan BoP should look like.

Well, except for the nacelles, which are straight off of the Jem'Hadar ships, only green.

 

[Timo]

Well, yes, Nilo Rodis designed a Klingon ship, no matter what his intentions. In TOS, it was the Klingons who actually put wings and necks to their ships; Romulans just painted them on.

It can be debated who exactly has the bird fetish in the Trek universe. Is it the Klingons, who model their ships after cranes or swans? The Romulans, who aspire to the same but with just the cost of paint? Or the Vulcans, who assign names like "warbird" to the designs? But associating flying things with birds is a no-brainer, and common enough a call in scifi design and nomenclature.

Timo Saloniemi