Romulan TOS / TMP starships

[Wingsley]

During "The Enterprise Incident", we learned that "Intelligence reports Romulans now using Klingon design". Many over the years have asserted that this means that there was some kind of alliance formed between the Klingons and the Romulans. (I wondered if maybe the Klingons simply outsourced their ship-building and there was some deal where the ship-builders, some thing party, were simply contracted by the Romulans to begin fabricating Klingon ships, or at least, shells, for Romulan use.)

But we never got to see Kirk, the Enterprise, or any other Federation ship or installation tangle with the Romulans during the TMP era, or the final days of TOS.

So what would a Klingon-designed starship, flying a Romulan flag, look like to differentiate it from its Klingon cousins? Have fans ever made any artwork to speculate how they would be visually distinctive?

 

[Nightowl1701]

Most fans seem to agree that the Romulans would've spray-painted their Bird of Prey markings on the main hulls of the Klingon ships (some blue, others orange) and gone from there.
The Klingon-Romulan alliance didn't seem to last long at any rate, and by the TFF/TUC era the Romulans would be rapidly pumping out the first starships starting in the green bird-like direction that would lead to the D'Deridex class.

 

[trynda1701]

Most fans seem to agree that the Romulans would've spray-painted their Bird of Prey markings on the main hulls of the Klingon ships (some blue, others orange) and gone from there.

Something like this do you mean...

Citadel (FASA) Klingon D-7 Class Cruiser and Romulan V-11Stormbird Class Cruiser

A close up shot of the D-7, because as we all know it's just that damn cool a design for a starship!

And in the interests of fairness, a close up shot on the V-11 Stormbird, because it looks cool in Romulan colours as well!

A couple of my gaming minis from the FASA Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator game.

 

[Albertese]

I like your Warhammer 40K Imperial Aquilla decal. Works well for a Romulan.

--Alex

 

[trynda1701]

I like your Warhammer 40K Imperial Aquilla decal. Works well for a Romulan.

Well spotted, Alex. It does, doesn't it? I've used it on a couple of my Romulan minis.

Mark

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I knew that bird looked familiar, but then I didn't play 40K, just worked in a hobby shop.

 

[trynda1701]

I didn't play 40K

I've never either, I just saw the decal blisters in my local gaming store years ago, and got a whole bunch of them. I used various red skull decals on my SFB Orion Pirates minis, for example.

 

[Wingsley]

Somehow, just painting a Klingon ship a different color (or colors) doesn't seem like enough. Are we assuming that both the Romulan and the Klingon versions of the ship have identical equipment, or would there be significant divergences?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Somehow, just painting a Klingon ship a different color (or colors) doesn't seem like enough. Are we assuming that both the Romulan and the Klingon versions of the ship have identical equipment, or would there be significant divergences?

One of those two races are the ones that built the ship, so probably 90% the same. They both used disruptors IIRC. But the Klingons used photon torpedoes vs. the Romulan plasma torpedo. Those likely utilized different systems.

Different cloaking systems, maybe different powerplants.

 

[Nightowl1701]

If Scotty was able to retrofit the Romulan cloaking device into the Enterprise's power plant, Romulan scientists should have been able to do the same with the Klingon power plant without much modification at all. In fact, the power plant would probably have been improved on in the process.

The plasma torpedo - now that's a good question. Access to a better engine means you can recharge quicker, get off a shot faster before recloaking, maybe even be able to fire two torpedoes at a time. You certainly wouldn't need that giant torpedo barrel at the end of your ship, any more than the original BOP did. Covering that up and leaving two tiny blood-red or navy-blue (as opposed to Klingon orange) openings would warn anyone paying attention that it wasn't a Klingon ship as well.

 

[Wingsley]

I don't recall anything in canon that said anything other than "Romulans now using Klingon design".

I never recall anyone saying who constructed the ships for either the Klingons or the Romulans. For all we know, these "Klingon design" ships could have all been built by a third party, with internal systems installed by the eventual owners after the fact. How else would the Romulans arrive at adopting a Klingon design in the first place? What reason would the Klingons have to give, or even to sell, fully functional starships-of-the-line to Romulans? Given what we know of the Klingon Empire, such a unilateral move would surely invite a coup. It also doesn't make sense for the Romulans to enter into such an arrangement. Why use someone else's ships?

Instead, consider this: the Klingons recognized that the continued R&D and ship-building would have to compete with multiple powers in the Galaxy. Why not partner with another power (Romulans) to increase the available pool of R&D resources and personnel and agree with the other power that the new ships will be fabricated by a third party? If the Klingons and Romulans agreed on a neutral (or mutually friendly) non-aligned planet, far removed from Federation space, both the Klingons and the Romulans would benefit. Using a third party world would likely be the means to facilitate this joint venture in the first place.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Or, just as likely, the Klingons were having a clearance sale. The K'Tinga class was just around the corner, and the Romulans (for whom the tiny, under-powered BOP may well have been the best they had at the time) were desperate for ships advanced enough to keep up with the Federation. So, instead of the scrapyard, the oldest and most broken-down vessels in the Klingon fleet (including D-7s unsuitable for refitting into K'Tingas, assuming those weren't an entirely new build to begin with) were sold to the Romulans at bargain basement prices. The Romulans would waste years trying to reverse-engineer anything useful while working feverishly to keep their clunkers going, the Federation would suddenly find itself with two real threats on two fronts, and the Klingons get more resources to build up their fleet plus a cloaking device.

And if the Romulans were unhappy with the deal once they'd taken their 'new' ships for a spin, and demanded a refund? Well... they were welcome to try and get one.

 

[Avro Arrow]

So what would a Klingon-designed starship, flying a Romulan flag, look like to differentiate it from its Klingon cousins? Have fans ever made any artwork to speculate how they would be visually distinctive?

This seems like an odd question to me, since we saw the ships in question in that episode, and there was literally nothing that visually distinguished them from the Klingon version.

OTOH, there's this. So I guess the Romulans eventually decided to change the decals and paint parts of the command pod yellow.

I would suspect, much as Nightowl1701 posted above, that the Klingons just sold off older ships that they no longer needed (or they just needed the money more). Therefore I wouldn't really expect them to look different, other than cosmetic changes on the hull. (I believe selling old naval ships to other navies has RL precedent, too.)

IIRC, part of the FASA material stated that the Romulans eventually changed the warp engines, so they had a version with different nacelles.

 

[trynda1701]

Somehow, just painting a Klingon ship a different color (or colors) doesn't seem like enough. Are we assuming that both the Romulan and the Klingon versions of the ship have identical equipment, or would there be significant divergences?

Or, just as likely, the Klingons were having a clearance sale.

To answer both the above quotes, here's a transcript from the FASA Romulan Ship Recognition Manual...

From the FASA Star Trek ROMULAN SHIP RECOGNITION MANUAL, circa 1985
V-11 (Stormbird) Class VII - X Cruiser
Known Sphere Of Operation: Empire-wide use
Data Reliability: A
Major Data Source: Klingon version in Star Fleet possession; Klingon Sector Intelligence

Because of the Romulan-Klingon technological exchange treaties, the Klingons agreed to exchange their D-7A Class cruisers for Romulan plasma weapons and several old-style cloaking devices. These vessels, delivered Stardate 2/09, 2/12, and 2/17 became the V-11 Class.
The 80 vessels in the initial shipment were stripped of their weapons, but the Klingon engines were retained to form the Type 1. The 42 in the second shipment were delivered without engines, shields, or weapons; these were fitted as the Type 2 with a plasma weapon and more efficient shielding. The 50 vessels in the final shipment also were delivered completely stripped, and these were fitted as the Type 5, with fore and aft-mounted photon torpedoes reminiscent of the Klingon D- 7M Class. Types 3 and 4 are modified Type 1s.
Although 172 of these ships have entered Romulan service, they are not liked by their commanders or crews, many of whom consider them to be enemy vessels. In recent years, the Romulans have begun deploying many of the approximately 160 remaining in active service along the Klingon borders in direct violation of the signed accords. The class is named for the vas'kalabam (bird of storms), a small, flying predator of Remus. These nocturnal avians are often seen gliding on the rising winds before a storm and it is said they are capable of traveling hundreds of miles in the vanguard of a storm.

...to show how FASA reconciled the Romulans having the Klingon D-7 design, something dictated by a simple production decision made by the Star Trek producers back in the 60's. If I remember correctly, they couldn't find the original Bird of Prey miniature from "Balance of Terror", and had just built the D-7 filming miniature for the third season.

Ironically, when CBS remastered this episode, they replaced one of the three D-7s surrounding the Enterprise with an original Bird of Prey!

IIRC, part of the FASA material stated that the Romulans eventually changed the warp engines, so they had a version with different nacelles.

That's right.

 

[MadMan1701A]

I tried to bridge the gap with this one...

It was my attempt meld the Romulan D7, BOP, and the later Warbirds. Man, it doesn't feel like 7 years ago!

-Ricky

 

[trynda1701]

Very nice!

 

[MGagen]

What if the line about "now using Klingon design" meant something else: We know from the original script of Balance of Terror that there was a suspicion of espionage on the part of the Romulans. Some say the design similarities between the Enterprise and the Bird of Prey was meant to suggest this. (I have wondered if there isn't a Starfleet vessel with the same configuration as the Romulan ship, only with a more Enterprise-shaped components.)

So here's the question: what if the similarity of the later Romulan TOS ships was also espionage-related, not due to a treaty or sharing of technology? They look like Klingon ships, but maybe the relationship was more like the U.S. Space Shuttle vs. the Soviet Buran...? I like this idea better. I could never credit that the Klingons would just sell another militaristic species their ships.

M.

 

[Nightowl1701]

What if the line about "now using Klingon design" meant something else: We know from the original script of Balance of Terror that there was a suspicion of espionage on the part of the Romulans. Some say the design similarities between the Enterprise and the Bird of Prey was meant to suggest this. (I have wondered if there isn't a Starfleet vessel with the same configuration as the Romulan ship, only with a more Enterprise-shaped components.)

I'm pretty sure we're about to meet that ship (the USS Franklin) in this summer's 'Beyond.'

No way the Klingons would have stood for the Romulans ripping off their ship design, however. That would've brought the dogs of war smashing down on Romulus in no time flat, with no Organians in the way this time.

 

[Wingsley]

^ Somehow, I doubt the Klingons would go to war with the Romulans if the new ships were simply copycats or otherwise rip-offs. They might be flattered more than angered.

 

[trynda1701]

So here's the question: what if the similarity of the later Romulan TOS ships was also espionage-related, not due to a treaty or sharing of technology? They look like Klingon ships, but maybe the relationship was more like the U.S. Space Shuttle vs. the Soviet Buran...? I like this idea better. I could never credit that the Klingons would just sell another militaristic species their ships.

That's an interesting alternative take on things! I still go with the FASA version, but I still like your idea. The Star Fleet Battles variation is along the lines of the FASA backstory, older ships sold then outfitted with Romulan technology (plasma weapons, cloak), but they came up with it before FASA.