Starfleet Procurement Policy Draft

[Saturn0660]

Yeah, and for the Enterprise I'd say they didn't have the opportunity to charge their phasers with warp power before Khan disabled their energizers, then Scotty made it possible to slowly (and it did take a while if I remember correctly) charge the phasers with battery power for a few low-powered shots.

Ya, something like that i would guess.. I get the feeling Scotty was doing whatever it took just get a few shots out from what charge they did get.

 

[Nob Akimoto]

More "other" powers. This time the Romulans.

Romulan Star Empire
Emerging from half a decade of internal strife the Romulan Star Empire and its Imperial Fleet remains the third largest interstellar state in known space. The Romulan fleet posses roughly 18% of the known total warship tonnage, dwarfed only by the Federation Starfleet (27%) and Klingon Defense Force (22%). As the largest fleet in the Typhon Pact, the Romulan Imperial Fleet remains the benchmark for Starfleet and KDF threat simulations.

The Romulan Star Empire operates a command economy featuring a hub and spoke system of sector governments. Advanced industrial capacity is focused on or around hub worlds, while spoke worlds operate as resource or agricultural centers. As a result of this specialization between star systems and worlds, most hub worlds lack self-sufficiency, depending on surrounding worlds or even sectors for key materials. Major hubs of manufacturing or agriculture in Romulan space are Romulus, Artraleirh, Abraxas V, and Archernar Prime. Examples of spoke worlds include Nequencia, Virinat, and Terix II.

The Romulan Senate is responsible for approving budget allocations to the Imperial Fleet, although in practice this has become a formality after the year's production and fleet strength goals are set by the Continuing Committee in consultation with the War Plans Council. Romulan fleet strength requirements are based on intelligence provided by the Tal'Shiar and Military Intelligence. The results can often lead to byzantine maneuvers within the Romulan Senate, as both sides have substantial reason to mislead the Continuing Committee on budget priorities. In general, however, the Romulan Imperial Fleet receives about twenty starships for every one ship allocated for Tal'Shiar use.

Romulan military service is restricted by caste. While commoners and client species can serve as members of the ground forces and auxiliary roles, frontline combat roles within the Imperial Fleet are limited to the landed Romulan elite. Praetor Narviat's reforms opening military service to all adult Romulans in the Empire was quickly abandoned after his assassination. As a consequence, the Imperial Fleet has a smaller pool of manpower available for its crew needs than Starfleet or KDF. This relative shortage of manpower has been the primary motivation for the Romulan emphasis on stealth tactics, remote combat drones, and superiority in individual ship designs.

Romulan starship designs tend to be comparatively larger than their counterparts from other powers. Hull configurations emphasize weapon lines of sight and warp maneuverability over sublight agility and overall warp geometry. The extensive use of exotic quantum singular based warp drive systems require wider nacelle placement and greater volume spent on internal shielding. However, the energy distribution systems using quantum singularity cores are substantially more efficient even within large internal volumes. This allows Romulan starships to have much larger internal volumes than comparable matter/anti-matter reactor core designs.

Warbird construction uses large load-bearing external hulls that are sub-divided by thick internal bulkheads and armored compartments. The heavy compartmentalization and internal wall structures allow greater insulation of power systems, keeping power signatures hidden even without an active cloaking device. Outer hulls are made of a tritanium nano-crystalline ceramic composites, while inner hulls use higher density duranium-trititanium alloy organized as inner pressure hulls. The combination provides high amounts of stealth on outer hull segments and survivability of internal sections.

While Romulan ships are no better armored than comparable Klingon designs, the likelihood of catastrophic power core failure is substantially lower. Paradoxically, Starfleet Intelligence believes part of the purpose of this higher survivability is to provide Romulan ship captains with sufficient time to activate auto-destruct systems, rather than to increase the survival chances of the crew. Information gathered during Dominion War joint operations suggests the widespread use of self destruct charges by crippled Romulan ships. Post war analysis estimates that nearly a quarter of Romulan hull losses during the war were the result of deliberate scuttling rather than catastrophic damage.

Romulan Ship Classifications

• Warbird - The primary classification for all front-line ships of the line. Current Romulan fleet doctrine restricts this classification to line combatants equipped with a minimum of Class VII output offensive and defensive systems. Sub-classifications exist for Warbirds based on fleet role such as command, assault, and guardian.
• Bird of Prey - Support combatant used in reconnaissance and escort roles. Sub-classifications exist based on fleet role.

 

[Praetor]

Wonderful, although I might be a bit biased! Seems perfectly accurate for the Romulans. It might be interesting to do a bit of speculation about the evolution of Romulan power sources while you're at it.

 

[Nob Akimoto]

Working on the next section, a write-up mostly about power generation systems.

 

[WildKazoo]

This is great stuff. Has this discussion moved elsewhere? Or is this a dead topic? Sad if so.

 

[Unicron]

It's pretty much dead now, I'm afraid. Welcome to the board!

 

[DEWLine]

Definitely a topic worth revisiting, though. Especially since we've added the California class ships to the historical mix. The oldest of them seem to have come online around the same time as the Ambassadors.

 

[Redshirt214]

I thought the California class was a contemporary of the Galaxy, launched round about Wolf 359? At the earliest I could see them existing, in a radically different form, is as contemporaries of the Springfield or Cheyenne based on the long thin nacelle shapes. I'd consider the Springfield & Ceyenne to be 2350s ships, alongside some of the later Ambassador class ships (which by then would be a ten year old design refit after the loss of the Enterprise-C).

Going off purely ascetics, though, I'd have thought the California class were contemporaries of the Akira class, from the Dominion war period. They have a style that seems to owe more to the ships first seen in First Contact than anything else, which to me suggests a Dominion War era launch date. Even the Cerritos' old, faulty equipment seems to be TNG vintage at the oldest, and mid-late TNG at that!

 

[DEWLine]

The California-class incarnations of Robidoux and Solvang had registry numbers in the 12### range, close to the Ambassador (NCC-10521) and Horatio (NCC-10532).

Mr. McMahon's been saying that the California class have been around "forever", right?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I thought the California class was a contemporary of the Galaxy

I thought the California Class was a Post Dominion War design?