The Klingon cruisers

[EJA]

We've all seen the Klingon battlecruisers from ST XI, and while they do closely resemble the D7 types from the prime reality TOS era, they are significantly different in a number of ways, e.g. slightly greater weapons capacity, hull details, etc. My question is, how well do these (more advanced?) vessels fit within the Klingon lineage? Are we supposed to believe that the Klingons also derived advanced tech from the Narada (which would contradict the Nero comic book mini)?

 

[DonIago]

Given the cruisers only appear in a simulation, and past versions of the simulation tended to make the cruisers overpowered, it might not be a good idea to use what we see to make assumptions about things like weapons capacity.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I don't think there's a problem at all. The Klingon Warbirds look to me like a more heavily armed variant of the D7/K'tinga class. I think it's possible this class "always existed" (if you know what I mean) and we just never saw it until now. Remember the Klingons have been using the D7/K'tinga for 200 years by the time of DS9 - they're bound to have put out some slightly different models along the way.

I have no idea if they made it bigger or not, but remember that TNG made the Bird of Prey much bigger so it'd look good next to the Enterprise-D.

 

[EJA]

There were some sketches done of the new Klingon cruisers in the movie, in the "Art of" book. Can someone post them so we can better compare them to the TOS design?

 

[Timo]

I'd say the STXI ships fit smoothly within the range of D7 variants we have seen so far: the TMP ship was a D7 as well, at least according to VOY "Prophecy". So, a range of D7 designs, with some built to special specs, some carrying special weapons, some upgraded a little, others upgraded a lot... Then no doubt a similar range of D5 ships, of which we saw two variants in ENT, and a range of D12 ships which might be the Birds of Prey if we believe ST:GEN.

The STXI ships might be slightly newer or older than the D7s we saw in TOS. Or then they could be ships refitted with special weapons or sensors that necessitate the new "winglets" or "optical rangefinders" on the conning tower, and perhaps with extra fuel tanks bolted onto the neck to create those "spinal vertebrae"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

There's just one tiny pic of the CG model, and one concept sketch. More space is devoted to old unused Star Trek: Enterprise Klingon concepts.

I'm sure I saw a scan somewhere on www.ex-astris-scientia.com. I don't know if it's still up. Just don't believe any of the specs you read there!

It's literally a more heavily armoured and detailed D7, with a meatier neck and 4 forward-facing BoP-style disruptor banks. The windows look tiny, which means they may have made it bigger.

 

[Timo]

We get a size estimate of sorts because these ships are swarming around the Kobayashi Maru which in turn seems to be built around engines and saucers familiar from the rest of that movie's Starfleet. All we then have to do is decide how big those Starfleet ships are...

...Which, as we well know, is not a trivial question nor likely to be settled without phasers at dawn.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Leathco]

Why wouldn't Klingon tech increase their tech like the Federation did after their first encounter with Nero? They were in an arms race. If Fed increased funding to war based tech due to Neros first incursion (thereby giving us Nu-Enterprises massive size and power increase) wouldn't the Klingons do the same to guarentee they wouldn't be trounced against the Federation?

 

[EJA]

^Very likely.

 

[M'Sharak]

There were some sketches done of the new Klingon cruisers in the movie, in the "Art of" book. Can someone post them so we can better compare them to the TOS design?

I'd recommend against doing that. We had a number of images from the book posted last year and Bonz had to remove them all after receiving a complaint from the publisher. We'd like to avoid a repeat, as you might imagine.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

They just look like more detailed, souped-up versions of the same D-Whatever that Trek's been using since the second year of TOS. There's no reason not to assume that they're the same ship.