Warbird/Bird of Prey Thingy

[Photon]

Can someone provide some type of timeline about Romulan/Kligon ships and what they titled.

Romulans had Birds of Prey from the ENT through TOS then suddenly they became Warbirds and Kligons adopted the Bird of Prey moniker.
I would have been happy w/just a misquote by Styles and keeping the Romulan ships Warbirds but somewhere there was switch in titles.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Klingon:

D-5 Class Battlecruiser (22nd Century)
Raptor Class Battlecruiser (22nd century)
D-7 Class Battlecruiser (Early 23rd+ Century)
K't'inga Class Battlecruiser (Late 23rd+ Century)
Bird of Prey (22nd+ Centuries)
Vor'Cha Class Battlecruiser (24th+ Centuries)
Negh'Var Class Battlecruiser (24th+ Centuries

 

[Locutus of Bored]

On ancient Vulcan one of the factions in the war (never stated directly but clearly what became the exiled Romulans) were called "those who march beneath the Raptor's wings" (in a reference to the Romulan flag) so Romulans were using avian symbolism way back before they were even Romulans.

The Klingons had a small ship during the Enterprise-era called a Raptor. They were also using a Bird of Prey at the time (well, it looked like an early BoP, but I don't recall it ever being specifically referred to as one). There was also the mention of Archer averting an attack by a "fleet of Warbirds" by his actions in 'Broken Bow,' so the Klingons had Warbirds then too.

The Romulans were using small ships called Warbirds during the Enterprise-era, and their drone ships were modified from the manned Warbirds. They also had a 22nd century ship with the distinctive Bird of Prey styling on its hull as described by Stiles in 'Balance of Terror' (though it was etched into the hull rather then painted on as he said). Though they were never explicitly called Birds of Prey, the name came from his description. The ones during the Romulan War had birds of prey painted on the hulls.

The Romulans had ships with the painted on Bird of Prey during the 23rd century as well.

During the middle of TOS, the Romulans and Klingons likely had a tech exchange where the Romulans received Klingon battlecruisers and the Klingons (possibly) received cloaking devices, though this was never stated. You could have originally said that the Klingons got their avian symbolism here, but not after the earlier ships showed up on Enterprise.

The Klingon ships were always referred to by alpha-numeric designations or as battlecruisers during the 23rd century, up until 'ST:III' when Kruge had a ship specifically called a Bird of Prey (the first time the actual name was used). The initial plan had been for this to be a Romulan ship that was stolen by Kruge (hence the name and the avian pattern on the wings) but that was eventually dropped from the film and no mention of the Romulan connection was ever made. Regardless, later series established that Klingons used the avian theme long before that anyway.

With the exception of the already existing Birds of Prey, no Klingon ships of the 24th century had avian designations (that we know of, the Klingon names may be avian), but some had bird-like wings.

The Romulan ships of the 24th century all had the bird-like patterns on their wings and the two largest types of ship were both called Warbirds. There's no mention of a Romulan Bird of Prey in this era.

So, you could say that Klingons and Romulans evolved their own avian based designations and symbolism (since that's a fairly common theme) and that the Federation universal translators just translate it into only a few different recognizable names like Warbird, Bird of Prey, and Raptor.

Or you could say that the Romulans and Klingons knew of each other and had been exchanging technology for centuries, hence the similar design styles and designations.

 

[Forbin]

In TOS, Romulans first had what we call the classic Bird of Prey. It was not called that in the show, the phrase comes from Stiles saying "they had a giant bird of prey painted on them."

Then the Romulnas had Klingon style battlecruisers. They were not referred to as anything except "Klingon ships" on screen.

Likewise when we saw Klingon battlecrusiers in TOS, they were only called "Klingon ships" or battlecruisers. No class name. The term "D-7" comes from an off camera ad lib when Shatner and Nimoy were kidding around. Fandom adopted the designation.

In The Motion Picture we got updated Battlecrusiers. I don't think they were called K'Tingas on screen. Another fan appellation that stuck?

Then in Star Trek III we're introduced to the Klingon Bird of Prey. Now, here's the thing: It was SUPPOSED to be Romulan at first. Commander Kruge was supposed to have stolen a Romulan ship to use the cloaking ability for his mission. But the film dropped the whole Romulan angle for time savings, and they decided to just say it was a Klingon ship from the beginning. Thus began decades of Klingon Birds of Prey, almost on a whim.

During the run of TNG and DS9, we saw many different sizes of BoPs. We heard the larger type called "K'Vort" in Yesterday's Enterprize. I'm not sure where the smaller ones were called "B'Rel" class, if at all. They were probably referred to as Birds of Prey throughout, but the only time I recall hearing it specifcally was in Trek VI.

When TNG decided they needed bigger Romulan ships to threaten the E-D, they devised the giant "Warbirds." These should be the only ships correctly referred to as such.

When Enterprise premiered, we had all this history established for them to draw on. Yet Enterprise had writers whose heads were firmly retracted up their asses and locked. So right off the bat we heard someone refer to Klingon ships as "Warbirds." This was a very careless mistake. Let us just assume Soval was a Vulcan idiot and got it wrong.

The first time we saw a Klingon ship in ENT, even though the art department had been designing a retro battlecruiser, the assholic producers told them to just use the advanced K'Tinga from the movies, 200 years before it was supposed to exist.

After that, ENT introduced a few different good retro Klingon designs, including one that looked like a BoP.

So:
Technically the only thing we should be calling a Warbird is the giant Romulan cruiser from TNG and DS9. The first BoP was the Romulan in Balance of Terror. From then on, all the little Klingon ships were called BoPs. Generally, all the larger Klingon ships are called battlecruisers.

 

[Forbin]

Heh. Intersting. One of us went for in-universe history, one of went for real-world production history.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Almost the same length too.

Nice unintentional teamwork.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Forbin said:
The first time we saw a Klingon ship in ENT, even though the art department had been designing a retro battlecruiser, the assholic producers told them to just use the advanced K'Tinga from the movies, 200 years before it was supposed to exist.

The K't'inga was never used on ENT. They had a number of retro style BOPs.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Babaganoosh said:

Forbin said:
The first time we saw a Klingon ship in ENT, even though the art department had been designing a retro battlecruiser, the assholic producers told them to just use the advanced K'Tinga from the movies, 200 years before it was supposed to exist.

The K't'inga was never used on ENT. They had a number of retro style BOPs.

Yes it was. In 'Unexpected.' It wasn't called a K't'inga, but it clearly used that model.



This battle cruiser was a very much-'unexpected' reuse of the K't'inga-class model, used at the behest of the production staff, despite the series being set over 100 years before this Klingon ship class made its first appearance.

John Eaves and the rest of the team, understandably exhausted after the Enterprise pilot, were asked to do yet another design at the last minute. Eaves did, labeling it a D4 class, but the producers said that "its windows weren't prominent enough", a fact Eaves was very unhappy with. Due to time constraints, they ended up reusing the battle cruiser model that was built for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and had previously appeared in another discontinuity in VOY: "Prophecy", as a D7 class battle cruiser.

As Rob Bonchune recalled the situation, "The only other original design that was also chopped (that I remember now) was the John Eaves Klingon D-4 that I included in my calendar image for 2006. It was originally done for free for Star Trek: Enterprise by Koji Kuramura, who stayed up 36 hours to do it for the show. It looked great, but then the "producer(s)" said, "put more windows on it". We said "no" (you have to understand that we did so much extra, that at that point it was the straw that broke the camels back when they were being mindlessly trivial and unappreciative). So, in their infinite wisdom, they choose to use a low-resolution K't'inga model (from a timeline over 100 years later) we had lying around. Because that was much more logical than a ship that needed 10 more windows that no one would ever notice!"

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Vorok%27s_battle_cruiser

Here's what they originally planned to use and call a D4:

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Locutus of Bored said:

Babaganoosh said:

Forbin said:
The first time we saw a Klingon ship in ENT, even though the art department had been designing a retro battlecruiser, the assholic producers told them to just use the advanced K'Tinga from the movies, 200 years before it was supposed to exist.

The K't'inga was never used on ENT. They had a number of retro style BOPs.

Yes it was. In 'Unexpected.'

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Unexpected

Ah but it still looks familiar to a D-5 so technically it could still be a D-5 just with more detail.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Fire said:
Ah but it still looks familiar to a D-5 so technically it could still be a D-5 just with more detail.

Nope, this is a D5:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/D5_class



Personally, I just call the ship in 'Unexpected' a really early experimental D6 (that was on Pimp My Starship apparently), leave the concept art shown a few posts up as the D4, and then the TOS version is the D7 and K't'inga. But that's not official in any way, and really stretches Klingon production out quite a bit.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Locutus of Bored said:

Fire said:
Ah but it still looks familiar to a D-5 so technically it could still be a D-5 just with more detail.

Nope, this is a D5:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/D5_class

Are they sure thats a D-5, looks more like a Raptor class to me, a whole different ship.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

No, the Raptor Class was similar in shape but smaller. This ship was identified as a D5 by name.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Raptor_class

 

[All Seeing Eye]

My head hurts.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Yeah, no kidding. Klingon bastards.

 

[Son_of_Soong]

Glad I was born in the Federation, not the Klingon empire.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Photon said:
somewhere there was switch in titles.

You can blame the suits during STIII. Originally it was supposed to be Romulans, not Klingons. The suits thought no one would know who the Roms were, so they changed it to Klingons, but no one bothered changing the ship.

 

[captcalhoun]

i choose to believe the reference to a Klingon 'Raptor' was a mistranslation of 'Bird of Prey' and that all Romulan ships are generically called 'Warbird'

 

[Maurice]

A beaker full of death said:
You can blame the suits during STIII. Originally it was supposed to be Romulans, not Klingons. The suits thought no one would know who the Roms were, so they changed it to Klingons, but no one bothered changing the ship.

The suits being Nimoy and Bennett...

 

[Therin of Andor]

A beaker full of death said:
The suits thought no one would know who the Roms were, so they changed it to Klingons

The problem was, they were searching for Spock (a serene, logical Vulcan), and we meet a new version of Saavik (who appears to be logical Vulcan), and we re-meet - from TOS - Sarek (a serene, logical Vulcan). Then suddenly, all these unfriendly, emotional Vulcan-like beings turn up to prevent Kirk from rescuing Spock's body! Renegade Vulcans who aren't logical?

Way too confusing for the shorthand needed by a sequel film being watched by the general public, so turning the aliens into Klingons was easy. However, the scriptwriters did leave a line in the script that Kruge had stolen a Romulan bird of prey - complete with its cloaking device. The line was cut for time.

In any case, the Romulans used Klingon vessels in Season Three of TOS, and in TAS. They probably swapped a few birds of prey and cloaking devices for those Klingon ships.

 

[Forbin]

Locutus of Bored said:
Almost the same length too.

Nice unintentional teamwork.

*high fives*