What class of Romulan ship is this?

[itchy01ca]

I've posted this message elsewhere but i haven't got an answer yet. In the posted link star trek comic #53 has on the front cover a romulan ship of unknown class. Is there a class name known for this ship. It has the head of a K'tinga battlecruiser but the body of a warbird. What type of ship would this be? Warbird? Battlecrusier? Hybrid? Thanks for the help guys.
http://homepage.mac.com/mmtz/stcomix/dc2tos.html

 

[Anwar]

It was made up for the comic series, it's supposed to be an intermediary type vessel between the Klingon ships they used in TOS and the TNG era Warbirds. That's why it looks like both of them, it's to show that how in the TOS Movie era all the major aliens got new ship designs (Refit-Constitution/Miranda/Excelsior for the Feds, the BoPs for the Klingons, and this for the Romulans).

 

[F. King Daniel]

I remember thinking that was quite a cool design when I read that comic.

I always hado fun spotting the ship designs in old comics. They once used FASA Romulan ships, one comic about Riker in his academy days featured the old Belknap-class ship from unofficial 80's Treknical fanzines, ships from the old Spaceflight Chronology book cropped up in TOS flashbacks and there was a proto-Intrepid class ship (with round saucer) toward the end of the TNG comic.

 

[Bishop76]

Sweet! When did they use the FASA Romulan ships? I always thought those were cool designs.

 

[The Wormhole]

I seem to remember a novel featuring a Romulan ship, and the description seems pretty close to that.

 

[Anticitizen]

I really like this cover:

 

[itchy01ca]

Yea, I thought it was a pretty cool design, which is why I wanted to give it a name/class. I wouldn't suppose the writers/editors/animators of the comic books would be around to ask... or if they actually gave it a name ?

 

[Unicron]

IIRC, the FASA Nova class appeared on at least one cover. Outside of that I'm not sure whether they used any other FASA designs.

 

[BillJ]

IIRC, the FASA Nova class appeared on at least one cover. Outside of that I'm not sure whether they used any other FASA designs.

Issue #36, first DC run. The wrap up to the Doomsday Virus storyline.

 

[sbk1234]

I think this Romulan ship class was named the "Death Duck."

Maybe it sounds cooler in Romulan.

 

[Sector 7]

I think this Romulan ship class was named the "Death Duck."

Maybe it sounds cooler in Romulan.

Wasn't it the flagship of Praetor H'oward?

 

[sbk1234]

That's the one!

 

[F. King Daniel]

IIRC, the FASA Nova class appeared on at least one cover. Outside of that I'm not sure whether they used any other FASA designs.

A FASA Larson-class destroyer (the USS Caspian) appears in DC's 1991 TNG Annual "Thin Ice". The story also features a Challenger-class ship (think Stargazer, but with a secondary hull in place of the lower nacelles - possibly seen in the graveyard at Wolf 359) and a Belknap-class vessel (TMP Enterprise but with nacelle pylons mounted at the bottom of the engineering hull) from fandom.

 

[Unicron]

I recall hearing about the "proto-Challenger" design before, which might also be described as the movie-era Enterprise with the nacelles stuck on the saucer instead of their rightful place. I wasn't aware that the Belknap had appeared outside of fan work though.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

a Challenger-class ship (think Stargazer, but with a secondary hull in place of the lower nacelles - possibly seen in the graveyard at Wolf 359)

AFAIK, that's not what the Challenger class looks like. Linky

 

[Dukhat]

a Challenger-class ship (think Stargazer, but with a secondary hull in place of the lower nacelles - possibly seen in the graveyard at Wolf 359)

AFAIK, that's not what the Challenger class looks like. Linky

Yep. Challenger-class U.S.S. Buran, built by Ed Miarecki and modified by Mike Okuda. Definitely NOT a Constitution kitbash. Hey, my email address is still there on that page

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There is a ship that looks like a Constitution, but with the top two Stargazer nacelles on the saucer, but I don't know what class it is. It was from one of the comics. I think the ship was the USS Marco Polo.

 

[Dukhat]

There is a ship that looks like a Constitution, but with the top two Stargazer nacelles on the saucer, but I don't know what class it is. It was from one of the comics. I think the ship was the USS Marco Polo.

Yeah, that's the Challenger class from the comics. The Challenger class Buran study model from BoBW is a completely different ship.

 

[Unicron]

And at the time the comic was written, details on the wreckbashes created for BOBW hadn't been supplied/elaborated on by Mr. Okuda. So no one knew exactly what the Challenger was supposed to look like, or if it was one of the visible wrecks.

 

[Timo]

...Although there did circulate a persistent rumor about a wreckbash that featured two "Constitution" nacelles bolted straight to the saucertop, with a secondary hull below. This was apparently how a fan had interpreted a brief glimpse of the Springfield class in a slide show thrown by Okuda in a convention - that ship has two marker pen nacelles atop and a secondary hull below, and does not look particularly TNG-eraish in the extremely poor quality photo that was apparently used in the slide show. As the result, we got some fan interpretations that looked more or less like the Marco Polo...

The real Springfield:

http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/images/federation/cruiser_springfield.jpg

The usual fan take:

http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/images/federation/heavycruiser_challenger1.jpg

A take closer to the comic art:

http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/images/federation/heavycruiser_challenger1_up.jpg

The actual comic art:



Apparently, the confusion thus arose from there being a Challenger class in the slide show and a Challenger class in the comic world, and there being a report of what shapes of ships had been seen in the slide show and a fan awareness of what "the Challenger class" ought to look like...

In retrospect, the comic book art vessel might represent yet another subtle "subclass" of the sort that litter the fandom TOS movie era fleets, while the "real" TNG era ship represents an actual "class" in a more simplified fleet system. That way, Starfleet doesn't end up with two Challenger classes that would apparently serve side by side!

(In RL, the USN has tended to avoid repeating a class name, while the Royal Navy has multiple repeats and overlaps, largely because RN ships often get thematical names, and such themes are limited in number - County class, Town class, Tribal class, and for some reason several Daring classes as well.)

Timo Saloniemi