What do Romulan ships of TOS Movie Era look like?

[Griffeytrek]

The Stargazer DOES comply with these rules. The nacelles are paired and there is clear LOS between the pairs. The trick is you have to realize that the nacelles are rotated 90 degrees around from normal. So the blue/black grills are facing each other top-to-bottom. Each pair of engines also has it's own impulse engine hardware (also rotated 90 degrees) between each pylon. So, the pairs are not a top pair and bottom pair, but rather a port pair and a starboard pair.

The only dodgy detail regarding this one is the lack of an obvious deflector dish, but given a similar lack in plenty of other canon ships (Reliant to name the first obvious one) it's in good company.

--Alex

Fair point. In looking at the model now I had not realized that there was clear air top to bottom between the grills. For some reason I was thinking the saucer extended farther back.

someone used to make a nice detail part for the Polar Lights 1/1000 models where you could remove a section of the lower saucer and replace it with an actual inset deflector, looking not to unlike the Akira's design. I always liked that approach.

 

[Arpy]

Regarding the Phantom Class Super Scout in this thread, I was saying how I wish designers would come up with more interesting designs following the rules, breaking them only when the ship just looked too cool to scrap. I wondered if the artist's (Jackill) overall vertical configuration could be maintained and follow the rules if the nacelles faced each other, as on a Constellation Class. They'd have to be redesigned a bit, but the ship would look cool, and kinda have a vertical warbird look about it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What became the Klingon Bird of Prey was originally intended as a stolen Romulan ship...so that's the closest we got to a movie-era Romulan design, though it's now indelibly associated with the Klingons through its overuse as their all-purpose ship.

And originally the ship seen Balance of Terror was supposed to be a stolen Stafleet ship. Which might explain the many similarities to the Enterprise.

The Romulan BoP we saw in "Minefield" always rubbed me the wrong way, because it looked like it was off by about 150 years. It looked like an intermediate step between the BoP from "Balance of Terror" and the 24th century warbird, except it wasn't

I thought it was a nice update of the design seen in Balance of Terror. Keeping the same basic design, but removing the "Starfleet" aesthetic.

 

[The Old Mixer]

And originally the ship seen Balance of Terror was supposed to a stolen Stafleet ship. Which might explain the many similarities to the Enterprise.

A stolen ship, or based on stolen Starfleet tech? The latter is what I've heard.

 

[Nerys Myk]

A stolen ship, or based on stolen Starfleet tech? The latter is what I've heard.

Could be the latter. Been a while since I read anything about it.

 

[Arpy]

The Klingon Bird of Prey originally being Romulan, at what point in its design was the switch made? Was the ship completely finished and relabeled, were the designers told to design a Klingon ship called a Bird of Prey from their part's start, or was it somewhere in between?

The final product, whether on purpose or by the viewer's luck, looks little like the Bird of Prey in TOS and looks very Klingon in many ways. I sometimes wonder if it isn't the Romantic notion of the Lost or Alternate History that makes this such an issue.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I'm not sure about the details of its development history, but if it had been a Romulan ship that looked Klingon, that would make sense given that the Romulans had been using Klingon ships.

IIRC, in the FASA RPG material, the BoP was the result of the Klingon/Romulan tech exchange, and each party used a version of it.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

I've always loved the Romulan Raptor class but it is more of a Lost Era (TUC–TNG) ship than a movie (TMP–TUC) era ship.

http://7space.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/5/6/5156916/1705253_orig.png

http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/23/22671/Romulan_Raptor.png

http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/10/9519/raptor_complete_1.jpg

http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/misc/zeichRaptor/raptorwip21.jpeg

The Raptor is to the D'deridex what the Ambassador is to the Galaxy.

 

[t_smitts]

And originally the ship seen Balance of Terror was supposed to be a stolen Stafleet ship. Which might explain the many similarities to the Enterprise.

I thought it was a nice update of the design seen in Balance of Terror. Keeping the same basic design, but removing the "Starfleet" aesthetic.

But that makes the OS-era Bird of Prey even more of an anomaly, by going from the "Minefield" BoP, which very similar to the warbird in color, texture, and angles, to something not at all like that, then back to that style for the 24th century warbird.

(I won't get into the fact that the "Balance" BoP is the only canon Romulan ship from any era that isn't green).

For the ship in "Minefield", I actually would've preferred something more like the cigar-shaped "early Romulan spacecraft" that we see in pictures in the Star Trek Chronology.

Obviously the Romulan drone is even more of a departure, but since the whole point of that ship was that it's not easily identifiable as Romulan, I'm actually fine with that.

The Klingon Bird of Prey originally being Romulan, at what point in its design was the switch made? Was the ship completely finished and relabeled, were the designers told to design a Klingon ship called a Bird of Prey from their part's start, or was it somewhere in between?

The final product, whether on purpose or by the viewer's luck, looks little like the Bird of Prey in TOS and looks very Klingon in many ways. I sometimes wonder if it isn't the Romantic notion of the Lost or Alternate History that makes this such an issue.

Based on the "designing the Bird of Prey" article in the magazine that comes with the Eaglemoss model, I'm inclined to believe the change came before Nilo Rodis designed the iconic ship.

For all their mutual hatred, I think the Klingons and Romulans share some traditions when it comes to ship designs, both being drawn towards bird-like shapes and images.

It's easy to say the movie-era BoP "looks very Klingon" but compared to what? It doesn't have much in common with either the D7 or the K't'inga class, although it certainly doesn't look like the Romulan BoP either. I'd say the Klingon BoP was, in fact, more of a trend-setter.

 

[Arpy]

The Klingon BoP does look very Klingon. Exactly how beyond name and wings is it Romulan?

Some examples that come to mind:

Romulan Bird of Prey was mono-hulled, utilizing a saucer. The Klingon BoP was dual hulled, with a configuration similar to the Klingon Battlecruiser. The front hull was at the end of a thin neck with a round head at the tip, and a round mouth-like weapons port mouth. The Romulan BoP's weapons port wasn't a recessed mouth like that at all, despite being in the center front of the saucer.

The Romulans had up-swept, soaring wings, not mostly downswept aggressive ones like the Klingons. Rarely are the KBoPs wings up.

That they both use bird motifs is not unusual as birds and flight have universal appeal among human cultures as well (look at national flags or crests or religions (angels) or mythologies (Pegasus)). Cardassians and others like birds too. We all have wing-envy.

That the KBoP came after a theoretical alliance between the two powers also suggests it's kosher. Romulans had no problem using Klingon ships in TOS ("The Enterprise Incident"). Influences between cultures is common enough; interestingly, I think one of the designers of the Vor'cha said you could see on it some Federation influences as well.

That Romulans continued their bird design dominance with the warbird matters little as its introduction in the real world on TNG came years after ST:III had already introduced the KBoP. Also note in-universe, if you must, the use of a winged Raptor ship in ENT, as well as earlier KBoP's and the similar looking D-5 (which shouldn't look that way for other reasons, but there it is).

The KBoP has giant weapons at the end of the wings. Although both Klingon and Romulan ships of TOS had nacelles, the guns suggest aggressive Klingons (esp of the recent TOS movies) more than the graceful Romulans or yore.

The KBoP is a crusty, gnarled, K't'inga-like over-detailed, rust bucket. Whereas the RBoP was a slick Raygun Gothic design out of Flash Gordon. The warbird also has a very much more organic design to it than do the greebly K't'inga/KBoP.

There are others as well.

The matter gets further confused when you notice how little has remained of the RBoP's look in later ships. The D'deridex "Warbird" has a head, like the K Bird of Prey, and the Valdore Warbird looks less like a triple-hulled Warbird than a giant en-Romulan-ified KBoP. To me, this speaks to a dearth of creativity in Trek during the waning years of the Berman era. ...I mean, we got the Valdore and the Space-Nosferatu Remans in the same movie...

 

[Avro Arrow]

I always liked this intermediate design-

I have never really liked that design. Why would the Romulans base their new-build ship designs so closely on ships they originally acquired from the Klingons?

OTOH, Reverend's V'Teridix Class uses the same general shape, and shows the Romulans still using Klingon warp technology, but actually uses a design that looks Romulan. I love that design!

 

[Nerys Myk]

But that makes the OS-era Bird of Prey even more of an anomaly, by going from the "Minefield" BoP, which very similar to the warbird in color, texture, and angles, to something not at all like that, then back to that style for the 24th century warbird.

I think the OS BOP and the ENT BOP are very similar. They have a horseshoe body with a dorsal fin and swept up wings with nacelles on the tips,

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

For all their mutual hatred, I think the Klingons and Romulans share some traditions when it comes to ship designs, both being drawn towards bird-like shapes and images.

That the KBoP came after a theoretical alliance between the two powers also suggests it's kosher. Romulans had no problem using Klingon ships in TOS. Influences between cultures is common enough; interestingly, I think one of the designers of the Vorcha said you could see on it some Federation influences as well.

I like to think, based on them being established to inhabit neighboring areas of space and exhibiting some apparent similarities in their ship design aesthetics, that the Klingons, Romulans, and Orions all had some degree of technological exchange (whether willingly or by appropriation, or a mix of both) between them going back well before the time of ENT. Remember, the Klingons already had BoPs that were substantially similar to to the movie/TNG version at this time, and the Orion Interceptors from "Borderland" look like they might feel right at home among 24th-century Romulan designs.

I would suggest that among them, the bird iconography originated with the Romulans first, since they already "marched beneath the raptor's wings" at the time of the schism with Vulcans in the 4th century, and since it was said to be such an identifiable hallmark of their vessels during the Romulan War(s) in "Balance Of Terror" (TOS).

But that makes the OS-era Bird of Prey even more of an anomaly, by going from the "Minefield" BoP, which very similar to the warbird in color, texture, and angles, to something not at all like that, then back to that style for the 24th century warbird.

(I won't get into the fact that the "Balance" BoP is the only canon Romulan ship from any era that isn't green).

As @Nerys Myk and @The Old Mixer have said, the original idea behind the "Balance Of Terror" vessel's design was that it was based on stolen Starfleet technology. Even though we know now that the Romulans used a very similar overall configuration in the 22nd century, we can still imagine the 23rd-century version's differences (round domed nacelles, a more saucer-like hull with a smoother and paler finish, etc.) as being a result of this. As @Arpy said, the Klingon Vor'cha was similarly designed to reflect an exchange of technology with the Federation in some of its details, a result of the alliance between the two powers in the 24th century.

 

[Arpy]

Remember, the Klingons had BoPs that were substantially similar to to the movie/TNG version already at this time, and the Orion Interceptors from "Borderland" look like they might feel at home among 24th-century Romulan designs.

(You may want to edit the link in your reply. Although for some reason just the words "Orion Interceptors" appear linked in my quote of your post, in your post itself more of the sentence is linked. The part that says "Orion Interceptors" links fine, but the rest of the sentence sends you to an error page.)

Yeah, I was really surprised they went with that for an Orion design. Am I mistaken or had TOS not shown us any Orion designs beyond a spinning ball of light? Why they didn't save that design for the Romulans is beyond me.

Also, am I misremembering or were (maybe from the Rihannsu series) the Orions an ancient civilization that devolved over the millennia to how we saw them in TOS, as animal women slaves and whatnot? Was Ruk the android from TOS' "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" supposed to look similar to ancient Orions? (In which case, ENT got Orion males right!)

Avro Arrow, I remember the V'Teridix from the TrekArt Forum and love/hate it. You can see the Romulan adoption of the T-shaped ship through their alliance with the Klingons, and how subsequent iterations of warbird would look more Romulan than the V'Teridix still, similar to the D'deridex. I still wonder what other fully Romulan ships of TOS/ENT eras looked like - whether of RBoP or Early Romulan Ship configuration.

Captain of the USS Averof, is that the Ivarix from Serpents Among the Ruins?

 

[Richard Baker]

I have never really liked that design. Why would the Romulans base their new-build ship designs so closely on ships they originally acquired from the Klingons?

OTOH, Reverend's V'Teridix Class uses the same general shape, and shows the Romulans still using Klingon warp technology, but actually uses a design that looks Romulan. I love that design!

I think the pictured ship as part of an evolution. Think of the Americans after WWII first using German missiles, then modifying them and then eventually basing new designs on concepts learned. The Romulans traded an important asset, the cloaking technology, so they might take advantage of the Klingon ship design principles for their own use. I could see how they would, after using stock ships for a while, use parts of one to create a working test bed of the twin hull concept to study. This would evolve through experimentation into something like the V'Teridix you linked to.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

(You may want to edit the link in your reply. Although for some reason just the words "Orion Interceptors" appear linked in my quote of your post, in your post itself more of the sentence is linked. The part that says "Orion Interceptors" links fine, but the rest of the sentence sends you to an error page.)

Thanks, the board went on maintenance or something as I was editing it. I thought I had fixed it after it came back. Does it look alright now?

Yeah, I was really surprised they went with that for an Orion design. Am I mistaken or had TOS not shown us any Orion designs beyond a spinning ball of light? Why they didn't save that design for the Romulans is beyond me.

"The Pirates Of Orion" (TAS) had also shown us this (not particularly similar) design:

Maybe they got this one (or some of their ideas for it) from the Vulcans? I realize it's a bit "cute" to draw all these connections, but the Orions are pirates after all, and that design does bear some similarities to these known Vulcan ones from First Contact and "For The Cause" (DS9):

And while the titular region of "Borderland" (ENT) is specifically said to lie between the Klingon Empire and the Orion Syndicate, Orion itself is much closer to Vulcan than to Kling/Kronos/Qo'noS (or Romulus) according to the map at Starfleet Headquarters in "Conspiracy" (TNG):

Also, am I misremembering or were (maybe from the Rihannsu series) the Orions an ancient civilization that devolved over the millennia to how we saw them in TOS, as animal women slaves and whatnot? Was Ruk the android from TOS' "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" supposed to look similar to ancient Orions?

In "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" part of the Korby's background from which his reputation as "the Pasteur of archeological medicine" stems is that he translated medical records "from the Orion ruins" which "revolutionized" the Federation's immunization techniques. No direct connection was implied between Orion and Exo III or Ruk. The ancient Orion civilization was further an object of interest to Federation historians in "Yesteryear" (TAS).

It was revealed in "Bound" (ENT) that the "animal women slaves" were in fact the masters (mistresses?) and it was the actually the males who were the true slaves. The whole arrangement as it appeared to outsiders was an elaborate facade, a pretense which I took as being a way for the Syndicate to insidiously infiltrate other cultures and spread their influence. In "Borderland" Soong said they had been expanding their reach in that period, and from what we heard of them on DS9 it seems they continued to do so into the 24th century, despite being caught in their underhanded political maneuverings by the Feds in "Journey To Babel" (TOS).

 

[Nerys Myk]

Maybe they got this one (or some of their ideas for it) from the Vulcans? I realize it's a bit "cute" to draw all these connections, but the Orions are pirates after all, and that design does bear some similarities to these known Vulcan ones from First Contact and "For The Cause" (DS9):

There a time when I thought the Orions were related to the Vulcans. Maybe it was the green skin or I might have confused them with the Rigellians ( at least one species seems to be Vulcanoid)

 

[CorporalCaptain]

There a time when I thought the Orions were related to the Vulcans. Maybe it was the green skin or I might have confused them with the Rigellians ( at least one species seems to be Vulcanoid)

Just lurking in this thread, but I thought I'd drop this in. From "Journey To Babel":

SPOCK: Rigelian physiology is very similar to Vulcan.

Carry on!

 

[Arpy]

There have been a handful of species that have been described as Rigelian over the years: human-looking ones in TOS, giant turtle men in TMP, yet others on ENT... And there have been a number of habited worlds in the Rigel system mentioned.

This may be another misremembrance, but somewhere someone said the Rigel system/corridor was maybe the most populated in the Federation. Their main business district? If there were multiple intelligent species calling it home, yeah that would work for me.

The Mighty Monkey of Mim, that first image you linked reminds me of the pirate ship in TNG's "Gambit," also used as a Miradorn ship on DS9. (And yeah, the link looks good.)