In "United" the Romulan prototype ship has a warp drive that appears to be able to go close to warp 5. In "Balance of Terror" Scotty clearly states that the Romulan Warbird does not have warp drive. What gives? How come a prototype from 2154 has a pretty advanced warp drive, but a Warbird from 2266 does not? Has this ever been addressed before? Was the cloak in BOT such a power drain they could not have a warp engine?
When did the Romulans get warp drive?
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Plecostomus
Commodore
Yes it's been discussed. Possibilities include:
1) Scotty was wrong.
2) The Romulans had something OTHER than warp-drive and Scotty simply didn't detect it.
3) Advanced sensor-spoofing and jamming fed us a false signal, showing NO warp drive.
4) Maybe the Romulans didn't use matter-antimatter reactors instead they powered the warp drive with a simple fusion reactor. Thus with the nacelles powered down it only looked like they had impulse and nothing else.
*shrug* Of all the nits to pick this is one of the simplest to babble around.
At least in my opinion. 
1) Scotty was wrong.
2) The Romulans had something OTHER than warp-drive and Scotty simply didn't detect it.
3) Advanced sensor-spoofing and jamming fed us a false signal, showing NO warp drive.
4) Maybe the Romulans didn't use matter-antimatter reactors instead they powered the warp drive with a simple fusion reactor. Thus with the nacelles powered down it only looked like they had impulse and nothing else.
*shrug* Of all the nits to pick this is one of the simplest to babble around.
At least in my opinion. 
Keep in mind Romulan tech, at least what weve seen of it,(IE 24th century) used an artifical singularity to power their warp. This could explain Scottys confusion, as it no doubt would give off sensor data he couldnt understand.
scotty dosnt say they dont have warp drive he said..
and we do know from other instances there are other forms of ftl beyond earth later federation warp.
but really how could the romulans have a star empire with out warp or some other form of ftl drive.
so we really dont know what it means as far as ftl.
and we do know from other instances there are other forms of ftl beyond earth later federation warp.
but really how could the romulans have a star empire with out warp or some other form of ftl drive.
That's a good point. Another way to rectify it: the Romulan fuel supply is shortly thereafter described as "nearly gone" and later just "gone," so perhaps their main reactor, whatever it was, wasn't operating. Even if it was, the Romulans obviously had to travel at reduced speeds and/or change the mode of operation and power distribution to move while remaining under cloak, so this could easily result in readings which would cause Scotty to say this. For example, the cloak could have been able to hide the internal radiation and other characteristics which would mark the presence of a matter/antimatter reactor, if they had one of those, but an impulse drive has to vent something to accelerate the ship and maybe evidence of this surfaced after it exited the cloaking field.
I do believe the conclusion that the Enterprise could outrun the Romulan ship is probably correct, but I never understood how some people came up with the huge leap that the Romulans did not have warp drive or, worse, any FTL technology at all. In the original version of the script, the Romulans were flying a duplicate of the Enterprise! And for the final version of their ship, it still has big, honking warp nacelles very similar to those of the Enterprise. I see no evidence that there was any creative intention to suggest that the Romulans did not use warp drive, let alone to suggest that they lacked any FTL capability whatsoever.
...Also, the idea that their new stealth warship would also represent the pinnacle of their propulsive technology is not a good one.
After all, the stealth vessel was supposed to play the role of a "submarine" in a movie where the hero ship was a "destroyer" hunting down said underwater menace. And a key characteristic of submarines (at least in the WWI/II context) is that they are slower than the surface ships that hunt them. The subs are compromises that sacrifice some attributes to become more deadly in other respects. And the story called for just such a balance: the enemy had to be weaker in some respect to compensate for his great advantage of invisibility.
It would make sense in the context of "Balance of Terror" alone, never mind the greater Trek context, that the ship we saw was among the slowest in the Romulan arsenal...
Timo Saloniemi
After all, the stealth vessel was supposed to play the role of a "submarine" in a movie where the hero ship was a "destroyer" hunting down said underwater menace. And a key characteristic of submarines (at least in the WWI/II context) is that they are slower than the surface ships that hunt them. The subs are compromises that sacrifice some attributes to become more deadly in other respects. And the story called for just such a balance: the enemy had to be weaker in some respect to compensate for his great advantage of invisibility.
It would make sense in the context of "Balance of Terror" alone, never mind the greater Trek context, that the ship we saw was among the slowest in the Romulan arsenal...
Timo Saloniemi
*shrug* Of all the nits to pick this is one of the simplest to babble around.
Even simpler than the one about Khan recognizing Chekov? Granted it would have been better if they'd used someone who was actually in "Space Seed", but I don't know why people make such a big deal about this.
I hear what you are saying, but I think that many have interpreted Scotty as meaning they do not have warp drive, and it seems to be the gist of what he is trying to convery.
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
From
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/history-romulan.htm
In "Star Trek: Insurrection", Dougherty said the following: "On Earth, petroleum once turned petty thugs into world leaders, warp drive helped to form a bunch of Romulan thugs into an empire. We can handle the Son'a, I'm not worried about them." Picard replied: "Somebody probably said the same thing about the Romulans a century ago." This seems to indicate that Romulans didn't have warp drive prior to 2275.
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/history-romulan.htm
In "Star Trek: Insurrection", Dougherty said the following: "On Earth, petroleum once turned petty thugs into world leaders, warp drive helped to form a bunch of Romulan thugs into an empire. We can handle the Son'a, I'm not worried about them." Picard replied: "Somebody probably said the same thing about the Romulans a century ago." This seems to indicate that Romulans didn't have warp drive prior to 2275.
Doesn't necessarily follow. Perhaps the Romulans just didn't pose a problem during their first five centuries of empiredom, so the Feds didn't have to claim that they could "handle" them until before they really began to cause trouble.
Note how in ST6:TUC, the Romulans seem to be staunch Federation allies, their Ambassador siding with the Feds against the Klingons and correspondingly being allowed in on top-level Federation briefings. That's probably the "handling" that Picard is speaking of... Just moments before the dagger slides into the tender Federation back.
As the current timeline would have it, the Romulans were a nonentity before ENT; apparently fought a brief war with Earth and its allies after ENT, without ever revealing their identity; and then remained silent for a century. No "handling" there, since there was no real interaction. Durign and after TOS, the Romulans would become political players, however - players at last in need of "handling".
(This is something quite akin to the Arabs gaining political strength in the 1960s-70s despite their territory having been a source of petroleum since the beginning of the century).
Certainly ENT already makes it clear that Romulans had warp drive in the 2150s. What ENT doesn't make clear is whether they are thugs or an Empire at that time...
Timo Saloniemi
Note how in ST6:TUC, the Romulans seem to be staunch Federation allies, their Ambassador siding with the Feds against the Klingons and correspondingly being allowed in on top-level Federation briefings. That's probably the "handling" that Picard is speaking of... Just moments before the dagger slides into the tender Federation back.
As the current timeline would have it, the Romulans were a nonentity before ENT; apparently fought a brief war with Earth and its allies after ENT, without ever revealing their identity; and then remained silent for a century. No "handling" there, since there was no real interaction. Durign and after TOS, the Romulans would become political players, however - players at last in need of "handling".
(This is something quite akin to the Arabs gaining political strength in the 1960s-70s despite their territory having been a source of petroleum since the beginning of the century).
Certainly ENT already makes it clear that Romulans had warp drive in the 2150s. What ENT doesn't make clear is whether they are thugs or an Empire at that time...
Timo Saloniemi
Seeing as how the prototype BOP did have warp, as the Enterprise had to go to warp to catch up to it, I don't really think that was Scotty's intent. I just think a significant number of fans misinterpreted the line, because they assumed "power" meant "propulsion." It's an understandable mistake, but the notion of the Romulans building an empire and being a threat without warp (or some other FTL equivalent) is pretty silly.
...Then again, "Balance of Terror" alone could be viewed as stating that the Romulans have a sublight-only empire, consisting of just a few star systems and possibly even just the one where planets Romulus and Remus and that shiny comet and those asteroid fortresses would lie. In that sense, sublight speed would nicely suffice for the Romulans, even if Kirk's use of warp then was a bit overkill.
Such an interpretation of the episode would not create massive contradictions or anything, not within the episode. The only true problems would come from interpreting the map seen onscreen, where apparently the hero ship first dashes about at maximum warp, represented by a slowly moving dot indicator - but the Romulan ship moves from asteroid fort to asteroid fort at what must be equal speed or better. But we can always say the map wasn't particularly realistic.
However, such an interpretation would not only be inconsistent with the other episodes, it would carry a sinister implication. If the Romulans really were limited to just their own star system, then the war with Earth must have had Earthlings as the aggressors. Certainly not impossible in the context of the episode, or even in the current context of multiple episodes, but possibly not the writer intention...
Timo Saloniemi
Such an interpretation of the episode would not create massive contradictions or anything, not within the episode. The only true problems would come from interpreting the map seen onscreen, where apparently the hero ship first dashes about at maximum warp, represented by a slowly moving dot indicator - but the Romulan ship moves from asteroid fort to asteroid fort at what must be equal speed or better. But we can always say the map wasn't particularly realistic.
However, such an interpretation would not only be inconsistent with the other episodes, it would carry a sinister implication. If the Romulans really were limited to just their own star system, then the war with Earth must have had Earthlings as the aggressors. Certainly not impossible in the context of the episode, or even in the current context of multiple episodes, but possibly not the writer intention...
Timo Saloniemi
Later in TNG Face of the Enemy (?) we discover use of forced quantum singularity. Perhaps this was the case here and sensors did not know what it was.
Edit: Guess I should read the thread first, huh?
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Quite honestly, rather than come up with awkward "canon" explanations, I think it's best to just acknowledge that Enterprise just conflicts with "BOT" a little bit in that respect. Frankly, given the fact that a lack of FTL/Warp drives wouldn't have made sense anyway, it seems to me that Enterprise had it right - the Romulans most certain had faster-than-light engines, otherwise the whole idea of a war with Earth really couldn't have happened.
Perhaps more significantly, the Romulans most certainly and most explicitly had high performance faster-than-light engines in the episode "Balance of Terror".
We know this not through some convoluted inference from backstory pseudohistory. Nor through some assumption-ridden calculations on travel times and distances. We know this through explicit showing and telling of Romulan warp drive in one of the key scenes of the episode.
While the capabilities of the Romulan ship may be somewhat ambivalent, the capabilities of the new Romulan weapon are not. It has a warp drive, and a very good one, capable of keeping up with a top-notch Starfleet vessel that is traveling at emergency warp speed (which other eps would peg at warp 9 or 10, probably).
Now, one might argue that a weapon might have warp drive even when top Romulan scientists still haven't figured out how to install one on a manned spacecraft. After all, we have had supersonic bullets long before we developed the first supersonic aircraft. But certainly the Romulans knew a trick or two about warp drive in "Balance of Terror", and it seems they actually knew more tricks than their Federation counterparts. The Romulan ship in the episode thus seems to be of limited speed by engineering choice, not because Romulans wouldn't know how to build a warp drive in the first place.
Timo Saloniemi
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
The Romulans never had warp drive per se, as there were no Romulans. The Romulans were an invention, the Vulcans plotted to conquer the galaxy from within and without. So they created the Romulans to aggressive pursue galactic domination, and while the Vulcans passively did so. Brilliant strategy, actually.
Is that fan speculation or have the "writers" made any comment on this one ?
When did the Romulans get warp drive? When the plot demanded it.
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