posted
I've been involved in a debate recently about whether or not the Romulan Bird-of-Prey from "Balance of Terror" did or did not have warp drive capability. I say yes, he says no. In the process, I've been relying on the exquisite resource of Bernd Schneider's site.
However, I have noticed that some information has been left out (I only realized this recently, so I certainly understand how it could be forgotten).
Under the Romulan entry in the Starship Database, the Romulan BoP is said to have only appeared in "Balance of Terror"[TOS]. This is not so. I quote from my message to the opponent in my debate:
**************** "The Deadly Years"[TOS] :
In 2267, a maximum of ten Romulan Birds-of-Prey assaulted the Enterprise-Prime when she entered the Romulan Neutral Zone under the orders of Commodore Stocker. Commodore Stocker had ordered the ship through an outcropping of the zone at warp five. The RBoPs were able to intercept and pace the Enterprise at ranges of "50 to 100,000 kilometers" (so said Sulu), firing upon her with what were visually the same high-warp weapons as had been fired on the Enterprise and the Earth Outposts in "Balance of Terror"[TOS].
Kirk, using a variation of the Corbomite Maneuver (causing the Romulans to move off a bit) coupled with a sudden jump to warp 8 (also involving a hard warp-speed turn to starboard), caught the Romulans off-guard and, as Spock said, "they're falling behind".
They could never have intercepted Enterprise if the ships were restricted to sublight only. They could never have paced the Enterprise if she were doing some large multiple of 300,000 km/s, if they themselves were relegated to below 300,000km/s. They would not have been caught off-guard and fallen behind if they were sublight, for they could never have hoped to keep pace with the ship in the first place.
These were, to reiterate, the same class of vessel as from "Balance of Terror"[TOS]. There was no visual difference between these 10 vessels and the Praetor's flagship from that episode. ************************
By the way, the fact that Commodore Stocker felt it necessary to fly through the Neutral Zone in order to reach Starbase 10 demonstrates that the Romulan Neutral Zone contained an area larger than one star-system, for at warp speeds it would be an easy thing to fly around a star system without losing any appreciable time, but it would be far more difficult to fly around a Star Empire with multiple star systems under its thumb. Therefore, the scale of the map shown in "Balance of Terror" must be based on the idea that "Romii" is another star system . . . we do not know the distance between Romii and Romulus, but it must be at least a light year. The width of the Neutral Zone is similar to the distance between those two points, and is also therefore at least a light year.
*******
Guardian 2000
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
I think the most acceptable idea that made sense to most normal people is that the Romulans in Ballance of Terror had FTL drive, but not "warp", which at the time might have been a specific term for a matter/anti-matter reaction controlled through dilithium crystals, or something.
This is because restricting the Romulans to sub-light is stupid on several levels.
1/ They had a FTL weapon.
2/ The Enterprise was warping about all over the place, and the Romulan ship didn't get out of range.
3/ How shit would the war have been if the Romulans didn't have FTL drive? Either all the battles took place in Romulan space, or everyone had extrememly slow reactions.
"Oh no! Sir, the Romulans are launching a fleet of seven thousand starships, and they're heading straight for Earth"
"Shit! When are they going to arrive?"
"In 326 years, sir!"
"May god help us all!"
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Just to shed the post-holiday dust from my nitpicker fingers, I'll contest the tidbit about map scaling. Romulus and Romii/RomII/whatever may indeed be in separate systems, but there's no reason to think they would be on the same plane as the map. The map was primarily showing the Zone and the Outposts, and it would make a measure of sense for it to be oriented so that the Outposts would share the map plane, or be symmetrically distributed wrt it or something. It would be something of a coincidence for all the other features to share the plane, too. (The various unlabeled bright spots most probably didn't...)
So the grid square could be much less than one lightyear per side, assuming that the line connecting Romulus and Romii was nearly normal to the map plane. That would allow for Okudiaically slow warp speeds, or in theory even sublight speeds if need be.
Anyway, I've long been a proponent of the "Romulans had warp since before Adam walked erect" theory, but I'm still undecided about the dimensions of the Romulan space. Certainly a multi-star Empire sounds appealing, but there's still some wiggle room there. I sorta hope that "Nemesis" will reduce that room. As a good Trekkie, Logan must have *some* opinion about this widely debated issue.
posted
That's an argument that has been shot down before.
From a dorsal view:
- -
From a side view: -
-
The smallest distance possible is the dorsal view... if there is any difference in the non-visible plane [z as this case is] then the distance between the two is greater via the P. Theorem.
[ December 27, 2001: Message edited by: J ]
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
posted
I think just about everyone agrees that the Rommies had to be FTL. But I think the question is more "did they have warp drive?" I think pretty much any of this can be explained by the fact that rather than conventional WD, the Romulans utilize artificial quantum singularities, as per TNG. Why is there still so much confusion?
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Were it so simple. But everything hangs on a tidbit of Kirk/Scotty interaction.
Scott: "Their power is simple impulse."
Kirk: "Meaning we can outrun them."
Well, something along those lines.
It is anyone's guess just what Scotty is refering to when he says "power." I think most people assume he is saying that the Romulan ship, like the Enterprise's impulse engines, runs off a fusion reactor. No reason why they can't go to warp with such a setup. The Enterprise, larger (and thus presumably having more fuel) and with a more efficient fuel, could accelerate for a much longer time than the Romulan vessel.
On the other hand, Scotty may indeed mean impulse engines when he says impulse. The story may demand the Romulans be traveling faster than light, but dialogue is dialogue.
(On the gripping hand, having just seen "Balance of Terror" again today, I'm not entirely sure they ever explicitly say that any of the action takes place over interstellar distances. Common sense coupled with future developments tell us it has to, but there you are.)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I never took the other reference into account. If it explicitly says "Bird of Prey", these would be the same or similar types of ships as the one from BoT. It would be just too much speculation that the one from BoT could have been a special type w/o warp drive.
As for the problem (which I think is none), the little line Sol posted is only a hint that the Romulan ship seems to be slower than the Enterprise. In my opinion, the warp drive was simply offline while the ship was either cloaked or firing, this is why Scotty refers to it with the familiar term "impulse". The other explanation would be that "impulse power" informally equals "fusion", and by that Scotty points out that they have the less advanced power source and are therefore slower. In either case, this doesn't say anything about the Bird's FTL capabilities or even those of Romulan ships in general. The only problem is that Okuda arbitrarily assumed that Romulan ships didn't have FTL drive in the Chronology.
BTW, I think that "warp" in Star Trek is always equivalent to "FTL". We have seen all kinds of exotic ships with exotic drives whose speeds were referred to as "Warp X.X". The point is that the way the warp field is generated is similar, while the power sources may be very different. Although authors seem to confuse power sources and their consumers at times (just think of the awful "transwarp coil" and the "slipstream drive" where both times only the power source was modified), warp clearly means a universal concept of achieving FTL speeds and not the power generation through a M/ARA.
-------------------- Bernd Schneider
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posted
If by other reference you mean "The Deadly Years", then they were BOPs. I can't remember if they said it out loud, but all the external shots showed that the ships attacking the Enterprise all looked just like the BOP from "Balance of Terror".
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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posted
Hey guys -- I just remembered a couple of very important quotes to support this "impulse power" debate:
First, the exact same term is used in "The Wrath of Khan." During the scenes near the Regula outpost, Khan's lieutenant comes onto the bridge and announces that "Impulse power has been restored." Khan replies, "Excellent.... more than a match for poor Enterprise." (You probably remember the scene.)
Therefore, Starfleet ships also operate on impulse power. We know from various tech manuals and even a couple of episodes that fusion reactors power the impulse engines.
There were three levels of power mentioned in TWOK: main power (the warp core), auxiliary power (the impulse engines), and the backup batteries. Just as in "Balance of Terror," the two ships in "The Wrath of Khan" were also limited to impulse power, and thus were restricted to similar speeds, and neither ship could significantly outrun the other.
I'm surprised at myself for using a Voyager episode for technical consistency, but there's also "Renaissance Man" to consider -- when the Doctor ejected the warp core, the ship reverted to power from the "impulse reactors." AKA, fusion reactors!
Just to go for broke, I also reviewed the other times that Voyager lost warp power... like the time they ejected the warp core in "Day of Honor." They also spoke of restoring "impulse power" then, too.
Clearly, throughout the Treknical history, the word "impulse" has been synonymous with "fusion" when referring to power sources in technical jargon.
Mystery solved!
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: ...During the scenes near the Regula outpost, Khan's lieutenant comes onto the bridge and announces that "Impulse power restored." Khan replies, "Excellent.... more than a match for poor Enterprise." (You probably remember the scene.)
Yeah, but earlier Joachim reported, "They've damaged the photon controls, and the warp drive. We must withdraw!" He didn't mention damage tot he impulse engines (albeit we do see the Enterprise phaser's blast the "impulse deflection crystal" to smithereens. Inconsistency rules.
[ December 29, 2001: Message edited by: mrneutron ]
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Actually, that can be explained. Khan was raging that they should return fire, and Joachim was simply explaining that they couldn't. No photon controls = no torpedoes. No warp drive = no phasers.
That's all.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Actually, that can be explained. Khan was raging that they should return fire, and Joachim was simply explaining that they couldn't. No photon controls = no torpedoes. No warp drive = no phasers.
That's all.
The only evidence I recall for phasers being tied to the warp drive was in TMP, where that upgrade nearly caused a disaster, You'd think THAT would have been bypassed the following week.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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posted
"Yeah, but earlier Joachim reported, "They've damaged the photon controls, and the warp drive. We must withdraw!" He didn't mention damage tot he impulse engines (albeit we do see the Enterprise phaser's blast the "impulse deflection crystal" to smithereens. Inconsistency rules."
It isn't hard to see why that shot would damage both drive systems. The cutaway drawings of the refit E show a common reactor shaft running all the way from the "impulse deflection crystal" to the antimatter pods at the keel. This implies that they are all one interconnected power system. Assuming the Reliant had a similar engine room set up, I can understand how the phaser blast could take out both the impulse and warp engines. If they're running off a common power shaft and someone blows off the top of it, I doubt very much if either engine would be running anywhere near optimum.
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