Well, if you happen to catch the newest ST: Magazine with Nemesis-themed articles, you'll find another Rick Sternbach technical article on Romulan Propulsion. I didn't actually grab the issue, just flipped through it at the book store, but:
He proposes that Romulan Warp Carriers were used to transport Birds-of-Prey during the early wars since resources for warp drive were limited.
He provides a detailed look at just exactly how the Romulan Warbird's quantum singularity drive works with nifty diagrams.
His CGI illustrator provides a very poor rendering of the TOS Bird-of-Prey compared to the one seen in ENT "Minefield."
Interesting stuff, check it out!
[ December 31, 2002, 20:16: Message edited by: Ace ]
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
I'll see about picking one up and scanning the article for folks either today or tomorrow.
Posted by Middy Seafort (Member # 951) on :
Ace,
Interesting. I saw that article while thumbing through the latest ish at Border's.
quote:He proposes that Romulan Warp Carriers were used to transport Birds-of-Prey during the early wars since resources for warp drive were limited.
Actually, this was something that was also proposed by Diane Carey in her novel "Final Frontier," which depicts the exploits of Robert April and the Enterprise before her official commissioning.
In that book, if memory serves, the BoP is dropped off by a larger warp carrier and is also picked up by one in the early part of the book. Unfortunatly, I don't have my copy handy to double check.
Middy Seafort
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Quite correct. "Final Frontier" describes humungous ships capable of carrying a dozen "Balance of Terror" lookalike craft under her wings. The craft are all impulse-powered, but each of them has unique capabilities, apparently mainly because the Star Empire is cash-starved and cannot refit all its craft to the same standards.
It's still unclear whether the "real" Romulans would need such things. "Minefield" as such doesn't yet prove warp capability to be common in the Star Empire of the 22nd century - the two ships seen could in fact have had impulse drive only, and warp resources back then could indeed have been "limited". Alternately, the "BoT" ship could have been warp-capable on her own. A lot more canon material is needed to settle this for good...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
How does this explain Picard's comment in Insurrection?
Also they showed a TOS bop in ENT?? Haven't seen any season 2 yet.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
A pre-TOS bird of prey, yes.
And the Insurrection statement is not at all conclusive.
Posted by Ace (Member # 389) on :
Perhaps someone can refresh my memory? What is this Insurrection statement?
Posted by E. Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"On Earth, petroleum once turned petty thugs into world leaders, warp drive helped to form a bunch of Romulan thugs into an empire" or something to that effect.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Correct about the petroleum bit.
oh and a PRE-TOS bop - why not just call it an ENT BOP?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
How limited could warp resources be in the Enterprise era? Human freighters have it, the Vulcans have a fair number of ships, as do the Klingons, and most of the species of the week seem to have it. In fact, every single little dinky Suliban cell-ship has a warp drive. Heck, even the escape pods of the crappy freighter in "Precious Cargo" have them.
I suppose you could propose that the Romulans have some sort of internal problem with resources, but then they have the resources to build an entire cloaked minefield?
This is all very odd.
Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :
I think I remember that a lot of older novels and fan works presented the Romulan Star Empire as being in a resource poor region of space.
If they have no access to good supplies of dilithium then matter/anti-matter reactors are apparantly out of the question (never mind the physics...).
Maybe small and/or slow ships can be made warp capable with fusion power alone. Big ships can user singularity power plants. But maybe there's a minimum size of power plant that can be built around a singularity, or maybe singularity power plants are difficult to manufacture. So a large tender with a number of sub-light vessels made the mose sense to the Romulans.
Also explains the 24th C. Romulan habit of seemingly using only very small and very big ships...
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
quote: Heck, even the escape pods of the crappy freighter in "Precious Cargo" have them.
No they didn't. There was a whole scene dedicated to the pod falling out of the warp field of the freighter.
Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I found the article mentioning the upgrades to the Enterprise-E and how the Valdore and the Scorpion Class shuttle were designed much more interesting. To think how many new torp tubes were added in the strangest places.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System:
quote: Heck, even the escape pods of the crappy freighter in "Precious Cargo" have them.
No they didn't. There was a whole scene dedicated to the pod falling out of the warp field of the freighter.
They made it all the way to a solar system and to one of the planets at sub-light speeds? Whoa. Either they were really lucky, or that episode was A LOT longer than I assumed.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
They were somewhere around 95 million kilometers from a planet as soon as they ejected. Just lucky, I guess. (The same luck that allows Enterprise, or any science fiction ship, to ever meet anything out in the vast emptiness of space.)
If you'd like, perhaps the freighter was flying close to a star system in order to mask their subspace signature.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
[from the February 2003 issue of Star Trek: The Magazine, pp. 68-71]
Enjoy!
-MMoM Posted by Ace (Member # 389) on :
Since the actual article is now online and mentions Nemesis plot details on the last page, I've editted the title of the thread to warn about these spoilers.
Thanks for scanning the article, BTW!
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Oops, forgot about that...
Just to clarify, there aren't any SERIOUS spoilers in the article. It just mentions the fate of the Scimitar.
-MMoM Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Hmmm... very interesting theory. I've always wondered just how a quantum singularity was supposed to provide power -- though I never ended up coming up with my own ideas.
Though some of the details regarding Romulan history seem quite annoying -- that silly myth (IMO) about "warp carriers" and old Birds of Prey that don't have warp capability despite having distinctly warp nacelle-like features, for example.
Still, I'm glad that some people still have enough interest in the show to write this kind of technobabble for us to consume. Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Did this thread get killed by the spoiler alert? I would have thought this article would have sparked more discussion.
Seriously, there's only one parapgraph that contains any Nemesis spoilers int he ntire article, and it's the last one in the last column on the last page. Don't get scared. It's okay. It's not the plague.
-MMoM Posted by Middy Seafort (Member # 951) on :
Hello, all.
Just finished reading the article on Romulan Propulsion-- thanks for the scan. It brings to mind something I saw on a rerun of "Voyager," last night.
In the episode, the Voyager encounters a communications network with a relay that uses a condensed quantum singularity as a power source. The entire crew, including Janeway, seem to be amazed at this concept; as if they'd never encountered it before. I keep thinking that doesn't the Federation and Starfleet know that Romulans use a quantum singualrity as their power source? Why is this something amazing to them?
Oh, well. It is, however, only an episode of Voyager.
Middy Seafort
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
quote: Oh, well. It is, however, only an episode of Voyager.
I expect to see that on the DVD boxs, along with: "For continuity reasons, the entire 7 years of Voyager never happened, except on the dread planet Zeist"
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Where in the name of hell did he get 1,280 meters for the Valdore? The backstage drawings suggest it's shorter than the E-E, and only about 800-900 meters in width . . . they certainly didn't look almost twice the length of the E-E. That figure doesn't quite work for the width of the Scimitar, either . . . makes her too short.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
Funny... That engineering cross-section doesn't look like the engine room seen in "Timescape"...
Posted by Middy Seafort (Member # 951) on :
quote: I expect to see that on the DVD boxs, along with: "For continuity reasons, the entire 7 years of Voyager never happened, except on the dread planet Zeist"
Or for that matter:
"This is just one versions of the events of the USS Voyager's return home. It is not intended to be an accurate, or canonical, representation of the ship's brave journey home. It is based primarily on the research of some inaccurate Federation historians."
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
" . . . who had recently taken part in an expedition to 20th Century Earth, returning with large quantities of a substance called 'crack' and unusual glassware . . . "
But, to return to the point at hand, thanks Captain. That explains quite a bit. Not having seen any size comparison pics between the 603m Valdore, 685m E-E, 890m Scimitar, and 1280m D'deridex . . . I made one:
[ January 03, 2003, 00:24: Message edited by: Guardian 2000 ]
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
Andrew Probert designed and intended the D'deridex to be 4400' (1341m).
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
The 1041m size figure for the D'deridex is from the DS9TM and was derived from the Encyclopedia II. From what we know, most of the larger ships were depicted too small. I only wonder why he made the Valdore just as large as the D'deridex should be.
I don't like the suggestion of warp carriers. Not only is it a remnant of the old "they didn't have warp drive" legend. It would also be an inferiority of which there was no sign in "Minefield".
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
quote:Originally posted by Bernd: I don't like the suggestion of warp carriers. Not only is it a remnant of the old "they didn't have warp drive" legend. It would also be an inferiority of which there was no sign in "Minefield".
UNLESS the carrier dropped those two ships off to patrol that system then skadadled away before the show started...
(Duck and cover)
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
I don't see a problem with warp carriers being used to move around massive fleet formations--- this might also explain why the Warbirds are so huge in the 24th century and design philosophy carried over from the original "capital ship designs. "
But anyway, the reason I don't have a problem with warp carriers is that they help explain a large Romulan fleet that has limited warp drive technology. But they do not exclude the ability for the Romulans to have a few smaller sized ships with warp drives like the large carriers.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Exactly.
I think it's fairly clear that the Romulans were indeed "disadvantaged" in the War. Why? Because Earth's forces and abilities in and of themselves were pretty pathetic, and the Rommies still lost to us. And it seems logical (and, as a side benefit, in keeping with fandom tradition) that this disadvantage was inferior warp capability.
Now, obviously---and as has been discussed may times before---the Romulans couldn't have been totally devoid of warp drive and still have even really fought a war with Earth at all. But they could have had A) less ships with warp drive and more with just high energy impulse, B) lower high-warp limits than Earth ships, or C) just plain less ships due to scarcity of resources, etc.
This all fits with the ideas presented in the article.
-MMoM Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
So those big nacelles on the ENT BoP aren't warp engines then eh? They're clearly not impulse engines as those are shown to be near the central tail of the ship.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
They ARE warp nacelles. But either the internal systems have been taken out, or their speed is severely limited by the high-energy cloaking devices and weapons.
So basically, this article can explain away three versions of the Romulan BoP. Non-warp BoPs, with all internal warp systems ripped out. Slow BoPs, limited by their cloaks/weapons and fast BoPs, probably without cloaks and powerful weapons.
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
I don't buy it. Wouldn't power simply be redirected to the nacelles, weapons, or cloak as needed?
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
It would be a simple matter to gut the nacelles and install cloaking support equipment or extra fuel tanks in thier place.
Prehaps they had the material to build the nacelles, but there was a shortage of coil material. Therefore all ships had nacelles installed waiting for coils.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think the limiting factor here is range. The RBoPs can of course have warp drive but lets say that they can only achieve warp 1 or 2 and that they can only travel X amount of light years before they need refuelling. So you have big carriers (presumably the Warbirds) that can go warp 3 or 4 that transport the smaller RBoPs from their bases in the core worlds to the frontier worlds. When a border patrol runs short on supplies another carrier picks them up and replaces them with a fully loaded patrol. In theory there could be dozens of Carriers circling the Empire, going from major installations and settlements to the border systems and back again, sort of like the Heighliners in Dune.
This could be the Romulan's main weakness in time of war since all you have to do is destroy a carrier and you've effectively stranded all the low warp ships within the local sector grid. More than that you've interrupted the supply lines and put potentially more strain on all the other carriers. If you keep destroying or crippling the carriers than you force the Romulans to put more of their resouces into protecing their carriers and less into actually fighting the war, thereby increasing your chances of gaining ground (space).
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Reverend = person thinking good thoughts
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Earth and her allies won the war.
Though the idea that the Romulans didn't have warp drive at the time seems indefensible for other reasons, "Minefield" only established that the Romulans had cloaking devices. Their weapons did not seem to be particularly more destructive than what Enterprise carries, though of course they were only firing warning shots. And the ships never go to warp, or even travel very fast at all, since they're following Enterprise, which is slowing winding through the mines. So there's nothing in the episode itself to insist that those ships were warp capable. For all we know they could have been built there.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I haven't read this thread and article. I have now!
Nice article.
One thing... Picard's line to Dougherty... reguarding Romulans getting warp drive 100 years ago.
This COULD relate to the Romulan/Klingon alliance which might have shored up any persistant problems the Romulans were having with Warp.
Also reguards the size comparison chart and the 'large' D'Deridexes... I still stick to the theory that the 'A-type' are the big-arsed versions Probert originally invisaged. Seen at least in "The Neutral Zone" - maybe only one or two of them are around.
The 'B-type' as referenced by Data could be the ones we see a lot of throughout TNG. Like in Tin Man etc. When there are usually 2+ warbirds in attendance.
Also looking at that size comparison chart - why does probert have to stick do-hickeys all over his designs - it is SO not Star Trek Design�. Clean lines is what Trek is about. Look at the wonderful D'Deridex there. Think about all the other non-Eaves designs.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Anybody got a link to that size chart? If one was posted, I missed it! Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Thanks. That does look off to me.....the Valdore is too big and the Warbird is waaaaay too large. Even if you go with the 1300 meter length for the Warbird, the drawing is scaled too large.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Thanks. That does look off to me.....the Valdore is too big and the Warbird is waaaaay too large. Even if you go with the 1300 meter length for the Warbird, the drawing is scaled too large.
Well, the D'deridex has been photoshopped in by someone at whatever scale they wanted, but the Valdore is the right size. (1980ft or about 604m.)
Actually that D'deridex that is photoshopped in is scaled at about ~1300m, which is about ~40m short of the 4400'(1341m) claim. I made the slight 2% adjustment in size to fulfill the 4400' Warbird. The rest of the ships remain the same and are scale, so the relationship is correct between the Nemesis ships and the D'deridex Warbird which is really that massive, for reference thats nearly 1.3km long!!
I think the deal with the Valdore is that is looked so much smaller in the movie because we really only saw it on the same plane as the Scemitar and obviously the latter dwarfed the Valdore. IIRC, the Enterprise and the Valdore were never shot together in such a manner that you could see how large the Warbird was in relation to the Enterpise.
[ April 01, 2003, 02:16 AM: Message edited by: Futurama Guy ]
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Yes, do it now, the size of the pic is screwing up the thread-width anyway. Max size for direct-posted images shouldn't be more than about 400x300 pixels at the most, I think there are still people who use 640x480 screen resolution.
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
It might be just a coincidence but it's interesting that the Valdore nacelles are the same length as those of the D'deridex. The Valdore nacelles actually kind of look like D'deridex nacelles with their lower halves removed (IMO anyway). The wingspan of the two designs are quite close too.
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