For centuries they've got this little wooden craft with the Bajoran insignia dropping out of space onto their cities. They get warp speed, find Bajor, see *THAT* symbol!!!!

Well, c'mon! The Bajorans have been bombin' 'em for years =)

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Gore/Lieberman 2000
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"You still don't understand, do you MacLeod? I am the End of Time!" - Kronos

"You're history!" - MacLeod
***
"I think anybody who doesn't think I'm smart enough to handle the job is underestimating." - George "Dubya" Bush

To be perfectly honest, I haven't seen 'Balance of Terror' or 'The Enterprise Incident', so I'm only going on what I've heard and read.
Although (correct me if I'm wrong, please), wasn't there a line in 'The Enterprise Incident' that stated that Romulans were using Klingon designs in their ships.
Was it ever explicitly stated that the Romulans ever got warp off the Klingons?

I mean, if they did, then why have they gone over to Confined Quantum Singularities (heretofore known as "Micro-Sings" because...sod it). The whole point of them having Micro-Sings was as a plot device in 'Timescape', but I still feel that there is very little to decide between MARA and Micro-Sings in terms of performance.
Even if there was a slight advantage, the Romulans wouldn't adopt MARA because

• THEY have it, and it wouldn't look good for the Romulan Star Empire to be using an enemy's tech so openly.
  
• The cost of refitting their ships would be obscene.
  
• It doesn't suit my argument!
  

Nimrod:
1. Sure, pull up a basin and dribble away.

2. The Hebitians were what the Cardassians were called (not an offshoot like the Vulcan/Romulan thingy) before they became the power-hungry expansionist race that we saw in TNG and early DS9. They soon faded away.

3. I'd say...before?

4. I'd surmise NOT, seeing as it's just a figure of speak in some parts.

5. a) "Sheeeet" (exhaled pronunciation)
b) "Shit" (inhaled) - usually used in conjunction with the words "negro" and "muthafucka".

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Remember December '59
The howling wind and the driving rain,
Remember the gallant men who drowned
On the lifeboat, Mona was her name.

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Remember December '59
The howling wind and the driving rain,
Remember the gallant men who drowned
On the lifeboat, Mona was her name.

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"I do prefer the arse, but you can't dismiss the leg. They're joined at the hip, so to speak."

In the next comments, "warp" is taken to be synonymous to faster-than-light drive, even if it is actually called something else by the natives or based on different principles.

-Vulcans must have had warp in 2063, since this is the only way they could have responded so quickly to Cochrane's experiment, unless they were specifically *expecting* it (and I don't really believe in that particular conspiracy theory). But that's just about the only thing we can say for sure about Vulcan warp.

-Quark may not have been intending to say that the Ferengi and the Vulcans did not have warp in 1947. He may have been saying that, by using the sort of time travel he had just performed, he could go back to the time when these races did not have warp, and then sell it to them. So a lot of bets are off then.

-Bajorans may never have discovered warp, and they may *still* be ignorant of it. They could just fly warp-powered ships gained from a variety of sources. Their known "native" designs (the ones not shared by other races) have not demonstrated explicit warp capability.

-OTOH, the ship in "Ensign Ro" should not be used as a yardstick in measuring Bajoran drive capabilities. It was a SURPRISE to everybody that the ship of the Bajoran terrorists (BTW, I like to think that "Bajora" was just the name of this terrorist group..) was incapable of warp. Furthermore, this very type of ship was later shown to be quite capable of warp, in the hands of various aliens and also in the hands of Bajorans, both in TNG and in DS9.

-I like to think that the Ferengi really did buy warp from the Breen, even though this is from a noncanon booklet. But the Ferengi could have done this thousands of years ago for all we know (provided that we interpret Quark in "LGM" the way stated above). Even if the Feds only made contact with the Ferengi recently, there is no reason why the Ferengi and the Breen couldn't have had prior contact.

-Furthermore, the Ferengi were self-stated to be slow in developing things in "LGM". Yet they have *very* fast warpships. Did they get this superfast warp directly from the Breen? Are the Breen also superfast, and willing to share that ability with others? If not, then the Ferengi must have had a LOT of time to fine-tune their engines - so they must have acquired them in the distant past.

-Romulans could have gained (or lost and regained) warp at just about any point of galactic history. They could have left Vulcan in warpships of their own invention, but never told the Surakian Vulcans how to build those. They could have left in sublight ships and developed warp independently. They could have left in warpships at a time when all Vulcan had warp. They could have hitchhiked. They could have lacked warp until the Klingons sold it to them.

-The fact that a single Romulan ship in "BoT" appeared to lack warp (at least most of the time) proves nothing about the abilities of the Romulan Star Empire at the time. Some military planes of today lack radar. Some lack guns. Some lack engines. Some lack wings. Yet they still perform their military mission, and are in fact optimized for it to greater or lesser degree.

-Finally, if any of the big races of TNG had gained warp significantly earlier than the others, it would have had a chance to build a greater powerbase and could overwhelm the others with sheer numbers, even assuming complete stagnation of warp development after initial discovery. There could be balancing factors, but it would be implausible for them to synchronize ALL the major races to equal level by the 2300s. It seems more likely that the initial discovery was synchronized at least to within a couple of centuries. Why this would be is a mystery - perhaps a big puppeteer is pulling strings somewhere, or perhaps some weird sociopolitical mechanism destroys races that develop warp too soon or too late. But it seems pretty sure that all the big races did get their warp "at the same time", even if they got it in different ways.

And adding to the whole Romulan warp-stew:

The line in "The Enterprise Incident" was "Intelligence reports Romulans know using Klingon designs". No mention of an alliance or anything. This means:

1/ There was a trade (possibly ship designs for cloak, altough it seemed to take the Klingons over a decade (until Trek III) before they started using it).

2/ The trade was ships for ships (The Klingons deceided to adapt their present a wee bit more though, which explains the "Bird of Prey" in Trek III)

3/ The Romulans have a good intelligence service. They stole the design.

4/ Someone dropped the Bird of Prey model, and they needed a replacement. Fortunatly, they'd just spent a lot of money building this funky/ugly new design, and this was a prefect opportunity to use is.

I'd vote for 4, personally.

And finally, the plasma weapon from BOP was warp-capable. It caught-up to the Enterprise, which was travelling at "maximum speed" away from it (and if "maximum speed was Impulse, Kirk is a very silly girly). What are the odds the Rommies were sitting there, accidently discovered a FTL weapon while lacking FLT drives. Can you imagine testing it?

"Sir, the weapon was a success!"
"How do you know?"
"We didn't see anything produced. It MUST be going faster than light!" "Or, possibly, it didn't work."
"Er, naaaahhh. It can't be that."

Even if we allow that, you think they'd just cobble a ship together, and hobble out to the neutral zone on Impulse (which, unless the Neutral Zone was next door to Romulas, must have taken a fair amount of time)? Or do you think they'd just sit there and say: "Hang on, this FTL stuff is pretty hot. Hey, since we know it's not impossible, let's design some for our ships? Brilliant idea or what? Toga party to celebrate!"

Can't we just be straight from now on? I'm getting dizzy.

• Earth discovered warp in 2063.
  
• The Vulcans had it at the same time.
  
• The Klingons had it when the first encountered the Federation around the 2260s.
  
• The Romulans' most powerful ship (!) didn't have a warp drive of any shape in 'Balance Of Terror'. you'd imagine that they would have used it if they had it!
  

And that brings to a conclusion the (very short)

THINGS WE KNOW FOR DEFINITE!!

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Remember December '59
The howling wind and the driving rain,
Remember the gallant men who drowned
On the lifeboat, Mona was her name.

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I am going to buy Japanese cars from now on, because the auto workers got the day off to vote and the state went to Gore, so I want to see how many we can get unemployed.
From The Port Huron Times-Herald talk back section.

The Imperial Navy had warp drive on their star destroyers in 2260??!?!?!?!?!

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Can anyone say premature ejac ... er, election?

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I am going to buy Japanese cars from now on, because the auto workers got the day off to vote and the state went to Gore, so I want to see how many we can get unemployed.
From The Port Huron Times-Herald talk back section.

Also interesting is the reference to the Enterprise chasing the Romulans by looking for their "impulse turn" telltales, yet performing parts of the chase at warp 3 or higher and apparently still not overshooting their target.