I forgot what neutral zone they were in. I'm not sure, I might rewatch the episode tomorrow, I still think the whole argument hinges on whether the Romulans would trade the cloaking device for anything and I still can't see a reason they would give it up at all.
Well, let's try to frame it in context then. The Romulans at the time were antagonistic to the Feds. The Earth-Romulan wars had been lost, and the Federation had spent the last 100 years growing. The Romulans had been growing too, and were testing the waters for an attack on the Federation.
(Both of those points are confirmed in "Balance of Terror," when the Romulan Commander tests the BoP on Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone)
Given that, and given the failure of the BoP test (they had to self-destruct to avoid capture), an alliance with the Klingons makes sense. The Klingon Empire hated the Federation at that point, so the RSE and Klingons had a common, powerful enemy. An alliance against that ever-expanding threat would've make perfect sense at the time. Even if it was a straight-up cloak for D7 technology exchange, both Empires were going to share a decisive tactical advantage over the Federation's Starfleet - cloaking ships, and an impressive battlecruiser.
By the early 2300s, it might have looked like an oversight to have given up cloaking tech. But then again, I'm sure the Klingons regretted passing along the D7 to the Romulans. By 2344, the Romulan fleet had become so overpowered that they had no problem walking all over the KDF at Narendra III (including an attempted save by the Enterprise-C), and at Khitomer in 2346. If the Klingons had a long-term advantage from gaining cloaking technology, it's no stretch of the imagination that the Romulans gained design knowledge from the D7.
But also keep in mind that there's nothing to say that the Klingons couldn't have developed their own cloaking device in due time anyways, just as there's nothing to suggest that the Romulans couldn't design and build a battlecruiser later. It was all about what made sense in the context of the immediate threat the Federation posed in the 2260s. Both Empires needed the immediate tactical advantage over a common enemy, and it made more sense to share what they had already, than to waste time and resources developing separately while the Federation continued to expand.
Well, let's try to frame it in context then. The Romulans at the time were antagonistic to the Feds. The Earth-Romulan wars had been lost, and the Federation had spent the last 100 years growing. The Romulans had been growing too, and were testing the waters for an attack on the Federation.
(Both of those points are confirmed in "Balance of Terror," when the Romulan Commander tests the BoP on Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone)
Given that, and given the failure of the BoP test (they had to self-destruct to avoid capture), an alliance with the Klingons makes sense. The Klingon Empire hated the Federation at that point, so the RSE and Klingons had a common, powerful enemy. An alliance against that ever-expanding threat would've make perfect sense at the time. Even if it was a straight-up cloak for D7 technology exchange, both Empires were going to share a decisive tactical advantage over the Federation's Starfleet - cloaking ships, and an impressive battlecruiser.
By the early 2300s, it might have looked like an oversight to have given up cloaking tech. But then again, I'm sure the Klingons regretted passing along the D7 to the Romulans. By 2344, the Romulan fleet had become so overpowered that they had no problem walking all over the KDF at Narendra III (including an attempted save by the Enterprise-C), and at Khitomer in 2346. If the Klingons had a long-term advantage from gaining cloaking technology, it's no stretch of the imagination that the Romulans gained design knowledge from the D7.
But also keep in mind that there's nothing to say that the Klingons couldn't have developed their own cloaking device in due time anyways, just as there's nothing to suggest that the Romulans couldn't design and build a battlecruiser later. It was all about what made sense in the context of the immediate threat the Federation posed in the 2260s. Both Empires needed the immediate tactical advantage over a common enemy, and it made more sense to share what they had already, than to waste time and resources developing separately while the Federation continued to expand.
Heck, Section 31 managed to develop a PHASING cloak in just under 20 years, without anyone in the Federation not directly involved being the wiser. Cloak may be effective when used well, but so are defensive screens and phaser arrays. The "who" is just as important as the "how".
Another thing occured to me regarding the numbers game:
we have to take The Animated Series into account in addition to TOS.
And in TAS we saw another 6 Romulan D7 s. So we're up to at least 8.
And that assumes the Enterprise encountered every single one that was ever captured.
It's highly unlikely the Romulans managed to capture 8+ of these ships...possibly a LOT more since the Klingons would be very interested to get them out of Romulan hands by any means possible if those were indeed not ships they sold to them.:)
The exchange of Romulan Cloaks for better Power & Propulsion Systems and robust hulls benefited both the Romulans and the Klingons at the time. The cloaks obviously brought a strategic and tactical advantage to the Klingon Fleet. By the time of TNG, no Klingon Warship lacks cloaks. The Romulans though at TOS timeframe had terrible shipbuilding issues that others pointed out:
Horrible Romulan power and propulsion: For as potent as the Romulan BOP was in "Balance of Terror" she had very limited power reserves and very limited speeds. Everything the BOP did drained a finite pool of power and the captain was keenly aware of that issue. The longer the BOP operated, the worse off it was going to be. Also, the Enterprise, a Constitution-class, had a very clear operational speed advantage over the BOP. The BOP was slow and worried about power. The Constitution-class had infinite power and could travel faster. Even when the BOP was getting away, losing the Enterprise, with Kirk and crew's planning, they estimated where the Romulans would be going and easily overtook them to and set an ambush up. And the Romulan were deeply worried about just having enough fuel to get home, much less fight to the Neutral Zone.
At the time, the Klingons and Federation were in a deep Arms Race. They considered the other the rival and ships produced as such. The D-7 was the Klingons' best. At no time do we hear issues of their performance like the Romulans faced in Balance of Terror. When the Romulans are seen again in "Enterprise Incident" they had none of the horrible problems that plagued the Bird of Prey but they did fit their Cloaking Device to their D-7's. For the era, the D-7's became the symbol of 2 very different military powers.
At the time of the exchange, both the Romulans and Klingons got exactly what they badly wanted.
Side note: "Balance of Terror" is such an awesome Star Trek episode, among the franchise's best. The "enemy" had good characters and the Romulan Captain was played very well. No Trek fan should miss this episode. It is also one of the rare opportunities where we see a very military oriented Starfleet and command decisions aboard the Enterprise.
I think it all comes down to what the Romulans would gain and I just can't see them gaining anything that matches the significance of the cloaking device.
The Romulans may have had significantly worse engines than the Klingons or the Federation but that's nothing that can't be solved by capturing one federation ship (simpler nacelles) and reverse engineering it. Besides they have completely different power sources every single D7 received in a trade would have to be gutted and singularity cores installed.
Onto politics, though both the RSE and the KE have a mutual enemy I can't see them allying together even against the Federation, it's not unprecedented (USSR and TRIBBLE Germany at the start of WWII) but I still can't see the cloaking device playing any part in even a temporary alliance, that is the single advantage the RSE has over the KE.
Big ships? The Romulans built the D'D and the Scimitar, the two largest ships out of the main powers in the Alpha and Beta quadrants, a race that already has a 'Star Empire' doesn't build said Empire with BOPs, certainly not a power to rival the Federation and the KE.
Additionally, if the KE was smart enough it could get cloaks elsewhere, the Suliban for instance, or the Xyrillians, who were known the Klingons since 'ENT'.
The KE could even develop their own cloaks, the TOS Klingons were ore than honour spouting barbarians who could feasibly utilise scientists. Hell even Starfleet could develop cloaks.
In summery, both sides could develop (or already had) the tech the other supposedly traded to them, the Romulans had too much of an advantage to give up for little to no gain, and all the tech could be got elsewhere without an Alliance.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
You're vastly exaggerating the benefits of a cloaking device. There are numerous drawbacks to the tech, even in the 25th century. As much an advantage as having a cloak COULD be, having it on a cutting edge cruiser is more so. As a side note, we have no reason to believe that the D7s have singularity cores. Even the Tail Shear adapteds in game have M/AM cores.
You're vastly exaggerating the benefits of a cloaking device. There are numerous drawbacks to the tech, even in the 25th century. As much an advantage as having a cloak COULD be, having it on a cutting edge cruiser is more so.
Hardly, until much later they were almost undetectable, you could move a fleet of BOPs into enemy territory if needs be, until late TNG / DS9 cloaked ships were only found due to mistakes on the parts of the Romulans or Klingons operating them, or by good luck.
Mounting them on cruisers would simply require different, new, tactics, the cloak allowed for hit and run attacks that left no trace, it's simply a different style of warfare.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
The Romulans may have had significantly worse engines than the Klingons or the Federation but that's nothing that can't be solved by capturing one federation ship (simpler nacelles) and reverse engineering it...
...
Additionally, if the KE was smart enough it could get cloaks elsewhere, the Suliban for instance, or the Xyrillians, who were known the Klingons since 'ENT'.
Maybe, but neither of those options offer the immediate benefit that an alliance would give.
Big ships? The Romulans built the D'D and the Scimitar, the two largest ships out of the main powers in the Alpha and Beta quadrants...
And these ships were built around a century later. That's even with the technological 'headstart' on cruiser-building that having the D7 specs gave the Romulans. The Federation was an immediate threat in the 2260s, and there was a willing ally in the Klingons who were ready to help the Romulans' engineering woes.
Hardly, until much later they were almost undetectable, you could move a fleet of BOPs into enemy territory if needs be, until late TNG / DS9 cloaked ships were only found due to mistakes on the parts of the Romulans or Klingons operating them, or by good luck.
Yep, but the key here is "much later." The Enterprise didn't seem to have all that much difficulty detecting cloaked ships in TOS, or at least the Romulans' early version.
Trek is full of finding ways around cloaks. It makes it more difficult yes, but it's not impossible. And once you're out of cloak, you need a heavy-hitting ship to make it worth it. The Romulans found that in the D7, and later with their home-built D'deridex.
They might, but not when they are at war or in a state of cold war. The Romulans may not have had larger ships (an idea I think is silly as they are quit clearly capable of building larger ships than the KDF or SF) but they didn't need them, their ships were almost undetectable under cloak, old and outdated or not nothing is more tide turning in ST than cloaking.
All sides have roughly comparable shields, weapons, transporters, science, defences, warp speeds, ship ranges, etc. The Romulans had one advantage, the cloak, I just cant see them ever giving that up for anything, especially not to the third superpower in the quadrant.
Umm where do you get that from? What good is jumping someone if you don't have the strength to take them down?
Cloak didn't save that D7 that was attacking Voyager...even when they were using cloak and dagger techniques and constantly cloaking.
How do you know they have the same? Romulan ships, least TNG and beyond never had the same power and speed of other ships...because of their Singularity...Cryptic didn't just pull the -40 power loss out of their backside. I'm not a 100% sure but if I remember a DD couldn't achieve quite as fast warp speed as the Galaxy.
You just seem to be making stuff up as you go along and choosing to ignore anything that is counter to what you *believe*.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
You just seem to be making stuff up as you go along and choosing to ignore anything that is counter to what you *believe*.
What he is, is a canon purist. He rejects anything and everything that falls outside of the TV shows and movies. He is rejecting the personal opinion and intentions of the shows writers and producers because it doesn't fit his idea of what Star Trek should be. The producers put in many references to 23rd century Klingon-Romulan alliance, and have stated that they intended this, but since no character bothers to say "The Klingons and Romulans had an alliance from (blank) to (blank)", it is obviously everyone else's headcanon.
Side note: "Balance of Terror" is such an awesome Star Trek episode, among the franchise's best. The "enemy" had good characters and the Romulan Captain was played very well. No Trek fan should miss this episode. It is also one of the rare opportunities where we see a very military oriented Starfleet and command decisions aboard the Enterprise.
I would propose that the other TOS Romulan episode, The Enterprise Incident, is even more relevant, given that it is in that episode that we see the D7s in use. It also shows the pragmatic side of starfleet, executing a false flag operation against an enemy. We learn quite a bit about the Romulans themselves. Just as good as Balance of Terror, and one of the superior examples of TOS, character driven, without many of the elements from other episodes that don't age well, such as the outdated science.
I think it all comes down to what the Romulans would gain and I just can't see them gaining anything that matches the significance of the cloaking device.
The Romulans may have had significantly worse engines than the Klingons or the Federation but that's nothing that can't be solved by capturing one federation ship (simpler nacelles) and reverse engineering it. Besides they have completely different power sources every single D7 received in a trade would have to be gutted and singularity cores installed.
Onto politics, though both the RSE and the KE have a mutual enemy I can't see them allying together even against the Federation, it's not unprecedented (USSR and TRIBBLE Germany at the start of WWII) but I still can't see the cloaking device playing any part in even a temporary alliance, that is the single advantage the RSE has over the KE.
Big ships? The Romulans built the D'D and the Scimitar, the two largest ships out of the main powers in the Alpha and Beta quadrants, a race that already has a 'Star Empire' doesn't build said Empire with BOPs, certainly not a power to rival the Federation and the KE.
Additionally, if the KE was smart enough it could get cloaks elsewhere, the Suliban for instance, or the Xyrillians, who were known the Klingons since 'ENT'.
The KE could even develop their own cloaks, the TOS Klingons were ore than honour spouting barbarians who could feasibly utilise scientists. Hell even Starfleet could develop cloaks.
In summery, both sides could develop (or already had) the tech the other supposedly traded to them, the Romulans had too much of an advantage to give up for little to no gain, and all the tech could be got elsewhere without an Alliance.
You're confusing Romulan ship development by the time we are in TNG-era compared to the very sharp constraints they had in TOS-era with their signature Bird of Prey. An era long after the fact that the technological exchange when the two powers were allies during Kirk's time. It is a very sharp contrast.
If the Romulans were very capable in building large warships, then why did they need those D-7 hulls in TOS? The power and propulsion systems? Why did they need them to an extent that by the time we see the Romulans again in "Enterprise Incident," the D-7 was what they were using to intercept the Enterprise. Not 1, but 3 of them.
As for the notion of getting better engine design by just stealing/capturing a Starfleet vessel, easier said than done. Because the Romulans were desperate enough after the debacle of the Bird of Prey that they traded away their single most powerful, UNIQUE advantage that they had over their rivals. Cloaking Technology. Then next we see of them, they were flying D-7's all over the place.
Please provide the episode of the TV show where any sort of canon alliance and trade agreement was set up between the Romulans and Klingons for me please.
Until that episode magically appears they simplest answer is that the ships were captured as trophies or to reverse engineer.
The female Romulan commander was probably thinking the same thing as me,
"Romulan ships are way underpowered, I want something with a M/A Warp Core."
It was a happy day when I discovered that my fed-allied Romulan could claim the promotional T-5 Ambassador class, that they gave out last year, that ship has been my main on that Romulan for a while now. I prefer true power over the singularity abilities, because I don't have to shut down a subsystem to have good weapon power. I'd love at least a T-5 Klingon battlecruiser for my KDF-allied Romulan, be it a D-7/K'tinga, a Vor'cha, or even the Kamarag.
You're confusing Romulan ship development by the time we are in TNG-era compared to the very sharp constraints they had in TOS-era with their signature Bird of Prey. An era long after the fact that the technological exchange when the two powers were allies during Kirk's time. It is a very sharp contrast.
If the Romulans were very capable in building large warships, then why did they need those D-7 hulls in TOS? The power and propulsion systems? Why did they need them to an extent that by the time we see the Romulans again in "Enterprise Incident," the D-7 was what they were using to intercept the Enterprise. Not 1, but 3 of them.
As for the notion of getting better engine design by just stealing/capturing a Starfleet vessel, easier said than done. Because the Romulans were desperate enough after the debacle of the Bird of Prey that they traded away their single most powerful, UNIQUE advantage that they had over their rivals. Cloaking Technology. Then next we see of them, they were flying D-7's all over the place.
One might say two, if they have only seen the remastered version, because when they remastered the episode, the put a T'liss in the place of a D-7. So keep that in mind, I don't know what one is considered canon though,
One might say two, if they have only seen the remastered version, because when they remastered the episode, the put a T'liss in the place of a D-7. So keep that in mind, I don't know what one is considered canon though,
I'd go with the remastered version, since it is the more recent. Why change anything if you don't intend for people to accept the change?
I'd go with the remastered version, since it is the more recent. Why change anything if you don't intend for people to accept the change?
Seems to solidify the placement of both the D7 and the BoP in the Romulan fleet.
TOS Remastered is an attempt at bringing in so many missed visual effects. One of them, of course, was the unavailable BoP model. So in this case, they could've replaced all three D7s and said "finally, we can show the Romulan ships."
Instead, they solidified that yes, the D7 was a Romulan-used ship. 2-to-1 in this particular case.
Anyways, we're drifting far, far off the original intent of this thread. It's not the first time a request for a Romulan D-7 be put into the game and it won't be the last.
I very much support the notion of a Romulan D-7 in T2 and T6.
Firstly, in T2 it would be the next step after the T'Liss at T1.
Secondly, having it in T6 would be nice to be able to play with the Rom D-7 at endgame quality. The KDF was very fortunate to have the D-7/K'T'Inga at Fleet T5/T5U while the Feds can't even get the ORIGINAL HERO SHIP of Star Trek at endgame quality.
With the implementation of a Rom D-7, I'd love to see the typical "modern" skins for it as well as the classic TOS Romulan style with white/light grey and the phoenix design.
I'd go one further and request other warbirds have the TOS style skin as an option. Some of those warbirds with those large, sweeping wing designs just BEG to have a phoenix design on it.
Add me to the list of people wanting to see a Romulan D7 in game. It is a canon ship and deserves to be in the line up.
From a lore point of view it honestly makes sense for the Romulan D7 to be a ship used by the Republic. Consider that the Republic is very new, it would be starved of resources, there most likely wouldn't have been any shipyards available to the Republic prior to Obisek gaining control of the Vault. The Republic would have to make do with whatever resources and ships that they could scavenge or steal (with, of course, a fair share of defections from the Imperial Navy and Tal Shiar). This should leave the Republic fleet largely built up of older designs. Ships that had been mothballed, put on patrol duty/planetary defense for worlds far from the front lines etc, a description that fits both the T'liss Warbird and the Romulan D7 perfectly.
Comments
Well, let's try to frame it in context then. The Romulans at the time were antagonistic to the Feds. The Earth-Romulan wars had been lost, and the Federation had spent the last 100 years growing. The Romulans had been growing too, and were testing the waters for an attack on the Federation.
(Both of those points are confirmed in "Balance of Terror," when the Romulan Commander tests the BoP on Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone)
Given that, and given the failure of the BoP test (they had to self-destruct to avoid capture), an alliance with the Klingons makes sense. The Klingon Empire hated the Federation at that point, so the RSE and Klingons had a common, powerful enemy. An alliance against that ever-expanding threat would've make perfect sense at the time. Even if it was a straight-up cloak for D7 technology exchange, both Empires were going to share a decisive tactical advantage over the Federation's Starfleet - cloaking ships, and an impressive battlecruiser.
By the early 2300s, it might have looked like an oversight to have given up cloaking tech. But then again, I'm sure the Klingons regretted passing along the D7 to the Romulans. By 2344, the Romulan fleet had become so overpowered that they had no problem walking all over the KDF at Narendra III (including an attempted save by the Enterprise-C), and at Khitomer in 2346. If the Klingons had a long-term advantage from gaining cloaking technology, it's no stretch of the imagination that the Romulans gained design knowledge from the D7.
But also keep in mind that there's nothing to say that the Klingons couldn't have developed their own cloaking device in due time anyways, just as there's nothing to suggest that the Romulans couldn't design and build a battlecruiser later. It was all about what made sense in the context of the immediate threat the Federation posed in the 2260s. Both Empires needed the immediate tactical advantage over a common enemy, and it made more sense to share what they had already, than to waste time and resources developing separately while the Federation continued to expand.
Heck, Section 31 managed to develop a PHASING cloak in just under 20 years, without anyone in the Federation not directly involved being the wiser. Cloak may be effective when used well, but so are defensive screens and phaser arrays. The "who" is just as important as the "how".
we have to take The Animated Series into account in addition to TOS.
And in TAS we saw another 6 Romulan D7 s. So we're up to at least 8.
And that assumes the Enterprise encountered every single one that was ever captured.
It's highly unlikely the Romulans managed to capture 8+ of these ships...possibly a LOT more since the Klingons would be very interested to get them out of Romulan hands by any means possible if those were indeed not ships they sold to them.:)
Horrible Romulan power and propulsion: For as potent as the Romulan BOP was in "Balance of Terror" she had very limited power reserves and very limited speeds. Everything the BOP did drained a finite pool of power and the captain was keenly aware of that issue. The longer the BOP operated, the worse off it was going to be. Also, the Enterprise, a Constitution-class, had a very clear operational speed advantage over the BOP. The BOP was slow and worried about power. The Constitution-class had infinite power and could travel faster. Even when the BOP was getting away, losing the Enterprise, with Kirk and crew's planning, they estimated where the Romulans would be going and easily overtook them to and set an ambush up. And the Romulan were deeply worried about just having enough fuel to get home, much less fight to the Neutral Zone.
At the time, the Klingons and Federation were in a deep Arms Race. They considered the other the rival and ships produced as such. The D-7 was the Klingons' best. At no time do we hear issues of their performance like the Romulans faced in Balance of Terror. When the Romulans are seen again in "Enterprise Incident" they had none of the horrible problems that plagued the Bird of Prey but they did fit their Cloaking Device to their D-7's. For the era, the D-7's became the symbol of 2 very different military powers.
At the time of the exchange, both the Romulans and Klingons got exactly what they badly wanted.
Side note: "Balance of Terror" is such an awesome Star Trek episode, among the franchise's best. The "enemy" had good characters and the Romulan Captain was played very well. No Trek fan should miss this episode. It is also one of the rare opportunities where we see a very military oriented Starfleet and command decisions aboard the Enterprise.
The Romulans may have had significantly worse engines than the Klingons or the Federation but that's nothing that can't be solved by capturing one federation ship (simpler nacelles) and reverse engineering it. Besides they have completely different power sources every single D7 received in a trade would have to be gutted and singularity cores installed.
Onto politics, though both the RSE and the KE have a mutual enemy I can't see them allying together even against the Federation, it's not unprecedented (USSR and TRIBBLE Germany at the start of WWII) but I still can't see the cloaking device playing any part in even a temporary alliance, that is the single advantage the RSE has over the KE.
Big ships? The Romulans built the D'D and the Scimitar, the two largest ships out of the main powers in the Alpha and Beta quadrants, a race that already has a 'Star Empire' doesn't build said Empire with BOPs, certainly not a power to rival the Federation and the KE.
Additionally, if the KE was smart enough it could get cloaks elsewhere, the Suliban for instance, or the Xyrillians, who were known the Klingons since 'ENT'.
The KE could even develop their own cloaks, the TOS Klingons were ore than honour spouting barbarians who could feasibly utilise scientists. Hell even Starfleet could develop cloaks.
In summery, both sides could develop (or already had) the tech the other supposedly traded to them, the Romulans had too much of an advantage to give up for little to no gain, and all the tech could be got elsewhere without an Alliance.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Hardly, until much later they were almost undetectable, you could move a fleet of BOPs into enemy territory if needs be, until late TNG / DS9 cloaked ships were only found due to mistakes on the parts of the Romulans or Klingons operating them, or by good luck.
Mounting them on cruisers would simply require different, new, tactics, the cloak allowed for hit and run attacks that left no trace, it's simply a different style of warfare.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Maybe, but neither of those options offer the immediate benefit that an alliance would give.
They obviously didn't see the Klingons as a threat. They saw the Federation as a threat, and so did the Klingons.
And these ships were built around a century later. That's even with the technological 'headstart' on cruiser-building that having the D7 specs gave the Romulans. The Federation was an immediate threat in the 2260s, and there was a willing ally in the Klingons who were ready to help the Romulans' engineering woes.
Yep, but the key here is "much later." The Enterprise didn't seem to have all that much difficulty detecting cloaked ships in TOS, or at least the Romulans' early version.
Trek is full of finding ways around cloaks. It makes it more difficult yes, but it's not impossible. And once you're out of cloak, you need a heavy-hitting ship to make it worth it. The Romulans found that in the D7, and later with their home-built D'deridex.
Umm where do you get that from? What good is jumping someone if you don't have the strength to take them down?
Cloak didn't save that D7 that was attacking Voyager...even when they were using cloak and dagger techniques and constantly cloaking.
How do you know they have the same? Romulan ships, least TNG and beyond never had the same power and speed of other ships...because of their Singularity...Cryptic didn't just pull the -40 power loss out of their backside. I'm not a 100% sure but if I remember a DD couldn't achieve quite as fast warp speed as the Galaxy.
You just seem to be making stuff up as you go along and choosing to ignore anything that is counter to what you *believe*.
What he is, is a canon purist. He rejects anything and everything that falls outside of the TV shows and movies. He is rejecting the personal opinion and intentions of the shows writers and producers because it doesn't fit his idea of what Star Trek should be. The producers put in many references to 23rd century Klingon-Romulan alliance, and have stated that they intended this, but since no character bothers to say "The Klingons and Romulans had an alliance from (blank) to (blank)", it is obviously everyone else's headcanon.
I would propose that the other TOS Romulan episode, The Enterprise Incident, is even more relevant, given that it is in that episode that we see the D7s in use. It also shows the pragmatic side of starfleet, executing a false flag operation against an enemy. We learn quite a bit about the Romulans themselves. Just as good as Balance of Terror, and one of the superior examples of TOS, character driven, without many of the elements from other episodes that don't age well, such as the outdated science.
You're confusing Romulan ship development by the time we are in TNG-era compared to the very sharp constraints they had in TOS-era with their signature Bird of Prey. An era long after the fact that the technological exchange when the two powers were allies during Kirk's time. It is a very sharp contrast.
If the Romulans were very capable in building large warships, then why did they need those D-7 hulls in TOS? The power and propulsion systems? Why did they need them to an extent that by the time we see the Romulans again in "Enterprise Incident," the D-7 was what they were using to intercept the Enterprise. Not 1, but 3 of them.
As for the notion of getting better engine design by just stealing/capturing a Starfleet vessel, easier said than done. Because the Romulans were desperate enough after the debacle of the Bird of Prey that they traded away their single most powerful, UNIQUE advantage that they had over their rivals. Cloaking Technology. Then next we see of them, they were flying D-7's all over the place.
The female Romulan commander was probably thinking the same thing as me,
"Romulan ships are way underpowered, I want something with a M/A Warp Core."
It was a happy day when I discovered that my fed-allied Romulan could claim the promotional T-5 Ambassador class, that they gave out last year, that ship has been my main on that Romulan for a while now. I prefer true power over the singularity abilities, because I don't have to shut down a subsystem to have good weapon power. I'd love at least a T-5 Klingon battlecruiser for my KDF-allied Romulan, be it a D-7/K'tinga, a Vor'cha, or even the Kamarag.
One might say two, if they have only seen the remastered version, because when they remastered the episode, the put a T'liss in the place of a D-7. So keep that in mind, I don't know what one is considered canon though,
I'd go with the remastered version, since it is the more recent. Why change anything if you don't intend for people to accept the change?
Seems to solidify the placement of both the D7 and the BoP in the Romulan fleet.
TOS Remastered is an attempt at bringing in so many missed visual effects. One of them, of course, was the unavailable BoP model. So in this case, they could've replaced all three D7s and said "finally, we can show the Romulan ships."
Instead, they solidified that yes, the D7 was a Romulan-used ship. 2-to-1 in this particular case.
I very much support the notion of a Romulan D-7 in T2 and T6.
Firstly, in T2 it would be the next step after the T'Liss at T1.
Secondly, having it in T6 would be nice to be able to play with the Rom D-7 at endgame quality. The KDF was very fortunate to have the D-7/K'T'Inga at Fleet T5/T5U while the Feds can't even get the ORIGINAL HERO SHIP of Star Trek at endgame quality.
With the implementation of a Rom D-7, I'd love to see the typical "modern" skins for it as well as the classic TOS Romulan style with white/light grey and the phoenix design.
I'd go one further and request other warbirds have the TOS style skin as an option. Some of those warbirds with those large, sweeping wing designs just BEG to have a phoenix design on it.
From a lore point of view it honestly makes sense for the Romulan D7 to be a ship used by the Republic. Consider that the Republic is very new, it would be starved of resources, there most likely wouldn't have been any shipyards available to the Republic prior to Obisek gaining control of the Vault. The Republic would have to make do with whatever resources and ships that they could scavenge or steal (with, of course, a fair share of defections from the Imperial Navy and Tal Shiar). This should leave the Republic fleet largely built up of older designs. Ships that had been mothballed, put on patrol duty/planetary defense for worlds far from the front lines etc, a description that fits both the T'liss Warbird and the Romulan D7 perfectly.