I really LOVE this design. Also, I am in the middle of an Enterprise complete series Bluray rewatch (half way through season 2), after having not seen Enterprise (except for maybe In A Mirror Darkly) since 2009, and literally just watched Minefield. That show is WAY better than I remember it. All the so called "continuity errors" that people talk about, aren't really there. Enterprise is amazingly consistent. Every time someone cites the Romulan Bird of Prey as being inconsistent with the era, I want to scream. Maybe the BOP from Balance of Terror is actually inconsistent, because it is a prototype. Maybe it's colored that way, because the Romulans were adopting Federation techniques and styling at the time. Maybe there were different factions within the Romulan Star Empire that had different design philosophies. Or, maybe the designers of the BOP from Minefield were looking at it like this: being consistant with 7 seasons of TNG, 7 Seasons of DS9, and 7 Seasons of Voyager was far more important than being consistent with 3 episodes of TOS where the BOP appears, and FASA, which was never, ever canon to begin with! Please stop with the Berman and Braga hate, people! Berman and Braga were FAR BETTER than the JJ era, and with the looks of of Discovery, how I wish we could return to the Berman era. Some of the best Trek ever came from that era!
It's also possible that the Tal'Shiar (Romulan spy service) commissioned the BoP and it therefore looks different than the rest of the Romulans' ships of the line. After all, even Earth ships look different from one another (Starfleet ships and civilian ships have different design aesthetics) so why wouldn't that be the case with Romulan ships as well?
Agreed. Even in Starfleet, you have different designs. Compare a Defiant class to any other class. It looks more like a scaled up Runabout, than a ship of the line.
I don't have a problem with the design. The idea that the TOS ship was a rough one off prototype and that the main Romulan fleet wouldn't look like that makes perfect sense. The Romulans should be advanced in that time period. They're related to the Vulcans and they were a very early spacefaring race with their tech and ships being some of best in known space. Its reasonable to think that the Romulans would be similarly advanced. Earth is behind playing catch up and then match and perhaps leapfrog once the Federation is founded and they get Vulcan tech and the ability to advance faster inherent to a large organization pooling resources. I like the idea that the guy who did Pacific 201 had, that this ship didn't have a personal cloak. It was just detaching from a big bulky carrier/cloaking unit, like those Star Wars fighters that had the hyperspace ring. I don't think they should tie the designers hands and force hideously basic junk on screen just to make TOS look good. Same feedback I've given on the Discovery videos. For one the visual and story continuity should stay separate, the former should be more loose and flexible, the latter is what is important. And second I'm more and more just thinking of TMP being a visual reboot, making TOS its own self contained visual universe. That is the most elegant solution to Star Treks visual issues, one reboot, no temporal side universe theories needed. Today > ENT > DIS > TMP > TNG works much better for me, and this ship fits right in there for me, TOS is the anomaly.
yeah think the main thing people dont understand is this we wont be happy regardless, if they visually tried to keep it somewhat in line with ToS, it'd look even more basic and really ToS visuals was ToS only, it was the 60's and if ships now with how the internet is, looked worse? is worse the right word? more simplistic? the constitution was the top of the line ship and it was basically a saucer stuck to a cylinder , with 2 engines litterally strapped to the side with thin pipes. so what could you do to make ships look less advanced than that?? the deadalus is a great example. The Ares class is perfect ship design doesn't mess with canon at all, you can totally look at the ares class as an emergency response vessal to push federation tech. so it goes deadalus? - ares - constituion - miranda , can totally get behind that ... for ToS. ships have to look "good" for when they are made, the NX class vessals are upside down Akira class, its smaller, less powerful, its tech is explained as "we got no idea what we doing but we're doing it anyway" they talk you through breifly what things can do, what they are capable of, the NX works fine. i apply that same ideology to this ship. i look at this and i think yeah thats a romulan vessal, the main point was immedatly conveyed, for an advanced experimental prototype ship whose visual design is carried forward in later models, NX scaled up is the akira NX-refit , add a rollbar to the top you aint miles away from the miranda and the miranda is in use for centuries, the nebula is basically a bigger miranda with the ability to recover saucer sections of galaxy and other nebula class, presumably its also capable of retreiving the ambassador class saucer too if thats detachable. we cant accept a new ToS like ship as a dedicated thing, we'd pick at it for inaccuracies, even the hull colorisation, length n shape of neacells, angel of the saucer. ya know like we did to the reboot ship which wasn't really accepted but it wasn't ever considered as "meant to be right" we just all pointed at different parts and said, thats a bit off, the size up scaling is all over the place but ya know, i can look at this and accept for it is meant to be, the constituion enterprise. ultimately we can't keep the ToS aestic outside of ToS and to make something older and more basic than ToS wouldn't fly in the internet age as realistically it'd be some basic shapes welded to each other. and then theres the real world design for the IXS which i beleive stands for international exploration ship and that looks more advanced than ToS to the point i'd say its comparable to a rings variant of the constellation / stargazer ship. we cant have a scifi ship that looks unbeleivable because it looks signfigantly less advanced than actual proposed prototype real world deisgns. kinda defeats the point of scifi.
Grant Albrecht First off, there is a story here about The Original Star Trek Series Romulan bird of prey ship and the relation between the Vulcans and the Romulans. The Ship: Created by Wa Chang, out of paper machae was an excellent looking ship. The problem was is that Wa Chang didn't belong to a union, and his name was excluded in the credits on the show. In a fit of anger, he took it in the back yard of his home and destroyed it, which was a total loss as it an extremely Beautiful piece of work. Trivial information, the Romulan Bridge seen here is acually the observation deck of the Enterprise. THE Romulans, Are in acuality Vulcans. In the third season episode, The Paradise Syndrome, Mr. Spock explains that an alien race called The Preservers, has taken different species of humans and humoids and scattered them throughout the galaxy. In this case, the violent Vulcans, who could NEVER accept Surik's teachings of piece and the meaning of Noam, the teachings of peace and surpressing all emotions and devote all emotions to logic, were removed by the Preservers to the Romulus Remus section of the galaxy whare they csn progress and evolve into a race of beings that may one day eventually advance to a more peaceful race of beings and culture. If you will recall, Dr. McCoy in that episode,( The Paradise Syndrome) said, that he had always wondered why there were so many humans and humoids scattered throughout the galaxies, and as we all know, Mr. Spock gives tidbits of information concerning his Vulcsn ancestory throughout the short three season series. I am an a Original Star Trek Series fan here, and love ONLY the Original Star Trek Series as it's the only very BEST Star Trek out there. Not a fsn at all of that next generation stuff, it's to stupid, childish and ridculious. Only the Original Star Trek Series is the very Best.
The TOS romulan ship in Balance of Terror was not an experimental ship. The ship in that episode was stated to be the flag ship of the Romulan fleet, the Praetor's pride. Test bed or experimental ships do not carry a fleet's flag.
if its a experimental test bed, and the experiments were impressive enough, a admiral may very well want them on his flag ship... particularly a new type of warp drive engine or for instance a cleaner more efficient particle energy device like teleporters, replicaters, weapons like plasma or phaser banks, or the ever lovely regular engines that just push the ship around when not in warp
12:30 Don’t forget the scout ship. 14:00 The Daedalus-class, the ugly duckling to become a beautiful swan. 14:53 I lost your line of reasoning here. Bulky cylinders are a sign of technological limitations. The Starfleet Museum gives the Romulans of the era fusion-based warp reactors which are bulkier.
Small impulse is due to the speed limit of early cloaks. Essentially, early cloaking had a limit to how much of the impulse signature it can displace. Also, given the size of the ship the impulse engines are perfectly capable of moving it around, compare it size vs the ship size to that of the Connie, the Mass to Impulse ratio is actually pretty decent.
I think the design looks to futuristic for the time period that it was meant to be in. Especially when you put it next to the original Romulan Warbird in TOS. I think the reason why the ship looks like this is due to the fact that they needed something that resembled the old warbird, but looks more modern for the younger generation. Sure it's a letdown but at least the design alone looks nice. I mean now that I think about it the Romulans and the Vulcans have a common ancestry. So they're very first ships could have sported the ring warp drive. In TOS the Romulan warbird has parts that look similar to a constitution class federation ship. The color is gray with a saucer-ish mid section and tubular warp engines. It could be said that after losing the Romulan war, they retired the ring warp drive warships in favor of integrating advanced federation technology into a new ship, The iconic Romulan warbird of TOS.
its also possible that thier ring ships were alot like the trade federation ring ships that have the central sphere that can detach from the main ship and fly around doing thier own thing leaving the ring to just float in orbit over a planet or where ever etc
i heard someone say the ships may not even have a cloak but may have undocked or detached from something larger that had a cloak... maybe they had a advanced hyper drive ring carrier with advanced cloak and energy systems
I really like this ship. The only detail I have a problem with is the shape of the bridge module. I think it's pretty unfair to expect the production designers of Enterprise to express themselves just because they couldn't be bothered with the TOS warbird. I mean, that was just a weird quasi saucer with a couple of wings with pipes on the end and bird decals. I mean, what should John Eaves have done? Do a 1950ies B movie rocketship just to make it less advanced than a half-arsed design?
As a Patreon patron of this channel, I am very pleased with the videos you guys have made this week. (Specifically this one and the Serenity one.) I disagree with the Captain on this ship looking out-of-place, particularly since the Balance Of Terror ship was a one-of-a-kind prototype. (If we don't consider the new effects from TOS remastered to be canon.) I see the BOT ship to be the oddball in the lineage, not this ship. In defense of the Captain, though, I did not grow up with FASA, just canon Star Trek and some scattered non-canon novels from Peter David. On the subject of warpaint on spaceships, I personally like it in general... but I agree the feathering on this ship is better.
There are a couple of good reasons to paint a big bird or something on a ship. First it is like blessing for the ship , the way you would have a maidenhead on a sailing ship or paint teeth on a WW2 fighter it can encourage morale among the crew. As well it could have religious significance to the crew. Second it is a kind of psychological warfare. Much like wearing a mask to the enemy can't see your face in battle. It could stir fear in the enemy when they see the big bird appear over them. Romulans are good at this kind of warfare. Even at the great ranges involved in star trek the magnification abilities of the ship means that yes the other ship will see it. Otherwise there is really no good reason for starfleet to print the name of the ship and light it on the ships. Overall i do like the design it says Romulan.
Since we never saw this ship again on the show. What if it was actually a ship from the future that was there to protect something that shouldn't be found yet? At least then you can explain the advanced look of the ship.
Victor Garcia That would be cool if they were some faction of the Tine War but the novels say they were just an advanced prototype. The cloak it used proved to be too costly for it to be implemented to the rest of their ships at the time.
I half agree with the point that you don't need a giant bird on the spaceship for fighting purposes. That being said, it was written into the TOS story line for Balance of Terror. I think also since Star Trek was so in its infancy in the 1960's and they never had imagined that it would survive TV and go beyond into the next century that the Bird was put on the original model to ad detail. Especially since if I remember right they had about 3 weeks to come up with the ship design and have it built and ready to film by that time.
One of my favourite Starship designs. I'd love to see this in a battle with the refit Enterprise. I'd love to see the TOS Romulan BOP crossed with this, as a sort of refit like a TMP era version. I love how it looks as a precursor for the TNG Warbird.
Absolutely. Remember, Archer found a way to scan for the cloaked mines in the episode "Minefield" so it stands to reason that 100 years or so later, the Romulans would have upgraded their cloaking device so that they couldn't be detected like before. And perhaps this newer, better cloak - which works well enough to fool 23rd century era Starfleet sensors - has a flaw. When the cloak is in use, the ship cannot go to light speed or it will be detected or the cloak will fail altogether. Hence, Scotty's comment about that ship being "simple impulse".
In Star Fleet battles the Romulans had the War Bird, War Eagle and then were influenced by Klingon ship design when they bought Klingon D-6/D-7 hulls and armed them with Phaser 1s and Plasma weapons. After that a bunch of Romulan builds using the idea of Klingon ships with the Bridge in the bulb at the end of a boom extending from a Hull with the engines appeared.
I have a theory about why the TOS BoP looks so different from all of the other Romulan designs. The Romulans had spies in the Federation and Starfleet. These spies could have recorded information on Starfleet technology and ship designs. The Romulans used the Federation style designs in their new ship (TOS BoP). The prototype was outfitted with a cloaking device and plasma torpedoes. When the prototype was destroyed, the Romulans went back to their own designs.
well you could argue, that maybe they could only limited cloak that didnt work very well and starfleet found a way to get around... also you could argue their cloak wasnt completely based onboard thier starship, maybe it was reflected over the ship from a nearby cloaking generator based on a planet or moon or orbiting starbase that was also cloaking itself, think about it, maybe the cloak takes to much energy for anything less then being projected from a large starbase or planetary generated field, that would make so much more sense because they were surprised the romulan cloak was mobile and worked enough to not be seen by their sensors, but they started trying to look for clues of where it was because they KNEW the cloak was going to have a flaw, because the romulan cloaks before were defeated due to major flaws perhaps? cloaks arent easy to pull off especially on a massive powergenerator that moves around in space etc with engines and warp nasseles and weapon loads, not to mention the living creatures and computers onboard, someone or something would create a flaw in the cloak
it is easy to look more advanced than ToS simply because of budget and more detailed modeling. i dont think the goal should have been to make it look less advanced than the ToS models but to have an ideal model of the ToS ship in mind and make it less advanced than that.
My headcanon had this ship as being ok where it is, and the reason the one in TOS looks almost as though it could be a federation ship (its like a Miranda saucer with wings and constitution nacelles (shortened)) is because they found that federation tech was superior to theirs and they tried to adapt in a way mirroring their "rivals". That, or they stile technology. Either way, i think they're fine. Vulcan ships, while not green, do have the curves, and i do not see why having a curved nacelle and more angular wings wouldn't fit into the Romulan traditional design.
maybe it was a federation ship that went too deep into romulan space... well as long as they dont harm the crew... although it would be ironically likely it could just be another ship the tholians were attempting to capture like in the TOS Tholians Web or whatever its called.... or the enterprise in a mirror darkly where they found it lol, maybe the romulans ironically stole a federation ship from a bubble in the space time of the universe, or from a alternate world where the romulans are pleasent and thoughtful of others needs before their own :/ no doubt the romulans would dub that the "evil" mirror universe lol them being nice would likely be to much for them to stomache or trust in a mirror version of themselves lol make them question their own choices and actions far too much :p for them questioning a choice or order even once is likely too much, even half questioning it is probably thier version of a crime lol
Romulan ships were not so green, but then again in TOS Klingons did not have forhead ridges. For a pre TOS everything looked so TNG in that series. I'm afraid that Discover sets the same tone.
At a con a few years back when asked about this ship ,one if the Enterprise writers said something along the lines of "maybe they are not the Romulans you think they are". Since then many fans have speculated that this ship was from future Romulans caught up in the Temporal Cold War. I'm ok with thinking that because this thing belongs right beside Valdor or D'Deridex.
you guys suggested that the TOS Bird of prey was a one off prototype. It would justify the similar look to the Constitution ships if you consider that the Romulans built the prototype with federation tech to keep their tech secrets safe on the offhand chance that the Federation actually captured it. They would get the plasma cannon & cloaking device but they would not get a sample of their standard ship building process. Considering that, the commitment the Romulan commander has to destroying the ship makes more sense as well.
I will say the mines being cloaked but the ships not being able to would have worked a bit better for fitting into TOS. It would show that they were working on Cloaking tech but it was only able to cloak a mine and maybe the intelligence groups would dismiss the cloaking mines as rumors and distorted after action reports.
The Kilingons were a USSR sort of design ethos... rough . crude. tough as a planet eater's skin.. The Vulcans were a bit more .. japanese ?? and Romulans far more like Chinese..
I think your wrong in that they could have used almost this same shape yet made it smooth and white like in the TOS version and it would have worked better. I do think the Bird on the original was a tad plain, but for its day it was cool as hell when you only had 6 channels on TV, and didn't have VCRs yet.
This is a TNG era design. This could pass as a post TNG era design. Enterprise really mucked things up - the Romulans being one of the biggest screw ups.
why, why couldnt this be a early prototype that they decided to shelve for a better design then came back to it, sort of like if they made a new oberth class ship that was a warp 10 ship and larger then previous ones, with advanced systems etc
ship is great , just delete the old design and substitute it with this one!...the old warbird looks too much like a fed ship. The impulse engines are not small at all, just think of the connie or the ambassador.
I see the school of thought in the fan base is mixed on this ship. I being 54 years old, and having watched TOS from the syndication everyday for years after school. Buying all possible AMT models of Star Trek, and the Leif Ericson UFO mystery ship. all original Battle Star Galactica, and all original Star Wars models in the 1970's. Well My point is I never fantasized about being Kirk. I wanted to be Scotty. I like this ship design, but I don't think it belongs in Enterprise. I do think they could have made almost the same shape, and put on the engine look of TOS BOP and basically had a slightly smaller version of the original and it would have fit the story much better. The shape is to advanced to be before Balance of Terror which is suppose to be around 70 to 100 years later. And by using the Green color that is associated with TNG Romulans and Klingons of ships much later. No I'm sorry they dropped the ball on this one. I could design a better Enterprise era Romulan ship and it would fit the story, and the era.
I agree it looks too advanced. It also looks very similar to the Romulan ships from the Starfleet Command games (including the one on the Nintendo DS).
The romulans never had advanced warp drives. they used star bases to create the singularity, this then evaporated releasing huge amounts of energy needed for warp drive. once the ship arrived at its destination it had no way to warp back untill they established a new base capable of generating a new singularity.
Sure they had warp drive. The quantum singularity tech was only referenced/seen in TNG, which means that having ENT and TOS era Romulan ships using warp drive was the norm until they invented the quantum singularity tech. Keep in mind that the QS drive doesn't mean that their ships were faster.. it's just the drive method they chose (possibly a more efficient way to stay cloaked while @ warp speeds?). An electric car and a diesel fuel car can both get to 80 mph.
excerpt from "balance of terror". descussing the romulans KIRK: Yes, well gentlemen, the question still remains. Can we engage them with a reasonable possibility of victory? SCOTT: No question. Their power is simple impulse. KIRK: Meaning we can outrun them?
If we go by the (annoying) theory that TOS designs and aesthetics were retcon'ed by the movies and nothing that we saw in the original series was what we saw THEN this works as a design (except for the cloaking device). However I like the TOS designs and do not like the effort to erase them from canon.
I'm of Stuart's viewpoint,I grew up during the TOS era when the Romulans only had Impulse power, they hadn't managed to get warp power yet. This design is just far too advanced for this time period.
See, that never made sense to me. If they are an offspring of the Vulcans, they must have had warp-engines or at least sublight technology to travel that far from Vulcan since they surely didn´t ride into space on their vulcan horses. I mean, according to Q in Voyager, they fought a hundred year long war sometime after that split which is not very convincing if the Romulans or both Romulans and Vulcans only had sublight technology...or they must have really really really really really hated each other (like fly 50 years, fight each other for a day and fly 50 years back hate^^)! Which means they must be at least as far developed as the Vulcans or maybe even more advanced since they are not as peaceful and war often accelerates tech development...which would also explain why they already have cloaking tech. But even if you ignore all TV-canon after TNG this whole Vulcan/Romulan history/technology canon doesn´t really fit together...
Sure they did. They just couldn't go to warp while cloaked. Perhaps this is why they develop the "forced quantum singularity" drive that we hear about in TNG.
And like I mentioned elsewhere, it is possible that this PARTICULAR Bird of Prey from TOS, which is a perimeter ship assigned to patrol the Neutral Zone, has no need for warp drive since it does not patrol interstellar distances. It could get a cloak or a warp drive and it got the cloak. That's what was necessary for their mission. Other ships in the Romulan fleet, on the other hand, that are designed for war or exploration DO have warp capability.
The more that I see Enterprise ships and tech, the more I feel like it was a reboot slipped under our noses. Seeing the Constitution Defiant is the only thing that really makes me disagree with that idea.
I think the nacelles should've looked more primitive than they do, the ones they used look too much like the ones on the Valdore and so look too modern.
Great ship, wrong era. I couldn't agree more. Giving Romulans a cloak back when the NX-01 was new, was just plain laziness on the part of the writer and Producer. Retcon to your heart's content, but in MY head, it's a giant fail.
How so? If we're to think it through, here's how it plays out: the Romulans are experimenting with cloaking technology all the way back to the 22nd century. Archer and crew are hit by a cloaked mine and they figure out how to detect them. And since the mines are operating on the same cloaking tech as the 2 Romulan BoP's we see later in the episode, then it stands to reason that Starfleet (thanks to Archer's experience in the minefield) now has a way to "see" cloaked Romulan ships of the era (assuming they know to look for them). So then the Romulan War happens (which would have been season 5 or 6 if the show hadn't been cancelled) and Starfleet is able to see the few BoP's in service. After the war is over and the Romulans disappear behind the Neutral Zone for a century, they know that they have to "reinvent" their cloaking device because Starfleet knows how to see them.
Zero Ryoko totally agree they should have used it in TNG it would fit in there very well and use the D5 for the enterprise romulan ship and maybe paint it grey with some orange wing markings to make it look more pre TOS
www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/early-romulan-ship.jpg as an example of what the romulan ships should have looked like, this is a better image s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c5/28/ab/c528ab602a16e3a9c742ad7e3472805d.jpg
that is why prequels fail... they make no sense. It is stupid because historical dramas are so well done but when it comes to sci fi prequels.. they usually are more frustrating because they don't get the same attention to detail. the ship can look advanced and still be not... but what made it advanced was the cloak and plasma
Conny? do you mean a constitution class starship? I disagree. Since the bridges of both ships couldn't be further apart. The Enterprise had flat screens the Defiant had huge monitors above their stations. The Enterprise had compact bridge stations and the Defiant used those widely spaced scrabble board controls. Defiant's phasers were better looking than the phase pistols though but most of the tech showed the 40 year old difference between TOS and ENT
dragonweyr44 The novels do explain why they do look so radically different but the fact is the Defiant had more advanced shields and weapon art. Not to mention it could do warp 8.
Granted, the Defiant's SHOULD be more advanced than the NX-01 Enterprise (or should I say the Terran Empire ship Enterprise. but it certainly doesn't look more advanced. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED the Enterprise series. But that being said, if it takes place BEFORE TOS chronologically, like the JJ Abrams trek movies and Enterprise, And perhaps ST: Discovery (from what I hear), shouldn't their tech be less advanced looking than the TOS series?
The problem you have is that with modern technology and TV no matter what you do it will look more advanced, its mainly what audiences want and studio execs want. That is main reason. The Show has to appeal to a wide audience and it has to look like they have spent money on it to get viewing figures. TOS most likely had a small budget compared to what TV shows get these days. Also in universe explaination is that everything in TOS is smooth and streamlined and hides a lot of the tech so in that way is more advanced.
I really LOVE this design. Also, I am in the middle of an Enterprise complete series Bluray rewatch (half way through season 2), after having not seen Enterprise (except for maybe In A Mirror Darkly) since 2009, and literally just watched Minefield. That show is WAY better than I remember it. All the so called "continuity errors" that people talk about, aren't really there. Enterprise is amazingly consistent. Every time someone cites the Romulan Bird of Prey as being inconsistent with the era, I want to scream. Maybe the BOP from Balance of Terror is actually inconsistent, because it is a prototype. Maybe it's colored that way, because the Romulans were adopting Federation techniques and styling at the time. Maybe there were different factions within the Romulan Star Empire that had different design philosophies. Or, maybe the designers of the BOP from Minefield were looking at it like this: being consistant with 7 seasons of TNG, 7 Seasons of DS9, and 7 Seasons of Voyager was far more important than being consistent with 3 episodes of TOS where the BOP appears, and FASA, which was never, ever canon to begin with! Please stop with the Berman and Braga hate, people! Berman and Braga were FAR BETTER than the JJ era, and with the looks of of Discovery, how I wish we could return to the Berman era. Some of the best Trek ever came from that era!
It's also possible that the Tal'Shiar (Romulan spy service) commissioned the BoP and it therefore looks different than the rest of the Romulans' ships of the line. After all, even Earth ships look different from one another (Starfleet ships and civilian ships have different design aesthetics) so why wouldn't that be the case with Romulan ships as well?
Agreed. Even in Starfleet, you have different designs. Compare a Defiant class to any other class. It looks more like a scaled up Runabout, than a ship of the line.
well personally i think the defiant is a scaled up runabout, someone was like what if we converted the runabout design schematics into a full gunboat
I don't have a problem with the design. The idea that the TOS ship was a rough one off prototype and that the main Romulan fleet wouldn't look like that makes perfect sense. The Romulans should be advanced in that time period. They're related to the Vulcans and they were a very early spacefaring race with their tech and ships being some of best in known space. Its reasonable to think that the Romulans would be similarly advanced. Earth is behind playing catch up and then match and perhaps leapfrog once the Federation is founded and they get Vulcan tech and the ability to advance faster inherent to a large organization pooling resources. I like the idea that the guy who did Pacific 201 had, that this ship didn't have a personal cloak. It was just detaching from a big bulky carrier/cloaking unit, like those Star Wars fighters that had the hyperspace ring. I don't think they should tie the designers hands and force hideously basic junk on screen just to make TOS look good. Same feedback I've given on the Discovery videos. For one the visual and story continuity should stay separate, the former should be more loose and flexible, the latter is what is important. And second I'm more and more just thinking of TMP being a visual reboot, making TOS its own self contained visual universe. That is the most elegant solution to Star Treks visual issues, one reboot, no temporal side universe theories needed. Today > ENT > DIS > TMP > TNG works much better for me, and this ship fits right in there for me, TOS is the anomaly.
yeah think the main thing people dont understand is this
we wont be happy regardless, if they visually tried to keep it somewhat in line with ToS, it'd look even more basic and really ToS visuals was ToS only, it was the 60's and if ships now with how the internet is, looked worse? is worse the right word? more simplistic? the constitution was the top of the line ship and it was basically a saucer stuck to a cylinder , with 2 engines litterally strapped to the side with thin pipes. so what could you do to make ships look less advanced than that?? the deadalus is a great example. The Ares class is perfect ship design doesn't mess with canon at all, you can totally look at the ares class as an emergency response vessal to push federation tech. so it goes deadalus? - ares - constituion - miranda , can totally get behind that ... for ToS.
ships have to look "good" for when they are made, the NX class vessals are upside down Akira class, its smaller, less powerful, its tech is explained as "we got no idea what we doing but we're doing it anyway" they talk you through breifly what things can do, what they are capable of, the NX works fine.
i apply that same ideology to this ship. i look at this and i think yeah thats a romulan vessal, the main point was immedatly conveyed, for an advanced experimental prototype ship whose visual design is carried forward in later models, NX scaled up is the akira NX-refit , add a rollbar to the top you aint miles away from the miranda and the miranda is in use for centuries, the nebula is basically a bigger miranda with the ability to recover saucer sections of galaxy and other nebula class, presumably its also capable of retreiving the ambassador class saucer too if thats detachable.
we cant accept a new ToS like ship as a dedicated thing, we'd pick at it for inaccuracies, even the hull colorisation, length n shape of neacells, angel of the saucer.
ya know like we did to the reboot ship which wasn't really accepted but it wasn't ever considered as "meant to be right" we just all pointed at different parts and said, thats a bit off, the size up scaling is all over the place but ya know, i can look at this and accept for it is meant to be, the constituion enterprise.
ultimately we can't keep the ToS aestic outside of ToS and to make something older and more basic than ToS wouldn't fly in the internet age as realistically it'd be some basic shapes welded to each other. and then theres the real world design for the IXS which i beleive stands for international exploration ship and that looks more advanced than ToS to the point i'd say its comparable to a rings variant of the constellation / stargazer ship.
we cant have a scifi ship that looks unbeleivable because it looks signfigantly less advanced than actual proposed prototype real world deisgns. kinda defeats the point of scifi.
Grant Albrecht First off, there is a story here about The Original Star Trek Series Romulan bird of prey ship and the relation between the Vulcans and the Romulans.
The Ship: Created by Wa Chang, out of paper machae was an excellent looking ship. The problem was is that Wa Chang didn't belong to a union, and his name was excluded in the credits on the show. In a fit of anger, he took it in the back yard of his home and destroyed it, which was a total loss as it an extremely Beautiful piece of work. Trivial information, the Romulan Bridge seen here is acually the observation deck of the Enterprise.
THE Romulans, Are in acuality Vulcans. In the third season episode, The Paradise Syndrome, Mr. Spock explains that an alien race called The Preservers, has taken different species of humans and humoids and scattered them throughout the galaxy. In this case, the violent Vulcans, who could NEVER accept Surik's teachings of piece and the meaning of Noam, the teachings of peace and surpressing all emotions and devote all emotions to logic, were removed by the Preservers to the Romulus Remus section of the galaxy whare they csn progress and evolve into a race of beings that may one day eventually advance to a more peaceful race of beings and culture.
If you will recall, Dr. McCoy in that episode,( The Paradise Syndrome) said, that he had always wondered why there were so many humans and humoids scattered throughout the galaxies, and as we all know, Mr. Spock gives tidbits of information concerning his Vulcsn ancestory throughout the short three season series. I am an a Original Star Trek Series fan here, and love ONLY the Original Star Trek Series as it's the only very BEST Star Trek out there. Not a fsn at all of that next generation stuff, it's to stupid, childish and ridculious. Only the Original Star Trek Series is the very Best.
basically they are evil vulcans, got it... aka dark elves :P
The TOS romulan ship in Balance of Terror was not an experimental ship. The ship in that episode was stated to be the flag ship of the Romulan fleet, the Praetor's pride. Test bed or experimental ships do not carry a fleet's flag.
Wasn't the NX-01 Starfleet's flagship at the time? It was an experimental ship - the first with the Warp 5 engine.
if its a experimental test bed, and the experiments were impressive enough, a admiral may very well want them on his flag ship... particularly a new type of warp drive engine or for instance a cleaner more efficient particle energy device like teleporters, replicaters, weapons like plasma or phaser banks, or the ever lovely regular engines that just push the ship around when not in warp
12:30 Don’t forget the scout ship.
14:00 The Daedalus-class, the ugly duckling to become a beautiful swan.
14:53 I lost your line of reasoning here. Bulky cylinders are a sign of technological limitations. The Starfleet Museum gives the Romulans of the era fusion-based warp reactors which are bulkier.
I love Star Trek Enterprise, TOS, TNG, DS9, And Voyager! and all that is canon for me and I was born in 71!!!
Small impulse is due to the speed limit of early cloaks. Essentially, early cloaking had a limit to how much of the impulse signature it can displace. Also, given the size of the ship the impulse engines are perfectly capable of moving it around, compare it size vs the ship size to that of the Connie, the Mass to Impulse ratio is actually pretty decent.
The Bird is the word
I think the design looks to futuristic for the time period that it was meant to be in. Especially when you put it next to the original Romulan Warbird in TOS. I think the reason why the ship looks like this is due to the fact that they needed something that resembled the old warbird, but looks more modern for the younger generation. Sure it's a letdown but at least the design alone looks nice.
I mean now that I think about it the Romulans and the Vulcans have a common ancestry. So they're very first ships could have sported the ring warp drive. In TOS the Romulan warbird has parts that look similar to a constitution class federation ship. The color is gray with a saucer-ish mid section and tubular warp engines. It could be said that after losing the Romulan war, they retired the ring warp drive warships in favor of integrating advanced federation technology into a new ship, The iconic Romulan warbird of TOS.
its also possible that thier ring ships were alot like the trade federation ring ships that have the central sphere that can detach from the main ship and fly around doing thier own thing leaving the ring to just float in orbit over a planet or where ever etc
i heard someone say the ships may not even have a cloak but may have undocked or detached from something larger that had a cloak... maybe they had a advanced hyper drive ring carrier with advanced cloak and energy systems
I really like this ship. The only detail I have a problem with is the shape of the bridge module. I think it's pretty unfair to expect the production designers of Enterprise to express themselves just because they couldn't be bothered with the TOS warbird. I mean, that was just a weird quasi saucer with a couple of wings with pipes on the end and bird decals. I mean, what should John Eaves have done? Do a 1950ies B movie rocketship just to make it less advanced than a half-arsed design?
Probably from the future, since Star Trek Online has these as the Miranda of the Romulan fleets.
As a Patreon patron of this channel, I am very pleased with the videos you guys have made this week. (Specifically this one and the Serenity one.) I disagree with the Captain on this ship looking out-of-place, particularly since the Balance Of Terror ship was a one-of-a-kind prototype. (If we don't consider the new effects from TOS remastered to be canon.) I see the BOT ship to be the oddball in the lineage, not this ship. In defense of the Captain, though, I did not grow up with FASA, just canon Star Trek and some scattered non-canon novels from Peter David. On the subject of warpaint on spaceships, I personally like it in general... but I agree the feathering on this ship is better.
thank you! :D for your support and for your comment! :D we hope you enjoy all weeks just as much :D
There are a couple of good reasons to paint a big bird or something on a ship.
First it is like blessing for the ship , the way you would have a maidenhead on a sailing ship or paint teeth on a WW2 fighter it can encourage morale among the crew. As well it could have religious significance to the crew.
Second it is a kind of psychological warfare. Much like wearing a mask to the enemy can't see your face in battle. It could stir fear in the enemy when they see the big bird appear over them. Romulans are good at this kind of warfare.
Even at the great ranges involved in star trek the magnification abilities of the ship means that yes the other ship will see it. Otherwise there is really no good reason for starfleet to print the name of the ship and light it on the ships.
Overall i do like the design it says Romulan.
Since we never saw this ship again on the show. What if it was actually a ship from the future that was there to protect something that shouldn't be found yet? At least then you can explain the advanced look of the ship.
Victor Garcia That would be cool if they were some faction of the Tine War but the novels say they were just an advanced prototype. The cloak it used proved to be too costly for it to be implemented to the rest of their ships at the time.
Cool idea/interpretation, time travel is rampent in the dangerous segments of the expansion of science and knowledge
I half agree with the point that you don't need a giant bird on the spaceship for fighting purposes. That being said, it was written into the TOS story line for Balance of Terror. I think also since Star Trek was so in its infancy in the 1960's and they never had imagined that it would survive TV and go beyond into the next century that the Bird was put on the original model to ad detail. Especially since if I remember right they had about 3 weeks to come up with the ship design and have it built and ready to film by that time.
One of my favourite Starship designs. I'd love to see this in a battle with the refit Enterprise. I'd love to see the TOS Romulan BOP crossed with this, as a sort of refit like a TMP era version.
I love how it looks as a precursor for the TNG Warbird.
I love the look of this ship
Maybe the cloaking device in the TOS used a new prototype cloak, but there could be older devices.
Absolutely. Remember, Archer found a way to scan for the cloaked mines in the episode "Minefield" so it stands to reason that 100 years or so later, the Romulans would have upgraded their cloaking device so that they couldn't be detected like before. And perhaps this newer, better cloak - which works well enough to fool 23rd century era Starfleet sensors - has a flaw. When the cloak is in use, the ship cannot go to light speed or it will be detected or the cloak will fail altogether. Hence, Scotty's comment about that ship being "simple impulse".
In Star Fleet battles the Romulans had the War Bird, War Eagle and then were influenced by Klingon ship design when they bought Klingon D-6/D-7 hulls and armed them with Phaser 1s and Plasma weapons. After that a bunch of Romulan builds using the idea of Klingon ships with the Bridge in the bulb at the end of a boom extending from a Hull with the engines appeared.
(Gary A Brunson.)
I think of this romulan warbird should have been in the next generation to be honest.
👍😎👌
I have a theory about why the TOS BoP looks so different from all of the other Romulan designs. The Romulans had spies in the Federation and Starfleet. These spies could have recorded information on Starfleet technology and ship designs. The Romulans used the Federation style designs in their new ship (TOS BoP). The prototype was outfitted with a cloaking device and plasma torpedoes. When the prototype was destroyed, the Romulans went back to their own designs.
well you could argue, that maybe they could only limited cloak that didnt work very well and starfleet found a way to get around... also you could argue their cloak wasnt completely based onboard thier starship, maybe it was reflected over the ship from a nearby cloaking generator based on a planet or moon or orbiting starbase that was also cloaking itself, think about it, maybe the cloak takes to much energy for anything less then being projected from a large starbase or planetary generated field,
that would make so much more sense because they were surprised the romulan cloak was mobile and worked enough to not be seen by their sensors, but they started trying to look for clues of where it was because they KNEW the cloak was going to have a flaw, because the romulan cloaks before were defeated due to major flaws perhaps? cloaks arent easy to pull off especially on a massive powergenerator that moves around in space etc with engines and warp nasseles and weapon loads, not to mention the living creatures and computers onboard, someone or something would create a flaw in the cloak
I concur... this ship REALLY looks more advanced than the ToS original... Even if it doesn't look as "sleek"
it is easy to look more advanced than ToS simply because of budget and more detailed modeling. i dont think the goal should have been to make it look less advanced than the ToS models but to have an ideal model of the ToS ship in mind and make it less advanced than that.
what about that Romulan cylinder ship shown in the ST Chronology?
Yes, that was a much cooler design, much more appropriate.
My headcanon had this ship as being ok where it is, and the reason the one in TOS looks almost as though it could be a federation ship (its like a Miranda saucer with wings and constitution nacelles (shortened)) is because they found that federation tech was superior to theirs and they tried to adapt in a way mirroring their "rivals". That, or they stile technology. Either way, i think they're fine.
Vulcan ships, while not green, do have the curves, and i do not see why having a curved nacelle and more angular wings wouldn't fit into the Romulan traditional design.
maybe it was a federation ship that went too deep into romulan space... well as long as they dont harm the crew... although it would be ironically likely it could just be another ship the tholians were attempting to capture like in the TOS Tholians Web or whatever its called.... or the enterprise in a mirror darkly where they found it lol, maybe the romulans ironically stole a federation ship from a bubble in the space time of the universe, or from a alternate world where the romulans are pleasent and thoughtful of others needs before their own :/
no doubt the romulans would dub that the "evil" mirror universe lol
them being nice would likely be to much for them to stomache or trust in a mirror version of themselves lol
make them question their own choices and actions far too much :p for them questioning a choice or order even once is likely too much, even half questioning it is probably thier version of a crime lol
Romulan ships were not so green, but then again in TOS Klingons did not have forhead ridges. For a pre TOS everything looked so TNG in that series. I'm afraid that Discover sets the same tone.
At a con a few years back when asked about this ship ,one if the Enterprise writers said something along the lines of "maybe they are not the Romulans you think they are". Since then many fans have speculated that this ship was from future Romulans caught up in the Temporal Cold War. I'm ok with thinking that because this thing belongs right beside Valdor or D'Deridex.
you guys suggested that the TOS Bird of prey was a one off prototype. It would justify the similar look to the Constitution ships if you consider that the Romulans built the prototype with federation tech to keep their tech secrets safe on the offhand chance that the Federation actually captured it. They would get the plasma cannon & cloaking device but they would not get a sample of their standard ship building process. Considering that, the commitment the Romulan commander has to destroying the ship makes more sense as well.
I think the ship looks better backwards
This looks more advanced than d'deridex :D
Samuel...where's the Eaglemoss ship fly by? I'm sure you have one?
oopsie! :D haha!
I will say the mines being cloaked but the ships not being able to would have worked a bit better for fitting into TOS. It would show that they were working on Cloaking tech but it was only able to cloak a mine and maybe the intelligence groups would dismiss the cloaking mines as rumors and distorted after action reports.
The Kilingons were a USSR sort of design ethos... rough . crude. tough as a planet eater's skin.. The Vulcans were a bit more .. japanese ?? and Romulans far more like Chinese..
Nah, the vulcans were light elves, the Romulans were dark elves, and the Klingons were orcs. It works especially with the ears.
I think your wrong in that they could have used almost this same shape yet made it smooth and white like in the TOS version and it would have worked better. I do think the Bird on the original was a tad plain, but for its day it was cool as hell when you only had 6 channels on TV, and didn't have VCRs yet.
Completely agree with the Cap. I grew up with FASA too. This belongs in the TNG era
This really is a beautiful ship.
Tim Walden Wrong era though.
I don't really see an issue with the looks. Perhaps the tos one was mainly designed in looks to try and confuse the feds. The main issue is the cloak.
What Trek discussion boards does everyone visit? I like TrekBBS. Are there other good ones?
You can moan all you want about how much Enterprise breaks with continuity but at least they don't have bloody windows. :)
This is a TNG era design. This could pass as a post TNG era design. Enterprise really mucked things up - the Romulans being one of the biggest screw ups.
why, why couldnt this be a early prototype that they decided to shelve for a better design then came back to it, sort of like if they made a new oberth class ship that was a warp 10 ship and larger then previous ones, with advanced systems etc
This is very much a ship that should have been TNG. It's such a good fit for TNG.
ship is great , just delete the old design and substitute it with this one!...the old warbird looks too much like a fed ship. The impulse engines are not small at all, just think of the connie or the ambassador.
What program do you use for 3D Modeling/Rendering. Also have you ever tried out a program called Blender?
are you guys going to do fan designed ships?
we do them reasonably regularly and can have designs submitted to us if you want to see a specific design covered!
I see the school of thought in the fan base is mixed on this ship. I being 54 years old, and having watched TOS from the syndication everyday for years after school. Buying all possible AMT models of Star Trek, and the Leif Ericson UFO mystery ship. all original Battle Star Galactica, and all original Star Wars models in the 1970's. Well My point is I never fantasized about being Kirk. I wanted to be Scotty.
I like this ship design, but I don't think it belongs in Enterprise. I do think they could have made almost the same shape, and put on the engine look of TOS BOP and basically had a slightly smaller version of the original and it would have fit the story much better. The shape is to advanced to be before Balance of Terror which is suppose to be around 70 to 100 years later.
And by using the Green color that is associated with TNG Romulans and Klingons of ships much later. No I'm sorry they dropped the ball on this one. I could design a better Enterprise era Romulan ship and it would fit the story, and the era.
I agree it looks too advanced. It also looks very similar to the Romulan ships from the Starfleet Command games (including the one on the Nintendo DS).
The romulans never had advanced warp drives. they used star bases to create the singularity, this then evaporated releasing huge amounts of energy needed for warp drive. once the ship arrived at its destination it had no way to warp back untill they established a new base capable of generating a new singularity.
Zero Ryoko Very true!!
Zero Ryoko They got the singularity drives when they developed their own warp 7 engines.
Glad they did away with that nonsense. "Romulans warp in, 3 minute montage of the 3 months it takes them to build new base" lol.
Sure they had warp drive. The quantum singularity tech was only referenced/seen in TNG, which means that having ENT and TOS era Romulan ships using warp drive was the norm until they invented the quantum singularity tech. Keep in mind that the QS drive doesn't mean that their ships were faster.. it's just the drive method they chose (possibly a more efficient way to stay cloaked while @ warp speeds?). An electric car and a diesel fuel car can both get to 80 mph.
excerpt from "balance of terror". descussing the romulans
KIRK: Yes, well gentlemen, the question still remains. Can we engage
them with a reasonable possibility of victory?
SCOTT: No question. Their power is simple impulse.
KIRK: Meaning we can outrun them?
If we go by the (annoying) theory that TOS designs and aesthetics were retcon'ed by the movies and nothing that we saw in the original series was what we saw THEN this works as a design (except for the cloaking device). However I like the TOS designs and do not like the effort to erase them from canon.
I'm of Stuart's viewpoint,I grew up during the TOS era when the Romulans only had Impulse power, they hadn't managed to get warp power yet. This design is just far too advanced for this time period.
See, that never made sense to me.
If they are an offspring of the Vulcans, they must have had warp-engines or at least sublight technology to travel that far from Vulcan since they surely didn´t ride into space on their vulcan horses. I mean, according to Q in Voyager, they fought a hundred year long war sometime after that split which is not very convincing if the Romulans or both Romulans and Vulcans only had sublight technology...or they must have really really really really really hated each other (like fly 50 years, fight each other for a day and fly 50 years back hate^^)!
Which means they must be at least as far developed as the Vulcans or maybe even more advanced since they are not as peaceful and war often accelerates tech development...which would also explain why they already have cloaking tech. But even if you ignore all TV-canon after TNG this whole Vulcan/Romulan history/technology canon doesn´t really fit together...
Sure they did. They just couldn't go to warp while cloaked. Perhaps this is why they develop the "forced quantum singularity" drive that we hear about in TNG.
And like I mentioned elsewhere, it is possible that this PARTICULAR Bird of Prey from TOS, which is a perimeter ship assigned to patrol the Neutral Zone, has no need for warp drive since it does not patrol interstellar distances. It could get a cloak or a warp drive and it got the cloak. That's what was necessary for their mission. Other ships in the Romulan fleet, on the other hand, that are designed for war or exploration DO have warp capability.
This is a JJ dream ship made when he hated Trek. A proto-JJ BoP so 2 speak. Way too advanced 4 the time.
The more that I see Enterprise ships and tech, the more I feel like it was a reboot slipped under our noses. Seeing the Constitution Defiant is the only thing that really makes me disagree with that idea.
I like to pretend that this is a movie era Romulan ship
I think the nacelles should've looked more primitive than they do, the ones they used look too much like the ones on the Valdore and so look too modern.
john eaves is a super talented artist ....but jesus,pontoons on every alien ship ? in all time periods ?
As with everything designed for Enterprise, totally out of place...
Ahhh, the "C Type Warbird" .... C = crap
Great ship, wrong era. I couldn't agree more. Giving Romulans a cloak back when the NX-01 was new, was just plain laziness on the part of the writer and Producer. Retcon to your heart's content, but in MY head, it's a giant fail.
How so? If we're to think it through, here's how it plays out: the Romulans are experimenting with cloaking technology all the way back to the 22nd century. Archer and crew are hit by a cloaked mine and they figure out how to detect them. And since the mines are operating on the same cloaking tech as the 2 Romulan BoP's we see later in the episode, then it stands to reason that Starfleet (thanks to Archer's experience in the minefield) now has a way to "see" cloaked Romulan ships of the era (assuming they know to look for them). So then the Romulan War happens (which would have been season 5 or 6 if the show hadn't been cancelled) and Starfleet is able to see the few BoP's in service. After the war is over and the Romulans disappear behind the Neutral Zone for a century, they know that they have to "reinvent" their cloaking device because Starfleet knows how to see them.
I hate this ship. There was already some designes for the Romulan Warship that looked much more apropreate!
Zero Ryoko Agreed
Zero Ryoko totally agree they should have used it in TNG it would fit in there very well and use the D5 for the enterprise romulan ship and maybe paint it grey with some orange wing markings to make it look more pre TOS
Zero Ryoko what designs?
www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/early-romulan-ship.jpg as an example of what the romulan ships should have looked like, this is a better image
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c5/28/ab/c528ab602a16e3a9c742ad7e3472805d.jpg
I love this ship!
NON CANON
that is why prequels fail... they make no sense. It is stupid because historical dramas are so well done but when it comes to sci fi prequels.. they usually are more frustrating because they don't get the same attention to detail.
the ship can look advanced and still be not... but what made it advanced was the cloak and plasma
The whole Enterprise ships mythos was screwed up because it was supposed to be 100 years before TOS but the technology was far superior to 1966 tech
dragonweyr44 How so? The Mirror universe episode still showed that a Conny was more advanced.
Conny? do you mean a constitution class starship? I disagree. Since the bridges of both ships couldn't be further apart. The Enterprise had flat screens the Defiant had huge monitors above their stations. The Enterprise had compact bridge stations and the Defiant used those widely spaced scrabble board controls. Defiant's phasers were better looking than the phase pistols though but most of the tech showed the 40 year old difference between TOS and ENT
dragonweyr44 The novels do explain why they do look so radically different but the fact is the Defiant had more advanced shields and weapon art. Not to mention it could do warp 8.
Granted, the Defiant's SHOULD be more advanced than the NX-01 Enterprise (or should I say the Terran Empire ship Enterprise. but it certainly doesn't look more advanced. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED the Enterprise series. But that being said, if it takes place BEFORE TOS chronologically, like the JJ Abrams trek movies and Enterprise, And perhaps ST: Discovery (from what I hear), shouldn't their tech be less advanced looking than the TOS series?
The problem you have is that with modern technology and TV no matter what you do it will look more advanced, its mainly what audiences want and studio execs want. That is main reason. The Show has to appeal to a wide audience and it has to look like they have spent money on it to get viewing figures. TOS most likely had a small budget compared to what TV shows get these days. Also in universe explaination is that everything in TOS is smooth and streamlined and hides a lot of the tech so in that way is more advanced.