Post by Wicked Zombie on Jan 15, 2008 17:41:45 GMT -5
It's a given fact that as far as TOS is concerned, the Romulans at some point began using D7 hulls in their fleet operations. Non-canon and semi-canon works aside, that doesn't give much of an actual explanation as to why such an apparently potent Star Empire would start using alien designs.
Fanon and various books, novels and games have ran under the general assumption that the Romulans were a poor and technologically limited group that had to acquire, through various means, technology and resources from outside their borders. While that makes for decent storytelling in and of itself, it opens up other problems. First of all, if the Romulans were so short on resources, how could they have ever been able to wage an interstellar war with the pre-Federation allies? If they didn't have viable warp drive, how could they even maintain a *Star* Empire? Scotty's ambiguous line about "impulse power only" has always been taken as default proof that the Romulans had no warp capability yet in that very same episode it was shown that the Bird of Prey was hitting outposts and the Enterprise over long-distances and in short timespans only capable if they had warp.
The later episode, "The Deadly Years" even has a whole squadron of Birds of Prey attacking the Enterprise and appearing rather quickly to surround and engage the Starfleet vessel. Either they did have warp drive and were able to drop in on short notice, or they had the resources to build and maintain a large number of ships and position them along key areas of the Neutral Zone and stay cloaked in anticipation of a border crossing. Either is evidence that the Romulans aren't as limited as many have assumed.
How does this factor into their use of the D7? The general consensus has been that the Romulans acquired the D7 (and Klingon warp technology) in exchange for their cloaking device in a somewhat brief alliance with the Klingon Empire. This has been the accepted explanation for the D7s showing up in "The Enterprise Incident" for the better part of forty years. However, at no point during aired episodes was it ever mentioned conclusively that this is the actual reason for the Romulans using Klingon designs. Of course, the real reason is because the Trek folks wanted to show off their new model and felt the BoP wasn't as good onscreen (and most likely the model was already missing/destroyed by then).
Further perpetuating the trade idea is the various publications hinting, and in some cases, outright giving this is as the reason for the R-D7. Key among them is SFB and FASA, the later of which taking the R-D7 further from it's Klingon roots with feather-style hull panels and modified engines. That being rather ironic, as the whole point of trading for the D7s was due to the Romulan's supposed lackluster warp capability and yet the first thing they do is install their own warp engines onto the ship. Granted, that version of the R-D7 was later in the era but it doesn't exactly lend credence to the Romulans being poor and limited.
Canon-wise, one can gather so far that:
Enterprise depicted the Romulans with warp drive (and cloaks
), all other Romulan starship designs have gone far from the D7 in appearance, the Empire clearly has the footing to keep the Federation and Klingons from causing too much trouble for them, and at least by the 24th century the Romulans have the resources to wage a full-scale war with the rest of the quadrant against the Dominion. And that is with a fleet composed primarily of D'deridex warbirds, not exactly the kind of ship that strikes anyone as a rush-job in construction.
So, if one doesn't want to accept the above lend/lease explanation for the Romulan D7s, what other possibilities are there? Obviously, any story cooked up would have to take into account that the Romulans *did* have at least 3 D7s at their disposal and most likely more - especially if you consider TAS as canon. That leaves a few options and if one is going to consider alternatives you have to break away from the fanon and non-canon explanations because no matter how entrenched they may be in Trek lore, they're still not "official".
1) The D7s were stolen/acquired from the Klingons to use in an infiltration or counter-intelligence operation, either to impersonate Klingon vessels and start trouble against the Federation or to cause confusion and distrust within the Klingon's own ranks. This plan was dropped (most likely because the Federation had found out about it), but they decided to keep the D7s anyway as you can never have too many warships.
2) The D7s were acquired from the Klingons through the lend/lease act, however the reasons are different:
A) They wanted to give the impression that they were poor and limited to keep the other empires off-balance. Appearing to need alien hulls over their own constructs would mislead their enemies into a false sense of superiority, possibly even making them launch attacks against Romulan interests. This would give the Empire an advantage as they could then send their real fleet against the invaders, who would not expect the Romulans to have such numbers.
B) They weren't a part of the galactic stage after the end of the Romulan War, and while they had built up a viable fleet of ships, they felt they did not have an advantage in some way over the other empires due to lack of knowledge and interaction. This required them to pull their fleet in for upgrades but meant they would have many ships off the front lines. In order to keep the numbers up while they rotated ships in for refit, they bought Klingon hulls "on the cheap" to bolster their forces during the overhaul. This could also explain why the Klingons had cloaking devices since it would've been part of the exchange.
3) The D7s were, in fact, not bought from the Klingons but constructed by the Romulans themselves. Perhaps they felt that their own designs weren't quite as capable as the versatile D7 and instead of buying them and appearing weak, they stole the design plans and built their own version. Naturally, they would have implemented their own modifications over time, incorporating not only the plasma torpedo and cloak, but other advancements. This would lead the R-D7 further and further away from it's roots until only the basic form remained. Eventually, the Romulans would have developed their own superior design and phased out the R-D7 in favor of a homegrown starship.
This spying would have also resulted in the Klingons stealing the cloak from the Romulans around the same time the D7 (and other possible technology) was stolen from them.
These theories have parallels in our own history:
The Japanese, during WW2, were supplied with various examples of German jet aircraft. While the Japanese were unable to fully replicate the German models before the war ended, they did manage to create their own jets that were used sporadically near the end of the conflict.
The Soviet Union used captured B-29s as reference in building their own long-range bomber, the Tu-4 - a near exact copy of the B-29 which was eventually replaced by Soviet-designed aircraft.
The Chinese use(d) Soviet MiGs in their airforce, eventually installing their own improvements to better suit their needs.
Prior to WWI, the Japanese bought battleships built by the British shipyards for use in their own navy. Such buys were common in the sail-ship eras as well, not to mention capturing and refurbishing enemy vessels.
Of course, all of my theories have their own level of supposition and fiction but not anymore than the original explanation (minus the 4 decades of drag). All of this is inspired not only from common over-assumptions on the part of canon facts, but also due to my miserliness when it comes to starship designs - I just don't like the idea of the Romulans relying so heavily on alien starships while every other empire (even the "resource poor" Klingons) have plenty of self-designed ships with little to no outside influence. This is, obviously, not looking at it from the SFB perspective but more from the canon outlook regarding the Romulans as SFB was never meant to be closely tied with all of Star Trek.
Feel free to discuss and argue
Fanon and various books, novels and games have ran under the general assumption that the Romulans were a poor and technologically limited group that had to acquire, through various means, technology and resources from outside their borders. While that makes for decent storytelling in and of itself, it opens up other problems. First of all, if the Romulans were so short on resources, how could they have ever been able to wage an interstellar war with the pre-Federation allies? If they didn't have viable warp drive, how could they even maintain a *Star* Empire? Scotty's ambiguous line about "impulse power only" has always been taken as default proof that the Romulans had no warp capability yet in that very same episode it was shown that the Bird of Prey was hitting outposts and the Enterprise over long-distances and in short timespans only capable if they had warp.
The later episode, "The Deadly Years" even has a whole squadron of Birds of Prey attacking the Enterprise and appearing rather quickly to surround and engage the Starfleet vessel. Either they did have warp drive and were able to drop in on short notice, or they had the resources to build and maintain a large number of ships and position them along key areas of the Neutral Zone and stay cloaked in anticipation of a border crossing. Either is evidence that the Romulans aren't as limited as many have assumed.
How does this factor into their use of the D7? The general consensus has been that the Romulans acquired the D7 (and Klingon warp technology) in exchange for their cloaking device in a somewhat brief alliance with the Klingon Empire. This has been the accepted explanation for the D7s showing up in "The Enterprise Incident" for the better part of forty years. However, at no point during aired episodes was it ever mentioned conclusively that this is the actual reason for the Romulans using Klingon designs. Of course, the real reason is because the Trek folks wanted to show off their new model and felt the BoP wasn't as good onscreen (and most likely the model was already missing/destroyed by then).
Further perpetuating the trade idea is the various publications hinting, and in some cases, outright giving this is as the reason for the R-D7. Key among them is SFB and FASA, the later of which taking the R-D7 further from it's Klingon roots with feather-style hull panels and modified engines. That being rather ironic, as the whole point of trading for the D7s was due to the Romulan's supposed lackluster warp capability and yet the first thing they do is install their own warp engines onto the ship. Granted, that version of the R-D7 was later in the era but it doesn't exactly lend credence to the Romulans being poor and limited.
Canon-wise, one can gather so far that:
Enterprise depicted the Romulans with warp drive (and cloaks
), all other Romulan starship designs have gone far from the D7 in appearance, the Empire clearly has the footing to keep the Federation and Klingons from causing too much trouble for them, and at least by the 24th century the Romulans have the resources to wage a full-scale war with the rest of the quadrant against the Dominion. And that is with a fleet composed primarily of D'deridex warbirds, not exactly the kind of ship that strikes anyone as a rush-job in construction.So, if one doesn't want to accept the above lend/lease explanation for the Romulan D7s, what other possibilities are there? Obviously, any story cooked up would have to take into account that the Romulans *did* have at least 3 D7s at their disposal and most likely more - especially if you consider TAS as canon. That leaves a few options and if one is going to consider alternatives you have to break away from the fanon and non-canon explanations because no matter how entrenched they may be in Trek lore, they're still not "official".
1) The D7s were stolen/acquired from the Klingons to use in an infiltration or counter-intelligence operation, either to impersonate Klingon vessels and start trouble against the Federation or to cause confusion and distrust within the Klingon's own ranks. This plan was dropped (most likely because the Federation had found out about it), but they decided to keep the D7s anyway as you can never have too many warships.
2) The D7s were acquired from the Klingons through the lend/lease act, however the reasons are different:
A) They wanted to give the impression that they were poor and limited to keep the other empires off-balance. Appearing to need alien hulls over their own constructs would mislead their enemies into a false sense of superiority, possibly even making them launch attacks against Romulan interests. This would give the Empire an advantage as they could then send their real fleet against the invaders, who would not expect the Romulans to have such numbers.
B) They weren't a part of the galactic stage after the end of the Romulan War, and while they had built up a viable fleet of ships, they felt they did not have an advantage in some way over the other empires due to lack of knowledge and interaction. This required them to pull their fleet in for upgrades but meant they would have many ships off the front lines. In order to keep the numbers up while they rotated ships in for refit, they bought Klingon hulls "on the cheap" to bolster their forces during the overhaul. This could also explain why the Klingons had cloaking devices since it would've been part of the exchange.
3) The D7s were, in fact, not bought from the Klingons but constructed by the Romulans themselves. Perhaps they felt that their own designs weren't quite as capable as the versatile D7 and instead of buying them and appearing weak, they stole the design plans and built their own version. Naturally, they would have implemented their own modifications over time, incorporating not only the plasma torpedo and cloak, but other advancements. This would lead the R-D7 further and further away from it's roots until only the basic form remained. Eventually, the Romulans would have developed their own superior design and phased out the R-D7 in favor of a homegrown starship.
This spying would have also resulted in the Klingons stealing the cloak from the Romulans around the same time the D7 (and other possible technology) was stolen from them.
These theories have parallels in our own history:
The Japanese, during WW2, were supplied with various examples of German jet aircraft. While the Japanese were unable to fully replicate the German models before the war ended, they did manage to create their own jets that were used sporadically near the end of the conflict.
The Soviet Union used captured B-29s as reference in building their own long-range bomber, the Tu-4 - a near exact copy of the B-29 which was eventually replaced by Soviet-designed aircraft.
The Chinese use(d) Soviet MiGs in their airforce, eventually installing their own improvements to better suit their needs.
Prior to WWI, the Japanese bought battleships built by the British shipyards for use in their own navy. Such buys were common in the sail-ship eras as well, not to mention capturing and refurbishing enemy vessels.
Of course, all of my theories have their own level of supposition and fiction but not anymore than the original explanation (minus the 4 decades of drag). All of this is inspired not only from common over-assumptions on the part of canon facts, but also due to my miserliness when it comes to starship designs - I just don't like the idea of the Romulans relying so heavily on alien starships while every other empire (even the "resource poor" Klingons) have plenty of self-designed ships with little to no outside influence. This is, obviously, not looking at it from the SFB perspective but more from the canon outlook regarding the Romulans as SFB was never meant to be closely tied with all of Star Trek.
Feel free to discuss and argue
). Of course neither side could admit what had actually happened lest be embarrased so they invented the story of the 'temporary' alliance in order to provide cover.
