Thoughts on Star Trek Balance of power

[starfury]

Thinking about the Romulans today I thought it was funny that despite their reputation for playing mind games and deceit, they had such horrible strategitc thinking, almost always ending up on the wrong of side of a alliance for or against the Federation, They were already relatively outclassed by either the federation or Klingon Empire yet manages not to ally with one against the other but to create an alliance against them, in most alternative Universes they they were either crushed by the Klingons or the Terran empire. Even the cardassian did much better being part of the alliance with the Dominion in the Canon universe so they achieved some matter of success as the Dominion's partner as opposed to being destroyed by the Klingons, and of courses in the Mirror universe they reap the glory of crushing the Terran empire as part of the klingon-Cardassian alliance.

The Romulans never seem to even make it far, instead of being the Kingmaker that might tilt the balance of Power between the Federation or Klingon empire, allied to Klingon to balance the federation or more fitting against the Klingons whose fleet actually come closet of the alpha Quadrant power to mirror the Dominon, Light scouts swarms like the b'rel bird of preys supported some heavy ships like the Neghvar and Vorcha, similar to the Dominion with fleet of attack ships and Battleships/Dreadnoughts/Battlecruiers

Certainly the Klingons and Federation were able to steadily improve their heavy ships while the Romulans seems to have no choice but let their D'deridex-class soldier and their later Valdores actually seemed to fill their medium ship range.

Their Empire essantially always seems to reach beyond their grasp, a relative middle weight power trying to be a full superpower like the Federation/Dominion/klingon Empire and having enough to sense to ally with a stronger power, almost with fail allowing them to be crushed seperately from any greater war later.

[Temujin]

Out of universe, the writers obviously didn't know what to do with the Romulans, and preferred to wank to the Space Vikings Klingons. Hell, the FASA game system had a pretty good take on the Romulans, and actually seemed to favor them over the Klingons, who they actually seemed to nerf.

In Universe, they're just to small and caught between the two largest powers in the Alpha Quadrant, both of which they really don't like or get along with very well. They had a bit of an alliance with the Klingons during TOS, but of course that had to go away what with the Federation and the Klingons becoming friends.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Out of universe, the writers obviously didn't know what to do with the Romulans, and preferred to wank to the Space Vikings Klingons. Hell, the FASA game system had a pretty good take on the Romulans, and actually seemed to favor them over the Klingons, who they actually seemed to nerf.

The Romulans are too pragmatic and rational for the majority of ST writers, who prefer single trait races such as the Ferengi and the TNG era "Space Viking" Klingons, which make for good plot devices. No wonder only DS9 managed to do anything interesting with them and even that was not really that great.

In universe, the Romulans seem to be technologically somewhat more advanced that the Klingons, but for some reason they have no industrial advantage over the Klingon empire, even though it is difficult to see how the Klingons actually manage their economy with that mindset. All things considered the Romulans seem to have much more in common with the Federation than the Klingons, but apparently the scars of the late 22nd century war and the Vulcan problem prevented any political agreements other than continuing status quo. Even the Dominion War did not change that much for some reason.

[Big Orange]

I don't know, I always get the impression that by the end of Dominion War the Romulan Star Empire were in a lot less bad shape than the horribly exhausted Klingon Empire and the all but annihilated Cardassian Union (both had been fighting each other for a solid half-decade, Dominion or no Dominion), with the Romulan's home systems less damaged by Dominion incursions in comparison to the UFP. They were in the middle of revitalising their navy in Nemesis and in the new timeline they're in better shape than the Vulcans or Klingons.

[Temujin]

Out of universe, the writers obviously didn't know what to do with the Romulans, and preferred to wank to the Space Vikings Klingons. Hell, the FASA game system had a pretty good take on the Romulans, and actually seemed to favor them over the Klingons, who they actually seemed to nerf.

The Romulans are too pragmatic and rational for the majority of ST writers, who prefer single trait races such as the Ferengi and the TNG era "Space Viking" Klingons, which make for good plot devices. No wonder only DS9 managed to do anything interesting with them and even that was not really that great.

In universe, the Romulans seem to be technologically somewhat more advanced that the Klingons, but for some reason they have no industrial advantage over the Klingon empire, even though it is difficult to see how the Klingons actually manage their economy with that mindset. All things considered the Romulans seem to have much more in common with the Federation than the Klingons, but apparently the scars of the late 22nd century war and the Vulcan problem prevented any political agreements other than continuing status quo. Even the Dominion War did not change that much for some reason.

Regarding the Klingon economy, it would have been nice if they had used the fact that they are an empire, and thus have dominion over other races as an excuse. Star Fleet Battles had a number of servitor races included as part of the Klingon Empire, not to mention the fact that the Klingons took over from the Old Kings, whoever they were. But of course, those Klingons were based on the more sensible TOS Klingons, who would have had such things as Klingon factor workers, janitors, etc.

[Skylon]

Regarding the Klingon economy, it would have been nice if they had used the fact that they are an empire, and thus have dominion over other races as an excuse. Star Fleet Battles had a number of servitor races included as part of the Klingon Empire, not to mention the fact that the Klingons took over from the Old Kings, whoever they were. But of course, those Klingons were based on the more sensible TOS Klingons, who would have had such things as Klingon factor workers, janitors, etc.

A grand total of TWO members of the Klingon Empire got shown. I only remembered one, (The Kriosians according to Memory Alpha) from TNG. There was apparently another depicted on ENT. Were any subjects of the Romulan Empire ever shown?

[tezunegari]

Were any subjects of the Romulan Empire ever shown?

So far only the Remans in Nemesis. Unless they are supposed to be the caveman-version of Romulans...

[tim31]

No, the intent was definitely a subjugated race.

Surely claiming dominion over an entire seperate world is enough for a political entity to call itself an empire?

[lord Martiya]

From what I got, in-universe the Romulans are recovering from an initial technogical disadvantage: while they always had HEAVY firepower (do you remember those asteroids in Balance of Terror, or how the Kumari got destroyed by a much littler Romulan ship?), they were limited by having no matter/antimatter technology that could be used on starships (if they had it at all) or something comparable until they allied with the Klingon, and that limited speed, firepower and energy levels of their ships, so being outclassed by the Federation (having it from the Vulcans and the Andorians) and the Klingon (who had it, I think from those invaders from Gamma Quadrant of their past), who expanded fast enough to be superior to the power that fought Earth, Vulcan, Andoria and Tellar to a standstill.
When they got antimatter-based warp cores from the Klingon and developed their quantum singularity reactors they reached technological parity, but had to recover a LOT of lost ground. And while they did well enough to kick the Jem'Hadar's asses in the Dominion War (at least that's the impression I got from Sisko's reports), Klingon and Federation united were still too much.

[starfury]

When they got antimatter-based warp cores from the Klingon and developed their quantum singularity reactors they reached technological parity, but had to recover a LOT of lost ground. And while they did well enough to kick the Jem'Hadar's asses in the Dominion War (at least that's the impression I got from Sisko's reports), Klingon and Federation united were still too much.

Hell it took the dominion war and it's aftermath for the Romulans to finally begun to churn out replacement designs for the Aging D'deridex Warbird and Added the Scimitar as at least a one-off prototype/Stolen from Dominion, all to began matching the Federation
Sovereign and Klingon Nev'ghar Which are both far newer and more powerful then standard old Warbird, that and it Took TNG time to finally reach parity and a crippling investment in a fleet of giant Warbirds that were expensive to replace as new tech rolled around, they may still be a bit weaker then each the federations or Klingons individually even without the alliance.

[lord Martiya]

Hell it took the dominion war and it's aftermath for the Romulans to finally begun to churn out replacement designs for the Aging D'deridex Warbird and Added the Scimitar as at least a one-off prototype/Stolen from Dominion, all to began matching the Federation
Sovereign and Klingon Nev'ghar Which are both far newer and more powerful then standard old Warbird, that and it Took TNG time to finally reach parity and a crippling investment in a fleet of giant Warbirds that were expensive to replace as new tech rolled around, they may still be a bit weaker then each the federations or Klingons individually even without the alliance.

Actually, we NEVER seen what a D'deridex can do in battle (we only know that Romulan commanders felt confident that two warbirds could overpower the Enterprise-D fast enough to capture it with little damage and they were less damaged at second Chin'toka than anything else the Dominion destroyed in that battle), and the only hints about the Romulan fleet in battle come from hearsay from other characters (we know their initial attack on the Dominion forced the Jem'Hadar back, they kicked the Dominion out of Benzar, Odo feared they could, and would, keep Benzar after the war (they apparently didn't, according to a star chart in Nemesis) and Sisko feared they would fall to disarray after the Dominion destroyed their flagship in the final battle).
In fact, we saw Romulan ships in open battle a grand total of FIVE times: in Balance of Terror we saw the fusion-powered Bird of Prey in a cat-and-mouse battle against the Enterprise, in another TOS episode we saw a group of them intercepting the Enterprise and nearly destroying it before Kirk pulled a Corbomite on them, we saw their drones in two episodes of Enterprise (and from Shran we know that one of them can destroy the Kumari with the crew not even knowing what hit them) and, in the end, we saw the Scimitar under Shinzon's command and two Valdore-type warbirds fighting each other, with the Scimitar shooting everything it had at the warbirds instead of trying to capture them like Shinzon did with the Enterprise-E (i.e. before Picard make him look like a fool and going mad).
I think we'll never think the same about them, at least not until Paramount will show us a D'deridex fighting a Galaxy: the writers used them too little.

[RedImperator]

I thought there was a TNG episode somewhere where a D'deridex knocked E-D's shields down to almost nothing in two hits. The impression I got from those ships is that they had a monster alpha strike, but a Galaxy could outrun and outmaneuver one. Which, given how the Romulans like to fight from ambush, makes a lot of sense.

[Stofsk]

It kills me that we never saw the E-D take on a Warbird in the entirety of the show. If there was ever a matchup that deserved to be had, it's between those two.

[Picard]

Hell it took the dominion war and it's aftermath for the Romulans to finally begun to churn out replacement designs for the Aging D'deridex Warbird and Added the Scimitar as at least a one-off prototype/Stolen from Dominion, all to began matching the Federation
Sovereign and Klingon Nev'ghar Which are both far newer and more powerful then standard old Warbird, that and it Took TNG time to finally reach parity and a crippling investment in a fleet of giant Warbirds that were expensive to replace as new tech rolled around, they may still be a bit weaker then each the federations or Klingons individually even without the alliance.

Actually, we NEVER seen what a D'deridex can do in battle (we only know that Romulan commanders felt confident that two warbirds could overpower the Enterprise-D fast enough to capture it with little damage and they were less damaged at second Chin'toka than anything else the Dominion destroyed in that battle), and the only hints about the Romulan fleet in battle come from hearsay from other characters (we know their initial attack on the Dominion forced the Jem'Hadar back, they kicked the Dominion out of Benzar, Odo feared they could, and would, keep Benzar after the war (they apparently didn't, according to a star chart in Nemesis) and Sisko feared they would fall to disarray after the Dominion destroyed their flagship in the final battle).
In fact, we saw Romulan ships in open battle a grand total of FIVE times: in Balance of Terror we saw the fusion-powered Bird of Prey in a cat-and-mouse battle against the Enterprise, in another TOS episode we saw a group of them intercepting the Enterprise and nearly destroying it before Kirk pulled a Corbomite on them, we saw their drones in two episodes of Enterprise (and from Shran we know that one of them can destroy the Kumari with the crew not even knowing what hit them) and, in the end, we saw the Scimitar under Shinzon's command and two Valdore-type warbirds fighting each other, with the Scimitar shooting everything it had at the warbirds instead of trying to capture them like Shinzon did with the Enterprise-E (i.e. before Picard make him look like a fool and going mad).
I think we'll never think the same about them, at least not until Paramount will show us a D'deridex fighting a Galaxy: the writers used them too little.

Actually, in battle of Chin'toka, Galaxies did much better than Warbirds. And Romulan line DID fell in disarray after their flagship was destroyed; they were mentioned to have started 'crumbling'.

[Uraniun235]

I thought there was a TNG episode somewhere where a D'deridex knocked E-D's shields down to almost nothing in two hits. The impression I got from those ships is that they had a monster alpha strike, but a Galaxy could outrun and outmaneuver one. Which, given how the Romulans like to fight from ambush, makes a lot of sense.

TNG Tin Man has a Warbird shooting several shots at point-blank range against the E-D as it flies past and away; that basically wrecked the shields.

TNG The Defector has two Warbirds decloaking on top of the E-D and letting off several shots; I don't think it completely demolished the shields, but Picard did note that if they had been trying to destroy the Enterprise they wouldn't have lasted long enough to talk about it. The three Klingon ships that came in were apparently enough in conjunction with the Enterprise to give Picard a credible threat at MAD with Tomalak.


I'm inclined to think that a fight between a Warbird and a Galaxy comes down largely to who shoots first, for two reasons:

- We've never seen a Galaxy class starship open up against a Warbird, which leaves open the possibility that the Warbird is as vulnerable to the Galaxy's weapons as vice versa.

- When faced with a single Warbird, neither ship behaves like it has a decisive advantage over the other; if the Warbird really packed enough heat to wipe out the other ship with certainty, it doesn't seem likely that Picard would ever be able to credibly threaten the Romulans with force.

It kills me that we never saw the E-D take on a Warbird in the entirety of the show. If there was ever a matchup that deserved to be had, it's between those two.

Me too.

[CaptJodan]

To me, the TNG Warbird always seemed to be billed more on a sight of terror than actual capability, though I do think it was a capable warship. It seemed to possess a good forward arc of fire, while the Enterprise probably carried a more rounded compliment. Thus, if the Enterprise could maneuver out of the firing arc of the Warbird, it could take the advantage.

When the Warbird shows up first in TNG, it's entire purpose is to intimidate. It sits on screen saying "This is our standard warship, and we dwarf the best ship you've got", but it's all an act. Warbirds are capable, but I always imagined that that the resources to build them meant that the Romulans had few, if any smaller ships during that time (besides the scouts). So the empire built highly capable, highly powerful warships that could stand toe to toe with the Federation's finest, but couldn't supply them in the numbers needed to compensate for the Federation's or Klingon's numerical advantage. Without escorts, and given their theorized lower maneuverability, they'd be targets for the smaller, quicker Fed and Klingon ships.

As a result, the Romulans still come off as a pretty powerful force, IF they can rally their ships properly, but that the numbers of ships they have leaves them in danger of being overrun by invaders or unable to fully protect their boarders.

If the Romulans truly had large fleets of Warbirds, the question of why they didn't try to pick a fight comes up, because they were roughly equal to a Galaxy class of the time and the Federation seemed to have precious few of those.

[Picard]

Maybe, but I always thought that while Galaxy class starships are (relatively) few, most of Federation ships are still very strong for their age, and Romulan Empire could not stand up to (intact) Federation. And Romulan empire is still relatively small, I always thought that it is not much larger than Cardassian Union, if it is larger at all.

[Nathaniel]

For what it's worth, we actually do see the D'Deridex in open battle once, during "Message in a Bottle". It's still difficult to tell how powerful they are because they're shooting at the Prometheus as well, but they don't seem too impressive. They seem to be trying to alpha the Akira class when it appears, but there's no visible damage, and when one of them does finally get destroyed by the Prometheus it goes from having no visible damage to exploding in about 4 shots.

It's always impossible to tell with these things, but it's probably the best chance to see the Warbird in an actual fight. See below for the battle:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P-2bP7b ... re=related

[Stofsk]

I'm inclined to think that a fight between a Warbird and a Galaxy comes down largely to who shoots first, for two reasons:

- We've never seen a Galaxy class starship open up against a Warbird, which leaves open the possibility that the Warbird is as vulnerable to the Galaxy's weapons as vice versa.

- When faced with a single Warbird, neither ship behaves like it has a decisive advantage over the other; if the Warbird really packed enough heat to wipe out the other ship with certainty, it doesn't seem likely that Picard would ever be able to credibly threaten the Romulans with force.

Preparation is half the battle. We see what the Enterprise is capable of - and what kind of damage it can take - when it has time to prepare for battle, like in Best of Both Worlds.

It kills me that we never saw the E-D take on a Warbird in the entirety of the show. If there was ever a matchup that deserved to be had, it's between those two.

Me too.

instead we got a lame ass klingon bird of prey

fuck you Moore & Braga

[Uraniun235]

If the Romulans truly had large fleets of Warbirds, the question of why they didn't try to pick a fight comes up, because they were roughly equal to a Galaxy class of the time and the Federation seemed to have precious few of those.

That question's easily answerable - because the Klingons are right next door just itching for an excuse to run amok. In TNG the Romulans engaged in covert action at least twice to attempt to break the Federation-Klingon alliance - in one instance they kidnapped a Starfleet officer and brainwashed him into assassinating a Klingon governor (TNG Mind's Eye... I think) and in the other they supported the Duras sisters in attempting a coup (and later in a general civil war) against the legitimate government of the Klingon Empire. If a war broke out, the Romulans would quickly find themselves facing two fronts, the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Even with a strong fleet, they'd be hard-pressed to keep both Starfleet and the Klingons away from their territory.

[Temujin]

To me, the TNG Warbird always seemed to be billed more on a sight of terror than actual capability, though I do think it was a capable warship. It seemed to possess a good forward arc of fire, while the Enterprise probably carried a more rounded compliment. Thus, if the Enterprise could maneuver out of the firing arc of the Warbird, it could take the advantage.

When the Warbird shows up first in TNG, it's entire purpose is to intimidate. It sits on screen saying "This is our standard warship, and we dwarf the best ship you've got", but it's all an act. Warbirds are capable, but I always imagined that that the resources to build them meant that the Romulans had few, if any smaller ships during that time (besides the scouts). So the empire built highly capable, highly powerful warships that could stand toe to toe with the Federation's finest, but couldn't supply them in the numbers needed to compensate for the Federation's or Klingon's numerical advantage. Without escorts, and given their theorized lower maneuverability, they'd be targets for the smaller, quicker Fed and Klingon ships.

As a result, the Romulans still come off as a pretty powerful force, IF they can rally their ships properly, but that the numbers of ships they have leaves them in danger of being overrun by invaders or unable to fully protect their boarders.

If the Romulans truly had large fleets of Warbirds, the question of why they didn't try to pick a fight comes up, because they were roughly equal to a Galaxy class of the time and the Federation seemed to have precious few of those.

This actually echos some of my views on the Romulans and Warbird. Based on some quasi-cannon blueprints, she seems to have a large series of forward arc weapon emplacements clustered around where the lower part of the neck meets the main hull. As for numbers, they probably have a fair amount, but being they don't have much between the Warbird and the Scout / Science vessels, they're probably stretched thin between the Federation, Klingon, and who knows who else's borders.

[Batman]

There IS no such thing as quasi-canon for Trek. Everything shown in the series and movies is canon (with, if I remember correctly, bits of even THAT being excluded from the canon). NOTHING outside that is.
Unless those blueprints where actually shown or mentioned onscreen, they're irrelevant.

[Stofsk]

Who cares about canon? I mean really?

[Batman]

This is a trick question, right?

[Stofsk]

It was rhetorical, but meant in the sense canon debates are useless and not at all interesting.