Rom Bird of Prey Class

The Bird of prey seen in "Balance of Terror" is something of an oddity. Scotty described it as having "simple Impulse power". Most have taken this to mean that it didn't have Warp drive, but although this may be what the original writers meant, I just can't accept it. Clearly the ship was operating across interstellar ranges, clearly it was keeping up with the Enterprise - which was travelling at warp speed for much of the engagement. It must have had warp drive!

So what does "simple impulse power" mean? Well, in the federation Warp drives are Matter/Antimatter powered, while Impulse is Fusion-driven. My guess, then, is that "simple impulse power" means "fusion power". So I think that the Romulans DID have warp drive, as early as their war with the Humans - a war that would have lasted about ten seconds flat if one side had warp and the other didn't. But Romulan warp drive was fusion powered, and hence a good deal slower or shorter ranged than Federation designs.

Later the Romulans traded with the Klingons to get some D-7's, introducing Matter/Antimatter power to the Romulan fleet and apparently giving the Klingons cloaking technology in return. And of course, eventually M/AM technology was replaced by Quantum Singularity power, at least for the D'Deridex class Warbird.

The description of how the plasma weapon works is my own, intended to explain the details of how this weapon seemed to perform on screen.

Last updated : 15th November 1998. This page is Copyright Graham Kennedy 1998. Star Trek et al is Copyright Paramount Pictures 1996/97. No Copyright infringement is intended and this page is for personal use only. All of the above classes of star ships and all of the named ships are copyright Paramount 1996/97.