How the D7 Revolutionized the Romulan Fleet! 

Do you think the klingons slapped a sticker saying "torpedos sold seperately" on those torpedo launchers?

The D-7 is the coolest of the bad guy ship and the platform is still used in Klingon ships today.

Last time i was this early, the D5 was state of the art 🤣🤣🤣

My head cannon regarding the romulans just using repainted D7s, and the contrived alliance lore, is that the romulans concluded that they needed ships with an abundance of reserve power that only a M/AM warp core with a dilithium catalyst can provide. Their trump card cloaking device tech was only partaly effective, at best, against a federation cruiser completely unprepared for countering a stealth ship, its standard sensor suite was able to keep at least partial track of them the whole time. The romulans just seem to have absolutely 0 dilithium to mine in all the space they control, that and their devious nature, are why they have to build ships that work around this lack of power output in the first place, ships that can be undetected, can begin and end a battle in a single move, its because with that lack of power output they can't be flexible and have no battlefield endurance what so ever. In a fight, a ship needs to be able to move and maneuver quickly, keep weapons charged so the only limiting factor in fire rate is cooldown, top off all its battery backups, pour energy into the shield grid, keep the environment inside the ship survivable, and have back up power systems ready to pick up for any slack or damage to main power. These fusion reactor romulan ships can do maybe 2 of those things at a time, they are unfit for a strait fight. They cant build a ship that can go toe to toe with a federation ships in a fair fight, the early cloak tech is partaly countered before the federation even knew it existed, and their death ball plasma torp is not a guaranteed kill against fast and maneuverable starship sized targets that can see them coming. On the other hand, i bet the klingons couldn't counter the cloak at all with their more basic sensors, and were easy prey when they were caught flat footed at every turn. I can imagine that in various small conflicts with the klingons the t'liss was able to go undefeated against the mighty D7, so when the romulans offered a deal to trade that cloaking tech for ~50 hulls of the type of ships they have had no trouble destroying so far, it seamed like a pretty good deal. The romulans originally may have wished to trade for klingon manufactured M/AM reactors and enough dilithium to keep them working for a decade, the klingons counter offering that those reactors also come attached to a ship, which ether supports their ship building industry or clears out their stores of older '4 years war era' hulls they had in mothballs, allowing the klingons to charge much more per unit. I can see the romulans begrudgingly agreeing to that instead, but the more pragmatic romulan admiralty actually being revealed that they were getting a lot of hulls that they know can go toe to toe with the federation immediately, instead of having to design or retrofit these cores into new or existing ship designs. The experience dealing with antimatter from running these ships probably led to the development of that gravity manipulated M/AM reactor in your Nova class, the gravity manipulation experience leading to the creation of harnessed micro singularities, and the rest is TNG era canon.

Regarding the reason for the D7 being used as a Romulan ship in TOS, the version I heard was that itwas down to a union conflict. The TOS production team was unionized and the Romulan Bird of Prey's creator Wah Ming Chang was not a member of the prop maker's union. His model was listed as an "off the shelf purchase" to get around requirements that only unionized companies could be commissioned to produce original designs. The Union got wind of this and in order to appease them the contract with Wah Ming Chang had to be cancelled. The model was returned and he was not paid for future Romulan episodes that had been lined up. Apparently the model was destroyed either by accident or purposely (depending on who you ask) soon after.

The D-7 is one of the best looking ships in sci fi.

I like the look of ship that looks like a step between the d7 and the d'deridex.

These were fearsome in Star Fleet Battles with the Type K plasma torpedo.

The Klingon D7 was a huge influence on the Terran Battlecruiser from Starcraft.

Man, StarFleet Battles took those ships to a whole different level.

The ship is one of those iconic designs for the length of service. At its peak it was a beast

It is quite the comedic how often in the 1960s/70s all those random production hullabaloos would later be deeply evaluated in terms of in-universe continuity to an extent people at the time would not consider. Imagine people reviewing Venom's videos 50 years from now.

The Romulans always keep us quessing !!!!

Thanks so much Venom. I really wasn't expecting this as you already touched off the Stormbird in your brilliant Nova video. I've thoroughly enjoyed Romulan month, keep up the great work!

I remember the Animated series. Grumble grumble darn kids these days.... 😁 I am also a Star Fleet Battles fan from when their speculative universe was a viable possible background before TNG was on air.

Thanks Tully great request

The Romulans seem to be quite skilled at bouncing back and reengineering themselves following their various catastrophic defeats. While not able to ever fully reclaim their prior glories, they do manage to keep on their toes. The premise of the Stormbird itself is an interesting one, I wonder how many other ship design transfers there have been across Trek. I also look forward to the various upcoming videos for the ongoing Romulan month(s).

Actually according to Richard Arnold, somebody dropped the Romulan bird of prey model, and it was damaged, that's why they went with the D7 and Spock saying something about Romulans now using Klingon design.

I can imagine a board game in the vein of Twilight Struggle but set in the Star Trek ToS with the Federation and the Klingons and there being The Romulan Card instead of The China Card.

Always loved the D7 and it’s variants. How about an episode on the Federation’s Pyotr Velikiy class?

You do you buddy we'll keep watching. Keep up the good work. 👍

Really enjoyed this very much! Also would the Stormbirds be horrible for maintenance purposes? They're still rebuilt ships of another star empire that have had a lot of parts taken out and many of the ships have different configurations and modifications. And given the short lifespan of the alliance I Presume that a lot of Klingon spare parts weren't necessarily available, and there are limits to how much one can gut and rebuild a spaceframe. And given the Romulans never setup a 'native' shipyard making them.. I can think within a decade the D7 variants would be horrid to keep operational and in shape. That, on top of how your earlier videos said their captains and crews seemed to dislike them.. Wonder if also they were never super prioritized for having things made for them to keep them operational. So after awhile parts are running low, the ship is considered a low priority to keep operational, they're a nightmare to maintain given lack of standardization and the entirely separate style of technology used for them (the Romulans as you said used differentw arp cores and energy systems than the Klingons).. Wonder if they just got too nightmarish to maintain and once their purpose as an experimental testbed and to flesh out the Romulan fleet in the short term after the failures of the T'Liss they were never a priority to keep up to date beyond cannibalizing them for other ships and a few that got fully rebuilt.

🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely well done and very well executed and very informatively explained in every detail way shape and form provided on this format and subject matter on the Romulan V-11 Stormbird wich has always been one of my favorite Romulan war ships by the way, And a note on why the Bird of Prey model wasn't used in the Enterprise Incident was because it some how got destroyed so that is why they ended up using the Klingon D7 for the episode instead!; And I myself still have one of the old Fasa Stormbirds with the blue wing design and I have after market decals for the 1:650 scale AMT D7 kit to make it a Stormbird and the Polar lights 1000: scale model of the D7 comes with the decals to make it either Klingon or Romulan with the animated series design decals just thought I'd let you know that, anyways a great job very well done indeed Sir!👌.

I get the feeling the Klingons took what they liked about star fleet vessels and made it their own in the D7. Dual nacelles with open line of sight for efficiency and reduction of radiation, enabling more workspace in the superstructure. A rear engineering section to allow for compartmentalism and durability, enhancing damage control and allowing command sections to operate while any radiation or plasma leaks occur. A forward bridge and weapons array, the business end, along with a slim connecting structure in order to allow energy efficient use of structural polarizing for hull integrity and low surface area needed for heavy shielding.

In TOS, the T'lis is slow. The Enterprise is much faster, with much better endurance. We see this in both The Balance of Terror, and The Deadly Years. The main thing the Romulans got out of the D-7 was the warp engine technology, which is clearly much more advanced than what they were using.

the nice stop gap ship that gave the romulans the room to catch up. I guess.

Shame you don't have a Legendary Romulan stormbird as a variant stat block in STO with a Singularity core and Battle Cloak.

The original reason was when they filmed The Enterprise Incident the Romulan Warbird model had been destroyed by its creator, as Star Trek had not paid him for its use, and gave him no credit for its creation as a prop. They used the D7 to make it look like 3 ships on the Romulan side. In the digital remaster they put in the Romulan Warbird again, and 2 D7's.

In StarFleet Battles, the Stormbird used plasma torpedoes.

Honestly, it sounds like the Romulans got a LOT out of the deal. They got a good ship design with all the weapons and engine tech that goes with it, including an in depth look at Matter-Antimatter reactors which they didn't have before.

Great video I always enjoy them so much, thanks for taking the time to do them. The ship chat & dominion war ones are some of your best. 🙂

The Romulans, with misdirection as their main weapon, could have cosmetically redesigned the D7 ships to appear Federation-like and actually armed them with their newest tech... that would not only have given them their 3rd party image but also terrified all non-Romulans as them being ultimate subterfuge masters on top of given them their own voice.

D7 was totally disrupters. K' tinga had photons.

I believe in some sources of cannon (I can't find sources but I swear I've seen it somewhere before) that the Romulans didn't have warp drive before they acquired D7's from the Klingons. They traded cloaking tech for warp technology. While that is evidently not cannon, it would represent a similar jump in combat capabilities for the Imperial Romulan Navy during the 23rd century. Allowing them to more effectively engage in long range protracted conflict and follow in the doctrine of manoeuvre warfare that defined the 22nd century. Trading tech for ships also allowed the Romulans to increase their naval strength and visually display power without showing the poor state of their navy at that stage.

I love this channel.

Don’t know how I missed this one. 4 days old and I’m just now seeing it…. Boo hoo. Lol Again, great vid. Nice background and fill in of the lineage. Nicely done mate.

Very cool ship.

😀 another awesome video, thanx bro i appreciate u

I heard the D-7s that the Romulans got were cheap knock offs that had 'Made on Ferenginar' stamped on them.

It seems like search for spock Klingon bird of prey had plasma torpedoes, and the vorcha later . Although the Klingon torpedoes seem to change a couple of times from a red to a green . But they definitely have an usual plasma eqq torpedo. ( redemption part one )

Cheers. I think the first appearance of the romulan d7 was ( the enterprise incident) with the stolen claoking device. Thing

The romulans made the correct choice refusing the offer of Klingon torpedos, it had the potential to cause a slow slide from independence to being a Klingon client state. With the Klingons able to shut off the supply of munitions they have a lever to start controlling Romulan foreign policy. Absolutely worst case use a false flag attack to draw the Romulans into a war with a neighboring power, for the first few months artificially slow delivery of munitions and then once the situation becomes critical shut off the flow all together and demand various concessions, planets, an agreement that in the future the Romulans will consult with Klingon high command before declaring war etc.

My thoughts are that both the Klingon and Romulans see them self's at a disadvantage to the federation and traded the techs spoken to give them self's an edge until they can catchup to the federation.

You know. I respect the fact the writers didn't do some copout claiming the D-7 is like some bargain bin ship that is used by nearly everyone outside of the Federation. Rather they made up a reason why the Romulans had a Klingon ship. Even if it was due to the fact they didn't have the budget or the time to make a new Romulan ship model. They created basically an in universe canon reason (being anything within the TV series and supposedly movies are all canon). Thus it kind of fits and makes loose sense. After all, much like in Earth history, two nations that typically hate each other seemingly at times work together. All because they hate this other nation more. Like Germany and Russia. Though as expected, the trade treaty breaks down and the two are once again either warring with one another or having basically a Cold War. So the Klingons selling the Romulans some old D7s for, what I recall, was their cloaking technology. At least older version of the Cloaking Tech that was not as good as whatever the current Romulan Cloak they are using at the time. At least within Beta Canon lore PS: I recently watched the Star Trek Animated Series and I recommend anyone to give the series a chance. It is a rather good series. Even for a cartoon.

I'm looking forward to hearing about plasma cased torpedoes. You and I have touched on the subject once or twice and I'm curious to know how long they stayed in service.

I don't know where I read it... or if it's in a book, but I would love to hear your take on the romulan exodus from Vulcan. And the the idea that they stopped at earth during the roman republic era..then adopting its ways to survive and sort of prosper.. I've not paid enough attention in star trek school as to exactly the era of the exodus, to know if that lines up well. I really enjoy your take on most things... it lines up decently enough with my head canon aswell.. thank you for all your hard work..

Looking forward to the "warp field geometry" vid

I prefer your channel over the others, like LoreReloaded Nice video :)

Can't believe this was a year ago.

Tech races are won by who can develop tech the fastest, not necessarily who can start development first. Guess the Romulans kind of got left in the dust.

In the Romulan Way, the Romulan captain is dismissive of the D7 and the quality of the craftsmanship used to construct it. It was very important in that it convinced the Romulans that they were falling behind Starfleet and the Klingons. When even the barbarian Klingons can build better ships than the Mighty Romulan Star Empire, and not even their best ships either, the Klingon MOTHBALL fleet, that cannot be allowed to stand.

I kind think . Klac teckel braght and the tomed incident are in the same period but it sounds like , the romulans attacked in two different places ( the brair patch ) and directly along the border where they took several resource rich systems. ( and was a bone of contention until the hobis event ) nut there was also a Klingon combined offensive where ( kang , kor and koloth ) attacked romulus. ( swprd of keless ds9 season 4 )

Clearly half of the budget for the Romulan Navy includes paint for bird on the underside. Because.... I don't know. It's one of those silly little details that only could have come when a franchise/universe is still finding its footing. I just find it hilarious, especially the questions it provides. "Why is it on the underside? Why isn't it on the dorsal side, too? Why is it a bird? Why does a likely vulcan-derived bird-equivalent look like an earth bird? Was there some ancient progenitor race of birds that just spread avianoid DNA structures across the galaxy while the ancient humanoids did the same? Why is it so damn goofy-looking?" Don't get me wrong, it's charming in a sense, but in that early 60-80s era style where no one really knew what they were doing when it came to any sort of mass media worldbuilding. Reminds me of the super goofy FASA designs for Battletech where some dude had a napkin, five nickels, and a minute to sketch six designs.

The Bird of Prey was supposed to be a Romulin ship. The villains of Star Trek 3 were originally supposed to be the Romulins but the screen play was rewritten and Commander Kruge and company killed David Marcus. Paramount already had the models built and didn't want to spend more money. If you look at the film you can see the Romulin war bird wings on a Klingon ship.

The thumbnail was cut off in a weird way so I read re voluntary

I heard the Bird of Prey model broke before filming and that’s why🤷‍♂️

Just wondering. When you the Romulan videos, could you do one on the Romulan ascetic? When did they start painting birds on their ships (sometime after Enterprise), and when did they stop?

What do you think of the Garuda class as seen in Interplay's Starfleet Academy game?

🖖

Good narrative, though I much prefer the Starfleet Museum's version of the Romulan-Klingon Alliance.

That's not what happened. When they shot the balance of terror afterwards they gave the model back to the guy who built it and for some reason through miscommunication or whatever he thought they were never going to need it again so he destroyed it. So when it came time to shoot the Enterprise incident the bird of prey model no longer existed and the only other alien warship they had was the D7 which they hadn't actually shown on screen yet so they used the D7 as a Romulan warship because it was the only one they had. This is why the bird of prey isn't out there anywhere in a museum because it was lost during the production of the TV show.

Hey Venom, I heard a rumor the bird of prey model had been damaged and could not use it. Also I’m curious where you research your lore…

I am curious to what a Romulan Connie would be like?

Would be nice to have sources for your story on the model, as there are others going around. You are otherwise peddling very well informed and very logical fanfiction, so on non fiction it kinda comes with the territory ;). On topic, even on earth China is buying russian equipment. As it is very clear what countries the inspirations were, you could have taken the analogy a little further, with romulans and Klingons essentially having a similar but different from the federation ideological framework, which breaks apart If you earn more money by making separate admin videos, do so

The klingons were not superior to Starfleet in torpedoe technology,the Klingon d7 had no torpedoes till the tmp era when the kitanga came out,2270.The romulans could have modded bird of prey launchers for the outdated d7s.Any theories to the contrary I have respectfully disagree as not canon.Otherwise great video.

Considering the war raging for decades as we see in Strange New Worlds the Romulans ships were certainly up to par with the Federation. They drew the wrong conclusion from the loss of that one ship.

Didn't the Romulans just install Plasma torpedoes? Not photon torpedoes? I mean - I never heard of Romulan photon torpedoes.

Ah the 1960s back when the writers realized the audience weren't idiots and okay we have to explain things OR else we'll look like idiots.

This is why I really dislike, no hate, the Discovery rendition of the Klingon War. Because it erases this incredibly interesting bit of lore.

Sounds like the Klingons sold the "export" model of the D7. lol

sound like drach

Here is a 1/200 scale D7 engine nacelle. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vEAkS63ILwU.html

So tall lady reports directly to the prophets from time to time you might ask him a favor but he reports directly to the prophets

They are the future China

Chip shat

It could have been only the Duras family that had the romulan alliance.

Spoiler: It's not real

Ah yes FASA Star Trek, When trek was actually still great before Star Trek STD in woke universe

You didn't have to say that confusingly. About trading d seven's for cloaking devices. Geez