To: 
From: "Jay  P Hailey" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com

The first "Modern" Romulan ship we see is the Romulan D'Deridex
class warbird. (At the end of TNG season one)  and continues until nemesis.

In *Jay-Trek* (The distinction is crucial)  I don't have the fire power
gradient between different starship written so broadly.

So the big question is *why*  Why such a ship?  It's very very large, twice
as long as a Galaxy class starship.

Well in Jay-Trek  the D'Deridex is the Romulan Star Empire's answer to an
Imperial Star Destroyer.  She's designed to enter a system and intimidate
the hell out of it.  When meeting a Federation or Klingon ship,  she's
designed to intimidate them and buffalo them with heavy fire power and
maximal shielding.

We can see this works because there's no organized Romulan Resistance
movement until Spock arrives.  And he's seen V'Ger.  A 1200 meter starship
isn't going to phase him much.

We can see this works on the Klingons, too because the Neg'vahr class
Battleship is obviously a response to this.

The D'Deridex class uses it's sze to carry thousands of troops, fighter
planes for orbit to gound warfare, gun ships for battlefield fire support
and tanks.   It's heavy guns, not only good for making short work of enemy
ships are also good for orbit to ground bombardment.

The D'Deridex class ships run off a quantum singularity engine core.   This
quantum singularity is going to weigh as much as mount everest,  so the
D'Deidex class is never going to be light on her feet.

By metaphor,  imagine the kind of energy put into a Nimitz Class CVN,  only
as a humongous Nuclear Amphibious Carrier with an armored Division aboard,
attack choppers and all.

And this is their design Spec.  "We are the Empire. Fear us.  Now."

I have never seen the D'Deridex class as the only type of ship in the
Romulan Star Navy.   My biggest dissapointment with "The Way of
D'era"  was
that the Romulan Ships Depicted were, basically all even larger, and
presumeably more expensive.

The Romulans will have a full boat of different ships from corvettes and
destroyers to light cruisers and cruisers through the big bruisers.  Why?
because a D'Deridex is going to be too much hammer for every nail.

I imagine the smaller ships run off an anti-matter power core to facilitate
better maneuverability and speed.  The Quantum Singualarity has only one
advantage compared to A/M.  It can be fueled from common materials scooped
in deep space, giving the ship an essentially unlimited fuel duration.
Again the metaphor of a CVN comes to mind.

In Jay Trek, when the D'Deridex class first appeared, (2364)  it outgunned
the Galaxy class by about 18%.  This lead to a program of upgrades in
Federation ships able to take the new equipment.

The appearance of the D'Deridex class caused a flurry in the realm of
strategic analysis.  How much did they cost to build and run.  The answer
ran from stunning to unbelievable, depending on the assumptions behind the
simulations.

Federation tactical analysts immediately saw the weakness of a D'Deridex
class starship.  It could take a non-upraded Galaxy Class.  But a Galaxy
and a New Orleans class could defeat a D'Deridex and would still be cheaper
to produce, man and operate.

This realization immediately shot Starfleet's "Bigger is better" 
school of Starship design in the head.

The later appearances of the Neg'vahr and Scimitar classes simply confirm
this.  Notice that we never see any other Reman Ships.  The answer -
they're
*all* right there,  under the Scimitar's hull.  In Jay Trek,  The Scimitar
was proposed but never built.

The Romulans not being stupid, gauged their competition after emerging from
isolation and discovered that their monsterous flagships were not the most
efficient solution to many military problems.  So within ten years, the
Federation was building the Sovereigns and the Romulans were building the
Valdores,  these ships have very similar mission profiles and performance
specifications for the same reasons.

More ships mean more problems can be addressed now before they blow up out
of all proportion.

Jay ~Meow!~




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