Were TOS/TMP the Romulans Resource Poor?

[Klingon Fanatic]

;D

Atolm has perhaps correctly stated in another thread at Dynaverse.net that there is no canon evidence to suggest that the Romulans were resource poor. I'm not sure if he was thinking TOS/TMP or TNG. I say TOS/TMP the Romulans had some resource issues hence the K-R technology exchange/military alliance with the Klingons.

I submit that the TOS Balance of Terror episode Scotty suggests that the TOS warbird did not have warp power.

Then there is the K-R tech exchange. The TOS The Enterprise Incident. Why trade ships if you can build your own warp capable ones? I believe the Romulans needed to buy time until they could get their warbird fleet up between ST: III and TNG. Why build singularity based warp drives if dilithium is plentiful in Romulan Space?

Kt'Hyla over at Phoenix Experimental Shipyards offers a possible reconcilliation:

dhost.info/phoenix/warbird_hist.htm (Check out the part 1 link first, at the bottom of the page there.)

Kt'Hyla's ideas would also explain/reconcile the presence of Romulan Melak (a Paramount approved design, as a proto-D'deridex ship) in the TMP era PC game ST: New Worlds movie which I like to believe was used in groups against the Enterprise C at Nerendra III...

Personally, in my corner of the Trek universe, the Romulans leap past both the Feds and Klingons in ship tech but are too resource poor to exploit that gap in TMP times.

Okay feel free to rant...

KF

[Johanobesus]

My feeling is that they were technologically inferior, not necessarily starved for resources. The BOP in Balance of Terror seemed to have one weapon, and that wasn't really very effective for ship to ship combat. It had at least one nuclear missile, and so probably some means of firing it, but they never considered using it against the Enterprise in a conventional way. Then there is Scotty's comment about "impulse" power. The popular interpretation is that he was referring to their power plant, and that it was fusion instead of M/AM. So we have a ship armed with nuclear missiles and powered by a fusion reactor, without phasers or disruptors or even lasers, and probably lacking energy shields. The indication is that it was pretty primitive relative to Starfleet or Klingon designs. Even the command center looked more like some sort of dinky little submarine control room than a starship bridge. Given the nature of their mission, I doubt that the ship was obsolete by Romulan standards. They refitted it with a cloaking device and a huge plasma torpedo, probably their newest and best technology, but didn't upgrade its engines? No, it was probably the best they had.

That does not imply a limited resource base. If you sent modern Belgium back in time a hundred and fifty years, they would be able to build ship or two that could take on the entire British navy. Even limited resources wouldn't prevent an interstellar empire from cobbling together at least a couple of modern starships. On the other hand, if the Romulans didn't know how to build a M/AM generator, all the dilithium in the galaxy wouldn't do them any good. Given that all other powers seem to use dilithium, there is no reason to believe that it just happens to be scarce on all the worlds that the Romulans control.

As for the KR exchange, is there any cannon evidence that it was indeed an exchange? I'm honestly asking, since my knowledge of trivial minutia is limited. In the episode that featured Romulan D7's, the line was simply that intelligence had discovered that the Romulans had begun using Klingon designs. Nothing was mentioned of how the Romulans got those designs. The only evidence that the exchange was reciprocal was the B'rel, and that was intended to be a stolen Romulan ship. Even though that detail was excised during shooting, the ship still looks Romulan, and it took years for the Klingons to incorporate cloaking devices on their battle cruisers.

Regardless of how they got the designs, it is just as indicative of limited technology as resources. If they realized their best ships were downright primitive compared to Starfleet's ships, then the best thing they could do would be to obtain advanced ships to study and copy.

Consider too that the Enterprise was attacked by several BOP's in The Deadly Years, evidently lacking the big plasma torpedo and using either much weaker but more practical torpedoes (Plasma D's?) or even nuclear missiles. If they were so poor, would they be able to afford to patrol the Neutral Zone with so many ships that several of them could zero in on the Enterprise, while still maintaining a force to deal with their conquered worlds and whatever enemies they made with their years of wars mentioned by the Romulan Commander?

It seems to me that they needed to buy time to develop the technology to rival the Klingons and Federation. Perhaps they developed the singularity generator not because they needed a substitute for dilithium, but because they invested a huge amount of resources into researching advanced power generation, and didn't just stop with M/AM as did the other powers.

[Atrahasis]

We need to keep in mind that the Romulan R-Plasma torp is a hell of a deadly weapon if there are no wild weasels around. As far as I know there is nothing like a weasel in the canonverse, which means it is in fact a technologically superior weapon to anything the Feds have in the canonverse. The drawbacks, however, namely its presumed bulkiness and high fuel requirement and maybe long recharge time, were obstacles that the Romulans no doubt later improved upon (as apparently they were still using plasma in a passing reference in TNG/DS9), at the same time incorporating the photorp into their arsenal. That and the cloak definitely indicate some kind of tech edge that the Romulans enjoy.

Maybe we can draw a parallel to the old US/Soviet race, where the Soviets were smaller but this forced them to come up with ingenious ways to make their machines do better and go further despite the lower level of electronics tech, for example. An example would be the Mig 25 which the later F-15 came to be based on, which could achieve super-fast speeds but at the cost of damaging itself. Another example are the Soviet record-depth diving subamrines that could go deeper than the US LA class for example, but at the cost of being noisier because of the bismuth reactors.

As for resources, maybe they got more out of their people-planets via their tough reigning practice, much the same way Stalin killed so many of his own people via his dictatorship but nevertheless his country developed a nuke arsenal to rival the West's. The same for Pakistan which was determined to get nukes even if their own people had to eat grass, at least that's what they said. They're into slavery and subjugation, and you have to admit that that's what makes an empire rich, from Rome to America's cotton fields.

[Atrahasis]

The one thing they could've been lacking in was dilithium!

[Johanobesus]

Just because they had the plasma torpedo doesn't mean their technology was generally superior to that of the Klingons or Federation. Technology isn't an all-or-nothing deal. It is possible to have more knowledge in one field but less in another. For example, the Ancient Romans had very sophisticated engineering techniques, with concrete, arches, vaulted ceilings, aquaducts miles long, et cetera. Yet the German "barbarians" had superior metallurgical technology, inventing steel and chainmail. Just because the Romulans developed the cloaking device and the plasma torpedo doesn't mean they had superior technology over-all.

In fact, the plasma torpedo might not have so terribly advanced anyway. Kirk and Spock had never seen that specific type of weapon, but that doesn't mean that Starfleet lacked the scientific or technological knowledge to create such a weapon if they put their minds to it. The Federation wasn't militaristic, so they likely didn't put a great deal of research into strategic weapons, but no doubt they did have the capability of creating ship carried weapons that could destroy large asteroids if they needed to. Given all the exotic types of energies in the Trek universe, it is not surprising that Starfleet should fail to explore every single possible way of making a weapon.

As for the dilithium shortage, if the Romulans were limited to one or two planets I could buy it, but dilithium seems to be a pretty ubiquitous resource. Nearly every space faring people in Star Trek uses it. Even on Voyager I don't recall too many fears about their dilithium supply. Assuming the Romulans control even a dozen planets, I find it unlikely that they are particularly poor in a resource that is quite common throughout the galaxy. If their empire is very small, they might not be able to match the Federation's industrial capacity in general, but I don't see any evidence for a specific lack of this one essential but common resource (unless there is actual dialogue to this effect that I don't remember).


By the way, I'm sure you meant something a bit different, but the Soviet Union was much larger than the U.S. or Canada, not smaller. Russia is still the largest state on Earth, and they are hardly hurting for natural resources, even if they sometimes are lacking in capital, infrastructure, or expertise to untilize those resources. In fact, wouldn't the Soviet union be closer to my interpretation than KF's? They had plenty of raw materials, but their industrial and technological base wasn't quite the equivalent of the U.S.'s.


Oh, and I read that speculative history, and while it can explain what we see on screen, I really don’t like it. It just doesn't feel right at all to me.


And while I'm thinking of it, I don't think the plasma torpedo in Balance of Terror was a Plasma-R. It seemed much stronger than the weapon in game, able to pulverize a large asteroid in a few shots, and possibly destroy the Enterprise with a couple of hits. The Plasma-R can't destroy an asteroid in a dozen shots, and it takes a few hits to do in an F-CA. The biggest danger in game is that the weapon will punch a hole through the shields and take out a phaser or two, allowing the Romulan to finish the ship off with phasers. If you're careful, you can survive two hits with a Plasma-R and still win the battle. It's a nasty weapon, but it doesn't seem as dreadful as the plasma torpedo seen on screen.

[zerosnark Guest]

I have to agree with the contrarian view here.

First, TOS was not the paragon of consistency was it? I mean, for the 1960's it was quite good -> but the series does have consistency holes aplenty! TNG seemed ok for a while. . .but then things took a series downhill slide culminating in the trainwreck called "Enterprise". . .which is best ignored by anyone interested in the trek universe.

Second. . We have perhaps three encounters with Romulans in TOS. The first is Balance of Terror. In the second one, the Romulans are merely a prop, but are shown using MULTIPLE warbirds, each with relatively puny weapons (puny compared to a Plasma R). The final episode is the Enterprise incident, where Kirk gets bold with Three KR's.

In the first episode. . . .the Warbird has this awesome weapon that can obliterate asteroids in a few shots -> while a single shot still leaves the Enterprise alive. Granted, the enterprise "backs up" on the torpedo, allowing it to disapate. The implication is that the torpedo is both BIGGER and SLOWER than SFB plasma R's.
The subtext is that the Enterprise could not mutilate asteroids like that.

It is also implied that the Warbird is a "flagship", with a first rate crew; and that the purpose of the mission was "glory". There is nothing of "resource poor" in this episode. There is plenty of the "horrors and misunderstandings of war". At the end of the day. . .neither side is shown to be superior. The Romulans have the cloak and an uber weapon. The Federation has ships with startling speed capability, good weapons and significant durability.

The second episode showed a squadron of Romulan ships. It was not clear if the Enterprise had a speed advantage, or an individual advantage. The implication is that the Romulans had multiple ships, and would prevail in a protracted contest. The Romulans could have been using PF's for all we know. Nothing can be drawn from this episode.

In the Enterprise incident. . .it was CLEAR that the Romulans were trying to close a technological gap. It is not clear if these ships had plasma torpedoes -> but it is clear they all have a cloak. Speed is also implied.

It is also very clear that there were THREE KR's present. One would think that if you see three in one spot. . .there are more running around. If these ships were RARE, it would be one KR and two warbirds. Remember that starfleet has only 12 Connies.

Three ships of foreign design in a Squadron is signficant.

I take the point that it is not made clear in the episode if these were actual former Klingon warships, or COPIES. Either way. . .the Romulans are building or BUYING large ships in quantity. That doesn't sound resource poor to me.

In SFB lore, they are actual former klink ships, with the Romulans building there own Sparrowhawks and such based on this technology. Personally. . . that makes more sense to me. So you buy six or nine cruisers. Then BUILD 12-21 more on your own. Sounds like a formidible economy.

[Atrahasis]

That's an interesting point, that Spock said only that Roms were "now using Klingon design" which means they could have been making copies.

As for the R-BOP, I do remember the "Praetor's finest" reference, indicating it was a top-rate ship.

It seems to me they were behind in engine tech but pretty up there in weapons and stealth tech.

[Wilson]

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