"Q" 4 for trekies

posted on March 29th, 2008, 12:22 pm

isn't a warbird like twice the size of a galaxy class? and the sucker cloaks too. all things considered the federation would be in a bit of trouble if war did breakout with the romulans. IMHO.

posted on March 29th, 2008, 2:22 pm

But the federation has like 3x more ships.

posted on March 29th, 2008, 2:44 pm

The federation would probably win a war with the Romulans in the end, but the victory would be very costly and scarcely worth it. Although, I'd bet that the Klingons would not need much persuading to shoot some Romulan ships so that would alter the balance of power somewhat.

I think the Romulans know that their economy can't match the Federation - they don't have enough member worlds. Therefore, they purposely build their ships for deterrent effect, which is why Picard loses some more hair every time a Romulan ship decloaks.

posted on March 30th, 2008, 8:13 am

i didn't say the feds wouldn't win, as laz said it would be very costly. is a victory still a victory if losses are prohibitively massive?

posted on March 30th, 2008, 9:02 am

isn't a warbird like twice the size of a galaxy class? and the sucker cloaks too. all things considered the federation would be in a bit of trouble if war did breakout with the romulans. IMHO.

aren't the warbird and galaxy evenly matched in TNG ?

that would make the Sovereign the fly swatter

posted on March 30th, 2008, 1:00 pm

I was of the impression that the warbird is more powerful than a galaxy class, but I could be wrong, not sure what the canon description is.

I agree Casper, a victory can be so costly as to be a defeat - it's called a Pyrhic victory, from king Pyrrhus of Epirus (not to be confused with Cyrus the Virus) who suffered a huge "victory" against the Romans in 280 BC. He's reported to have said that "another such victory against the Romans and we will be ruined".

This can be a massive deterrent effect; some people speculate that China is trying to build up its military strength so that a war with the US over Taiwan would hardly be worth it. True, america would win the war, but would they take heavy losses for one little island? Me thinks not, but then again I could be wrong.

posted on May 2nd, 2008, 1:11 am

China seriously needs to leave Tibet.  If they don't, I'd contemplate going to Tibet to help organize a resistance! (experience isn't a requirement, right? )

In TNG the Romulan warbird was usually considered to be on equal terms with the galaxy class (if one was speculated as superior over the other, it would have been the warbird), so it probably would be a "Pyrhic victory" as the survivor would be barely hanging on.

The end of Nemesis did leave Romulan/Federation cooperation as hopeful, but all the back story I know of indicates relationships falling apart.

Oh, and in terms of underhandedness, I think Section 31 would have something up their sleeve.
     

posted on May 2nd, 2008, 1:43 pm

Look, you can either wipe out your own senate, or I can do it for you.

posted on August 29th, 2008, 10:21 am

The Romulan fleet is much smaller than the Federation fleet and thus has to use cloaking, tactics and individual ship quality to maintain its hold in the Alpha Quadrant.

I'd place the Romulan Warbird on par with a Galaxy Class ship, a great majority of Romulan Vessels are of this (D'deridex) class.

I'm not sure what refits the class has undergone but i'd likely predict something close to the Galaxy-Refit (Venture-type) with better weapon arcs and slightly enhanced systems.

Either way the Federation has a bigger, more powerful fleet...however they are not a warrior species and thus are unlikely to be able to mobilize task forces quickly.

A major point of note is that the standard Federation starships still are the Excelsior and Miranda classes. The Sabre, Norway and Steamrunner make up large portions of the modern fleet supplemented with Akiras and Nebulas. Galaxy, Sovereign and Defiant class ships are rarer. (Although a good deal of Galaxy class ships have been seen). And only those last three (particularly the Galaxy and Sovereign) can compete with the Warbird on favorable terms. It can be argued that the Akira can compete with a warbird but I perceive the Akira to be a medium cruiser with firepower more in line with the Nebula class than the Galaxy/Warbird.

So one on one encounters? Most of the time the advantage goes to the Romulans as it is unlikely that an Excelsior would be the match for a Warbird. However in fleet conflict and war the Federation would likely win using a superior fleet size, logistics capability and technological sensor developments.

I think Nemesis portrayed the Norexan to being less powerful than the Sovereign but I will not pretend that the true abilities of that vessel can be determined as the Enterprise-E has one of the best crews in Starfleet.

Anyways, all of this is my own personal speculation about a Federation Romulan war. And is nothing more than an opinion.

posted on August 29th, 2008, 2:13 pm

I think that when you consider the Advanced fleet initiative (Defiant, Akira, Sovereign, Prometheus), it's an entirely different ball game. Those ships were designed for war, not exploration (although the Sovereign is highly multi-purpose since no expense was spared in its construction).

For example, the Akira is comparable in size to a galaxy class ship (this suprised me), although obviously not quite as big, yet it is outfitted with the modern technologies - e.g. quantum torpedoes. Not sure if it has ablative armour or not. Also, I think the canon description of the Akira is that it's a torpedo cruiser, so it could give the warbird a run for its money.

Not that it means much, but in Bridge commander, you can destroy a Galaxy class or a warbird with an Akira, just because of the quantum torpedoes. However, the warbird in BC is underpowered. So is the galaxy come to think of it - it's torpedos are about right but its phasers are too weak. I think fleetops does a good job of keeping things balanced.

posted on August 31st, 2008, 9:30 pm

Either way the Federation has a bigger, more powerful fleet...however they are not a warrior species and thus are unlikely to be able to mobilize task forces quickly.

you are joking right, humans are not a warrior species is the best one liner i heard in a while.

posted on September 1st, 2008, 9:44 am

you are joking right, humans are not a warrior species is the best one liner i heard in a while.

in startrek it's not, or at least not in the futuristic parts of the time line.