History Of The Romulan Fleet, Pt II
History of the Romulan Fleet: The Warbird Development Project
From its inception in the late 2260’s, the Romulan Warbird Development Project was fraught with many problems. Although the council was initially behind the initiative, they still had many opponents to this new concept. Amongst them was the military, as they were reluctant to abandon the well-familiar starship/carrier format that had been used for many decades prior. Still, the Empire had to realize that with the impending exhaustion of their dilithium reserves by 2310, continued use of their older, smaller craft was simply out of the question. Although Romulan scientists were promising a revolutionary new power source based on a forced Artificial Quantum Singularity generator (AQS), this new technology wouldn’t be ready for practical use until 2330 at the earliest. The only option was to use fewer warp cores, as they had been doing for decades with their carrier-based fleet. However, the incursion of a lone Bird of Prey into Federation space to test the resolve of Starfleet proved that if the Romulans were going to compete with their other, more dilithium-rich neighbours, the majority of their fleet would require warp power.
From this was born the concept of the Warbird-class vessel. These behemoths were designed directly from the form of their Narvasam Ocalla CV predecessors, except now they themselves would carry the firepower that would normally be mounted on the ships they were ferrying. Since fewer ships would be needed to carry the same firepower and facilities, fewer warp cores would need to be employed, and thus less dilithium would need to be used. Although it was initially decided that these ships would be classified as battleships, it was discovered that their revolutionary role on the battlefield would be far and away different from their BB counterparts. A new designation, WB, was coined, based on the Project’s name.
Various situational performance simulations brought up the concern that this larger class of ship might have trouble defending itself against smaller, more maneuverable opponents. This would necessitate the inclusion of more support vessels of a smaller size to escort the Warbirds, of which would unfortunately defeat the purpose of the entire project, and require more dilithium usage. As well, there were many serious concerns that ships of that size wouldn’t be able to withstand the rigours of combat stress, as the earlier carriers that the Warbirds were based on were never required to go into combat themselves. Other political and scientific pressures began to erode the Project’s credibility, and by the late 2280’s the issue of scrapping the entire project and continuing the use of more traditional ships was discussed in the Senate quite extensively. Fortunately, a champion for the project revealed himself in late 2287.
Senator K’Shiak (rep. D’Sivas, Calanista, Dinalla) had only been in the Romulan Senate for a few short years by the time he came to be a recognizable backer for the Warbird Project. Almost single-handedly, he managed to convince the Senate and their military and scientific leaders of the importance of these new vessels to the Empire, and convinced the public to back the initiative as well. His political motives for this weren’t well known at the time: his father had commanded the fateful mission into Federation space that prompted the reformation of the Romulan fleet. Aside from keeping the legacy that his father had inadvertently brought about alive, he also had a darker agenda in mind for the class.
In 2289 he took the position of Praetor, winning by a majority vote. Shortly afterward, he passed a bill placing the Warbird Project under his direct supervision. To the Senate, this made sense at the time: the Warbirds had become K’Shiak’s passion, and if they were to be the key to the future growth of the Empire, whom would be more fitting than the Praetor to guide this process. Many changes to the class were made, including the addition of the new Sindari fighter craft as support vessels and the inclusion of experimental prototypes of the AQS generators.
K’Shiak dubbed the first vessel to be completed as the RSE Katar, named after a predator native to his home region. The Katar’s earlier performance trial against a Klingon invasion fleet was an astounding success, as were her incursions into Tholian and Gorn territories. Following this, K’Shiak put his plan for revenge against Starfleet into motion, and almost single-handedly cut a swath of destruction through the Federation. The Katar was stopped just short of her goal of eradicating the Federation Capital: a task force comprised of ships from a number of different governments had caught up to her, and finally destroyed her. Although Praetor K’Shiak had been killed in the final assault, the Romulan Senate no longer had any doubts about the effectiveness of the new Warbird classification of starship: they were extremely deadly.
D'Hatham WB Page
Romulan Fleet History, Pt I