Romulan Tal Shaia-class Battlecruiser

     This was originally posted on the Utopia Planitia forum at trek-rpg.net, but I felt a need to reintroduce some text to this thing. Currently, the only thing I've got is gaming stats for a starship that doesn't actually exist in canon (as if it really existed at all). But it's a start, and it gets me some formatting practice, too.


Tal Shaia-class Battlecruiser 

Tal Shaia-class Battlecruiser

Production Data
Origin: Romulan Star Empire
Class and Type: Tal Shaia-class Battlecruiser
Year Launched: 2272

Hull Data
Structure: 35
Size/Decks: 6/12 decks
Length/Height/Beam: 209/55/147 meters
Complement: 320 officers and crew

Operational Data
Transporters: 6 standard, 6 emergency, 6 cargo
Cargo Units: 60
Cloaking Device: Class 2 (Rating 18)
Separation System: No
Shuttlebay: Yes
Shuttlecraft: 6 size worth
Tractor Beams: 1 fv, 1 av
Sensor System: Class 3 (+3/D)
Operations System: Class 3 (D)
Life Support: Class 3 (D)

Propulsion Data
Impulse System: K-HEU-4 (.6) (C)
Warp System: RWC-2 (6/8/9 OCU) (C)

Tactical Data
Disruptor Banks: K-GDM-4 (x5/C)
Penetration: 5/5/4/0/0
Plasma Torpedos: RPT-1 (x1/C)
Penetration: 4/3/2/1/0
Deflector Shield: PFF 2a (B)
Protection/Threshold: 13/3

Miscellaneous Data
Maneuver Modifers: +1 C, +0 H, +3 T

Description/History: The short-lived Klingon-Romulan treaty of 2268 gave the Romulans a chance to better some of their weapons and ship technology, while it offered the Klingons access to the schematics for the cloaking device. While in many ways, the Romulans got the short end of the stick on that deal, their spies were able to get far more technology than the Klingons had originally intended for the Romulans to have.
     The deal helped bootstrap some Romulan research and development efforts in both warp and impulse drives, as well as weapons research. It also left the Romulans with a not inconsiderable number of old Klingon D7 battlecruisers. While some of these ships were put into the field immediately in an effort to bolster the fleet, they were not popular postings. The Senate also didn't much like the thought of loyal Romulans serving on ships that had, until recently, been the hallmark vessel of a mortal enemy. A program was launched almost immediately to "Romulanize" the D7 vessels.
     The result was the Tal Shaia-class battlecruiser, a vessel that would prove to be an eerie precursor of the D'Deridex-class battleship nearly a century later. The vessel was largely gutted, with many of the systems replaced altogether by superior Romulan systems. Pragmatism won out in several instances, and the designers had to admit that some Klingon systems were superior to their own, and so they were used after minor modifications. A plasma torpedo system was mounted in place of the original photon torpedo launcher, and a cloaking device installed (as had been done on the conventional D7s). The ship's structure was reinforced, and additional superstructure added. The result was a deceptively powerful ship with menacing lines.
     It was still too much a Klingon ship, however, and the design never quite caught the fancy of the Romulan people. All the existing D7 cruisers in the Romulan inventory were eventually upgraded to this design, but new vessels were never constructed. Several of these ships were destroyed in the Tomed Incident; the remaining ships of the class were finally retired in the early 2330s.

Design Notes: Y'know, this was kind of fun...it's been a while since I've done a ship design, and this one was just a nifty little mutt, what with the mix-and-match Klingon and Romulan parts. I hope I've done it justice, but I think I'll let you guys be the judge of that.