Romulan FTL?

[Tomcat]

Can anyone give me a canon, or non-canon, description of how the Romulan FTL drive works?

I am about to make a new post in our Star Trek PbP game and I want to have some Treknological jargon to use - gizmo words and functions.

Any help is appreciated.

Tomcat

[Jem'hadar]

Warp Drive and Romulan History
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/in...ry-romulan.htm

Poke around that website. There's quite a few articles about the theories of warp drive as seen on Star Trek & how that relates to actual physics.

[Tobian]

Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin

Due to the line 'simple impulse power' there's been a lot of conjecture if the Romulans have warp drive in TOS. I think it's generally regarded they have Federation-like warp drive by TNG though, but I think Starfleet devices are faster, if not as efficient (since the D'Deridex uses an artificial quantum singularity as a power source!)

[Imagus]

I go with a modified version of the Decipher/LUG explanation:

The Romulans had warp drive quite early on, but did not possess antimatter technology. Instead, their system relied on the single-shot magnetic bottle drive (described in Way of D'era) and the singularity drive for very large ships. In addition, smaller ships would often be carried by larger, singularity-equiped ships (I got this idea from one of the early novels) - amongst other things, it neatly explains the design of the D'deridex (for me at least!).

They got antimatter drives from the Klingons in the famous tech exchange.

OTOH, another (and very likely) interpretation is that the bird of prey in "Balance of Terror" had its warp drive powered down because otherwise it would compromise the cloaking device. In this scenario, they didn't dare power up the drive as the Enterprise would have caught them more easily. They also may have been aware that they would not have been able to outrun a Connie at warp. The singularity drive is simply a later development.

ymmv

[tonyg]

If you are using a TNG era setting, then Romulan FLT drives are about the same as everyone else's. Just that they use an artificial singularity to generate energy rather than antimatter. In other words, they substituted one for of suicidal power plant for another.


Since the exchange treaty with the Klingons, I suspect that one reason why the ROmans use a differernt power system might be that they don't have as much dilituium to keep up with the Federation or Empire, and had to be innovative.

[Tomcat]

Thanks for the help everyone!

Yea, our game is set during the same year as TWOK, so most information given should apply.

I appreciate it!

Tomcat

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Also, Romulans might be willing to overload their engines a la the Orions in Journey to Babel. This might (depending on how plot-driven your tech is : P) mean that if they really need to they can go way faster than anyone else. And then blow up.